The progress of fashion in the decade 1901-1911 is well illustrated in the parallel groups given in the latter year and showing the change from homely comfort to aggressive scantiness. Even better is the admirable representation--it is hardly a caricature--of the old and new types of fashion plate; the former insipid and simpering lay figures, the latter sinister modern Messalinas. Beyond an increasing tendency to extravagance and eccentricity and the general use of paint there is little to note in the remaining years of this period. The brief reign of the "pannier" skirt impelled _Punch_, under the heading of "Pockets at last," to indicate how use might here be combined with so-called ornament. The big-hat craze continued; the habit of poking the head forward--noted in the verses on the "Directoire" style--became so pronounced that "backbones were out of fashion" and an erect deportment made a woman "look all wrong"; while the inconsistent perversity of winter fashions is satirized in the lady with her bodice slit down to the diaphragm walking with a gentleman in a heavy overcoat and a thick muffler; and again in the "Spartan mother," swathed in furs, accompanied by her hatless, bare-legged children. Lastly, on the very eve of the War, _Punch_ gives a pictorial table of the relative importance of the persons engaged in the production of a revue. The costumier heads the list: at the other end are the composer and a group of authors.
In letters, as in life, the passing of "the old order" was already apparent at the opening of the period under review in this volume. For in 1892 the author of the lines immortally associated with the phrase himself passed away, full of years and honours. _Punch_ had always been a Tennysonian, even in the days when the Laureate was still looked upon as an innovator. He had given Tennyson the hospitality of his columns in 1846 to retort on Bulwer Lytton, who had attacked "School-miss Alfred" in _The New Timon_. Finally, when Tennyson was laid to rest in the Abbey, _Punch_ saluted him without reserve as the chief glory of Victorian minstrelsy. The memorial verses are too long to quote, for _Punch_ in his elegiac moods was still inclined to prolixity, but they deal adequately with the spirit and influence, the consummate art, and the fervent patriotism of one who, after various fluctuations of prestige, is even now being re-discovered by Georgian critics.