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The Inbetweeners: Placing The Macaroni

Within 18th Century Conceptions of

Masculinity

By Alex Daish – University College London

17.4.2014

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The macaronis originated as aristocratic youths who frequented the clubs of St.

James’s, London. They were recognisable for their elaborate wigs, clothes and behaviour.1

This urban fashion quickly spread from London to provincial towns like York and Bath,

reaching its peak in the 1770s when it became increasingly imitated by members of the

middle and servant classes.2 In a period of great change for ideas of class, gender, and

authenticity, the macaronis were at the centre of a dialogue about what masculinity was to

be in the eighteenth century. More recently, feminist critics have argued that it was during

the course of the eighteenth century that feminine behaviours gradually became the

exclusive domain of females.3 It is equally arguably then, that similar notions of

masculinity also became exclusively male. This came about through extensive debate on

what constituted masculinity and how it was best to function in society. Thus, it seems

significant then, that just as gender identifiers were being consolidated to become the

mainstays of middle–class hegemony, the macaroni – an icon that seemed to blur the

boundaries of class and gender – appeared.4 This essay will thus explore the macaronis’

ambiguousness in terms of class, gender, and nationality, as they navigated a society

attempting to define masculinity in an era with new potentials for consumption.

To briefly consider the macaroni in the context of the performative nature of

gender as defined in Judith Butlers Gender Trouble, where by our gender is acted out

through signs that are instilled in us and sanctioned by society,5 we can quickly understand

how the macaroni got caught between several competing ideas of masculinity. In light of

gender performativity, the macaroni can be envisioned as an extreme process of the

construction and performance of masculinity. It was after all in the context of David

1 Donaldson, p.80 2 McNeil, p.411 3 Haggerty, p.83 4 McNeil, p.431

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Garrick’s 1757 play the Male Coquette that the term ‘macaroni’ was first used to describe a

man, rather than the pasta dish.6 The macaronis exemplified the artificial and performative

tendencies of the behaviour and clothing seen for a long while in the aristocratic classes.

Thus, when the socially mobile bourgeoisie adopted this style and behaviour, it became a

means to play and alter their class identity and adopt a newly refined masculinity. Others

considered these performances overly artificial and disingenuous, inspired by foreigner

thinking: they were an inauthentic threat to British liberty. Confusing the matter further,

others thought these behaviours and clothes eccentric, and thus they were an example of

authentic and independent British masculinity. Positioning the masculinity of the macaroni

is thus no simple feat.

Fig.1: Mathew Darly, My Lord Tip-Toe, Just arrived from Monkey Land, 1771. British Museum, London.

Etching. 155 x 105 mm. (Source: britishmuseum.org)

The defining feature of the macaroni is excess. Adopting continental styles seen as

young men journeying around the continent on the Grand Tour, they took to wearing their

5 Butler, p.179 6 McNeil, p.441

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wigs in elaborate high and powdered clubs with tight-fitting and highly contrasting

coloured and patterned clothes.7 They continued to wear pastel colours and great

ornamentation just as a more sombre mode of dress was gradually eliminating them in

England.8 They also began behaving differently – taking to Francophile artifice and excess

in speech, gesture and posture.9

The macaronis ultimately became the victims of immense ridicule, particularly as

the style slipped down the social order. Much of this critique was rooted in the ambiguity

of their gender. Despite it being common for men to wear wigs, the extreme size of the

macaronis’ rivalled the elaborate hairstyles of women at the time. With these wigs often

made from women’s hair, the macaronis exposed an odd gender play performed by their

more sombre counterparts14. Taking it to the extreme, “A macaroni render his sex dubious

by the extravagance of his appearance”.15

Fig. 2: Sayer & Bennett (After Anon), What is this my Son Tom. 1774. British Museum, London. Mezzotint

with some etching. 350mm x 250. (Source: britishmuseum.org)

7 Donaldson, p.80 8 McNeil, p.412 9 McNeil, p.412 14 Rauser, 2004a, p.103

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In an era obsessed with authenticity and the discernment of true character,16 the

macaroni pushed the boundaries of sober, bourgeois masculine ideals whilst embodying

the newer possibilities of an expressive masculine sensibility taken on by the upper

classes.17 Taking ‘civilisation’ to the limit, the resulting ambiguousness in class, gender and

nationality unsettled many and made them joke of an era desperate for certainty.

