Milady's Bosom

There is a certain female ornament by some called a tucker, and by others the neck-piece, being a slip of fine linen or muslin that used to run in a small kind of ruffle around the uppermost verge of the woman's stays, and by that means covered a great part of the shoulders and bosom. Having thus given a definition, or rather description of the tucker, I must take notice that our ladies have of late thrown aside this fig leaf, and exposed in its primitive nakedness that gentle swelling of the breast which it used to conceal. What their design by it is, they themselves best know.

I observed this as as I was sitting the other day by a famous she-visitant at my Lady Lizard's, when accidentally as I was looking upon her face, letting my sight fall into her bosom, I was surprised with beauties which I never before discovered, (concluded on page 42)Milady's Bosom(continued from page 25) and do not know where my eye would have run if I had not immediately checked it. The lady herself could not forbear blushing when she observed by my looks that she had made her neck too beautiful and glaring an object even for a man of my character and gravity. I could scarce forbear making use of my hand to cover so unseemly a sight.

If we survey the pictures of our great grandmothers in Queen Elizabeth's time, we see them clothed down to the very wrists and up to the very chins. The hands and faces were the only samples they gave of their beautiful persons. The following age of females made larger discoveries of their complexion. They first of all tucked up their garments to the elbow, and notwithstanding the tenderness of the sex, were content, for the information of mankind, to expose their arms to the coldness of the air and injuries of the weather. This artifice hath succeeded to their wishes, and betrayed many to their arms who might have escaped them had they been still concealed.

About the same time, the ladies considered that the neck was a very modest part in a human body: they freed it from those yokes, I mean those monstrous linen ruffs, in which the simplicity of their grandmothers had inclosed it. In proportion as the age refined, the dress slunk still lower; so that when we now say a woman has a handsome neck, we reckon into it many of the adjacent parts. The disuse of the tucker has still enlarged it, inasmuch that the neck of a fine woman at present takes in almost half the body.

Since the female neck thus grows upon us, and the ladies seem disposed to discover themselves to us more and more, I would fain have them tell us once for all how far they intend to go, and whether they have yet determined among themselves where to make a stop.

For my own part, their necks, as they call them, are no more than busts of alabaster in my eye. I can look upon "the yielding marble of a snowy breast" with as much coldness as this line represents in the object itself. But my fair readers ought to consider that every man is not sufficiently qualified with age and philosophy to be an indifferent spectator of such allurements. The eyes of young men are curious and penetrating, their imaginations are of a roving nature, and their passion under no discipline or restraint. I am in pain for a woman of rank when I see her thus exposing herself to the regards of every impudent staring fellow. How can she expect that her quality can defend her, when she gives such provocation? I could not but observe last winter when upon the disuse of the neck-piece, the whole tribe of oglers gave their eyes a new determination, and stared the fair sex in the neck rather than in the face. To prevent these saucy familiar glances, I would entreat my gentle readers to sew on their tuckers again, to retrieve the modesty of their characters, and to imitate not the nakedness, but the innocence of their mother Eve.

What most troubles and surprises me in this particular, I have observed that the leaders in this fashion were most of them married women. What their design can be in making themselves bare, I cannot possibly imagine. Nobody exposes wares that cannot be appropriated. When the bird is taken, the snare ought to be removed. It was a remarkable circumstance in the institution of the severe Lycurgus: as that great lawgiver knew that the wealth and strength of the republic consisted in the multitude of citizens, he did all he could to encourage marriage. In order to do it, he prescribed a certain loose dress for the Spartan maids, in which there were several artificial rents and openings, that upon putting themselves in motion, discovered several limbs of the body to the beholders. Such were the baits and temptations made use of by that wise lawgiver, to incline the young men of his nation to marriage. But once the maid was sped, she was not suffered to tantalize the male part of the commonwealth. Her garments were closed up, and stitched together with the greatest care imaginable. The shape of her limbs and complexion of her body had gained their ends, and were ever after to be concealed from the notice of the public.

I shall conclude this discourse with a moral which I have taught and shall continue to inculcate into my female readers; namely, that nothing so bestows beauty on a woman as modesty. This is a maxim laid down by Ovid himself, the greatest master in the art of love. He observes upon it that Venus pleases most when she appears in a figure withdrawing herself from the eye of the beholder. It is very probable he had in his thoughts the statue which we see in the Venus de Medicis, where she is represented in such a shy, retiring posture, and covers her bosom with one of her hands. In short, modesty gives the maid greater beauty than even the bloom of youth. It bestows on the wife the dignity of a matron and reinstates the widow in her virginity.

The eyes of young men are curious and penetrating.