The query of complexion was severely studied, the color of the chin and cheeks being rigorously suited to the robes. Patches have been lavishly indulged in in England and France, the eyebrows have been blacked and even false, and China, Spain, and Portugal all contributed for a considera-tion rouges and white lead and wash balls, scented lard and lip salves, and bathroom waters and soaps.
The fan was an indispensable complement to each robe, and its greatest conduct was an artwork which could nicely have been added to the scholastic curriculum for girls, at all times supposing the like in existence. The followers have been fabricated from rooster pores and skin and painted ; and rooster pores and skin additionally had the privilege, with lace and an embroidery of gold and silver, in making gloves and mittens for night put on.
Tight-lacing was de rigueur, and it’s certainly inconceivable to think about any discomfort omitted from the bathroom. I can’t image circumstances extra totally disagreeable than to glaze the face with paint and grease of pink and black, to embellish it at intervals with gadgets of sticking plaster, to produce it with false eyebrows, and to mount on the pinnacle some kilos’ weight of stuffed hair, whereas lowering the waist at the least three inches beneath the pure measurement, increasing the hips with whalebone and hoops, compressing the toes into slim sneakers, and punctiliously learning each motion of the arm in order to carry a fan at a major and changing into angle. And so as to add to all this, the clothes have been of the stiffest brocades, decked with gold and silver embroideries and tinselled fringes, velvet and fur rising the burden.
The extreme elaboration of the hoods and the scarves and the aprons dangling with silver tassels and fringes was chargeable for some criticism frotn Beau Nash, the autocrat of Tub, the place he had established the strictest guidelines of gown and process, protecting all delin quencies of conduct with a bearing of convincing dignity set in an environment of punctilious etiquette. Goldsmith offers an occasion of the despotic rule of Nash, and of the particular liberties he arrogated to himself. “ I’ve identified him on a ball- evening strip even the Duchess of Q.” the “ Kitty lovely,” because the poet Prior referred to as this Duchess of Queensberry), “and throw her apron at one of many hinder benches among the many women’ girls, observing that none however Abigails appeared in white aprons.”