The dilemma of these competing masculinities is depicted in What is this my Son Tom

[Fig. 2] where we see a country farmer confronting the influence of urban fashion on his

own son. He laughs as he points his whip at the tiny hat atop his son’s mountainous wig.

However, the rough, rustic and old-fashioned father is not himself an exemplar of how to

dress. They both exist as contrasting limits, the print hoping to guide the viewer towards a

sensible path between these two ‘ridiculous’ examples.18

The macaroni was seen as a symptom of a crisis in masculinity in the country. At its

worst, it had the potential to undermine the country’s reputation and military prowess.19

The macaronis were seen ambiguously in terms of their Britishness. Not only were their

clothes foreign; but also their adoption of elaborate codes of manners that gratified the

concerns of women for attention and nicety in social behaviour, was deemed a French

invention. These ideas had previously been embodied in the Court sycophants, who were

seen by the supporters of politician John Wilkes, as the enemy of British liberty20. Even

the Bishop of London declared these important new fashions for continental clothes,

15 Town and Country, 1772, p.243 16 Rauser 2004a, p.105 17 Rauser 2004a, p.103 18 Rauser, 2004b, p.30 19 West, p.174 20 Donaldson, p.81

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masquerades and Italian operas as diversions, part of a French plot to distract men with

“Licentiousness and Effeminacy”.21

The weakness of these macaronis is depicted in The Enraged Macaroni [fig. 3]. This

print replaces a French fop with a macaroni, in the long running satirical genre of London

fishwives usurping foreign dandies in street encounters.22 If this man could have his hair

cut (a hint to castration)23 by a poor, but British, woman, then how could he potentially

defend Britain? It is implied that this French influence has made him weak and unmanly.

Fig. 3: John Bowles (after Phil Dawe), The Enraged Macaroni, 1773. Library of Congress, Washington D.C.

Mezzotint. (Source: loc.gov)

21 Castle, p.7 22 Rauser, 2004b, p.35

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Much of this charge of effeminacy comes from the conflation between femininity

and luxury. Political commentator John ‘Estimate’ Brown feared that by consuming the

wealth of luxury goods provided by a boom in colonial trade, men were becoming

feminised.24 He also believed that the military was also being undermined by its members’

participation in polite civilian society.25

Dutch philosopher Bernard Mandeville disagreed with Brown, and pointed out

that effeminate and luxurious individuals did not make for an effeminate army. This was

due to the foot soldiers being working class and thus unaffected by the luxury enjoyed by

the officer class. However, these officers still had the ability to “destroy cities a–bed, and

ruin whole countries while they are at dinner”. Mandeville also noted that officers of

“embroidered Beuaz and fine lac’d Shirts and powder’d Wigs” were equally as fearless as

“the most stinking Slovens” during recent fighting in the Spanish Succession.26

Other contemporary critics that saw issue with “such a dismal apprehension of

Luxury’s enervating and effeminating [of] People”27 were the Scottish thinkers Adam

Smith and David Hume. Smith argued that effeminacy was relative to the society it was

being conducted in. In North America, the natives would have found even the simplest

displays of social affection signs of the “most pardonable effeminacy”.28 Additionally,

Hume suggested that the desire to engage in commerce and gain material wealth added

extra force to an Englishman’s mental and physical capabilities. Luxury, for Hume,

23 Rauser, 2004b, p.35 24 Brown, pp.15–16 25 Carter, p.430 26 Mandeville, p.122–123 27 Ibid, p.121 28 Smith, p.205

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contributed vigour to the nation that pursued it.29 Hume believed luxury could make men

masculine.

