The tire-valiant, if the text be correct, must mean a dress still more shewy and ostentatious; and we know that feathers, jewels, and gold and silver ornaments, were common decorations in these days of gorgeous finery. Nash, in 1594, speaks of "lawn caps" with "snow-resembled silver curlings[94:B];" and a sarcastic poet in 1595 describes
—— "flaming heads with staring haire,
'With' wyers turnde like horns of ram—
To peacockes I compare them right,
That glorieth in their feathers bright."[94:C]
Venice and Paris were the sources of fashion, and both occasionally furnished a more chaste and elegant costume for the female head than the objects of Falstaff's encomium. The "French hood," a favourite of the times, consisted simply of gauze or muslin, reaching from the back of the head down over the forehead, and leaving the hair exposed on each side.[94:D] Cauls, or nets of gold thread, were thrown with much taste over their glossy tresses, and attracted the notice of the satirist just quoted:—
"These glittering caules of golden plate
Wherewith their heads are richlie dect,
Makes them to seeme an angels mate
In judgment of the simple sect."[94:E]