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GrEOJ.tGE II. 317 GEORGE II. “ ‘ IIow well this ribband’s glass becomes your face,’ She cries in rapture; ‘ then so sweet a lace 1 How charmingly you look ! ’ ” Lady M. W. Montagu, Town Eclogues. For court and state occasions Brussels lace still held its sway. In the reign of George II. we read how at the drawing-room of 1735 fine escalloped Brussels laced heads, triple ditto laced ruffles, 10 lappets hooked up with diamond solitaires, found favour. At the next the ladies wore heads dressed English, i. e. bows of fine Brussels lace of exceeding rich patterns, with the same amount of laced ruffles and lappets. Gold flounces were also worn. Speaking of the passion for Brussels lace, Postlethwait indig nantly observes:—“ ’Tis but a few years since England expended upon foreign lace and linen not less than two millions yearly. As lace in particular is the manufacture of nuns, our British ladies may as well endow monasteries as wear Flanders lace, for these Popish nuns are maintained by Protestant contributions.” 11 Patriotism, it would appear, did come into vogue in the year 17-ffl, when at the marriage of Frederick, Prince of Wales, the bride is described as wearing a night-dress of superb lace, the bridegroom a cap of similar material. All the lace worn by the court on this occasion is announced to have been of English ma nufacture, with the exception of that of the Duke of Marlborough, who appeared in point d’Espagne. The bride, however, does not profit by this high example, for shortly after we read, in the “Memoirs of Madame Palatine,” of the secretary of Sir Luke Sckaub being drugged at Paris by an impostor, and robbed of some money sent to defray the purchase of some French lace ruffles for the Princess of Wales. Jt was of native-made lace, we may infer, Mrs. Delany writes in the same year :—“ Thanks for your apron. Brussels nor Mechlin ever produced anything prettier.” 10 “ 1748. Ruffles of twelve pounds a yard.”—Apology for Mrs. T. C. Philips, 1748. Lace, however, might be had at a more reasonable rate:— “ ‘ I have a fine lac’d suit of pinners,’ says Mrs. Thomas, ‘ that was my great grandmother’s ! that has been worn but twice these forty years, and my mother told me cost almost four pounds when it was new, and reaches down hither.’ ”— Miss Lucy in Town, Fielding. 11 “ Dictionary of Commerce,” 1766.