Page:The whole familiar colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.djvu/347

THE ASSEMBLY OR PARLIAMENT OF WOMEN. 343 rather a Billingsgate than a senate [a place of scolding rather than a place of pleading]. Ca. It will be impossible to do anything without clerks, to take care that nothing be omitted.

Co. Well, then, we have taken care about numbering ; in the next place, how shall we exclude scolding? Ca. That nobody speak but when she is asked, and in her turn too. She that does otherwise shall be expelled the house. And if any one shall be found to blab out what is transacted here, she shall incur the penalty of a three days' silence. Co. Well, ladies, so far we have settled matters as to the method of proceeding, now let us consider what we shall debate about. In the first place, we ought to take care of our honour ; and that consists chiefly in dress, which matter has been so neglected that now-a-days you can scarce know a duchess from a shopkeeper's wife, a married woman from a maid, or a widow or a matron from a whore. Modesty is removed at that distance, that every one wears what apparel she pleases. You may see those that are scarce one degree on this side beggars, and of a base and soi'did extraction, dressed in their velvets, silks, and watered tabbies, garden satins, sprigged calicoes and chintzes, in gold and silver, sable tippets, &c., whose husbands in the meantime sit at home cobbling shoes. Their fingers are loaded with emerald and diamond rings ; for pearls are now made no account of, not to mention their amber and coral necklaces, their laced shoes. It was formerly thought enough for your ordinary women to be allowed the privilege to wear a silk girdle, and to border their petticoats with a ribbon, in honour of the sex. But now we laboiu- under a double inconveniency ; the family is beggared, and distinction, which is the life and soul of quality, is quite lost.

If the wives of the commonalty must be dragged about in gilded chariots, adorned with ivory seats, and coffbe linings and coach-seats, what shall duchesses and countesses do 1 And if a squire's spouse shall be allowed to drag a train after her of fifteen ells long, what must a duchess or a countess do 1 But there is one thing that is worse than all this, that by an unaccountable fickleness we are always altering the fashion. Formerly our headdresses were mounted upon wires, and by this dress women of quality were known from ordinary ones. Again, that the difference might be more visible, they wore caps of ermine, powdered with black spots. But the mob had them presently. Then they altered the fashion again, and wore black caps ; but the women of the ordinary sort did not only presume to imitate them, but outdid them, by adding gold embroidery and jewels to them. Formerly it was the custom of ladies of quality to comb up their hair from their fore- heads and temples, and to make a tower of it, but this did not last long ; for every baggage soon fell into that fashion. Then they wore their hair on their foreheads ; but in this too they were soon followed by the ordinary sort.

Formerly none but ladies of quality had their gentlemen ushers and pages, and out of these they chose some pretty smock -faced fellow to take them by the hand when they arose from their chairs, or to support their left arm with his right when they walked, but this honour was granted to none but gentlemen. But now women in common, following this fashion, admit any mean persons to this office, and also to bear up their train too. And whereas formerly, in primitive