common Errours is not fully satisfied yet concludes not an impossibility and Cardan will allow Pigmies to be perfect men Dwarfes made by Art because their forme and shape is perfect For as God and Nature or rather God by Nature his instrument and handmaid hath fashioned the body of man into those proportions so hath he limited the dimentions as likewise those of all others both Vegetive Sensitive and Insensible Creatures with certaine bounds Quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum So that though the Dimensions of mens bodies be very different in regard of severall Climates and Races and that it is not defined in what Dimensions the soule may exercise her faculty Yet was there never any Race of men found to the bignesse of Mountaines or Whales or the littlenesse of Flies or Ants because in that quantity the Members cannot usefully and commodiously either dispose of themselves or exercise those functions which they were by their Maker assigned It is to this purpose a good and proper axiome Datur maximum minimum in utroque genere there is in every kind some such greatnesse as cannot be exceeded and some such littlenesse as cannot be contracted Cardan de subtil lib. 11. Cardan writes that one may make Dwarfes even as we make little Dogs for women to play with for they will be engendred of a little Father and Mother then let them be girt in with swathe-bands very straightly and bred up with a spare Diet and would to God saith he this invention were as profitable as facile Some have entertained a setled opinion that there was never any Gyant which is a conceit very absurd for although many of the Ancients did suppose that no man could by growth exceed the longitude of seven feet Giants because this was the Altitude of Hercules his stature as they affirme and Gellius alleadgeth Varro's opinion that the utmost point of mans growth in the course of Nature is seven foot Joh Gassanion his Treatise of Giants cap. 6. And Gassanion saith there is no man rightly featured who exceeds six of his own feet Yet there was one Gabbarus Polyhist c. 32. brought out of Arabia who as Pliny reports grew to the height of nine feet and so many inches this is confirmed by Solinus who writes that the Syrbotae of Aethiopia grew to the height of twelve feet and in another place that there was certaine people of India so great that they easily ascended Elephants Onosicrit c. 5. Onosicritus reports that in certaine places of India where there are no shadows there are men of five Cubits and two Palmes high Olaus Mag. lib. 5. cap. 2. Olaus Magnus placeth such men also in the Northerne parts and especially in the Kingdome of Helsingori which is under the command of the King of Swethland he makes mension of a Giant that was nine Cubits high Isidore confesseth that there are men to be found of twelve foot high Isidorus Etymolog l 11. c. 3. Isid lib. de rerum naturâ— but in another Tract he delivers a strange report of an admirable procerity in these words In the Westerne parts saith he there was found a maid whom the raging waves of the sea had cast up from the Ocean unknown and wounded in the head and dead who was fifty Cubits long and between the shoulders foure Cubits broad cloathed in a purple garment which thing seemes incredible Vincent hist Nat. l. 31. c. 125. Korn ex Odoric yet some Historians of credit subscribe unto it Odoricus reports that he saw with the Great Cham a Giant of twenty foot high In former Ages to wit She-Giants Zonarat in Iustino under Iustin the Thracian a certaine woman of Cilicia appeared Giant-like both in tallnesse of body as also in proportion of the other members for she exceeded the height of the tallest men a Cubit with breasts and shoulders above the usuall manner broad all the rest as the Voice and Face and firmenesse and magnitude of her Armes and Cubits and the thicknesse of her fingers and other parts answering to her Longitude and Latitude Saint Austin hath left upon record the memoriall of a Giant-like woman St Aug. de Civitat dei c. 23. which to the great admiration of all men was seen at Rome before the City was sacked by the Goths The Author of the Book entitled De natura rerum makes mention of a remarkable stature found in the Westerne Regions such tall Viragoes were the Bradamantes Marfisa and our long Meg of Westminster but of many of these we may say they are rather mountaines of flesh than men The Question is why such men of such vast bodies and strength are not found in our daies many reasons are alleadged for it but the most rationall is the luxury and lasciviousnesse of the times which hardly suffers Nature to get any thing perfect not that there is any decay in Nature but it may well be that in these parts of the world where Luxury hath crept in with Civility there may be some diminution of strength and stature in regard of our Ancestours And here I cannot but take occasion to condole the injury done to Nature in the generative procacity to Rathe marriage used in England and elsewhere which is the cause why men be now of lesse stature than they have been before time The cause of small stature Arist polit lib. 7. cap. 16. for we observe not the rule of Aristotle in his Politiques who would have men so marry that both the man and the woman might leave procreation at one time the one to get Children the other to bring forth which would easily come to passe if the man were about eight and thirty yeares of age when he married and the woman about eighteen for the ability of getting Children in the most part of men ceaseth at seventy yeares and the possibility of conception in women commonly ceaseth about fifty so the man and the woman should have like time for generation and conception But this wholsome rule is not followed but rather the liberty of the Civill Law put in practice that the woman at twelve yeares of age and the man at fourteen are marriageable Which thing is the cause that men and women in these daies are both weake of body and small of stature yea in respect of those that lived but forty yeares ago in this Land much more then in comparison of the ancient Inhabitants of Brittaine who for their talenesse of stature were called Giants so dwarfed are we in our stature and fall short of them that that of the Poet is verified on us Terra malos homines nunc educit atque pusillos Which thing is also noted by Aristotle in the same place Est adolescentium conjunctio improba ad filiorum procreationem In cunctis enim animalibus juveniles partus imperfecti sunt Et feminae crebrius quam mares parva corporis forma gignuntur
fourth wherefore a Brain not perfectly Globous but gently compressed on each side and lightly protended in length was convenient for the Ventricles Antonius Ulmus defin Barbae Hum. s 2 Antonius Vlmus to these true opinions of the Ancients hath thought of another end of this Figure of the Head which is confirmed by the testimony of sence who is of opinion that the Head was laterally compressed for the Eies-sake to wit the better to promote the action of the Eie whose action is then better when it exists more free Now the Head compressed the Eie is enlarged to the seeing of things backward to the right and left hand and although not simply to the universall space of a circular vision yet at least to some portion of the same Men may know the truth of this if they first try it in the Cephalicall compression standing with a stiff Neck and turning one Eie to the outward Angle let them endeavour untill they perceive where the visory Rayes doe come in which experiment they had need have the place marked with some note Afterwards remaining fixt in the same place and standing just as in the same experiment he would have them by some device to have their Heads rotunded or rounded that they may obtain a perfect sphericity then let them turne the same Eie to the outward Angle and try to finde whereabout or how farr the Visory Rayes reach the place formerly seen and marking it with some note that done let them consult with Sence what portion of the place is hid from the very Eye by rotunditie of the Head for Sence will apparently teach that in this Cephalicall compression to the sides the Eyes more freely expatiate to the back parts the gaining of which advantage he thinks to be the cause of such compression Having thus presented the artificiall contrivances of Mans Invention practised on the Head upon imaginary conceits of Beauty and generosity and discovered the inconveniences of such foolish and phantasticall devices how derogatorie they are to the honour and Majestie of Nature and prejudiciall to her operations and having set down the Canon of Nature for the true and proper Figure of the Head with the uses and finall cause of such a shape which is the only true and naturall forme of the Head and having condemned them of the crime Laesa Majestatis who have forced Art the usuall Imitator of Nature to turne Praevaricator in humanity wee cannot but commend those Nations who have been tender in this point of offering violence to Nature namely the Lacedemonians whose Nurses had a certain manner of bringing up their Children without having any Crosse-cloaths Plutarch in the life of Lycurgus or any thing to left the Naturall growth of the Head but left nature free to her own course which made their Heads better shap'd The like modest acquiescence in the wisdome of Nature Block-heads Logger-heads I suppose to be the reason why the Switzers Heads for the most part are so conformable to the Canon and intention of Nature I knew a Gentleman had divers sonns and the Midwives and Nurses had with head-bands and strokings so altered the Naturall mould of their Heads that they proved Children of a very weak understanding his last Sonn only upon advice given him had no restraint imposed upon the Naturall growth of his Head but was left free from the coercive power of head-bands and other Artificiall violence whose Head although it were bigger yet he had more Wit and understanding then them all Hitherto of those Nations who have tampered with the Figure of their Heads and have laboured to introduce a change and alteration in the most Noble part of the Humane Fabrick There be other Nations fit to be brought on this Stage who use Art to alter the substance and temper of their Heads For Blockheads and Logger-heads are in request in Brasil Purchas pilgr. 4. lib. 1. and Helmets are of little use every one having an Artificialized Naturall Morian of his Head for the Brasilians Heads some of them are as hard as the wood that growes in their Country for they cannot be broken and they have them so hard that ours in comparison of theirs are like a Pompion and when they will injure any white Man they call him soft Head so that hard-head and blockhead termes of reproach with us attributed to them would be taken for termes of Honour and Gentleman-like qualifications This property they purchased by Art with-going bare headed which is a certaine way to attaine unto the quality of a Brasilian Chevalier and to harden the tender Head of any Priscian beyond the feare of breaking or needing the impertinent plaister of predantick Mountebanks The Indians of Hispaniola De Bry in Hist occid Ind. Cardan lib. 5. de subtil the skuls of their Heads are so hard and thick that the Spaniards agreed that the Head of an Indian although bare was not to be struck for feare of breaking their Swords which I suppose to happen through the same Artifice The Aegyptians also are hard Heads for their Heads are so hard that a Stone can hardly break the skin which they attaine unto by having their haire shaved from their childhood so that the sutures of their skuls grow firme and hard with the heat Hence wee read that in the Battailes that passed between the Aegyptians and Persians Herodotus and divers others tooke speciall notice that of such as lay slaine on the ground the Aegyptians skuls were without comparison much harder then the Persians by reason these goe covered with Coyfes and Turbants and those from their Infancy ever shaved and bare-headed King Massinissa the Emperour Severus Caesar and Hanniball in all weathers were wont to goe bare-headed and Plato for the better health and preservation of the Body doth earnestly perswade that no Man should ever give the Head other cover then Nature had allotted it And Varro is of opinion that when we were appointed to stand bare-head before the gods or in the presence of the Magistrates it was rather done for our health and to inure and harden us against the injuries of the weather then in respect of reverence And I suppose wee in this Kingdome incurr some inconveniences by keeping our Heads so warme as generally we doe neither I believe doe the Brasilians or Aegyptians escape the affliction of Head-aches for by this their Artifice the sutures grow together and be obliterated in them as they are found to be many times in those who have suffered incurable Head-aches strangling Cathars Apoplexes and other Maladies for no other cause then that their sutures began to close and their skuls to grow solid the skull growing dry many times in young Men even as it is wont to doe by reason of Age. A thing usuall in hot Countries as Celsus notes and Paraeus affirmes that the Ethiopians and Moores and those that inhabit the hot Regions about the Meridian and Equinoctiall have their skuls
