of the women. It is probable that only town-bred
women painted. Stubbes declares that the women
of England color their faces with oils, liquors, unguents,
and waters made to that end, thinking to make themselves
fairer than God made them—a presumptuous
audacity to make God untrue in his word; and he heaps
vehement curses upon the immodest practice. To
this follows the trimming and tricking of their heads,
the laying out their hair to show, which is curled,
crisped, and laid out on wreaths and borders from ear
to ear. Lest it should fall down it is under-propped
with forks, wires, and what not. On the edges
of their bolstered hair (for it standeth crested round
about their frontiers, and hanging over their faces
like pendices with glass windows on every side) is
laid great wreaths of gold and silver curiously wrought.
But this is not the worst nor the tenth part, for
no pen is able to describe the wickedness. “The
women use great ruffs and neckerchers of holland,
lawn, camerick, and such cloth, as the greatest thread
shall not be so big as the least hair that is:
then, lest they should fall down, they are smeared
and starched in the Devil’s liquor, I mean Starch;
after that dried with great diligence, streaked, patted
and rubbed very nicely, and so applied to their goodly
necks, and, withall, under-propped with supportasses,
the stately arches of pride; beyond all this they
have a further fetch, nothing inferior to the rest;
as, namely, three or four degrees of minor ruffs, placed
gradatim, step by step, one beneath another, and all
under the Master devil ruff. The skirts, then,
of these great ruffs are long and side every way, pleted
and crested full curiously, God wot.”
Time will not serve us to follow old Stubbes into
his particular inquisition of every article of woman’s
attire, and his hearty damnation of them all and several.
He cannot even abide their carrying of nosegays and
posies of flowers to smell at, since the palpable odors
and fumes of these do enter the brain to degenerate
the spirit and allure to vice. They must needs
carry looking-glasses with them; “and good reason,”
says Stubbes, savagely, “for else how could
they see the devil in them? for no doubt they are
the devil’s spectacles [these women] to allure
us to pride and consequently to destruction forever.”
And, as if it were not enough to be women, and the
devil’s aids, they do also have doublets and
jerkins, buttoned up the breast, and made with wings,
welts, and pinions on the shoulder points, as man’s
apparel is, for all the world. We take reluctant
leave of this entertaining woman-hater, and only stay
to quote from him a “fearful judgment of God,
shewed upon a gentlewoman of Antwerp of late, even
the 27th of May, 1582,” which may be as profitable
to read now as it was then: “This gentlewoman
being a very rich Merchant man’s daughter:
upon a time was invited to a bridal, or wedding, which
was solemnized in that Toune, against which day she
made great preparation, for the pluming herself in