316

HISTORY OF LACE.

Sophocles, exclaims to her sister—“ Surely your heroic spirit willprefer a beau’s hand in Brussels lace to a stubborn Scaevola with-out an arm.”

No young lady of the nineteenth century wears, or shouldwear, lace previous to her marriage. In the reign of George II.etiquette was different, for we find the Duchess of Portland pre-senting Mrs. Montague, then a girl, with a lace head and ruffles.

Wrathfully do the satirists of the day rail against the ex-pense of

“ The powder, patches, snd the pins,

The ribbon, jewels, and the rings,

The lace, the paint, and warlike thingsThat make up all their magazines,” ‘

and the consequent distress of the lace merchants, to whom ladiesare indebted for thousands. After a drawing-room, in which thefair population appeared in “ borrowed,” i. e. unpaid, lace , 7 one ofthe chief lacemen became well-nigh bankrupt. Duns besiegedthe houses of the great:—

“ By mercers, lacemen, mantua-makers press’d ;

But most for ready cash, for play distress’d,

Where can she turn ? ” •

The “ Connoisseur,” describing the reckless extravagance of oneof these ladies, writes:—“ The lady played till all her ready moneywas gone, staked her cap and lost it, afterwards, her handkerchief.He then staked both cap and handkerchief against her tucker,which, to his pique, she gained.” When enumerating the variouscauses of suicide, he proposes “ that an annual bill or reportshould be made out, giving the different causes which have led tothe act.” An^png others, in his proposed “ Bill of Suicide, ” hegives French claret, French lace, French cooks, &c.

The men, though scarcely coming up to the standard of SirCourtly Nice , 9 who has all his bands and linen made in Hollandand washed at Haarlem, were just as extravagant as the ladies.

' Cowley.

’ 1731. “ Simile for the Ladies, al-

luding to the laces worn at the lastBirthday and not paid for.”

“ Iu Evening fair you may behold

The Clouds are fringed with bor-rowed gold,

And this is many a lady’s case

W r ho flaunts about in borrowedlace.”

* Jenvns, “ The Modern Fine Lady.”

• Crown, “Sir Courtly Nice, or ItCannot Be,” a Comedy, 1731.