Note 1 — WOMEN.
Reading edition
The Rev. J.R. Lumby first told me of the proverb 'As white as a nun's hen,' the nuns being famous, no doubt, for delicate poultry. John Heywood has in his Proverbes, 1562 (first printed, 1546), p. 43 of the Spencer Society's reprint, 1867,
She tooke thenterteinment of the yong men All in daliaunce, as nice as a Nun's hen.
The proverb is quoted by Wilson in his Arte of Rhetorique, 1553 (Hazlitt's Proverbs, p. 69).