of Hamlet and others.  Should the Prince wear flaxen tresses or a “Brutus”?  Should the Moor of Venice appear in a negro’s close woolly curls, or are flowing locks permissible to him?  These inquiries have a good deal exercised the histrionic profession from time to time.  And there have been doubts about hair-powder and its compatibility with tragic purposes.  Mademoiselle Mars, the famous French actress, decided upon defying accuracy of costume, and declined to wear a powdered wig in a serious part.  Her example was followed by Rachel, Ristori, and others.  When Auber’s “Gustave, ou le Bal Masque,” was in rehearsal, the singers complained of the difficulty they experienced in expressing passionate sentiments in the powdered wigs and stately dress of the time of Louis XV.  In the masquerade they were therefore permitted to assume such costumes as seemed to them suited to the violent catastrophe of the story.  They argued that "le moindre geste violent peut exciter le rire en provoquant l’explosion d’un nuage blanc; les artistes sont donc contraints de se tenir dans une reserve et dans une immobilite qui jettent du froid sur toutes les situations." It is true that Garrick and his contemporaries wore hair-powder, and that in their hands the drama certainly did not lack vehemently emotional displays.  But then the spectators were in like case; and "explosions d’un nuage blanc" were probably of too common occurrence to excite derision or even attention.

Wigs are still matters of vital interest to the actors, and it is to be noted that the theatrical hairdressers have of late years devoted much study to this branch of their industry.  The light comedian still indulges sometimes in curls of an unnatural flaxen, and the comic countryman is too often allowed to wear locks of a quite impossible crimson colour.  Indeed, the headdresses that seem only contrived to move the laughter of the gallery, yet remain in an unsatisfactory condition.  But in what are known as “character wigs” there has been marked amendment.  The fictitious forehead is now very often artfully joined on to the real brow of the performer, without those distressing discrepancies of hue and texture which at one time were so very apparent, disturbing credibility and destroying illusion.  And the decline of hair in colour and quantity has often been imitated in the theatre with very happy ingenuity.  Heads in an iron-gray or partially bald state—­varying from the first slight thinning of the locks to the time when they come to be combed over with a kind of “cat’s cradle” or trellis-work look, to veil absolute calvity—­are now represented by the actors with a completeness of a most artistic kind.  With the ladies of the theatre blond wigs are now almost to be regarded as necessaries of histrionic life.  This may be only a transient fashion, although it seems to have obtained very enduring vitality.  Dr. Veron, writing of his experiences as manager of the Paris Opera House forty years ago, affirms: