I would desire the Fair Sex to consider how impossible
it is for them to add any thing that can be ornamental
to what is already the Master-piece of Nature.
The Head has the most beautiful Appearance, as well
as the highest Station, in a human Figure. Nature
has laid out all her Art in beautifying the Face;
she has touched it with Vermilion, planted in it a
double Row of Ivory, made it the Seat of Smiles and
Blushes, lighted it up and enlivened it with the Brightness
of the Eyes, hung it on each Side with curious Organs
of Sense, given it Airs and Graces that cannot be
described, and surrounded it with such a flowing Shade
of Hair as sets all its Beauties in the most agreeable
Light: In short, she seems to have designed the
Head as the Cupola to the most glorious of her Works;
and when we load it with such a Pile of supernumerary
Ornaments, we destroy the Symmetry of the human Figure,
and foolishly contrive to call off the Eye from great
and real Beauties, to childish Gewgaws, Ribbands,
and Bone-lace.
L.
[Footnote 1: The Commode, called by the French
‘Fontange’, worn on their heads by ladies
at the beginning of the 18th century, was a structure
of wire, which bore up the hair and the forepart of
the lace cap to a great height. The ‘Spectator’
tells how completely and suddenly the fashion was
abandoned in his time.]
[Footnote 2: Numbers xiii 33.]
[Footnote 3: Guillaume Paradin, a laborious writer
of the 16th century, born at Cuizeau, in the Bresse
Chalonnoise, and still living in 1581, wrote a great
many books. The passages quoted by the ‘Spectator’
are from his ‘Annales de Bourgoigne’,
published in 1566.]
[Footnote 4: Thomas Conecte, of Bretagne, was
a Carmelite monk, who became famous as a preacher
in 1428. After reproving the vices of the age
in several parts of Europe, he came to Rome, where
he reproved the vices he saw at the Pope’s court,
and was, therefore, burnt as a heretic in 1434.]
[Footnote 5: Bertrand d’Argentre was a
French lawyer, who died, aged 71, in 1590. His
‘Histoire de Bretagne’ was printed at Rennes
in 1582.]
* * * * *
No. 99. Saturday, June 23, 1711.
Addison.
‘...
Turpi secernis Honestum.’
Hor.
The Club, of which I have often declared my self a
Member, were last Night engaged in a Discourse upon
that which passes for the chief Point of Honour among
Men and Women; and started a great many Hints upon
the Subject, which I thought were entirely new:
I shall therefore methodize the several Reflections
that arose upon this Occasion, and present my Reader
with them for the Speculation of this Day; after having
premised, that if there is any thing in this Paper
which seems to differ with any Passage of last Thursday’s,
the Reader will consider this as the Sentiments of
the Club, and the other as my own private Thoughts,
or rather those of Pharamond.
