£800.) 
Ps eee 
Extraéis from the Port-folio of a Man of Letters. 
eR 
BETHLEM-GABOR. 
WHE character of this reftlefs and 
ungrateful man has been lately in- 
troduced by Mr. Godwin in his fingular 
Romance of *¢ The Travels of St. Leon.” 
It is, certainly, one of the bappieft efforts 
in that work; and the reader muft now be 
interelted in the real character, with which 
hiftory prefents us. 
Bethlem-Gabor was a Tranfylvanian, 
of an ancient but impoverifhed family, 
who gained the favour of Gabriel- Battori, 
Prince of Tranfylvania. Having .as a 
reftlefs adventurer quitted this court for 
that of Conftantinople, he acquired {uch 
credit among the Turks, as to induce 
them to declare war, again his firlt and 
kindeft benefactor. Battori, loft by in- 
trigue and abandoned by his fubjeéts and 
the Emperor, was vanquifhed in 1613. 
Bethlem-Gabor took feveral places in 
Hungary ; and, compelling a Pacha to in- 
velt him with Trantylvania, he declared 
himfelf King of Hungary. In 1620, the 
Emperor marched fome troops againft him; 
but his General Bucquoi was killed. 
Bethlem-Gabor, though now a conqueror, 
- dreaded the imperial power, and folicited 
peace, which he obtained on condition of 
renouncing the title of King of Hungary, 
and that he fhould only take that ofa Prince 
of the Empire. The Emperor, who was not 
on his fide a little troubled by fo reftlefs 
and intrepid a fubject, was willing to ac- 
knowledge this rebel as fovereign of 
Tranlylvania, and,to cede to him feven 
counties, of about so leagues in circum- 
ference. But nothing could appeafe the 
fire raging in the wild bofomof this Gabor, 
—He foon after revived his claims on 
Hungary. Walfeinvanquifhed him; and 
the war was at length concluded by a 
treaty which made over Tranfylvania and 
the adjacent territories to the houfe of 
Auftria, after the death of Gabor, which 
happened in 1629. 

WIGS. 
THE Greeks and Romans ufed falfe 
hajr; and had likewile a kind of hair- 
powder. — Hannibal wore fa'fe hair.— 
Lampridius gives a defcription of the 
Emperor Commodus’s wig, which was 
powdered with gold-duft, and anointed 
with ointments of an agreeable odour, 
that the duft might adhere to it. It ap- 
pears not improbable, that, even then, 
_ Hot merely a vain affeétation of pomp, 
but the effects of too active a gallantry 
(though trifling when compared with thofe 
of more modern times) may have given 
occafion to this invention, For farther 
information on this fubjeét, I refer the 
reader to the learned commentators on the 
fatyrical exclamation of Czefar’s foldiers, 
during his triumphal entry into Rome: 
* Urbani, fervate uxorem, machum calvum 
© adducimus! Henry IIL. King of France, 
lott his hair through the then yet new- 
fafhioned venereal difeafe (altheugh, in- 
deed, his grandfather had already been 
infected with it); he had therefore one of 
the caps, then ufually worn, covered with 
falfe hair: but yet he ventured not to'take 
off his hat in the prefence of his queen, 
or of the foreign ambaffadors, for fear 
they fhould obferve his lofs. In 1518, 
John Duke of Saxony, ordered his head- 
bailiff at Cobourg, to procure for him 
from Nurnberg a handfome falfe head of 
hair; ‘but fecretly (wrote he), that it 
may not be known that it is for us; and 
let it be curled, and fo contrived that it 
may be put on the head without being 
oblerved.’—But in the reign of Louis XIV. 
when polite manners and gallantry had be- 
come more general, men more fenfibly 
affected with cold, &c. and the number of 
bald-heads greater ; they were no longer © 
afhamed of the caps covered with falfe 
hair ; many people even, who had not loft 
their hair, wore them from an affeétation 
of fafhionable gallantry, from the effects 
of which they were really exempt. This 
gave rife to the idea of weaving hair into 
a linen cloth, and likewife into fringes, 
which were ufed for fometime under the 
name Milan Points. ‘Whefe fringes or laces 
were {own in rows to the plain caps, whicn 
were now made of a thinner fheep-fkin 5 
and this head-drefs was called, by the 
French peruque, by the Germans parucke, 
by the Englith perizig, contraéted into 
wig —At laft they invented a kind of 
three-thread treffes, which were fewed to 
ribbons or other ftuffs ; thefe they then 
ftretched out, and joined together on blocks 
cut into the fhape of the head. This is 
the origin of our prefent wigs, the making, 
repairing, and drefling of which furnifhes 
employment to fo vaft a number of people. 
The firtt who wore a perugque, was an 
abbé named La Riviere. At one time 
this ornament of the head was fo thick, 
fo loaded with hair, and fo long, that it 
hung down as low as the waift.; A perfon 
who happened to have a lean vifage, was 
quite hid in this cloud of hair. The fore- 
part of the wig was likewite worn very 
G z high 



