Another happy mode of embellishment consisted of placing gracefully on the hair artificial peascods, which were represented open, with rows of pearls for peas.
The lady's morning-cap was usually a mob[95:A]; and the citizens' wives wore either a splendid velvet cap[95:B], or what was called the 'Minever cap,' with peaks three inches high, white, and three-cornered.
Paint was openly used for the face:
"These painted faces which they weare,
Can any tell from whence they came;"[95:C]
and masks and mufflers were in general use; the former, according to Stubbes, were made of velvet, "wherewith when they ride abroad they cover all their faces, having holes made in them against their eyes, whereout they looke. So that if a man that knew not their guise before, should chaunce to meet one of them, he would think he met a monster or a Devil, for face he can shew none, but two broad holes against their eyes, with glasses in them[95:D];" the latter covered the lower part of the face only, as far as the nose, and had the appearance of a linen bandage. So common were these female masks in Shakspeare's days, that the author of Quippes for newfangled Gentlewemen, after remarking that they were the offspring not of modesty but of pride, informs us that
—— "on each wight now are they seene,
The tallow-pale, the browning bay,
The swarthy blacke, the grassie-greene,
The pudding-red, the dapple-graie."[95:E]