Patches.

Patches. During the whole of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century these fantastic ornaments were commonly worn by women and sometimes by men. In Jack Drum's Entertainment, or the Comedie of Pasquil and Katharine (1601; 2d ed. 1616), they are thus mentioned: 'For even as blacke patches are worn, some for pride, some to stay the Rheume, and some to hide the scab,' &c.; and in the Artificial Changeling (1650) there is a woodcut showing the lady of fashion, with a coach, coachman, two horses, and postillions gnummed on to her forehead, and the rest of her face ornamented with a star, two crescents, and a large round spot. In the same year (1650) a Bill against 'painting, black patches, and immodest dresses' was read for the first time, but got no further. In vain were sermons preached; in vain did Morbus Satanicus, or The Sin of Pride, in 1666 reach the 15th edition; in vain did satirists assail the Metamorphosis of Fair Faces into Foul Visages (temp. James I.); the senseless custom was still rife when (1712) Pope described among the treasures of Belinda's toilet-table 'Puffs, Powders, Patches, Bibles, Billet-doux' (Rape of the Lock, i. 138). Attempts have been made to revive the fashion, but without success. See Fairholt's History of Dress and Costume in England (2d ed. 1860).