, the immediate source whence it was taken.
It reads as follows:--"_History of Female Dress_. The sprightly Gauls
set their little Wits to work again," (on resuming the war under Queen
Anne,) "and invented a wonderful Machine call'd a Hoop Petticoat. In
this fine Scheme they had more Views than one; they had compar'd their
own Climate and Constitution with that of the British, and finding both
warmer, they naturally enough concluded that would only be pleasantly
cool to them, which would perhaps give the British Ladies the
Rheumatism, and that if they once got them off their Legs they should
have them at Advantage; Besides, they had been inform'd, though
falsely, that the British Ladies had not good Legs, and then at all
Events this Scheme would expose them. With these pernicious Views they
set themselves to work, and form'd a Rotund of near 7 Yards about, and
sent the Pattern over by the Sussex Smugglers with an Intent that it
should be seiz'd and expos'd to Publick View; which happen'd
accordingly, and made its first Appearance at a Great Man's House on
that Coast, whose Lady claim'd it as her peculiar Property. In it she
first struck at Court what the learned in Dress call a bold Stroke; and
was thereupon constituted General of the British Ladies during the War.
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