Image cut in Brasse Kornmannus had and he had heard it affirmed for a truth by honest friends who had seen her Aldr. Monst Hist And that Effigies of a German woman which Aldrovandus saies is shown in the publique Library of Bononia of one who heretofore passing through Bononia had a Beard two Palmes long may possibly be the same Monster And that women through discontinuance of the Company of men and defect of their Courses have grown Bearded and passed into a virile apparance not without danger of their health and life Hippocrates hath two remarkable stories Hip. par 8. l. 6. Epid. aphor 45 46. Alex. Benedict li. 26. c. 4. de curand mor. And Alexander Benedict saw an Example of the same accident when he was in Greece But what is more wonderfull there is a Mountaine of Ethiopia neare the Red sea where women live with prolix beards Kornman li. de Mirac vivorum In Brasile Caneda and Nova Francia the women are said to have some kind of Beard under their Chins SCENE XIII Red Teeth affected Dentall Fashions or Tooth Rites THe people of Molalia in the East-Indies account red Teeth a great beauty Purchas Pilgr 1. lib. 4. and therefore they colour their Teeth red with Beetle and other things which they continually chew in their Mouth They of the Isle of Candou accounted Asiatiques Idem Pilgr 2. lib. 9. hold red Teeth a great bravery which they colour so with chewing of Beetle and Arecka They of the Island Ciphanghu and Sumbdit Idem Pilgr 1. lib. 2. which from their Nature are called Latronum or the Island of Theeves colour their Teeth red and black which they esteeme a comely thing The men in Cumana make great means to make their Teeth black Lindscot l. 2. and such as have them white they esteeme women because they take no paines to make them black which they do with Hay or Gay and the principall women take a pride in black Teeth Purch Pilgr 1. lib. 2. In a certaine Island which Sir Francis Drake discovered as he sailed in eight Degrees from Nova Albion the people affect black Teeth as a singular beauty and their Teeth are as black as pitch they renew them often by eating of an herb with a kind of powder which they carry about them in a Cane for that purpose De Bry hist Ind. Orient part 9. In the Kingdome of Goer their Teeth are as black as Pitch which they so extremely affect that the blacker they are the more beautifull they are accounted Idem The King of Calecut hath black teeth as all the Nations his Subjects have by the perpetuall chawing of Beta and the blacker ones teeth is they esteeme him worthy of greater honour White Teeth where a reproach They of Java men and women Idem part 3. use to champe Arecka mixt with Chalke which renders their mouth of a purple colour and their teeth grow black which they now and then polish with the affriction of a certaine herb which must needs make them shew like polisht Ebony In Sumatra they also perpetually champe in their mouth Beetle mixt with Chalke Diario Nautico Batavorum The Cherebichenses Pet. Mart. Decad. 8. the Inhabitants of Chiribichi the neighbouring Countrey to the Province of Paria which are Caribes from the tenth or twelfth yeare of their age when now they begin to be troubled with the tickling provocations of Venery they carry leaves of Trees to the quantity of Nuts all the day in either Cheeke and take them not out but when they receive meat or drink the teeth grow black with that Medicine even to the foulenesse of a quenched or dead Coale they call our men women or children in reproach because they delight in white Teeth their Teeth continue to the end of their lives and they are never pained with the Tooth-ach nor do they ever rot 'T is well they have some benefit by their affectation which very seldome happens unto any of our Artificiall Changelings They take great care of these Trees which they call Hay by reason that for the leaves thereof they get whatever wares or Commodities they like so fashionable a thing is black Teeth and in such request The Portugall and Mesticho women who live at Goa Grimston of their manners do continually eat the leaves of Beetle with Garlick and an herb called Areque the women do continually chaw of these three things like unto beasts Nations hating white Teeth and do swallow down the juyce and spit out the rest which is the cause that their Teeth grow black and red which amaze them that have not been accustomed to see them These fashions come from the Indians and these women are perswaded that they are thereby preserved from a stinking breath and from the tooth-ache and the paine in the stomack so that they would rather lose their lives than these herbs insomuch that like oxen or kine they are so used to chew the Cud that wheresoever they go or stand they must alwaies have of these leaves carried with them Lindscot li. 1. cap. 31. and the women-slaves do go alwaies chawing and are so used thereunto that they verily thinke that without it they cannot live for their common worke is to sit all day when their Husbands are out of doores behind a Mat alway chawing the herbe Beetle and they go in their houses with a dish of it in their hand being their daily chawing worke Purchas Pilgr 2. lib. 10. They in Pegu and in all the Countries of Ava Longiamnes Siam and the Bramas have their Teeth black both men and women for they say a Dog hath his Teeth white therfore they will black theirs as scorning to imitate a Canine Candor Helyn Geogr. The women of Vlna the chiefe City of Oristom or Orissa in India if Helyn remember aright in a foolish pride black their Teeth because Dogs teeth forsooth are white Lindscot li. 1. cap. 26. In Japan as among all Nations it is a good sight to see men with white Teeth it is esteemed there the filthiest thing in the world who seek by all meanes they may to make their Teeth black White Teeth vindicated for that the white causeth their griefe and the black maketh them glad In Cariajan the chiefe City of Cathai Helyn Geogr. the women use to gild their Teeth The externall uperficies of the Teeth by Nature is white terse and polished and this their native candor proves them to be bones This hue they alwaies retaine unlesse by neglect age or diseases they become red black and rotten white Teeth being so justly accounted a precious and naturall beauty that they are hence called the sale-piece For men then to affect the blemish of age and the colour of decaying sicknesse and rottenesse in their Teeth for a fashion is a very strange way of prevarication More carefull of preserving the beauty of the
usefull to prevent this blemish and inconvenience Artificiall Teeth hath been an ancient invention for we read that the Romans used Artificiall Teeth in defect of Naturall Mart. lib. 5. Epig. 43. Thais habet nigros niveos Lecania Dentes Quae ratio est emptos haec habet illa suos And againe to Laelia Dentibus atque comis nec te pudet uteris emptis Quid facies oculus Laelia non emitur And because great account is to be made of the Teeth both for the necessity of eating and speaking Hence the Art Cosmetique although it be a part of Medicine that makes little to the necessity of life yet it conduceth to the conveniencies of a better life deservedly and by good right doth now and then engage Physitians not only to repaire and patch up a decayed and lost beauty but to preserve that which is enjoyed and the Obligation lies more strong upon them where the party hath attained to almost all the degrees of beauty it being more pitty then she should have any blemish in the mouth whereby it too plainely appeares what affront they offer to Nature who account her usefull ornaments to be loathsome and what benefits of hers they renounce for the mischiefe of a ridiculous Fashion Neither is it to be omitted that it is a high transgression against the Morall Law of Nature by which the Teeth were ordained to be as a Palisado or Quickset hedge to restraine the licentious liberty of the Tongue For Tibsheares to cashiere the Shearers for women who have more need of such a monumentall restraint 〈…〉 and inconvenience in contumelious despight of Natures Law to breake the hedge and make so foule a gap in it argues not only malice and folly but a wilfull resolution to assume to themselves more than a naturall liberty of speech and to let loose the reines to all extravagant excursions of the Tongue But this is not the least prejudice that these foolish Nations occasion to Nature and her operations for the order of Nature is inverted and her Method broken hereby for the fore-teeth or shredders were placed first because more acute and for the necessity there is of them for dividing the meat called therefore Dentes quasi edentes their first and primary use being for eating the Incisorii or fore-teeth and the Canine or Eye-teeth being placed before the Grinders cause those things that are to be ground very small ought first to be divided into small particles which is done by them that afterwards these lesser particles may be ground into the smallest by the Grinders which thing is so much the more admirable that Nature hath observed this in all Creatures And that it might be the better done Nature hath set the upper and lower teeth exactly right one against another which is so much the more admirable by how much the difference is considerable between the upper and lower Iaw whence it comes to pass that the meat comming betweene them is most commodiously prepared that the Chylus is thereupon better transmitted from the Stomack for the mincing of the meat into lesse particles is profitable unto this end that the heat of the stomack doth the better concoct it hence they who chaw not well or through too much hast passe over the triple order of manducation are ill nourished as it happens in old men and those who are edentuli Hither tends the Proverbe Senibus mandibulam Scipionis loco esse Some wiler than others in Tooth-Rites In reference unto which Physiognomers pronounce such to be short lived who have few Teeth for such prepare ill whence the first concoction hurt the second is necessarily impaired Behold here the folly and madnesse of these Nations who impoverish their mouths to enrich their fancies and discard so good servants out of the Mill of life which should grinde the Grist for the better maintenance and nourishment of the Body entertaining a defect for a fashion and that which some have decreed for a punishment and justly accounted a great Blemish For Purchas Pilgr 2. lib. 9. The Kings of Queteve were wont anciently to drinke poyson at the losse of their fore-teeth saying that a King ought to have no defect Yet a late King proclaimed it through his Kingdome that he had lost one of his fore-teeth which was fallen out that they might not be ignorant when they see him want it and would not do so but wait his naturall death holding his life necessary for to conserve his estate against his enemies and so left that patterne to Posterity Idem Pilgr 4. lib. 7. The people of the Province of Huancavilca who had killed those Masters which his Father Tupac Inca Yunangiu had sent to instruct them the Inca using his naturall clemency and to make good his Title Huacchacuijac the Benefactor of the poore he so far remitted this fault-deserving death that each Captaine and Chiefe should lose two teeth in the upper Jaw and as many in the lower both they and their descendents in memory of not satisfying their promise made to his Father whereupon the whole Nation would needs participate both men and women Artificiall Teeth prefer'd before the naturall in that Tooth-losse and did likewise use this Tooth-rite to their Sons and Daughters as if it had been a favour So that what was intended for punishment grew thereupon to be a fashion And this I suppose to be the originall of the Custome or Tooth-rite mentioned before in this Scene of the Guancavilcae in Peru although it be variously reported and it may be a little mistaken In Java Island there are few to be found that have their native Teeth For the most of them Schenckius li. observat de Dentibus both men and women either cause them to be pulled out or filed down with a File and others to be set in their place of Gold or Silver Steele or Iron made to succeed in their rooms Had these men such a fountaine as there is in Persia which makes their Teeth fall out that drinke of it they would be well contented which since they have not Tooth-drawers and Tooth-setting Chirurgions would have a good Trade there where men and women are so ungratefull and villanously bent against the goodnesse of Nature as to prefer Artificiall Teeth before the Naturall Aesculapius was the first who in case of necessity and paine invented the drawing out of aking Teeth and therefore had a leaden Daviser consecrated unto him But these people out of wantonnesse and a foolish bravery put themselves to losse and paine the Teeth especially the Eye-Teeth being bred with paine and not pulled out without paine and danger And if they cut or file them down they expose themselves to as great a mischiefe by reason of that hollow part of the Teeth which is sensible into which the soft Nerves enter as it fared with a certaine Monke at Patavia Renovation of Teeth who when he came to have a tooth which
