a good opinion of themselves, venustatem enim mater Venus; a ship is not so long a rigging as a young gentlewoman a trimming up herself against her sweetheart comes.  A painter’s shop, a flowery meadow, no so gracious aspect in nature’s storehouse as a young maid, nubilis puella, a Novitsa or Venetian bride, that looks for a husband, or a young man that is her suitor; composed looks, composed gait, clothes, gestures, actions, all composed; all the graces, elegances in the world are in her face.  Their best robes, ribands, chains, jewels, lawns, linens, laces, spangles, must come on, [5506]_praeter quam res patitur student elegantiae_, they are beyond all measure coy, nice, and too curious on a sudden; ’tis all their study, all their business, how to wear their clothes neat, to be polite and terse, and to set out themselves.  No sooner doth a young man see his sweetheart coming, but he smugs up himself, pulls up his cloak now fallen about his shoulders, ties his garters, points, sets his band, cuffs, slicks his hair, twires his beard, &c.  When Mercury was to come before his mistress,

[5507]  ------“Chlamydemque ut pendeat apte
Collocat, ut limbus totumque appareat aurum.”

       “He put his cloak in order, that the lace. 
        And hem, and gold-work, all might have his grace.”

Salmacis would not be seen of Hermaphroditus, till she had spruced up herself first,

[5508] “Nec tamen ante adiit, etsi properabat adire,
        Quam se composuit, quam circumspexit amictus,
        Et finxit vultum, et meruit formosa videri.”

       “Nor did she come, although ’twas her desire,
        Till she compos’d herself, and trimm’d her tire,
        And set her looks to make him to admire.”

Venus had so ordered the matter, that when her son [5509]Aeneas was to appear before Queen Dido, he was

       “Os humerosque deo similis (namque ipsa decoram
        Caesariem nato genetrix, lumenque juventae
        Purpureum et laetos oculis afflarat honores.”)

like a god, for she was the tire-woman herself, to set him out with all natural and artificial impostures.  As mother Mammea did her son Heliogabalus, new chosen emperor, when he was to be seen of the people first.  When the hirsute cyclopical Polyphemus courted Galatea;

[5510] “Jamque tibi formae, jamque est tibi cura placendi,
        Jam rigidos pectis rastris Polypheme capillos,
        Jam libet hirsutam tibi falce recidere barbam,
        Et spectare feros in aqua et componere vultus.”

       “And then he did begin to prank himself,
        To plait and comb his head, and beard to shave,
        And look his face i’ th’ water as a glass,
        And to compose himself for to be brave.”

He was upon a sudden now spruce and keen, as a new ground hatchet.  He now began to have a good opinion of his own features and good parts, now to be a gallant.