Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/343

 in French, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, more than one hundred volumes on the secrets of beauty, and an indefinite number since. Then there are a great many curious treatises in Italian, for the Italians were for centuries the most expert poisoners, perfumers, cosmetic artists, and physicians in the world.

—Very true. The ladies of Venice formed a society in the sixteenth century, and elected officers, for the purpose of learning and testing new discoveries in the arts of the toilet. Signora Isabella Cortese was at one time president, and Catherine de Medici was proud to be an honorary member.

—Why, that reminds me of the Queen of Navarre's tribunal of love and beauty.

—The resemblance is more in name than in object. But tell us, Sir Author, whether you find much of value in these old French and Italian productions?

—Not much. The receipts are usually long and complicated, and modern chemistry can tell you secrets worth any dozen these old books contain. Here, for example, is one, the first at hand, from Dr. de Blegny's Secrets concernant la Beauté, which he assures you will give "brilliancy and beauty" to the skin:—

"Take white olibanum and myrrh, of each two ounces, benjamin an ounce, and gray amber six grains; powder them; put in a retort with a pound of rose