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HISTORY OP LACK.

CHAPTEK XXVI.

GEORGE I. AND II.

GEORGE I.

“ Wisdom with periwigs, with cassocks grace,

Courage with swords, geutility with lace.”

Connoitiseur.

“ Les fola donnent cours aux modes; les sages n’affecteot pas de s’en ccarter. Siridicule que puisse etre certaine mode, il est encore plus ridicule de a’eu e'carter.”

Alleaume.

Tiie accession of the house of Hanover brought but little changeeither in the fashions or the fabrics. In 1717 the king publishedan edict regarding the hawking of lace, but the world was toomuch taken up with the old Pretender and the court of Saint-Germain ; the king, too, was often absent, preferring greatly hisGerman dominions.

We now hear a great deal of lace ruffles; they were worn longand falling. Lord Bolingbroke, who enraged Queen Anne by hisuntidy dress—“ she supposed, forsooth, he would some day cometo court in his nightcap”—is described as having his cravat ofpoint lace, and his hands hidden by exaggerated ruffles of thesame material. In good old Jacobite times, these weeping rufflesserved as well to conceal notes—“poulets”—passed from onewary politician to another, as they did the French sharpers tojuggle and cheat at cards.

Lace continued the mania of the day. “ Since your fantasticalgeers came in with wires, ribbons, and laces, and your furbelowswith three hundred yards in a gown and petticoat, there has notbeen a good housewife in the nation,” 1 writes an indignant dra-matist. The lover was made to bribe the Abigail of his mistress

1 “ Tunbridge Wells,” 1727.