size, her shape easy, with that due proportion of plumpness which gives
an appearance of majesty and comeliness. Her eyes were full, black, and
sparkling; she had bright, chestnut-coloured hair, and a complexion fresh
and blooming. Her skin was delicately white, and her neck admirably well
formed; and this so generally admired beauty, the fashion of dress, in
her time, admitted of being fully displayed.

Such was Queen Marguerite as she is portrayed, with the greatest
luxuriance of colouring, by these authors. To her personal charms were
added readiness of wit, ease and gracefulness of speech, and great
affability and courtesy of manners. This description of Queen Marguerite
cannot be dismissed without observing, if only for the sake of keeping
the fashion of the present times with her sex in countenance, that,
though she had hair, as has been already described, becoming her, and
sufficiently ornamental in itself, yet she occasionally called in the aid
of wigs. Brantome's words are: "l'artifice de perruques bien gentiment
faconnees."

[Ladies in the days of Ovid wore periwigs. That poet says to Corinna:

"Nunc tibi captivos mittet Germania crines;
Culta triumphatae munere gentis eris."

(Wigs shall from captive Germany be sent;
'Tis with such spoils your head you ornament.)

These, we may conclude, were flaxen, that being the prevailing coloured
hair of the Germans at this day. The Translator has met with a further
account of Marguerite's head-dress, which describes her as wearing a
velvet bonnet ornamented with pearls and diamonds, and surmounted with a