Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume I.djvu/313

Rh to be obliged to put her to bed with his own hands every night and get her up in the morning. But in so doing and in putting on of her footgear and taking off the same, he did grow so much enamoured as to be well nigh desperate, albeit she was his near kinswoman. For verily the temptation herein was too exceeding great, and there doth not exist the man so mortified in spirit but he is something moved by the same.

We do read of the wife of Nero, Poppæa Sabina, which was the favourite of all his wives and mistresses, how that, beside being the most lavish of women in all sorts of superfluities, ornaments, embellishments, gawds and costly weeds, she did wear shoes and slippers all of pure gold. This luxury was not like to make her hide her foot and leg from Nero, her cuckold mate; nor yet did he enjoy the sole delight and pleasure of the sight, for there was many another lover had the same privilege. Well might she display this extravagance for herself, seeing she was used to have her horses' hoofs, which did draw her chariot, shod with shoes of silver.

Saint Jerome doth reprove in very severe terms a lady of his time which was over careful of the beauty of her leg, using these exact words: "With her little brown boot, well fitting and well polished, she doth decoy young men, and the tinkle of her shoe-buckles is a snare unto them." No doubt this was some dainty fashion of footgear in vogue in those days, that was over luxurious and ill becoming to modest women. The wearing of foot-gear of the sort is to this present day in use among Turkish ladies, and those the best-born and most virtuous.

I have seen the question raised and discussed which is the more seductive and alluring, the naked leg, or the leg