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‘The Women that, like Snails, in a Fright, had drawn in their Horns, shot them out again as soon as the Danger was over.’

This Extravagance of the Womens Head-dresses in that Age is taken notice of by Monsieur d’Argentre [5] in the History of Bretagne, and by other Historians as well as the Person I have here quoted.

It is usually observed, that a good Reign is the only proper Time for making of Laws against the Exorbitance of Power; in the same manner an excessive Head-dress may be attacked the most effectually when the Fashion is against it. I do therefore recommend this Paper to my Female Readers by way of Prevention.

I would desire the Fair Sex to consider how impossible it is for them to add any thing that can be ornamental to what is already the Master-piece of Nature. The Head has the most beautiful Appearance, as well as the highest Station, in a human Figure. Nature has laid out all her Art in beautifying the Face; she has touched it with Vermilion, planted in it a double Row of Ivory, made it the Seat of Smiles and Blushes, lighted it up and enlivened it with the Brightness of the Eyes, hung it on each Side with curious Organs of Sense, given it Airs and Graces that cannot be described, and surrounded it with such a flowing Shade of Hair as sets all its Beauties in the most agreeable Light: In short, she seems to have designed the Head as the Cupola to the most glorious of her Works; and when we load it with such a Pile of supernumerary Ornaments, we destroy the Symmetry of the human Figure, and foolishly contrive to call off the Eye from great and real Beauties, to childish Gewgaws, Ribbands, and Bone-lace.

L.

[Footnote 1: The Commode, called by the French ‘Fontange’, worn on their heads by ladies at the beginning of the 18th century, was a structure of wire, which bore up the hair and the forepart of the lace cap to a great height. The ‘Spectator’ tells how completely and suddenly the fashion was abandoned in his time.]

[Footnote 2: Numbers xiii 33.]

[Footnote 3: Guillaume Paradin, a laborious writer of the 16th century, born at Cuizeau, in the Bresse Chalonnoise, and still living in 1581, wrote a great many books. The passages quoted by the ‘Spectator’ are from his ‘Annales de Bourgoigne’, published in 1566.]

[Footnote 4: Thomas Conecte, of Bretagne, was a Carmelite monk, who became famous as a preacher in 1428. After reproving the vices of the age in several parts of Europe, he came to Rome, where he reproved the vices he saw at the Pope’s court, and was, therefore, burnt as a heretic in 1434.]

[Footnote 5: Bertrand d’Argentre was a French lawyer, who died, aged 71, in 1590. His ‘Histoire de Bretagne’ was printed at Rennes in 1582.]