sinfull nor would have us go about to marre his worke or to do his last work which he hath reserved to himselfe in Heaven here upon earth that is to glorifie our Bodies with such Additions here as though we would need no Glorification there But concerning this kind of transgression against the honesty and truth of Nature or rather the sinfulnesse of it Cajetan is of an opinion that as a woman may conserve her naturall beauty without sin so she may also preserve it by Art by adhibiting the vertues of Fucusses Pigments and other paintings so it do not intend an evill end it is a fiction and vanity somewhat excusable Whereas it is concluded a mortall sin for any to sell such disguising trash to those they know will abuse it for an evill end And in this regard some Divines will not allow so much as palliation of any deformity in the Face which hath proceeded from licentiousnesse and intemperance or that they should be disguised by unnaturall helps to the drawing in of others and the continuation of their former sins The sin it selfe was the Divels act in thee but in the Deformity that follows upon the sin God hath a hand and they that suppresse and smother these by paintings and unnaturall helps to unlawfull ends do not deliver themselves of the plague but they do hide the markes and infect others and wrastle against Gods notifications of their former sins The invention of which Act of Palliation of an ascititious deformity against Gods indigitation of sin is imagined one reason of the invention of black Patches wherein the French shewed their witty pride which could so cunningly turne Botches into Beauty and make uglinesse handsome yet in point of Phantasticalnesse we may excuse that Nation Musitians Face Deformers as having taken up the fashion rather for necessity than novelty in as much as those French Pimples have need of a French Plaister But vocall Musique performed by Instruments which Nature hath invented for delight ought not to be set at naught for the same or peradventure no reason at all as it is by the Stoick morall Philosophers For the Wind-Musique doth not deforme the Visage it reformes yea conformes it and the vocall which is correspondent to the hearing altereth the proportion of the Face to conforme it to the Eye the one requires setlednesse to be well looked upon and the other receives its perfections from motion one unfolds the Beauty of the Visage the other both laies open and accompanies the sweetnesse of the voice where there is a sound Motion hath necessarily proceeded and the motion is with measure if the sound be harmonious Sometimes also it is voluntary accompanied with the Head Eyes and Mouth and with delight though without necessity if it be with proportion That motion which offends produces no harmonious sound or doth not accompany it proportionably SCENE XVI Long-necked Nations Nationall Monstrosities appearing in the Necke PEtrus Damianus Damianus libello de mirac Arch-Bishop of Ravenna and Cardinall relates that Robert King of France married a Kinswoman of his by whom he had a Son with a Gooses neck and head whereupon by a common consent of the French Bishops they were excomunicated the King compelled by these streights takes better Counsell and renouncing his incestuous Bed entred into lawfull marriage with another Beyond the streights of Magellan Pigafetta reports to have seen men with Necks of a Cubit long the other parts of their body being proportionable thereunto In Eripia as some write or according to Lycosthenes in the extreame part of Siricana or as it pleaseth others in some of the Valleys of Tartaria there harbours a Nation of so long a Neck that it wholly resembles the neck of a Crane afterwards in the top of the Neck there is a ferine Face Long gangrell necks Inconvenient with the Eyes and Nostrils of a man as also with a bill adorned with Gils like a Cock Aldrovandus indeed saies it will more availe one to read than believe this Relation yet he denies not but there are halfe-men with a long Neck and a ferine Face do live in those Regions their women being not so deformed as the men and they are said to be very seldome seen This Nation is carried with great force against their Enemies and chiefly against the Tartars Aldrovandus hath exhibited the Effigies of these Gangrell-Neck'd men to be considered of by his Readers Aldrov monst Hist lib. 1. which puts me in mind of that ridiculous wish of Philoxones that grumbled at Nature for the shortnesse of his Neck who would have had the Neck of a Crane that thereby he might have taken more pleasure in his meat or as some thinke to obtaine advantage in singing or warbling and dividing the notes in Musick which Cavill of Philoxones against Nature for not having respect unto the Taste or singing in the contrivance of his Neck is absurd and in the very foundation of the fancy to be condemned D. Brown Pseudodoxia Epid. lib. 7. cap. 14. as it is ingeniously observed by the late Enquirer into vulgar errours And if he had obtained this foolish request yet the justnesse of Nature could not have suffered him to have been a gainer by the bargaine for a long gangrell neck which would have made the head look as set upon a pole would by such an elongation caused a very inconvenient distance between the braine and the heart but the Epicure surely had a more reaching conceit Nations that have no Neck knowing that they are more greedy of meat and have better stomacks who have a greater space from the mouth to the paunch They that inhabit those Alpes which divide France from Italy their throats are encreased to that bulke and largenesse that both in men and women those gutturall bottles hang down even to their Navels and they can cast them over their shoulders and this is not commonly seen in the Allobroges Carinthians Syrians and Nations living about the Alpes but it is also familiar to some places of Spaine Fabricius ab Aqua pend Fabricius saith that such Tumours are frequent among the Bergomensians where the men and women all for the most part have such great pendent bags in the fore-part of their Throats Joan. Stumpf. lib. Chr. 10. cap. 20. Among the Rucantians a people of Helvetia now called Rhaeti the Inhabitants especially about the Town Ciceres are troubled with the same gutturall deformity M. Pol. lib. 1. cap. 31. Neither doth this happen only in Europe but also in Asia for the men there have such great wallets of flesh after a wonderfull manner hanging at their throats But in Syria the women have their throats so protended that they cast it behind their back as it were a Sack or Wallet Ortel in Illyrico lest it should hinder their Infants when they suck This swelling or Throat-Dropsie The cause of swelling throats is occasioned by the drinking
of crude waters of dissolved Snow as most Authors suppose which although it be a reason not to be rejected Platerus yet Platerus to this Cause addes the Seed and the Facultie Formatrix in the wombe where they are familiar to any place and that they are rather propagated from the Parents in their Children then that they happen by reason of any meat or drinke or any other peculiar cause which Sennertus thinkes doth not seldome fall out so indeed yet the first cause seemes valid because it is observed that they that come well into any such places after they have abode there a while they contract such a water between the skin and rough Artery which is called by Physitians Bronchocele and Bocium à Bocii ventricosi poculi similitudine from the similitude of a great-bellied drinking Cup. Shoulders higher than the Head SCENE XVII Humerall or Shoulder-Affectations Lycost Append Chron. prodig IN the Island Taprobana High huff-Shoulders are in Fashion and Naturall Whether these Nations are guilty or not of using Art to this purpose I shall not conclude although I halfe suspect some concurrent affectations My apprehension of this businesse I have already exprest in the History of the Acephali which appeare to be the same Nation In all the parts of Tartaria the men are broad-shouldered which being Nationall is held there in good repute And if it were not at first affected and introduced among them by Art Broad shoulders where affected yet in other Countries where it is noted to be extremely affected there hath been some endeavour used to that intent and where that hath failed they have had recourse to outward supplements Concerning the Italians Cresol vacat Autumn Cresollius hath informed us of their ridiculous affectation in this kind Behold saith he what the improvident curiosity of men hath thought on who that they might seeme Plato's that is broad-shouldred full square and somewhat strong and mighty men they bumbast their Doublets and after a childish or rather womanish manner adhibent Analectides use little Bolsters or Pillows for to seeme more fat and comly bolstring so up their prominent shoulders as little women were wont to do of old as Ovid describes the Custome Conveniunt tenues scapulis Analectides altis Angustum circa fascia pectus erat Well could these men be Masters of their wish yet it is a question whether it would please their Mistrisses For the women of other Countries and among us are not so well affected to broad shoulders for it is worth the noting what women by long use have observed to wit that men that have broad shoulders for the most part get great Children Hence the Mother-in-Law of Forestus a fruitfull woman would not match her Daughters to Platonique men by reason she feared least in their Delivery they should be endangered by reason of the greatnesse of the Child which Forestus had often seene to happen the broad shoulders dangerously sticking in the Birth Narrow shoulders affected the cause whereof Riolanus thinks to be difficult whence you may see what worke they make for the women who endeavour by Art to purchase thick and broad shoulders Franciscus Hernandus in his Manuscript makes report of certaine Nations in India who are all buncht-backt crooked and crump-shouldered Arme-gallanry SCENE XVIII Strange Inventions of certain Nations in ordering their Armes Hands and Nailes The Inhabitants of the town Alimamu in Malhada Idem Pilgr 4. lib. 8. have their armes and thighs Oakred and dyed with red black white and yellow striped like unto panes Little Hands where affected so as they shew as if they were in Hose and Doublets In little Venice by the Gulph of Paria Lindscot l. 2. the women who are proud paint their Armes and Breasts The Aegyptian Moores both men and women Purch Pilgr ◠lib. 7. brand their Armes for love of each other Purch Pilgr 2. lib. 8. The Abassines colour their hands with the juyce of a Reddish Bark Herberts Travels The Persians paint their hands into a red or tawny colour which both cooles their Livers and makes them in War victorious The common women to shew they are servants to Dame Flora in her daies a good one they illustrate their Armes and Hands their Legs and Feet with Flowers and Birds Prosp Alpinus lib. de plant Egypt c. 13. The Egyptian women love golden Golls who of the leaves of Cyprus an orientall tree which the Egyptians call Elhannae or Tamarrendi make a Powder which they call Archenda This they use for ornament to colour their hands and feet tempering it with water which makes a golden Tincture Purch Pilgr 2. lib. 9. In Candou Island accounted to Asia it is the fashion to make the Nailes of their Hands red this is the beauty of their Country they make it with the juyce of a certaine tree and it endureth as long as their nailes The Turkes paint their long nailes red Sandys in his Travels saith the women paint their nailes with a yellowish red Mag. Geogr. Maginus saith they infect their Haire Hands and Feet especially their Nailes with a red colour Georg. Draudius Comment in Solin memorabilia Africae This Tincture of their Nailes it seemes is imposed after their Lent at the Celebration of their Pascha which in their Tongue they call Bairam when with great solemnity for three daies they dawbe the nailes of their hands and feet with a certaine oile Long Nailes a sign of Gentility called by them Chua which makes their nailes ruddy yellow This colour sticks tenatiously and can neither be washed or rubbed off wherefore unlesse their nailes grow out new from the root they alwaies appeare of that Rutilant colour but off their hands it may be scoured with frequent ablution the women imbue not only their nailes but their hands and feet with the same The Persians paint their nailes party-coloured Herberts Travels white and vermilion but why so my Author cannot say unlesse in imitation of King Cyrus who in augmentation of honour caused his Heroes to tincture their nailes and Faces with Vermilion sensibly to distinguish them from the Vulgar sort as did the ancient Brittaines in fight to shew more terrible In Calecut the women have the Nails of their fingers prominent Idem colour'd cut and jagged round Naile-Painters condemned These Nations who thus paint their Nailes offend against the vertue of ornamentall Decorum Decency or reverence in this unnaturall excess of care being not contented with the naturall beauty of the naile and by their foolish bravery they obscure the naturall light and splendor of their nailes which ariseth from that lucid and pellucid temperament of a more cleare substance which presents us in a glasse the splendour of the Lucent principle and inward clarity of the vitall spirits wherein the ample study of Chyromancy is conversant The Egyptians to advance this splendour were wont of old to
