For Example, Though
The Weather Should Be Never So Cold, He Must Wear His Habit
D'ete, Or Demi-Saison.
Without presuming to put on a warm dress
before the day which fashion has fixed for that purpose; and
neither old age nor infirmity will excuse a man for wearing his
hat upon his head, either at home or abroad.
Females are (if
possible) still more subject to the caprices of fashion; and as
the articles of their dress are more manifold, it is enough to
make a man's heart ake to see his wife surrounded by a multitude
of cotturieres, milliners, and tire-women. All her sacks and
negligees must be altered and new trimmed. She must have new
caps, new laces, new shoes, and her hair new cut. She must have
her taffaties for the summer, her flowered silks for the spring
and autumn, her sattins and damasks for winter. The good man, who
used to wear the beau drop d'Angleterre, quite plain all the year
round, with a long bob, or tye perriwig, must here provide
himself with a camblet suit trimmed with silver for spring and
autumn, with silk cloaths for summer, and cloth laced with gold,
or velvet for winter; and he must wear his bag-wig a la pigeon.
This variety of dress is absolutely indispensible for all those
who pretend to any rank above the meer bourgeois. On his return
to his own country, all this frippery is useless. He cannot
appear in London until he has undergone another thorough
metamorphosis; so that he will have some reason to think, that
the tradesmen of Paris and London have combined to lay him under
contribution:
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