It will not be amiss here to mention the following amusing traditionary reminiscence of “Beau Forrester,” the gentleman to whose shoulders the author of “My Aunt Margaret’s Mirror” has chosen to transfer all the guilt of the Viscount P, . Beau Forrester, although indulging in the extreme of what is now called dandyism, appears to have been a man of some sense. He evinces considerable gravity, and correctness of thought, in a little tract which he published, and which is now generally attached to the end of the common editions of “Chesterfield’s Advice to his Son,” intitled, “The Polite Philosopher.” That he was, at the time, a despiser, to a certain extent, of the distinction which he acquired as leader of fashions among the young men of his day; and, also, that he held his worshippers in some contempt, seems to be proved by an anecdote which I have heard related by old gentlemen of the last century. In his time, (the reign of George the Second,) gentlemen sometimes wore their natural hair at great length, and nicely dressed; and, at other times, as fashion changed, cut it all away, and assumed prodigious periwigs. Resolving to play a trick upon his herd of imitators, the Beau, one day, suddenly appeared in public with a grand Ramilies, instead of the long-flowing natural ringlets which he had exhibited for a considerable time before. Of course, the barbers were all immediately worried to death for Ramilies wigs; and, in less than a week, there was not a single live hair to be seen in the Parliament Close, the High Street, the Castle-Hill, or any other fashionable promenade about Edinburgh: , from Dan to Beersheba all was barren. Whenever the Beau perceived that the whole crop was fairly cut and carved, in the coolest manner imaginable, he doffed his peruke, and, all at once, to the astonishment and mortification of hundreds, reappeared with his own hair, as fresh and long as ever, it having been concealed all the time under his wig. It is unnecessary to describe or even to hint at the extent of ridicule with which this happy piece of waggery overwhelmed the scruum pecus of Beau Forrester.

Quoted from: The Edinburgh Literary Journal, Or, Weekly Register of Criticism and Belles Lettres. No. 13, February 7, 1829.