WIFFEN, JEREMIAH HOLMES (1792-1836). An English poet and translator. He was born of Quaker parentage at Bedfordshire. He was for a time a schoolmaster. and he acquired a knowledge of the classics, Hebrew. French, Ital ian, and later of Spanish and Welsh. lit 1821 he was appointed librarian at Woburn Abbey to John Russell, sixth Duke of Bedford. Among his published works are: .tonion Hours (1819) ; Julia pinula and Other Poems (1820) : a trans lation of Tasso's Jerusalem Delirered (1824): and Historical Memoirs of the House of Russell (1833).
WIG (abbreviation of periwig. perwig, ique, etc., variants of peruke, from OF., Fr.
yerruque, from Olt. perucett, lt. pc/raring, va - ca. wig, from Olt. peluecare, pi(uerarc, pillue care, to pull out hairs, from Lat. pi/us. hair). An arrangement of false hair for concealing bald ness, or for the supposed adornment of the head. The custom of wearing wigs dates from remote antiquity. Wigs worn as early as n.c. 2000 have been found on Egyptian mummies and indications of the fashion are seen on the Assyrian sculpture. From the East the fashion traveled to Oreece and Ronne. Nenophon mentions that Astyages wore all illInipwAe wig. Several of the Roman emperors wore wigs. Roman ladies under the Empire wore large masses of golden red hair im ported from Caul (see IlAnantEsstxu). a fashion which a council of the ('lurch ended in 672. It is interesting to note that the Catholic Church never sanctioned the fashion. in the sixteenth century false hair began to be exten sively used by the ladies of Europe: Queen Eliza beth is said to have had 80 different coiffures of false hair. But this periwig was on imitation
of thy real hair or an addition to it, and not the distinetive feature of costume which it became after its adopt ion by Louis XIII. to conceal his baldness. By means of the wig, the courtiers imi tated the heavy flowing locks of Louis XIV., and then the fashion of wig-wearing became fully es tablished in Europe. Vor more than a century no gentleman of fashion could appear without one. Such was the extravagance in this article of dress that as much as three guineas an ounce was paid in England for fine qualities of hair, and wigs were made at a cost of £140. It was only toward the end of the eighteenth century that the unnaturalness of this ornament appears to have been thought of, and it began to be super seded by the queue with hair-powder (q.v.). Clergymen and military officers long clung to the style and it not yet been discarded on the English bench. The full-bottomed wig is worn by the Speaker of the House of Commons. The wig of the judges has flaps formed of pre cise curls hanging down in front and also re sembles the wig of Queen Anne. The undress wig of the judges and that of barristers and ad vocates are relies of the old tie wig, in which the lower part of the wig is tied. In Queen reign the fashion became most extreme in land. She patronized the full-bottomed wig, an immense headdress which parted into two bunches of ringlets, one on each breast, and floated down the back and shoulders.