"N.B.—If the reputation of this work were destroyed, it would put a stop to the receipt of daily sums of money from spectators, which is applied to the use of sixty charity children."
[15] The book alluded to is, "A Tracte containing the Artes of curious Paintinge, Carvinge, and Buildinge, written first in Italian by Jo. Paul Lomatius, Painter of Milan, and Englished by R. H. (Richard Haydocke), Student in Physick." Published 1598.
From this visionary writer he could not borrow much, great part of his book treating of the different important consequences which had resulted from the study of the proportions of the human body. It is dedicated to the Right Worshipful Thomas Bodley, Esquire, warmly recommended by John Case, doctor of physic; and in the following quaint lines, the translator apologizeth for thus employing himself:—
"TO THE INGENIOUS READER. R. H.
"How hard a matter it is to withstand any natural instinct, and habitual inclination whatsoever, the storie of the Syracusane Archimedes (besides divers others to this purpose) may sufficiently persuade; who was so rapt with the sweetness of his mathematical conclusions, that even then when the enemie had entered the gates of the citie he was found drawing of lines upon the sand, when perchance it had bin fitter for a philosopher to have bin advising in the counsell-house.
"Not much unlike to whome I may peradventure seeme, who at this time especially, when the unappeasable enimies of health, sicknesse, and mortality have so mightily prevailed against us, am here found drawing of lines and lineaments, portraitures, and proportions, when (in regard of my place and profession) it might much better have beseemed mee to have bin found in the colledge of physicians, learning and counselling such remedies as might make for the common health; or if I must needes be doing about lines, to have commented upon this proposition, mors ultima linea rerum.
"Howbeit, as I find not him much taxed in the storie for this his diligent carelessness, because he was busied about matters which were not onlie an ornament of peace, but also of good use in warre, so my hope is (ingenious reader), that my sedulous trifling shall meete with thy friendliest interpretation; insomuch as the arte I now deale in shall be proved not onlie a grace to health, but also a contentment and recreation unto sickeness, and a kind of preservative against death and mortality; by a perpetual preserving of their shades, whose substances physicke could not prolong, no, not for a season," etc. etc.
In his treatise of colours, he makes the following addresse to his faire countrie wommen:—
"Having intreated of so many and divers thinges, I could not but say something of such matters as woemen use ordinarilly in beautifying and imbelishing their faces; a thing well worth the knowledge, insomuch as many women are so possessed with a desire of helping their complexions by some artificial meanes, that they will by no meanes be diswaded from the same." He then enumerates ceruse, plume alume, juice of lemons, oil of tartarie, camphire, and sundry other cosmetics of the day, all which he takes many pages to prove are enemies to health, and hurtful to the complexion, and thus adviseth: "Wherefore if there bee no remedie, but women will be meddling with this arte of pollishing, let them, instead of those mineral stuffes, use the remedies following.
"Of such helpes of Beauty as may safely be used without danger.