is confessed the temperature of the aire doth very much availe to that purpose and therefore we may allow our Children in Winter-time to be diligently involved and bound up with swath-bands in their Cradles because otherwise they are unfit to endure the Cold of our Climate but in Summer and temperate seasons of the yeare especially when there is no frosty weather with others good leave saith a learned Physitian I should thinke as much as I can attaine by experience that Infants are to be freed from these bands and set at liberty some kind of Couch invented for that purpose out of which they cannot fall and verily saith he I am of that mind that the extraordinary heat doth not a little incommodate wherewith Children in the time of Summer revinct with swath-bands are as it were stew'd Yet it is not to be omitted what our Physitians observe in their late learned Tract of the Rickets That the too early leaving off those swath-bands and blankets wherein Infants are discreetly involved Enquiry after the Causes of the Rickets is conceived to be one cause why Infants when they are new borne are very seldome troubled with the Rickets for Midwives and Nurses order new-borne Infants with such Art that their condition may as neare as can be approach unto that which they lately had in the Wombe For they on every side involve the whole body except the head in one continued inclosure whence the outward parts of the body and the first affected in this disease are defended against the injuries of the externall cold and the hot exhalations breaking out from any part of the Body by that swadling-clout perchance doubled or trebled and rolled about with swath-bands are evenly retained and equally communicated to all parts of the Body that they may be cherished as it were in a common stove with an equall heat Therefore since the chiefe part of the essence of this disease consists in an equall cold distemper no marvell if these muniments of the body do avert it at least for a time But when after some months if not sooner the hands of Infants are freed from that common covering as the Custome is and perchance before they are six months old their feet also in the day time although they are againe swathed at night all the day at least their outward members are destitute of this common nourisher of naturall heat Our Nurses also as they judiciously note often erre while they too soone coat feebler Infants for they unhappily define the time of Coating Children by number of months whereas they ought rather to make their account out of the activity and strength of motion in their feet and hands for when the motion and exercise of those parts may more confer to excite and cherish their heat A strange way of ordering Children and irritate their pulses than the nourishment of swath-bands without doubt then is the mature time for Children to be freed from their primative inrollments having then no other need of this propulsive cause The manner of ordering Infants among the Peruvians is worth the taking notice of for there the Children both of the Nobles and Plebeians are first washed in cold water and in like manner every day before they swathe them neither do they untill the third month let them have their Armes at liberty supposing that conduceth to their strength they lay them in woodden Cradles upon nets instead of Beds they never take them into their Armes or their Laps no not when they give them suck but stooping down reach the Dug unto them that only thrice every day And that which may shame our Ladies of Europe the mothers themselves although they were Queens nurse their Children unlesse they are hindered by a Disease or some other Sontick Cause and then for the most part they abstaine from the company of their husbands lest they should be constrained to weane their Children before the time for they who upon such a Cause are weaned before their time by a propudious name they called Ayusca as much as to say Bastard Joan. de Laet. descript Novi orb occident lib. 11. cap. 21. Another foolish affectation there is in young Virgins though grown big enough to be wiser but that they are led blindfold by Custome to a fashion pernicious beyond imagination who thinking a slender waste a great beauty strive all that they possibly can by streight-lacing themselves to attaine unto a wand-like smalnesse of waste Small Wastes pernitiously affected never thinking themselves fine enough untill they can span their Waste By which deadly Artifice they reduce their Breasts into such streights that they soone purchase a stinking breath and while they ignorantly affect an angust or narrow Breast and to that end by strong compulsion shut up their Wasts in a Whale-bone prison or little-ease they open a doore to Consumptions and a withering rottennesse Hence such are justly derided by Terence Haud similis virgo est virginum nostrarum Terence in Eunucho quas matres student Demissis humeris esse vincto pectore ut graciles fient Si qua est habitior paulò pugilem esse aiunt deducunt cibum Tametsi bona est natura reddunt curvatura junceas So that it seemes this foolish fashion was in request in the time that Terence lived Hoechstetterus in his description of Auspurge the Metropolis of Swevia observes this foolish custome is at this day entertained generally among the Virgins there Streight-lacing a cause of much mischiefe They are saith he describing the Virgins of Auspurge slender streight-laced with demisse shoulders lest being grosse and well made they should be thought to have too athletique bodies Which among other Causes may contribute much mischiefe to that Epidemicall Disease the whites and white Feavour with which they are so frequently annoyed in these times whereof the ancient women boast they never heard of Paraeus where he propounds Instruments for the mending such deformities observes that the Bodies of young Maids or Girles by reason they are more moist and tender than the bodies of Boyes are made crooked in processe of time Especially by the wrenching aside and crookednesse of the back bone the most frequent cause whereof is the unhandsome and undecent scituation of their Bodies when they are young and tender either in carrying sitting or standing and especially when they are taught to go too soone saluting sewing writing or in doing any such like thing In the meane while he omits not the occasion of crookednesse that happens seldome to the Country people but is much incident to the Inhabitants of great Townes and Cities which is by reason of the straitnesse and narrownesse of the garments that are worne by them which is occasioned by the folly of Mothers who while they covet to have their young Daughters bodies so small in the middle as may be possible pluck and draw their bones awry and make them crooked For the Ligaments of the
gives all to mens immodest eye denudating those parts which every modest eye most scornes each honest thought most hates to see and thinke upon Which thing it seemes was invented by a Queene to be an occasion that the sight thereof might remove from men that vice against Nature 〈◊〉 â—jects of women to gaine regard which they were greatly given unto which sight should cause them to regard Women the more Yet they of the Kingdome of Benni are it seems Purch Pilgr 2. liâ—b 7 of another opinion concerning the effect of this Invention for there men and women are not ashamed to shew themselves one unto another as they themselves affirme and by reason prove saying that a man more coveteth and desireth a thing that he seeth not or may not have then that he seeth and may borrow and have and for that cause they hide not their privy members And all those Spaniards Portugals Frenchmen Flemmings and English-men that have been conversant in those parts have affirmed that their manner of going naked is neither fightly nor pleasing and that nothing makes a woman more despised and contemned than to behold her ordinarily naked Wherefore they are not to be imitated that so freely discover their parts of shame only thereby to gaine husbands Nor the Africans Indians Caribes or Brasileans who go naked not for ostentation but by custome either in regard of the Countries great heat or by not being acquainted with the use of Garments but rather we ought to cloathe and conceale those parts which Nature her selfe hath placed so far off both from the sight of our selves and others And indeed although it may seeme to be a bait and provocation to lust and lasciviousnesse yet experience shews the contrary for that splendid apparell The Art of Infibulation of the prepâ—ce counterfeit crisped haire is more discommendable than the nakednesse of these Barbarians which might be made good by many reasons Our first Parents after their sin were justly ashamed seeing their nakednesse And we detest the Heresie which violating the Law of Nature not in this point sufficiently observed by our Adamites endeavours to bring in this shamefull Custome Yet we are neverthelesse to be condemned for condemning them for going naked since we offend in the contrary with too much decking our bodies And would we could regard more modesty and necessity of habits and use them rather for honesty than to pride and vanitie which is more hurtfull than their nakednesse Among the Ancients to prevent young effeminate Inamorato's especially Comedians from untimely Venery and cracking their voices they were wont to fasten a Ring or Buckle on the Foreskin of their Yard as Celsus reports and hereto Martiall seemes to allude in that place Mart. Epigr. where he saies Dum ludit mediâ populo spectante Palestrâ Heu cecidit misero fibula verpus erat Juvenal Satyr A practice also noted by the Satyrist Solvitur his magno Comeodi fibula The Patagons a Race of Giants Purch Pilgr 1. lib. 2. in the fortieth Degree of the South Pole trusse their Genitall members so as it is hidden within their body Which is a transgression against the morall Law of Nature established in our members Nature having excluded these parts from out the Continent of the body for the better moderating of Concupiscence They in the Bay of Soldania have but one stone naturally or Ceremonially Idem eodem l. 4. my Author indeed knoweth not yet I find in another that they trusse up their right stone Arrianus Juriscons ff de re militari Haly Comment ad lib. 3. techn Gal. text 177. lib. 49. Pand. Iuris Titul 17. de re militari Herberts Travels which I suppose may be nationall unto them for it is a thing that happens to many as it did to Silla and Cotta Haly also speaks of one who was born but with one Testicle only Semi-Eunuchs and Eunuchs And the Civil Lawyers allow such for men that they may juremilitari make their testament Most of the men of the Cape of good-Hope are Semi-Eunuchs one stone being ever taken away by the Nurse either to distinguish them from ordinary men or that Mistris Venus allure them not from Pallas D. Mat. cap. 19. D. Hieron cont Iovin There are some who are not borne with any stone at all who are Eunuchs from their mothers wombe such a one was Dorothaeus Bishop of Antioch a very learned man and skilful in the Greeke and Hebrew Euseb Hist Eccles in whom Aurelianus the Emperour tooke great delight as Eusebius witnesseth And although these Instruments of Generation are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because for the most part every man hath two yet among other monstrous constitutions of these parts they have been found to be trebled Caelius Rhod. lib. 24. cap. 4. Jacob. Moccius ex advers Joh. Drijandri Scholiograph ad cap. 62. l. 1. de morb intern Holerii Joh. Pontanus de rebus Coelest cap. 6. l. 10. Kornman de vivorum mirac as it is reported of Agathocles the Tyrant of Cicily and of Franciscus Philelphus And Anatomists have observed in their dissections such an unnaturall triplicity in some and this is said to be peculiar to some Families Many fantasticall reasons have been framed and ends propounded to introduce Eunuchisme and this way of degrading men from their manhood Semiramis was the first that caused young Male children to be made Eunuches therein offering violence to Nature and turning her from her appointed course by a tacite Law as it were stopping the primigeniall Fountaines of Seed and those ways which Nature had assigned for the propagation of Posterity that so she might make them have small voices and to be more womanish that conjoyned with her Ends propounded in Eunuchisme she might the better conceale her usurpation and counterfeit manhood Vpon which there ariseth a Physicall question whether the Testicles be required to the forming of the Voice Galen in his book de Semine saith Galen lib. de Semine that they do confer to the formation of the Voice although they are remote from the other Instruments of the Voice the cause is placed in their native heat although it be not the proximate cause but the Antecedent cause for Galen in the same book doth constitute the Testicles to be next the Heart a Fountaine of heat and strength so that the Testicles cut out only not the other Fountaine is destroyed but the heat of the very heart is lessened and debilitated One Fountaine therefore of heat destroyed the others strength is decayed and by consequence there is a necessity the voice should be changed And Castration is so experimentally known to advance the smalnesse and sweetnesse of the voice that as an ingenious Traveller hath lately observed Mr Raymond in his voyage into Italy in Florence they are so given to the musique of the Voice that there the Great ones keep their Castrati whose
