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[Page 110]
Extract from a Sermon Preachd before the Governors of the several Hospitals in London on Eastermonday1718 by Joseph Hall Bishop of Norwich a Preacher much followed in his Day
after having descanted Largely on the Varities of Dress in both Sexes Riches the male he proceeds this "Who can, without indignation, look on the Prodigies Which this misimagination produces in the other sex; to the Shame of their husbands the scorn of Religion & the damnation of their own Souls. Imagine one of our Forefathers were alive again & Should See one of these over Gay daughters walk in Cheapside before him; What do ye think he would think it were? here is nothing to be Seen but a verdingale a yellow Ruff, & a Perriwig with perhaps some Feathers waving on the top, three things for which he Could not find a name. Sure he could not but stand amazed to think what new Creatures the times had Yeilded since he was a man; & if then he should Run before her, to see if by the Foreside he might guess what it were, when his Eyes Should meet with a Powderd Frizzle a Painted hide Shadowed by a fan not more Painted, Breasts displayd, & a Loose Lock Erring wantonly over her Shoulders, betwixd a Painted cloth & Skin; how would he he yet more bless himself & think, what mixture in nature Could be guilty of Such a monster? is this thinks he "the Flesh & blood? is this the hair? is this the shape of a woman? or hath nature Repented of her work Since my days, & begun a new Frame? it is no marvel if their if their Forefathers could not know them. God himself, that made them, will never acknowledge that face he never made, the hair that he never made theirs; the body, that is ashamd of the maker; the Soul that thus disguised the body
"Let me therefore Say to these Dames as Benet said to Totilas servants Depone, Ffilia, Quod Portas Quia non est Tuum; Lay down that ye wear it is none of your own Let me persuade them, for that Can work most , that they do this all in their own wrong. All the world knows that no one will Rough Cast a marble wall, but mud or unpolishd Rag (Stone)