A dainty miniver cap, a silver pin,
Headed with a pearl worth threepence.”
It was a common practice to entice little children into private places and unfrequented courts there to cut off their long hair to be made up into false hair for women. Long and beautiful hair was in great request by the fashionable dames of the time. Brides especially went to the altar with flowing locks, the longer the better.
“Come, come, my Lord, untie your folded thoughts,
And let them dangle loose as a bride’s hair.”
In a word, the Elizabethan fine lady was very fine indeed; much more artificial than her grandmother, and much less beautiful therefore. She painted her face; she dyed her hair, sometimes changing the colour from time to time, a practice which explains the different colour of the hair in Queen Mary’s portraits. She used perfumes copiously; she carried a large feather fan with a costly handle of silver or ivory. She also carried a mirror hanging from her girdle with which to contemplate the thing she loved best—her own face, made up, painted, and set in the frame of ruff and cap; strings of pearls were round the cap and a gold chain round the throat. And she frequented, but secretly, the wise women—there were scores of them in the city—who knew secrets ineffable—secrets that were like magic; perhaps they were magic—for the improvement and preservation of the complexion, the brightness of the eyes, the gloss of the hair, the softness and smoothness of the arm and the throat, and everything that was open to the gaze of man. Ben Jonson preserves as in a phonograph the words and voice of the wise woman.
FOR LADIES’ COMPLEXIONS
“Wit. They have
Water of gourds, of radish, the white beans,
Flowers of glass, of thistles, rose-marine,