little approve of which is that Nature alwaies intends the Generation of the Male but if she erre from her scope and cannot generate a Male then bringeth she forth the Female Women no monster which is the first and most simple imperfection of a Male which therefore they call a Creature lame occasionall and accessory as if she were not of the maine but made by the bye concluding the Woman or Female to be nothing else but an errour or aberration of Nature which the Peripatetiques call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a Metaphor taken from Travellers which misse of their way and yet at length attaine their journies end yea they proceed further and say that the Female is a by-worke or prevarication yea the first monster in Nature which is unworthily said of them for the perfection of all naturall things is to be esteemed and measured by the end Now it is necessary that the woman should be so formed or else Nature must have missed of her scope because she intended a perfect Generation which without a woman cannot be accomplished But now it is to be enquired how in terminis naturalibus it can be done that women should be turned into men as the infinite examples of such Cases seeme to prove which since it is monstrous we must have recourse to the causes of Monsters which happen by the errour of Nature occasioned either through the disobedience of matter or debility of the Agent and therefore they properly and modestly enough define a Monster to be a certaine oblaesion of Nature And that it is monstrous for women to be turned into men is apparent by Aristotles Definition for that is monstrous which is besides Nature to wit that Nature which for the most part is for besides that which alwaies and necessary is nothing is done therefore Monstrosity happens when any thing besides Nature appeares in those things which for the most part are so done How women are turned into men but may also be done otherwise wherefore since it is against the order of Humane Nature that a woman should degenerate into a man yet notwithstanding it being not impossible that we call monstrous and it hath the same cause which other Monsters according to Quality Number Magnitude or Scituation of Members wherefore for this reason the Learned reduce the cause of this Humane Metamorphosis to the errour of the virtue Agent and the aptitude of superfluous matter If this happened while every Animall existed in Generation it would cleare all doubts But since it is done when the Animall is borne how the virtue Formatrix can effect it is not easie to explaine but seemes a great Difficulty Therefore Anatomists and Physitians say that the virile member in such women was from the first ingenite the Agent virtue working on superfluous matter that forme upon it but by such a Law of Nature that it cannot come forth untill such a determinate time which ought not to seeme impossible to any man since we see in Embrions even in the mothers wombe Teeth formed and yet lie hid until the appointed time of their extramission which is very true and known by ocular Faith from the dissections of Abortives and Infants new-born Barth Eustachius de dentibus libello cap. 15. 17 c. as many Anatomists affirme Therefore even as all Teeth have their beginning of Generation in the mothers wombe yet are concealed nor come out perfect but in progresse of time which yet is not definite and the same with all What then should hinder but that in a woman a virile member made in the first formation should in appointed Tract of time come forth perfect and be made manifest but that this change by extrusion of inbred or inverted members should happen after the time of Child-birth That women cannot be transformed into men exceeds all possibility of beliefe Pontan lib. 10. de reb Coelest yet Pontanus beares witnesse of a woman who after she had borne a son attained by a wonderfull change unto the virile Sex which be confirmes by the testimony of Antonius Colotius Umbrus That Men should be transformed into Women is more rare it having been no where ere found that a Male degenerated into a Female Nature abhorring such a perverse regresse from more perfect to lesse Indeed Licinius Mutianus reporteth Cited by Plin. Nat. Hist l. 7. that he saw at Smyrna a Boy changed into a Girle but I thinke Philosophers will no more regard his report than they do the Fictions of Poets who have made descriptions of such a needlesse Metamorphosis Herodotus in Thalia As for that which Herodotus delivers concerning the men of Scythia evirated and changed into a Feminine estate it is not to be understood that the Masculine Sex was truly changed into the Feminine but he speakes of a kind of disease which we elsewhere shall have an occasion to touch at for men then to lose the appearance of their Virilities and to have those parts translated into the apparance of the other Sex is a thing not only rare but impossible in Nature unlesse we will imagine that the Female Patriarch of Greece and Pope Joane of Rome were the Subjects of such Metamorphosis Nero indeed whom nothing in the ordinary course of Nature would satisfie by a most prodigious conceit attempted to make such a Monster by Art and would needs have a Boy of his called Sporus cut and made forsooth a woman to whom he was solemnly married which occasioned some justly to say that it had been happy for the Common-wealth if Domitius his Father had had no other but such a wife and verily none but such a Monster of Men could have endeavoured so absurd a Transfiguration of Man Nero's absurd attempt to make a woman of a man That the Devill furnished with naturall Causes may by Divine permission cause some apparant change of Sexes is not doubted of by the Learned yet he can no way by the Nature of things convert a Man into a woman much lesse could Nero do it who is called by Jordanus Bipedum nequissimus the wickedest man that ere went upon two Legs SCENE XXII Tailed Nations Tailed Nations Breech-Gallantry and Abusers of that part THere is not a living Creature excepting Men and Apes but is furnished with a Taile for the necessary use of their Bodies The reason why man wants a Taile is rendred by Aristotle Arist de part Animrl lib. 4. for that the aliment that should go to the Taile was spent upon his Buttocks Thighs and Legs which are more fleshy and full than the parts that answer them in other Creatures and there was no necessity of a Taile in man since his Buttocks with their Corpulency afford a sufficient covering But the chiefe Cause of this difference is the upright stature of man which is his peculiar Prerogative the Ape his counterfeit as a two-legged Animal wants a Tail and as a foure-footed he hath no Buttocks But
3. cap. 5. have the same foolish affectation among them This Nation seemes to be of an opinion somewhat contrary to Momus who misliked the fashion of the Leg of man that the belly thereof or the Calfe which was seated behind in a place out of danger was furnished so with a defence of flesh and the shin-bone exposed to all encounters without any defence at all never noting that the Eyes were placed before to secure the Shins whereas there was none behind to looke to the safety of the Calfe But one would think they were aware of that notion of Physiognomy which pronounceth spine Legs almost destitute of flesh to be an argument of one prompt to venery Men with one Calfe of their Leg bigger than the other as being a sign of a libidinous Nature A fault commonly noted in women for those whose Legs or shankes are leane and have little flesh they call them leacherous and shamefull whores like unto Goates of which this cause may perchance be assigned for that the aliment is retained in the upper parts and passeth into Seed and spirits whereupon the Legs become small and leane which is manifest in them who want a foot or by any other way become lame for to those lower parts the aliment is not transmitted so copiously as before all which persons are therefore very leacherous There was a Calfe-swelling punishment inflicted upon those of Meliopore both men and women Herberts Travels Helyn Geogr for their cruell ingratitude to St Thomas martyred by them Neirembergensis cals them a peculiar Nation among the Mallabars which from a place of S. Thomas have their name and called Pencays and questions whether it be to be imputed to Nature or a Miracle And on the Tribe of Benjamin who were most fierce against our Saviour both which to this day have one leg as big again in the Calfe as the other this doubled upon them in this humour would have been kindly accepted and entertained for a fashion Yet in some parts of America it should seem they have a contrary affectation at least if I understand Appianus rightly where he saith Aetr. Appian 2. pars Cosmog cap. 4. de America Sanguinem quoque in Lumbis Tibiarum pulpis comminuunt Most free from any affectation in that part are Neatherland women who are well proportioned especially in their Legs and Feet Men and Women only have Calves in their Legs and their Legs full of flesh howbeit Pliny saies he hath read in some writers that there was one man in Aegypt had no Calfe at all to his Legs A Crane-leg'd man but was legged like a Crane Torquato Tâ—sso in the comparison he maketh between Italy and France reported to have noted that the French commonly have more spiny and slender Legs than the Italian Gentlemen and he imputeth the cause to the French-mens continuall riding and sitting on Horseback which is the very same from which Suetonius draweth another cleane contrary conclusion for he saith Germanicus who had very small Legs had by the frequent use of this exercise brought his to be very big but he rid without Styrrups after meat the humors descending upon their pendulent instability But the Scythians by their continuall and immoderate use of Horsemanship became the most impotent and Eunuch-like men in the world as Hippocrates affirmeth of them For they being ill at ease in their Legs and Hips by reason of their continuall riding without stirrups their Legs alwaies hanging they become subject to the Sciatica or Hip-Gout and when the Disease grew strong they were lame and their Hipps contracted and crampt whereupon as if they would exhibite a medicine to the Head to restraine the Flux of the Phleagme to the lower parts they cut their veines behind the Eare whereby indeed they cured themselves but became unfruitfull and impotent And that they became impotent by cutting those Arteries Vallesius thinks happened that the Braine was weakened being deprived of the influction of the vitall Spirits wherefore it was no marvell if they became sloathfull effeminate and unable to sustaine the shock of Venus or sufficiently tâ—â—â—â—t out the vehement efforts of that act for the Braine at that time is wont to labour vehemently or else saith he perchance that Nerve is cut with the veines which Andraeas Vesalius 〈…〉 legs to a convenient magnitude a man most expert in dissection reports he hath seen in many to descend from the sixt Conjugation of the Nerves of the Braine into the Testes and seminary vessels of which opinion before him Johannes Langius a learned Physitian of Germany seemes to have been of while he writes that the better portion of the Prolofique Seed flows down from the Braine and spinall marrow by the Veines and the Arteries of the Temple the Parotides Veines behind the Eares to the Loines and the Seminary vessels which appeares to be so in that at the effusion of the Seed the Eyes twinckle and that the Braine is dried with Copulation whence it is that hot and fat humour being consumed in that congression leacherous men do sooner wax bald Where the Legs either by the lapse of Nature or by accident are lesse than the naturall and decent proportion the Corrective part of Physique justly taketh place to encrease them to a due magnitude Gal. lib. 5. de Tuenda sanitat Galen affords us a method in this businesse where he speakes of the correcting and repairing of members and he gives an example of a boy of thirteene yeares of age who had small spindle Shankes who by causing the Aliment to be moderately drawn to that place and the parts indifferently rubb'd and chaf'd and causing him to use baths and convenient aliment by this meanes brought the little Legs of that boy to a convenient magnitude a good notion for Gentlemen Vshers if they have any mind to have the Leg repaired and would save the Charges of Bombasted Artificiall Calfes We justly account a high pitcht Calfe the best proportion and therefore we alwaies stroake up the Calfes of our Legs High pitch'd low-pitch'd Calfes by whom affected Our Lancashire men are noted by Camden to have such cleane and handsome shaped Legs The Irish who are good Footmen as I have heard count a low-pitcht Calfe the best Leg and therefore they stroake down the Calfes of their Legs a high great bellied Leg it may be being found somewhat inconvenient in running of long Races but it is thought by some that they do so The impertinency of tampering with Childrens weake legs because they affect a long full small Many times Children about the second yeare of their Age when they begin to go are wont to vari and go wide and stradling with their Feet their Knees inclining to each other About this feared deformity their mothers being solicitous crave help of Chirurgions who for the most part endeavour with divers Machins to erect and keep straight their Legs and Thighs but in vaine because
