visnomies

Updated: June 23, 2025

Very naturally I began to wonder at all things, some for being so like and some for being so unlike the things in England Dutch women with large umbrella hats shooting out half a yard before them, with a prodigal plumpness of petticoat behind the women of Hamburg with caps plaited on the caul with silver, or gold, or both, bordered round with stiffened lace, which stood out before their eyes, but not lower, so that the eyes sparkled through it the Hanoverian with the fore part of the head bare, then a stiff lace standing up like a wall perpendicular on the cap, and the cap behind tailed with an enormous quantity of ribbon which lies or tosses on the back: "Their visnomies seem'd like a goodly banner Spread in defiance of all enemies."

Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Biographia Literaria