covered and stockinged? Many hold there is naught like the natural article, when 'tis well made and perfectly turned, according to the points of beauty enumerated by the Spaniard I did quote from a little above, and is white, fair and smooth, and appropriately displayed in a fine bed. For if it be otherwise and a lady were fain to show her leg all bare in walking and so on, and with shoes on her feet, albeit she should be the most magnificently dressed out possible, yet would she never be deemed becomingly apparelled. Nor would she really and truly look so fair as one that should be properly equipped with pretty hose of coloured silk or else of white thread, such as be made at Florence for summer wear, and which I have often seen our ladies wearing in former times, before the great vogue we do now see of silk stockings. But the hose must ever be drawn close and stretched as tight as a drum and so fastened with clasps or otherwise, according to the preference and good pleasure of the wearer. Further must the foot be fitted with a pretty white shoe, or a slipper of black velvet or velvet of some other colour, or else a neat little high-heeled shoe, cut to perfection, such as I have seen a certain very noble lady of the great world wear, of such sort that naught could well be better or more dainty.
Wherein again the beauty of the foot must be considered. If this be too large, 'tis not pretty; but an if it be too tiny, it doth give a naughty hint and ill notion of its wearer. Rather it should be of a middling size, as I have seen sundry which have been exceeding appetizing, above all when their owners did thrust the same half in, half out, and just show them beneath their petticoat, and make them shift and quiver in little tricksome, wanton
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