of this Complexion was an artificiall device and thence induced by imagination having once impregnated the seed found afterwards concurrent productions which were continued by Climes whose constitution advantaged the artificiall into a naturall impression I confesse Pliny speakes of the Anderae Plin. Nat. hist lib. 6. Mathitae Mesagebes and Hipporeae who being all over black and it seemes disliking that colour do therefore colour and paint their bodies with a kind of red Chalke or rudle called Rubrica The Inhabitants of Florida are of a colour Grimston of their manners like Brasse the reason is for that they annoint themselves with a certaine ointment which seconded by the heat of the Sun proves effectuall to their design notwithstanding that they are borne more white Nations that affect the plumage of Birds The great advancer of Learning well observes that generally Barbarous people that go naked do not only paint themselves but they pounce and race their skin that the painting may not be taken off Lord Bacons nat hist Cent. 8. So that it seemes men would have the colour of birds Feathers if they could tell how or at least they will have gay skins instead of gay cloaths But their airy affectation hath mounted higher Mand. Travels cap. 89. even to enjoy the very substantiall plumage of Birds For in an Isle neare the Isle called Pitan the people are feathered all but the face and palmes of their hands In the Island called Ity the Inhabitants Munst Cosm Novar Insul descript who go naked not only paint their bodies with divers colours but they adorne them with divers Feathers of Birds The Brasileans have many hens like unto ours Lindscot lib. 2. from which they pull the small white Feathers which with Irons they hack and make soft which done they annoint their bodies with gum and strew the feathers therein The Cumanans also dresse themselves with feathers as the Brasileans do which my Author saith is no ill sight Laet saies Laet. descript novi orb occident lib. 18. c. 4. that upon festivall daies they dawbe their skins over with a tenatious glew and then befeather themselves with the small plumage of divers little birds insomuch as they look by that emulation like unto birds whereby they look like new hatched birds wherof this opinion hath risen of some men that have first gone into those Countries and seen them thus dressed after this manner that they were so by Nature Which puts me in mind what Aulus Gellius cites out of ancient Authors to wit that there are certain men whose bodies are not rough with hair but plumed after the manner of birds However the practice of these Nations have marred Platoes definition of man that he was Animal bipes implume and hath made good the unhappy Irony of the Peripateticks who threw a live Cock stript of his feathers into his school saying this is Plato's man for in these Countries Plato's definition would be more adequate to cocks and hens than to men women yet if these Nations were stripped of their borrowed feathers wherein they pride themselves Hairy Nations they would looke somewhat like Aesops Jay of whom the Poet Moveat cornicula risum Furtivis nudata coloribus Harecourts voyage to Guiana In the Province of Moreshogoro the Inhabitants have a ruffe skin like unto buffe leather of which kind there be many in those parts of Guiana but is supposed to proceed from some infirmity of body Among other wild men the Cinnaminians are to be admired for their prolix beards Aldrovandus and the hairinesse of their whole bodies the women also being all over hairy These Relations make me wonder at the opinion of Platerus Platerus in Deformatione observ lib. 3. who denies that there are any wild men to be found all over hairy except the tip of their nose their knees and the palmes of the hand and feet as they are usually painted and conceived of by the Vulgar which that it is false we may hence saith he collect that Cosmographers who have described the whole world make no where mention of them when yet notwithstanding they have not omitted the wildest people the Amazons Canibals and Americans and others which go naked The cause of pilosity and yet are not hairy and those haires that naturally breake forth they pluck forth and eradicate It is observable and makes to our purpose that savage men are more hairy than those that are civill degenerating by their Bruitish kind of life into the nature and resemblance of beasts who are more hairy than men Besides the generall examples of all barbarous Nations we have a particular demonstration of this Bruitish Metamorphosis in the transformation of Nebuchadnezzer Dan. 4. and more lately in the storie of Iohn of Leiden mentioned by Sir K. Digby in his Treatise of the soule The cause of the natural smoothness in men is not as my L. Bacon noteth any abundance of heat and moisture Lord Bacons nat hist cent 7. exp 680. though that indeed causeth pilosity but there is requisite to pilosity not so much heat and moisture as excrementitious heat moisture for whatsoever assimilateth goeth not into the haire and excrementitious moisture aboundeth most in Beasts and Men that are more savage The head indeed of man hath haire upon the first birth which no other part of the body hath The cause may be want of perspiration for much of the matter of haire in the other parts of the body goeth forth by insensible perspiration And besides the Skull being of a more solid substance nourisheth and assimilateth lesse and excerneth more and so likewise doth the Chin we see also that haire commeth not upon the Palmes of the Hands nor Soles of the Feet which are parts more perspirable And Children likewise are not hairy for that their skins are more perspirable Many have been born abounding with shagged haire almost like unto water-Spaniels Men borne with shagged haire like a water Spaniel we read first of Esau that he was the first of this Tribe Gen. cap. 27. Majolus in Colloquiis and Majolus recites a story that in the Town of Pisa named Petrosancta there was borne of a smooth woman a Virgin covered all over with long haire whose image Aldrovandus hath exhibited the cause of which effect Authors refer to the Picture of St Iohn Baptist painted after the usuall manner cloathed in Camels haire whose image hanging in her Chamber the mother had wishtly beheld All rugged with haire having pawes like a Beare was that Infant which was borne 1282. Lycosthenes of an illustrious Matron Martin the fourth being then Pope of Rome by whose command all the Pictures of Beares which were found in that Ladies house were blotted out and defaced a manifest argument of the received imagination of the Effigies of the Beares in Conception Peucerus Peucerus seemes to confirme this production by another such like
of old scared off their right Breasts 322 Left handed Amazons who now scare off their left Paps ibid. Their reasons of these Customes 321 322 323 The History of the Amazons no fable 323 These Viragoes taxed for losing the compleate proportion and representation of the Chests Ornament for this unnaturall convenience 324 What penalty they are like to incurre by this mutilation or numericall offence ibid. The Breasts why two and their use 323 The temper of those men who have great Breasts bearing out like women that give suck 324 Where as a singular piece of gallantry the men have their Breasts piersed from one side to another and where they have them both pierced and what they carry therein 325 The absurd Cavill of Momus against Nature for not making a window in the Breast of Man exploded 325 326 The wals of the Breasts depraved by Nurses 327 The inconveniences of straight swathing the Breasts of Children ibid. The Judgement of Physitians against this Custome ibid. The perverse Custome in England of swaithing Children and swathing their Breasts noted 330 The miserable inconveniences occasioned thereby ibid. and 331 That Consumptions and the Rickets wherewith we only are molested proceed from this fond Custome 332 333 334 Cautions in ordering Infants 329 The naturall proportion of the Breasts 331 Those Nations commended who desiring rather a broad then a narrow Breast a full then a slender involve rather then swathe their Infants in a light swath-band 336 The opinion of our modern Physitians touching the too soone leaving off of swaith-bands to be the cause of the Rickets 337 The too early coating of Children conceived to be another ibid. The mature time of coating Children 338 The Judgement of our Physitians in reference to the Rickets touching the constant and foolish Fasciation used to Children 332 333 334 Nationall Examples proving that it is a better way to bring up Children without swadling or binding them up in swaith-bands 335 336 That where there is no swaithing there is no news of the Rickets 335 What kinde of swaithing our Climate cals for 336 The pernicious Custome of straight lacing used by our Virgins 338 The mischiefe that ensues by this deadly artifice of reducing the Breasts to such straights 339 340 That this was a fashion of old ibid. The errours of Nurses in ordering Infants tending to this mischiefe 340 The commendation of those Nations who never lace themselves but affect a round and full wast 342 343 The art they use to this purpose 344 Where the Breasts are accounted shamefull parts 315 The reason in Nature why women should have a modest regard of their Breasts ibid Breech-Gallantry 409 VVHY Man naturally hath no taile ibid. Divers tailed Nations 410 411 412 Tailed Monsters 412 How a tale comes to be monstrously added to a humane offspring 413 Sodomiticall abusers of this part noted and condemned 413 414 415 Body NAtions that embroder their skins with Iron pens and seare race pinke cut and pounce their Bodies 455 457 458 469 466 Where they have skin prints and past Garments for their Bodies 456 Where they paint their Bodies red white black blew tawney and other colours in works such as they devise 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 469 Enquire about Negroes and how so great a part of man-kinde became blacke 466 467 468 469 Nations that affect the plumage of Birds and dresse their Bodies all over with their feathers 470 471 Hairy Nations 472 The cause of Pilosity 474 Men borne with shagged Haire like a water Spanell 475 Nations that winde their bones like sinews 476 Art used to make maids fat 477 Why all men cannot be franked or made fat 478 Corpulency where in great esteem 479 Monstrous fat men 480 481 Fat folkes where in disgrace 482 Overfed-bodies encounter Nature 483 Men growing Gyants by a disease 484 The cause of tall stature 485 Meanes to accelerate growth or stature 486 487 Fatnesse when it doth prejudice Nature 488 The naturall magnitude of the Body 489 A way to make men by Art 490 The opinion of learned men touching this Artifice 491 The Pygmies of Paracelsus 492 The Commensuration of Womans Body vindicated 493 The Historyes of Pigmies maintained 494 496 497 488 Nations of little men 495 Pigmies without all question 499 Dwarfes made by art 500 The reason of dwarfish stature 501 That the Divell may make Pigmies 502 503 Histories of Giants 503 504 She Gyants 505 The cause of small stature 506 The cause of tallnesse of stature Nations of Gyants 508 Men of very tall stature 509 Over-tallnesse of stature a deformitie 510 Whether Divels may have to dâ—e That Divels may exercise venerious acts with women 514 That Divels cannot generate upon Women 515 The Originall of Gyants 515 The supposed Originall of Neroes 516 Why the Amazons did lame their Male Children 517 An Art pretending to new make a Man 518 That Nature sometimes workes wonders in this kinde ibid. 519 That Monsters may be made by the Art of naturall Magique 520 alias 516 Mans Metamorphosis 519 alias 521 Whether Men can be transform'd into Beasts 502 alias 522 Whether Witches have power to transubstantiate others 521 alias 523 That the soule of Man cannot informe a Beasts body 522 alias 524 Transubstantiation denied 523 alias 525 Mans transformation into an Asse questioned 524 alias 526 525 alias 527 The inpiety of transubstantiation 526 alias 528 527 alias 529. Changelings and the Legerdemane thereof 527 528 alias 529 530. In the Introduction THE unimitable curiosity and exact perfection of the structure of mans Body maintained against the errour of Epicurus That it doth appeare that the humane forme hath been altered â—â—aâ— waies both by art and diurnall succession The audacious art of new mouldâ—ng the body reprehended and the inconveniences thereof noted Midwives and Nurses by their unskilfulnesse or neglect the causers of the ill figure of the Body That every part of the new-born Infants Body is to be formed according to the most advantage of Nature That this is the end of Cosmeticall Physicke Mercurialis his complaint that this most noble art of Cosmetiques is growne out of use C Cheeke NAtions who bore holes in their Cheeks for a Gallantry 163 164 Where they make lines above their lips upon their Cheeks with certaine Iron Instruments 164 Cheek-markers condemned 165 Inscisions upon the Cheeke of old forbidden E Ears NAtions whose Eares doe reach the ground and who use their Eares for a couch to sleep on 141 142 143 Nations with Eares so large that they cover the rest of their Body with them ibid. An infant borne with such large and great Eares 143 Nations with their Eares hanging down to their shoulders and lower 144 145 146 By what art and industry they attaine unto so great Eares 145 146 147 Nations that bore pierce or slit the lappet of their Eares and load them with ponderous Jewels 145 146 147 148 149 Where the greatest Eares are esteemed the fairest