Unfortunately for the macaronis, Hume was in the minority, and this form of

‘politeness’ increasingly became associated with consumptive behaviour. Products were

even sold on the premise of being polite, ever connecting it with the domestic and feminine

sphere. Thus, the macaronis’ visible luxury consumption became increasingly thought of as

effeminate.30

An opinion of Hume’s that was more popular was how masculinity could be refined

through consuming relationships. He advocated refinement through enjoying the company

of respectable women. He believed that women had an innate civility that could stimulate

higher standards of interpersonal behaviour. When “both sexes meet in an easy and

sociable manner; and the tempers of men, as well as their behaviour, refine apace”.31

Conducted properly, it allowed men within luxurious society to supersede the classical

warrior type, as they could pursue the public good with control, honour, and civility

without losing any physical hardiness.32 Writing before the rise of the Macaronis, Hume

seems to hint at their flaws though – suggesting, “modern politeness… runs into affection

and foppery”33. To seek goodwill rather than simply to avoid offence, the shift from control

to the excess of inauthentic manners was to go too far and become effeminate.34

29 Hume, pp.274–5 30 Klein, p.362 31 Hume, p.133 32 Carter, p.436 33 Hume, p.130 34 Carter, p.439

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This trend for refinement was also found in sensibility; a mode of social interaction

that developed in the mid century. This new archetypical ‘man of feeling’ could display his

mutual sympathy and sentiments through less controlled and emotional behaviour.35

Within sensibility, weeping was deemed masculine. In fact, not crying could make you a

poor public servant, displaying a selfish lack of compassion for your fellow man.36

This take on masculinity was not without detractors either. Thomas Rowlandson

completed several satires where these ‘men of feeling’ – often priests – were portrayed

feeling up young women. Despite their pretences to higher refinement, they are still sexual

men at heart.

Fig. 4: Thomas Rowlandson, A Man of Feeling, c.1770. Lewis Walpole Library, Farmington, CT. Hand–

coloured etching. (Source: library.yale.edu)

35 Ibid. 36 Shaw, pp.2–5

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The sexuality of the macaronis was less certain though. With hair traditionally

associated with sex,37 the young aristocratic macaronis with their huge wigs could be seen

to hint at their heterosexual potency.38 The effeminate fops before them influenced much

of the macaronis’ style. Known womanisers; they moved between aristocratic circles,

securing sexual conquests, until the late seventeenth century.39 “It is impossible… to

reckon up all the virgins that have fallen a sacrifice to a pair of fringed gloves”.40 At least

until the 1740s, the effeminate focus on adornment was perceived as alluring to the

opposite sex.41 The re-emergence of this look in the 1770s with the macaronis appeared

successful to some. A noblemen complimented one lord’s elaborate wig, saying, “what a

method for wooing you fine folk have got into”.42

Complicating this matter was that as the macaronis’ style of elaborate court dress

moved through the middle classes, it seemed to irk women. Fanny Burney had little time

for men “full of affections & airs”, instead preferring Scottish visitors with “manly

manners, solid (sense) & entertaining Humours [sic]”.43 The macaroni style was even seen

as potential sign of disinterest in heterosexual sex44. This shift in perception, seeming to

coincide with the macaroni fashion spreading beyond the original younger aristocrats, took

on an element of class tension. In fact, the majority of the prints made by Matthew and

Mary Darly satirised macaronis of “middling sort”, with only a smaller proportion

satirising the elite ringleaders45. Some of this is obviously a commercial decision made by

the printmakers not wishing to attack the elite that made up the majority his customers,

37 Rauser, 2004b, p.30 38 Rauser, 2004a, p.107 39 van der Meer, p.149 40 The Tatler, 1710 quoted in McDowell, p.23 41 McNeil, p.418 42 The Macaroni and Theatrical Magazine, May 1773, p.372 43 Burney, p.32 44 McNeil, p.412 45 West, pp.172–173

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but also hints at this audience seeking to ridicule a lower bourgeoisie class ineptly

attempting to mimic continental fashions.46

Fig. 5 & 6: Matthew Darly, The Macaroni Bricklayer & The Butcher Macaroni, 1772. Etching. (Source:

library.yale.edu)

Thus the macaronis, in an attempt to literally class themselves up by rejecting the

sober and virtuous masculine ideal developing in the middle classes, and embracing the

more aristocratic one built on excessive continental fashion and behaviour, found

themselves jeered by the upper classes (with accusations of being ambitious in gender),

whilst the middle and working classes that they came from, saw them as consumers of

luxury, and therefore effeminate. The macaroni arguably got caught in no man’s land

between these two competing ideas of masculinity.

