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 extravagant mode of dress in their domestics. Formerly a plaited cap and a white handkerchief served a young woman three or four Sundays; now a mistress is required to give up the latter end of the week for her maids to prepare their caps, tuckers, and gowns for Sunday. &hellip; I look upon their exorbitant increase of wages as chiefly conducive to their impertinence. &hellip; And what is this increase of wages for? Not in order to lay by a little in case of sickness, but to squander in dress."

The same note is struck in Swift's ironical "Rules and Directions for Servants." Their laziness, their insolence, their careless and dirty ways, their lying, their immorality—all come in for the Dean's fiercest irony.

"If a lump of soot falls into the soup," he says to the cook, "and you cannot conveniently get it out, stir it well, and it will give the soup a high French taste."

To the footman: "In winter time, light the dining-room fire but two minutes before the dinner is served up, that your master may see how saving you are of his coals."

To the coachman: "When you are in no humour to drive, tell your master that the horses