A Heavy Fine to Appear in Boots
YELLOW STOCKINGS
A student, however, undertook, for a small bet, to visit him in them, and, to appease his wrath, he desired the doctor’s advice for an hereditary numbness in his legs. So far was the Vice-Chancellor from expressing any anger, that he pitied him, and he won his wager. Another vice-chancellor is said to have issued his mandate for all members in statu pupillari, to appear in The following singular order, as to dress and the excess thereof, was issued by the great statesman, Cecil, Lord Burleigh, as chancellor of the University of Cambridge, in the days of Elizabeth, which is preserved in the Liber Niger, or Black-book, extant in the Cambridge University Library. The paper is dated “from my house in Strand, this seventhe of May, 1588,” and runs thus:—1. “That no hat be worne of anie graduate or scholler within the said universitie (except it shall be when he shall journey owte of the towne, or excepte in the time of his sickness.) All graduates were to weare square caps of clothe; and schollers, not graduates, round cloth caps, saving that it may be lawful for the sonnes of noblemen, or the sonnes and heirs of knights, to weare round caps of velvet, but no hats.”
2. “All graduates shall weare abroade in the universitie going owte of his colledg, a gowne and a hoode of cloth, according to the order of his degree. Provided that it shall be lawful for everie D. D., and for the Mr. of anie coll. to weare a sarcenet tippet of velvet, according to the anciente customes of this realme, and of the saide universitie. The whiche gowne, tippet, and square caps, the saide Drs. and heads shall be likewise bound to weare, when they shall resorte eyther to the courte, or to the citie of London.”
3. “And that the excesse of shirt bands and ruffles, exceeding an ynche and halfe (saving the sonnes of noblemen,) the fashion and colour other than white, be avoided presentlie; and no scholler, or fellowe of the foundation of anie house of learninge, do weare eyther in the universitie or without, &c., anie hose, stockings, dublets, jackets, crates, or jerknees, or anie other kynde of garment, of velvet, satin, or silk, or in the facing of the same shall have above a 1/4 of a yard of silke, or shall use anie other light kynde of colour, or cuts, or gards, of fashion, the which shall be forbidden by the Chancellor,” &c.
4th. “And that no scholler doe weare anie long lockes of hair vppon his head, but that he be notted, pouled, or rounded, after the accustomed manner of the gravest schollers of the saide universitie.” The penalty for every offence against these several orders being six shillings and eightpence: the sum in which offenders are mulcted in the present day.
THE FASHION OF THE HAIR
Has been not less varied, or less subject to animadversion, than the dress of the members of the universities. The fashion of wearing long hair, so peculiar in the reign of Charles II., was called the Apollo. His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester, the present Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, “was an Apollo” during the whole of his residence at Trinity College, says the Gradus ad Cant. Indeed his royal highness, who was noted for his personal beauty at that time, was “the last in Cambridge who wore his hair after that fashion.” “I can remember,” says the pious Archbishop Tillotson, as cited by the above writer, discoursing on this head, viz. of hair! “since the wearing the hair below the ears was looked upon as a sin of the first magnitude; and when ministers generally, whatever their text was, did either find, or make, occasion to reprove the great sin of long hair: and if they saw any one in the congregation guilty in that kind, they would point him out particularly, and let fly at him with great zeal.” And we can remember, since wearing the hair cropt, i. e. above the ears, was looked upon, though not as “a sin,” yet, as a very vulgar and RAFFISH sort of a thing; and when the doers of newspapers exhausted all their wit in endeavouring to rally the new-raised corps of CROPS, regardless of the late noble Duke (of Bedford) who headed them; and, when the rude rank-scented rabble, if they saw any one in the streets, whether time or the tonsor had thinned his flowing hair, they would point him out particularly and “let fly at him,” as the archbishop says, till not a shaft of ridicule remained! The tax upon hair-powder has now, however, produced all over the country very plentiful CROPS. Charles II., who, as his worthy friend the Earl of Rochester, remarked,
—— never said a foolish thing;
Nor ever did a wise one,
sent a letter to the University of Cambridge, forbidding the members to wear periwigs, smoke tobacco, and read their sermons!! It is needless to remark, that TOBACCO has not yet made its EXIT IN FUMO, and that periwigs still continue to adorn “THE HEADS OF HOUSES.” Till the present all-prevailing, all-accommodating fashion of CROPS became general in the university, no young man presumed to dine in hall till he had previously received a handsome trimming from the hair-dresser (one of which calling was a special appointment to each college.) The following inimitable imitation of “The Bard” of Gray, is ascribed to the pen of the late Lord Erskine, when a fellow-commoner of Trinity College, Cambridge. Having been disappointed of the attendance of his college-barber, he was compelled to forego his commons in hall. But determining to have his revenge, and give his hair-dresser a good DRESSING, he sat down and penned the following “Fragment of a Pindaric Ode,” wherein, “in imitation of the despairing Bard of Gray, who prophesied the destruction of King Edward’s race, he poured forth his curses upon the whole race of barbers, predicting their ruin in the simplicity of a future generation.”
I.
Ruin seize thee, scoundrel Coe!
Confusion on thy frizzing wait;
Hadst thou the only comb below,
Thou never more shouldst touch my pate.
Club, nor queue, nor twisted tail,
Nor e’en thy chatt’ring, barber! shall avail
To save thy horse-whipp’d back from daily fears,
From Cantab’s curse, from Cantab’s tears!
Such were the sounds that o’er the powder’d pride
Of Coe the barber scattered wild dismay,
As down the steep of Jackson’s slippery lane,
He wound with puffing march his toilsome, tardy way.