46 Rauser 2004a, p.110

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Further complicating the Macaroni’s masculinity were the issues of authenticity,

independence, and individualism that had become elements of an odd patriotic

nationalism. Self-control was seen as a masculine feature in both the classical and modern

conceptions of masculinity. Richard Peer’s Companion for Youth admonished the drunk man

whom, though his lack of self-control and excess, was ‘unmanning’ himself.47 For Adam

Smith, self-command was also important: encouraging men on the pursuit of sensibility to

aspire to a regulated and “certain mediocrity”.48 Lacking in this control led to loose

thinking and ultimately a loss of independence that was deemed effeminate.49

However, because individuality was “inextricably bound up with liberty and

Englishness”,50 eccentric behaviour was considered an authentically British characteristic.

“One Frenchman alone is sufficient to represent fifty Frenchman; but forty-nine

Englishmen are insufficient to represent fifty of this town countrymen”.51 English

eccentricity was also specifically gendered in its operation. Connected to the Theophrastan

character tradition that prevented generalising typical characters as both female and male,

literature and plays were filled by innumerate types of men whilst women were generally

represented as two types – a prude or a whore.52 In this context it is harder to define the

macaroni as effeminate, with their tendency towards excess and eccentricity.

47 Peer, p.84 48 Smith, p.238 49 Carter, p.440 50 West, p.176 51 The Macaroni and Theatrical Magazine quoted in Rauser, 2004a, p.114 52 Smeed, p.139

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Fig. 7 & 8: Matthew Darly, The Simpling Macaroni & The Fly Catching Macaroni, 1772. British Museum,

London. Etching and hand–coloured etching. 173 x123 mm. (Source: britishmuseum.org)

This celebration of individuality manifested in the macaroni is seen in two more of

Matthew Darly’s prints, The Fly–Catching Macarnoni [Fig. 8] and The Simpling Macaroni [Fig.

7]. The text below the title identifies these macaronis as the scientists Joseph Banks and

Daniel Solander.53 Well-known and celebrated after returning from Captain Cook’s

round-the-world trip, they were not generally considered as macaronis for their behaviour

or dress.54 However, Darly continued his macaroni print formula of showing the figures in

full-length profiles, but depicted these identifiable individuals wearing more restrained

fashions than the typical macaroni satires. Instead of large clubs of hair, attention is paid to

the attributes that indicate the two men’s occupations as a botanist and zoologist.55 In this

53 britishmuseum.org 54 Rauser 2004a, p.112 55 Ibid.

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case the macaroni identity seems imposed on Banks and Solander to enhance their

eccentricity as a way of claiming them, and their achievements, as British. Where previous

prints depicted types of macaronis (the clerical macaroni, haberdasher macaroni etc.),

these prints of individuals turned a mode of caricature used to provide cautionary

examples of a wayward form of foreign masculinity into way to celebrate individual,

authentic British male role models.56

Due to Darly’s prints being a series, these individual eccentricities are seen all at

once, side by side in the printshop window, and become a generic type. “Like women, the

macaronis were seen as typical and predictable”.57

Fig. 9: Matthew Darly, The Macaroni Print Shop, 1772. British Museum, London. Hand–coloured etching.

