[4968] “Sic dentata sibi videtur Aegle,
        Emptis ossibus Indicoque cornu;
        Sic quae nigrior est cadente moro,
        Cerussata sibi placet Lychoris.”

       “So toothless Aegle seems a pretty one,
        Set out with new-bought teeth of Indy bone: 
        So foul Lychoris blacker than berry
        Herself admires, now finer than cherry.”

John Lerius the Burgundian, cap. 8. hist. navigat. in Brazil. is altogether on my side.  For whereas (saith he) at our coming to Brazil, we found both men and women naked as they were born, without any covering, so much as of their privities, and could not be persuaded, by our Frenchmen that lived a year with them, to wear any, [4969]"Many will think that our so long commerce with naked women, must needs be a great provocation to lust;” but he concludes otherwise, that their nakedness did much less entice them to lasciviousness, than our women’s clothes.  “And I dare boldly affirm” (saith he) “that those glittering attires, counterfeit colours, headgears, curled hairs, plaited coats, cloaks, gowns, costly stomachers, guarded and loose garments, and all those other accoutrements, wherewith our countrywomen counterfeit a beauty, and so curiously set out themselves, cause more inconvenience in this kind, than that barbarian homeliness, although they be no whit inferior unto them in beauty.  I could evince the truth of this by many other arguments, but I appeal” (saith he) “to my companions at that present, which were all of the same mind.”  His countryman, Montague, in his essays, is of the same opinion, and so are many others; out of whose assertions thus much in brief we may conclude, that beauty is more beholden to art than nature, and stronger provocations proceed from outward ornaments, than such as nature hath provided.  It is true that those fair sparkling eyes, white neck, coral lips, turgent paps, rose-coloured cheeks, &c., of themselves are potent enticers; but when a comely, artificial, well-composed look, pleasing gesture, an affected carriage shall be added, it must needs be far more forcible than it was, when those curious needleworks, variety of colours, purest dyes, jewels, spangles, pendants, lawn, lace, tiffanies, fair and fine linen, embroideries, calamistrations, ointments, etc. shall be added, they will make the veriest dowdy otherwise, a goddess, when nature shall be furthered by art.  For it is not the eye of itself that enticeth to lust, but an “adulterous eye,” as Peter terms it, 2. ii. 14. a wanton, a rolling, lascivious eye:  a wandering eye, which Isaiah taxeth, iii. 16.  Christ himself, and the Virgin Mary, had most beautiful eyes, as amiable eyes as any persons, saith [4970]Baradius, that ever lived, but withal so modest, so chaste, that whosoever looked on them was freed from that passion of burning lust, if we may believe [4971]Gerson and [4972]Bonaventure:  there was no such antidote against it, as the Virgin Mary’s