II.
In a room where Cambridge town
Frowns o’er the kennel’s stinking flood,
Rob’d in a flannel powd’ring gown,
With haggard eyes poor Erskine stood;
(Long his beard and blouzy hair
Stream’d like an old wig to the troubled air;)
And with clung guts, and face than razor thinner,
Swore the loud sorrows of his dinner.
Hark! how each striking clock and tolling bell,
With awful sounds, the hour of eating tell!
O’er thee, oh Coe! their dreadful notes they wave,
Soon shall such sounds proclaim thy yawning grave;
Vocal in vain, through all this ling’ring day,
The grace already said, the plates all swept away.
III.
Cold is Beau * * tongue,
That soothed each virgin’s pain;
Bright perfumed M * * has cropp’d his head:
Almacks! you moan in vain.
Each youth whose high toupee
Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-cropt head,
In humble Tyburn-top we see;
Esplashed with dirt and sun-burnt face;
Far on before the ladies mend their pace,
The Macaroni sneers, and will not see.
Dear lost companions of the coxcomb’s art,
Dear as a turkey to these famished eyes,
Dear as the ruddy port which warms my heart,
Ye sunk amidst the fainting Misses’ cries.
No more I weep—they do not sleep:
At yonder ball a slovenly band,
I see them sit, they linger yet,
Avengers of fair Nature’s hand;
With me in dreadful resolution join,
To Crop with one accord, and starve their cursed line.
IV.
Weave the warp, and weave the woof,
The winding-sheet of barber’s race;
Give ample room, and verge enough,
Their lengthened lanthorn jaws to trace.
Mark the year, and mark the night,
When all their shops shall echo with affright;
Loud screams shall through St. James’s turrets ring,
To see, like Eton boy, the king!
Puppies of France, with unrelenting paws,
That crape the foretops of our aching heads;
No longer England owns thy fribblish laws,
No more her folly Gallia’s vermin feeds.
They wait at Dover for the first fair wind,
Soup-meagre in the van, and snuff roast-beef behind.
V.
Mighty barbers, mighty lords,
Low on a greasy bench they lie!
No pitying heart or purse affords
A sixpence for a mutton-pye!
Is the mealy ’prentice fled?
Poor Coe is gone, all supperless to bed.
The swarm that in thy shop each morning sat,
Comb their lank hair on forehead flat:
Fair laughs the morn, when all the world are beaux,
While vainly strutting through a silly land,
In foppish train the puppy barber goes;
Lace on his shirt, and money at command,
Regardless of the skulking bailiff’s sway,
That, hid in some dark court, expects his evening prey.
VI.
The porter-mug fill high,
Baked curls and locks prepare;
Reft of our heads, they yet by wigs may live,
Close by the greasy chair
Fell thirst and famine lie,
No more to art will beauteous nature give.
Heard ye the gang of Fielding say,
Sir John,8 at last we’ve found their haunt,
To desperation driv’n by hungry want,
Thro’ the crammed laughing Pit they steal their way.
Ye tow’rs of Newgate! London’s lasting shame,
By many a foul and midnight murder fed,
Revere poor Mr. Coe, the blacksmith’s9 fame,
And spare the grinning barber’s chuckle head.
VII.
Rascals! we tread thee under foot,
(Weave we the woof, the thread is spun;)
Our beards we pull out by the root;
(The web is wove, your work is done.)
“Stay, oh, stay! nor thus forlorn
Leave me uncurl’d, undinner’d, here to mourn.”
Thro’ the broad gate that leads to College Hall,
They melt, they fly, they vanish all.
But, oh! what happy scenes of pure delight,
Slow moving on their simple charms unroll!
Ye rapt’rous visions! spare my aching sight,
Ye unborn beauties, crowd not on my soul!
No more our long-lost Coventry we wail:
All hail, ye genuine forms; fair nature’s issue, hail!
VIII.
Not frizz’d and frittered, pinned and rolled,
Sublime their artless locks they wear,
And gorgeous dames, and judges old,
Without their tetes and wigs appear.
In the midst a form divine,
Her dress bespeaks the Pennsylvania line;
Her port demure, her grave, religious face,
Attempered sweet to virgin grace.
What sylphs and spirits wanton through the air!
What crowds of little angels round her play!
Hear from thy sepulchre, great Penn! oh, hear!
A scene like this might animate thy clay.
Simplicity now soaring as she sings,
Waves in the eye of heaven her Quaker-coloured wings.
IX.
No more toupees are seen
That mock at Alpine height,
And queues, with many a yard of riband bound,
All now are vanished quite.
No tongs or torturing pin,
But every head is trimmed quite snug around:
Like boys of the cathedral choir,
Curls, such as Adam wore, we wear;
Each simpler generation blooms more fair,
Till all that’s artificial expire.
Vain puppy boy! think’st thou you essenced cloud,
Raised by thy puff, can vie with Nature’s hue?
To-morrow see the variegated crowd
With ringlets shining like the morning dew.
Enough for me: with joy I see
The different dooms our fates assign;
Be thine to love thy trade and starve,
To wear what heaven bestowed be mine.
He said, and headlong from the trap-stairs’ height,
Quick thro’ the frozen street he ran in shabby plight.
Whilst we are discussing the subject of hair, we ought not to forget that, according to Lyson’s Environs of London,
Notes
8 Sir John Fielding, the late active police magistrate.
9 Coe’s father, the well-known blacksmith and alderman, now no more.