177x249mm. (Source: britishmuseum.org)

56 Ibid, p.111 57 West, p.177

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These issues of authenticity, eccentricity and individuality, upset by the macaronis’

ambiguity in terms of gender, class and nationality, were very real in the world outside of

Darly’s print shop. It was clearly on Matthew’s mind when he etched several men looking

at his prints of macaroni outside his own shop in the self referential Macaroni Print Shop

[Fig. 9]. Like his macaronis before, they are illustrated in profile with a great amount of

detail paid to their clothes: individualising them, and depicting a variety of body types,

wigs, hats, and coats. The viewer of the print scrutinises this depiction of the print

audience, as the illustrated men scrutinise the illustrations in the window. Outside of the

shop, situated in a fashionable part of London, we see a mix of classes. Darly hints that

this audience is as ridiculous as the macaronis under scrutiny.58 Trying to place the

macaroni within the fluid ideas of masculinity of eighteenth century Britain is a tricky task.

Ultimately, as portrayed in this print, the macaronis were created by consumption through

the purchase of clothes and entertainment by the upper and middle classes. In these

caricatures we see how they were then themselves consumed by an audience seeking to

define masculinity in these dynamic times.

58 Rauser, 2008, p.64

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Bibliography

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https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details

.aspx?objectId=1637500&partId=1&searchText=The%20Fly%20Catching%20Mac

aroni (Accessed April 17, 2014)

British Museum, ‘The Simpling Macaroni’.

https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details

.aspx?objectId=1637513&partId=1&searchText=the%20simpling%20macaroni

(Accessed April 17, 2014)

Brown, J. An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times 1. London, 1757–58.

Burney, F. The Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney 2, ed L.E. Triode. Oxford, 1990.

Butler, J. Gender Trouble. New York, 1990.

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and Fiction. Stanford, CA: 1986.

Donaldson, D. The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III. New Haven &

London, 1996.

Haggerty, G.E. ‘O lachrymarum Fons: Tears, Poetry, and Desires in Gray’ in Eighteenth

Century Studies 30 no.1 (1996) : pp. 81–95.

Hume, D. ‘Of refinement in the arts and sciences’ in Essays Moral, Political and Literary

(Parts I and II, 1742/1753, 1777 end), ed. E.F. Miller. Indianopolis, 1985.

Klein, L.E. ‘Politeness for plebes: Consumption and Social Identity in early–century

England’ in The Consumption of Culture 1600–1800. London, 1995.

Mandeville, B. The Fable of the Bees 1 (1714) rpt, Indianapolis, 1988.

McDowell, C. The Literary Companion to Fashion. London, 1995.

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McNeil, P. ‘That Doubtful Gender”: Macaroni Dress and Male Sexualities’ in Fashion

Theory 3 no.4 (1999): pp. 441–448.

Peer, R. Companion for Youth. London, 1738.

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Illustrations

John Bowles (after Phil Dawe), The Enraged Macaroni, 1773. Library of Congress,

Washington D.C. Mezzotint. (Source: loc.gov)

Mathew Darly, My Lord Tip-Toe, Just arrived from Monkey Land, 1771. British Museum,

London. Etching. 155 x 105 mm. (Source: britishmuseum.org)

Matthew Darly, The Butcher Macaroni, 1772. Etching. (Source: library.yale.edu)

Matthew Darly, The Fly Catching Macaroni 1772. British Museum, London. Etching and

hand–coloured etching. 173 x123 mm. (Source: britishmuseum.org)

Matthew Darly, The Macaroni Bricklayer, 1772. Etching. (Source: library.yale.edu)

Matthew Darly, The Macaroni Print Shop, 1772. British Museum, London. Hand–coloured

etching. 177x249mm. (Source: britishmuseum.org)

Matthew Darly, The Simpling Macaroni,, 1772. British Museum, London. Etching and

hand–coloured etching. 173 x123 mm. (Source: britishmuseum.org)

Sayer & Bennett (After Anon), What is this my Son Tom. 1774. British Museum, London.

Mezzotint with some etching. 350mm x 250. (Source: britishmuseum.org)

Thomas Rowlandson, A Man of Feeling, c.1770. Lewis Walpole Library, Farmington, CT.

Hand–coloured etching. (Source: library.yale.edu)