cut their haire and the men weare it long 56 That the Haire was given women for a covering 57 That Haire hanging down by the Cheeks of women of it 's owne Nature is not contrary to the Law of Nature or unlawfull 58 For a woman to be shorne is against the intention of Nature ibid. For men to nourish long haire is quite contrary to the intention of Nature 58 59 60 That such long haire would hinder the actions of common life 60 Tonsure necessary 59 The regulation of the haire of man according to the rules of decorum ibid. 60 What long Haire it is that is repugnant to Nature against her law and above and besides the naturall use 60 The decency of haire stated 62 63 Nations extreamely affecting black Haire 63 64 By what art they make it come so ibid. The practise of blacking gray Haires ridiculous 63 Nations which of old did and at this day doe affect yellow Haire 65 68 By what meanes they introduced this colour ibid. How they were and are punished for this their lasciviousnesse 65 66 67 Tincture of Haire both in men and women a shamefull thing and dishonourable to Nature 66 67 68 69 How the indulgence and licence granted unto women in matters of ornamentall dresses of Haire is to be moderated 69 Painting of Haire an ancient custome with the Indians 68 Inconveniences supposed to happen to women by the affected beauty of the Haire 69 Nations that anoint their Haire 70 The like vanity observed in our gallants ibid. The effeminate powdering of Haire exploded 70 71 Frizling and curling and plating the Hair with hot Irons an old vanity 71 72 Periwigs an ancient vanity 72 73 Hands LIttle Hands where in fashion and accounted a great beauty in women 287 What art they use to have them so ibid. What women are noted to have the least Hands of any women in the World ibid. Nations that paint their Hands red 288 Where they make their Hands of a golden tincture ibid. Hands painted with a tawney colour ibid. Hands painted with flowers and Birds ibid. Monsters borne with 4 Hands 301 Monsters born with three Hands ibid. Nations with two Hands on the right side ibid. Nations with six Hands ibid. Monsters borne with one Hand ibid. Nations that have but one Hand 301 302 Monsters borne without Hands 302 303 The strange recompence such Monsters finde 303 Nations that want Hands 306 A strange story of one born with 2 stones in one Hand and one in the other L Leg. NAtions that have but one Leg. 422 Long-Legg'd Nations 423 433 Certaine People where the women affect to have their thighs hips and Legs very thick 425 What art they use to accommodate their fancies in this busines ib. The folly of this custome derided ibid. Other people where the men and women affect great Calves and full Legs 425 426 The absurd Cavill of Momus against the frame of the Leg of man exploded 426 427 A Calfe-swelling punishment inflicted upon some Nations 427 A Crane Legg'd man 428 Little Legs in women what signe 427 Where the women are well proportioned in their Legs ibid. A way to bring Legs to a convenient magnitude 429 Low-pitch'd Calves where in request 430 What industry they use to have it so ibid. High pitcht Calfes where in request 429 430 What meanes they use to advance the Calfe ibid. The impertinency in tampering with Childrens weak Legs 431 432 Their opinion confuted by experience who thinke Children would have distorted Legs unlesse they were diligently involved and constringed in swaithbands 336 That this indiscreet swaithing of Children is many times a cause of the crookednesse of the Legs 334 The crookednesse of the Knee and Leg bones in the Rickets how sometimes occasioned 328 229 A Tailors and Bakers Legs how caused 432 Nations that make lists or markes on their Legs which are esteemed with them a great gallantry 433 Where the womens Legs are crooked ibid. Where the women almost all of them halt ibid. Short-legg'd Nations ibid. Centaures and Onocentaures 437 Men with the Legs of other animals 433 434 435 436 Monsters with the Head and privities of men but with the hand and feet of Apes 437 438 Their originall 437 Satyrs and their originall 439 Gynny Drils of what Tribe 440 Monsters with foure Legs 300 Which kinde of Ape is most like man 441 When Apes began to grow like men 443 Sea-men or men fishes 444 The opinion of the learned concerning semi-men and semi-Beasts Lips VVHere they brand their Lips with red hot Irons especially their upper Lips so make streaks and lines in them 176 Nations that bore holes in their Lips to set precious stones rings and other things therein 176 177 178 179 180 181 The use of the Lips set out 181 182 What uses are hindered or frustrated to the prejudice of Nature by the boring and lading the Lips with Jewels and other things 182 Nations that seem not to understand the naturall uses of Lips 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 Nations that have flat mouths without lips 170 Nations that have copp'd fastigiated Lips ibid. Where there are men who have Lips of a monstrous bignesse 174 Imputed to a prevarication of art ibid. Where they love those that have thick lips ibid That great Lips redound to the prejudice of Nature in her operations 174 175 Where they have Lips propendent a cubit low which they nourish instead of a beard 171 172 That they are hereby dumb ibid. Nations that have their lips about their mouth so great that when they sleep in the sun they cover all their faces with their Lips 173 Some that can bind their Heads with their Lips as well as women do with their haire ibid. Prodigiously prominent and thick lips ibid. 174 Nations that have concrete lips with a hole only in the middle 170 Haire-lips their cause and cure 175 M Mouth VVIde mouths where affected by women they being accounted most beautifull who have the widest mouths 167 168 A conjecture of their using Art to have them so ibid. The naturall proportion of the mouth 169 For women to affect the commendation of beauty in a wide mouth much derogates from the honesty of Nature and her ordinary justice 169 What they may probably suffer by a mouth so wide 170 A little Mouth most commendable in women 169 Why the mouth was given to man 168 Misplaced mouths 175 Men with monstrous mouths 170 Nations that have but one hole in their face ibid. Dwarfes that have no mouths ibid. N Nailes LOng Nailes where extreamely affected as a signe of idle Gentility 289 290 291 292 The hindrance that this affected fashion causeth to the operations of the tops of fingers 291 295 Where it is one of the points of bravery with the principall women to weare long nailes 293 This noted as a great Solicisme in Nature 298 Where to weare long nailes on the Thumbe is a prerogative royall 293 Where they never pare their
Nailes 192 193 Long unpared nailes condemned as against the intention of Nature 296 The end of the growth of the nailes not to repaire their decay by wearing 298 Nailes never intended as weapons of offensive scratching in man or woman 298 299 That the care of conforming extravagant Nailes to the Law of Nature appertaines to reason and the practique intellect 264 295 296 297 Long Nailes thought by some to be a sin 297 The use of the Nailes 298 Where the women cut their nailes and jag them round 289 The dignity and majesty of Nature in the encrease of nailes defended 294 Where it is the fashion and beauty of the Country to make the nailes of their hands red yellow and party coloured and where they gild them 288 289 How they do it ibid. Their offence against Nature noted and the naturall beauty of the Naile vindicated 290 Necks MEn with Necks of a Cubit long 275 Nations with their Necks so long that they resemble the neck of a Crane ibid. 276 Long gangâ—ell Necks inconvenient ibid. Philoxenes his wish for a long Neck exploded ibid. Nations that have no Neck 277 That it is not impossible for a man to live without a Neck 278 An Infant borne without a neck 277 Where men and women have gutturall bottles hanging down at their throat even to their navels 278 The cause of that swelling in their throats 279 Nose VVHere the women cut and pare their Noses between their Eyes that they may seeme more flat and saddle Nosed 112 This trespasse against beauty and the majesty of Nature exploded 113 What benefits and reall beauties those people deprive themselves of by this affected deformity 114 Where they use to cut off their Nostrils from their Noses 115 Nations that have no Nose nor nostrils 116 The ornament and naturall beauty of the Nose maintained 116 117 The utility of the Nose and the beauty of office or officiall elegancy thereof declared 118 The reasons why the Nose was placed in the middle of the Face between the Eyes 114 Men whose Noses are slit like broken winded Horses 119 An Infant born with such Nostrils ibid. Where they are held for the finest women who have little Noses 120 What art they use to prohibit the increase of the Noses of their female children ibid. Where when they would make the portaicture of a deformed man they paint him with a long Nose ibid. That this fashion abates somewhat of their sagacity 120 Long Noses where affected 120 121 What art the Midwives there use to make the Nose more faire and longer ibid. The naturall proportion and symetry of the Nose 121 Their trespasse against Nature noted who upon pretence of beauty enlarge or prohibite the naturall extendure of the Nose ibid. Thick and great Noses where in request 121 122 Caused by an affectation of art ibid. The inconveniences and prejudice to Nature that may follow hereupon 122 123 Where the Inhabitants have all Camoyse or saddle Noses 123 124 125 That all Children are a little Camoise Nosed and why 133 That nature not alwaies needs the officious hands of Midwives in this case as if shee were not able to perfect her own work 134 Where the Midwives are too forward to help Nature in this case 133 Their pragmaticall artifice herein taxed ibid. The inconveniences of saddle Noses 127 An Ape-like Nose condemned 182 Flat plaine and broad Noses where esteemed a great Ornament and the principall part of beauty to consist therein 123 By what artifice their Childrens Noses are brought to this forme ibid. Whether a flat Nose can conferre any beauty to the face 129 A shooing horne-like-Nose where not affected 133 The reasons of the prominency of the Nose asserted 126 What inconveniences would have ensued upon a Nose bread in the spine or back 126 That these Nose Levellers may incurre some inconveniences and prejudice Nature not onely in those actions wherein it is profitable for the bettering of life but in those wherein it is necessary to life it selfe ibid. Whether these Nose-Levellers obtaine their end of advancing the beauty of their Faces 129 130 That a flat Ape-like Nose can never become a mans face 128 Wherein the beauty of the Nose consists 130 The naturall perfection of the Nose in men and women 131 What figure of the Nose agrees with such a face ibid. Where a high aquiline or hawks Nose was and is in request as a note of honour and magnanimity 134 135 That it was an honourable office to looke to the conforming of the Princes Nose to make it as beautifull as might be and crooked like a hawks bill ibid. Mercurialis his conjecture what artifice and instruments they used to conforme the Nose to their desire ibid. A Hawkes-Nose where gentililitious and native ibid. 136 That when there is an ill conformation of the Nostrils it belongs to the corrective part of medicine to reform it 135 A high prominent Nose where affected 1â—6 Nations who in a bravery and as an ensigne of nobility and greatnesse bore holes in their Noses wearing Nose-Jewels therein 137 13â— That foolish fashion of Nose Jewels exploded 139 140 Where they have markes on their Noses made for a bravery 138 How they make them ibid. That their invention was much put to it who first bored the Nose to introduce a fashion 139 That such an invention is to the prejudice of natures Nasall operations 140 Where they stick pins on their Noses 138 Wherein the beauty of the Nose consists 139 P Privy-parts VVHere they were in their yards betwixt the skin and the flesh Bels of Gold silver or brasse as big as nuts 347 â—48 A description of these yard bals 349 How and when they put them in 347 348 Why they were invented 348 This invention where it might be usefull against Sodomy 350 Absurd projects of women to gaine regard 351 Where it was a custome to fasten a Ring or Buckle on the foreskin of their Yard and for what ends 352 The art of infibulation or butning up the Prepuce with a brasse or silver button and whence it came 353 Where they weare rings in their Yards ibid. Where they trusse up their Genitals within their body ibid. Their ends of this Custome 354 Semi-Eunuchs or men with one stone one being alwaies taken from them by their Nurses 354 Men with three stones ibid. Whether the testicles be required to the forming of the voice 355 Who was the first that caused young male children to be made Eunuches 354 The reasons and ends of introducing Eunuchisme ibid. and 356 How many waies there are of this uÌ„natural dilapidatioÌ„ of the body 359 The time of mâ—king Eunuches 360 That the name Eunuch is but a cloake wherewith they cover the injury done to nature 357 The first rise of the reputation of such Semi-virs or halfe men ibid. The story of Gombalus ibid. Where they sell their children to be made Eunuches 359 Religious Eunuchs 358 The reason of their castration ibid.
