Omniana/Volume 1/Rouge

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

117. Rouge.

Triumphant generals in Rome wore Rouge. The ladies of France, we presume, and their fair sisters and imitators in Britain, conceive themselves always in the chair of triumph, and of course entitled to the same distinction. The custom originated, perhaps, in the humility of the conquerors, that they might seem to blush continually at their own praises. Mr. Gilpin frequently speaks of a "picturesque eye:" with something less of solœcism we may affirm, that our fair ever-blushing triumphants have secured to themselves the charm of picturesque cheeks, every face being its own portrait.