File:Two centuries of costume in America, MDCXX-MDCCCXX (1903) (14576539800).jpg

Identifier: twocentsofcostu01earl (find matches)
Title: Two centuries of costume in America, MDCXX-MDCCCXX
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Earle, Alice Morse, 1851-1911
Subjects: Clothing and dress
Publisher: New York, The Macmillan company London, Macmillan & co., ltd.
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Getty Research Institute

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h her royal com-mand that the plays be refined and reformed, andthen masks were abandoned. Masks were in those years in constant wear inthe French court and society, as a protection to thecomplexion when walking or riding. Sometimesplain glass was fitted in the eye-holes. Frenchmasks had wires which fastened behind the ears,or a mouthpiece of silver; or they had an ingeniousand simple stay in the form of two strings at thecorners of the mouth-opening of the mask. Thesestrings ended in a silver button or glass bead.With a bead held firmly in either corner of hermouth, the mask-wearer could talk. These vizardsare seen in old English wood-cuts, often hangingby the side, fastened to the belt with a small cordor chain. They brought forth the bitter denuncia-tions of the old Puritan Stubbes. He writes inhis Anatomie of Abuses : — When they vse to ride abroad, they haue visors madeof ueluet (or in my iudgment they may rather be calledinuisories) wherewith they couer all their faces, hauing
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Blue Brocade Gown and Quilted Satin Petticoat. A Vain Puritan Grandmother 157 holes made in them agaynst their eies, whereout they looke.So that if a man that knew not their guise before, shouldechaunce to meete one of theme, he would thinke he mettea monster or a deuill; for face he can see none, but twobroad holes against their eyes with glasses in them. Masks were certainly worn to a considerable ex-tent in America. As early as 1645, masks wereforbidden in Plymouth, Massachusetts, for im-proper purposes. When you think of the Plym-outh of that year, its few houses and inhabitants,its desperate struggle to hold its place at all as acommunity, the narrow means of its citizens, thecomparatively scant wardrobes of the wives anddaughters, this restriction as to mask-wearing seemsa grim jest. They were for sale in Salem andBoston, black velvet masks worth two shillingseach ; but these towns were more flourishing thanPlymouth. And New York dames had them, andthe planters wives of Virginia

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