Hands and Fingers with a kind of counterfeit colour which is accounted a most decent custome among them But this Fashion was first brought in by those Arabians which were called Africans what time they began first of all to inhabit that Region for before then they never used any false or glosing colours The women of Barbary use not this fond kind of painting but contenting themselves only with their naturall hue they regard not such fained ornaments howbeit sometimes they will temper a certaine colour with Hens dung and Saffron wherewithall they paint a little round spot in the balls of their Cheekes about the breadth of a French Crown likewise between their Eye-brows they make a Triangle and paint upon their Chins a patch like unto an Olive leafe Some of them also do paint their Eyebrows and this Custome is very highly esteemed of by the Arabian Poets and Gentlemen of that Country Howbeit they will not use these Phantasticall ornaments above two or three daies together all which time they will not be seen to any of their friends except it be their Husbands and Children for these paintings seeme to be great allurements to lust whereby the said women thinke themselves more trim and beautifull Men painted The Author of the Treasury of Times Grimston of their manners In Fez the women use to deck and adorne the Bride by trimming her hair rubbing her Cheeks and painting them red and her hands and feet black with a certaine tincture which continueth but a while Grimston of the estate of the Turk in Africa They that live in the Province of Bugia in Africk have an ancient custome to paint a black Crosse upon their Jaw-bones Grimst of the estate of China Magin Geograph Lord Bacon Nat. Hist Cent. 8. Exper. 739. The women in China use painting and ointments And it is practized by the men for the Chineses as my Lord Bacon notes who are of an ill complexion being olivaster paint their Cheeks scarlet especially their King and Grandees Grimston of their manners Jo. Bohem. l. 2. de rit gent. The ancient Scythian women rubbed their naked bodies against some sharpe and rough stone having then powred water upon them and their flesh being swoln by this meanes they rubbed their bodies with the wood of Cypress Cedar and Incense they did also use certaine ointments for the Face made of the like Drugs by means whereof they smell sweet then having the day following taken away these Plaisters they seemed more beautifull and pleasing In Norembega all of them as well men as women paint their Faces Grimston of their manners Magin Geogra Americae Purch Pilgr 1. lib. 4. Lindscot li. 2. The naturall Inhabitants of Jucata paint their Faces and Bodies black The Native Socotorans paint their Faces with yellow and black spots loathsome to behold The Brasilean women paint their Faces with all kind of Colours which their Neighbours and other women do for them Face-stainers In the middle of their Cheekes they make a round circle drawing lines from it of divers colours untill their Faces be full not leaving so much undone as their Eye-lids The Virginian women adorne themselves with paintings some have their Face Breasts Hands Capt. Smiths Hist of Virginia and Legs cunningly embroidered with divers workes as Beasts Serpents artificially wrought into their flesh with black spots their Heads and Shoulders are painted red with the root Pocone brayed to powder mixed with oyle which Scarlet-like colour makes an exceeding handsome shew and is used by the Kings Concubines this they hold in Summer to preserve them from the heat and in Winter from the cold Many other formes of painting they use but he is the most Gallant that is the most monstrous to behold Their Children of whom they are easily delivered and yet love them dearely to make them hardy in the coldest mornings they make them wash in the Rivers and by painting and ointments so tann their skins that after a yeare or two no weather will hurt them when they enter into battell they paint and disguise themselves in the fiercest manner they can devise After their ordinary burials are ended the women having painted all their Faces with black coale and oile do sit 24 houres in their houses mourning and lamenting by turnes with such yelling and howling as may expresse their great passions the Faces of all their Priests are painted as ugly as they can devise Sometimes the men appeare halfe black and halfe red Face-grimers but all their Eyes painted white and some red stroakes like Mustachoes along their Cheeks Some of them paint their Eyes red having white stroakes over their black Faces so that they look more like devils than men Captaine Smith about Onawniament encountred with Ambushcadoes of such Savages so strangely painted grimed and disguised shouting yelling and crying as so many spirits from Hell could not have shewed more terrible Johan Bohem. de moribus gen lib. 3. Somewhat allyed to this barbarous way of Disguise is the Custome of the Germans who are said once a yeare to run mad covering their Faces with Vizards belying their Sex and Age some of them willing rather to represent Satyrs or Divels paint themselves with Vermilion or Inke deforming themselves with such nefarious habits others running naked play the Lupercalls from whom my Author thinks this annuall Custome of raving was first derived who naked and with their faces defiled in bloud wandring through the City were wont to strike every one they met with thongs of leather The Author of the Description of Nova Francia lib. 2. The Souriquois do paint their Faces all with black which maketh them seeme very hideous but this is their mourning Visage Ramutius narration of Nova Francia The women of New France about the Port of the holy Crosse for the death of their Husbands weare a certaine black weed all the daies of their life besmearing all their Faces with coale dust and grease mingled together almost halfe a quarter of an Intch thick and by that they are known to be Widdows Painting being Universall Face-daubers The Author of the Description of Nova Francia lib. â— and without exception among the West Indians for if any of them maketh Love he shall be painted with red or blue colour and his Mistris also If they be glad at any thing they will do the like generally which is their expression of jolly bravery But when they are sad or plot some Treason then they overcast all their Face with black and are hideously deformed In Persia the womens pale colour is made sanguine by adulterate complexion Herberts Travels and their round cheeks are fat and painted The common womens cheeks are of a delicate dye but Art not Nature causeth it The Grecian women for the most part Sandys Travels lib. 1. are brown of complexion but exceedingly well favoured they cover not their Faces the Virgins excepted unlesse it be
with painting using all the supplement of a sophisticated beauty And not without cause for when they grow old the most grow contemptible being put to the drudgery of the house and many times to wait on their Children The Spanish women when they are married Howel Epist Famil they have a priviledge to weare high Shooes and to paint which is generally practised there and the Queen useth it her selfe which brings on a great decay in the naturall Face For it is observed that women in England look as youthfull at fifty as some there at twenty five This saith Munster Munst Cosm lib. 2. is to be reproved in your Spanish women that they now and then deforme their face with washes of Vermilion Ceruse because they have lesse native colour than your French women and indeed other nations learnt from them the use of Spanish paper The Ladies of Italy not to speake of the Curtezans to seeme fairer than the rest take a pride to besmeare and paint themselves Artificial Faire Ones A Geographer speaking of Venice saith that it is thought no one City againe is able to compare with that City for the number of gorgeous Dames as for their beauty of face though they be faire indeed I would not willingly commend them because there is in a manner none old or young unpainted It is observed that the Roman Dames had infinite little boxes filled with loathsome trash of sundry kind of colours and compositions for the hiding of their deformities the very sight and smell whereof was able to turne a mans stomack Ovid. de medic fac Pixides invenies rerum mille colores Non semel hinc stomacho nausea facta meo And for the face used so much slibber-sauce such daubing and painting that a man could not well tell facies dicatur an ulcus May it a Face or a Botch be â—all'd Johan Bohem. de moribus gen lib. 3. The ancient English stained their Faces with Woad which is of a blew or sky colour that they might appeare more horrid to their enemies in fight Our English Ladies who seeme to have borrowed some of their Cosmeticall conceits from Barbarous Nations Spotted Faces affected are seldome known to be contented with a Face of Gods making for they are either adding detracting or altering continually having many Fucusses in readinesse for the same purpose Sometimes they think they have too much colour then they use Art to make them look pale and faire Now they have too little colour then Spanish paper Red Leather or other Cosmeticall Rubriques must be had Yet for all this it may be the skins of their Faces do not please them off they go with Mercury water and so they remaine like peeld Ewes untill their Faces have recovered a new Epidermis This is as odious and as senselesse an affectation as ever was used by any barbarous Nation in the World And I doubt our Ladies that use them are not well advised of the effect they worke for these spots in Faire Faces advantage not beauty as they suppose Black patches no advantage to Beauty because contraries compared and placed neare one another shew their lustre more plainely but because it gives envy satisfaction which takes pleasure in defects or by reason it takes away that astonishment which instead of delighting confounds not that Imperfection can make perfect or that the defect can encrease beauty and therewith delight for these spots in a beautifull Face adde not grace to a Visage nor encrease delight they entertaine it because they extinguish and then renew it Our naturall power is limited to a certaine measure when the continued presence of the delightfull object doth exceed the delight ceases and to the extreame of what it can contribute it delights no longer he that will renew his pleasure must begin with paine and go out of the naturall state to returne into it Let him looke upon the spots then returne to behold the beauty of the face And it may be some of the more subtill Heads whose heaving phansies fill their Faces full of such artificiall mole-hils are aware that men desire to find defect in those things that are pleasing to them and that he rejoyceth that he hath found it peradventure seeming unto him that he hath gotten command over her that hath it and that he may reap the delight of pardoning without feeling the dammage of being offended If Nature then as the politique Marquesse of Malvezzi thinks may be she doth sets us in the way to seek defects to bring us through the knowledge of those who have the defect to the knowing of him that hath none The best improvement of this folly is to make these Creatures serve for Instruments to bring us to seeke out the Creator not only by what is perfect in them but also by that which naturally wants perfection Painting in a man odio us or is charged with artificiall defects arising out of an evill affectation and not as if they were totally perfect who openly professe to study imperfections simply fawn upon and adore them as if we beleeved they were absolutely perfect And the like sober use may the discreeter sort of Ladies who are not guilty of this spotting vanity make use of when they behold the like prodigious affectation in the Faces of effeminate Gallants a bare-headed Sect of amorous Idolaters who of late have begun to vye patches and beauty-spots nay painting with the most tender and phantasticall Ladies and to returne by Art their queasie paine upon women to the great reproach of Nature and high dishonour and abasement of the glory of mans perfection Painting is bad both in a foule and faire woman but worst of all in a man for if it be the received opinion of some Physicians that the using of Complexion and such like slibber-slabbers is a weakenesse and infirmity in it selfe who can say whether such men as use them be sound or no it being a great dishonesty and an unseemely sight to see a man painted who perchance had a reasonable good naturall complexion of his own that when he hath by nature those colours proper to him he should besoot his face with the same paintings or make such slight reckoning of those faire pledges of Natures goodnesse and embrace such counterfeit stuffe to the ill example of others so that his face which he thinks doth so much commend him should be made of ointments greasie ingredients and slabber-sawces or done by certaine powders Oxe-galls Lees Latherings and other such sluttish and beastly confections For besides that they are effeminate actions fitting only wanton wenches and light huswives Painting an old Trade they give occasion to men to murmur against them and breed a suspition of basenesse in the vilest degree when they shall see them thus daubed over with Clay and wholly composed of those things that are only permitted unto women who because they have not sufficient beauty of themselves