Note 206 — Chapter XIII · MEN'S DRESS.

In the country, owing to the very little correspondence between it and the metropolis, of course the fashions were some time in reaching remote distances, and were equally long in departing from thence, to make way for new ones. Addison humorously describes the fashions for men in Cornwall in 1711. 'From this place, during our progress through the most western parts of the kingdom, we fancied ourselves in King Charles the Second's reign, the people having made very little variations in their dress since that time. The smartest of the country Squires appear still in the Monmouth Cock, and when they go a wooing, whether they have any post in the militia or not, they generally put on a red coat. We were indeed very much surprised, at the place we lay at last night, to meet with a gentleman that had accoutred himself in a night cap wig, a coat with long pockets and slit sleeves, and a pair of shoes with high scallop tops; but we soon found by his conversation that he was a person who laughed at the ignorance and rusticity of the country people, and was resolved to live and die in the mode.'[206]