'Tis merry in the hall when beards wag all.--_Old Song_.
Among the harmless foibles of adolescence which contribute to the quiet
amusement of folks of mature years is the eager desire of youths to have
their smooth faces adorned with that "noble" distinction of manhood--a
beard. And no wonder. For, should a clever lad, getting out of his
"teens," venture to express opinions contrary to those of his elders
present, is he not at once snubbed by being called "a beardless boy"? A
boy! Bitter taunt! He very naturally feels that he is grossly insulted,
and all because his "dimpled chin never has known the barber's shear."
Full well does our ingenuous youth know that a man is not wise in
consequence of his beard--that, as the Orientals say of women's long
hair, it often happens that men with long beards have short wits;
nevertheless, had he but a beard himself, he should then be free from
such a wretched "argument"--such an implied accusation of his lack of
wit, as that he is beardless. The young Roman watched the first
appearance of the downy precursor of his beard with no little
solicitude, and applied the household oil to his face--there were no
patent specifics in those days for "infallibly producing luxuriant
whiskers and moustaches in a few weeks"--to promote its tardy growth,
and entitle him, from the incipient fringe, to be styled "barbatulus."
When his beard was full-grown he was called "barbatus."
It would seem that the beard was held in the highest esteem, especially
in Asiatic countries, from the earliest period of which any records have
been preserved. The Hebrew priests are commanded in the Book of
Leviticus, ch. xix, not to shave off the corners of their beards; and
the first High Priest, Aaron, probably wore a magnificent beard, since
the amicable relations between brethren are compared, in the 133rd
Psalm, to "the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the
beard, even Aaron's beard; that went down to the skirts of his
garments." The Assyrian kings intertwined gold thread with their fine
beards--and, judging from mural sculptures, curling tongs must have been
in considerable demand with them. In ancient Greece the beard was
universally worn, and it is related of Zoilus, the founder of the
anti-Homeric school, that he shaved the crown of his head, in order that
all the virtue should go to the nourishment of his beard. Persius could
not think of a more complimentary epithet to apply to Socrates than that
of "Magistrum Barbatum," or Bearded Master--the notion being that the
beard was the symbol of profound sagacity.[158] Alexander the Great,
however, caused his soldiers to shave off their beards, because they
furnished their enemies with handles whereby to seize hold of them in
battle. The beard was often consecrated to the deities, as the most
precious offering. Chaucer, in his _Knight's Tale_, represents Arcite as
offering his beard to Mars:
And evermore, unto that day I dye,
Eternè fyr I wol bifore the fynde,
And eek to this avow I wol me bynde,
My berd, myn heer, that hangeth long a doun,
That neuer yit ne felt offensioun
Of rasour ne of schere, I wol ye giue,
And be thy trewè seruaunt whiles I lyue.[159]
[158] The notion that a beard indicated wisdom on the part of
the wearer is often referred to in early European
literature. For example, in Lib. v of Caxton's Esop, the
Fox, to induce the sick King Lion to kill the Wolf, says
he has travelled far and wide, seeking a good medicine
for his Majesty, and "certaynly I have found no better
counceylle than the counceylle of an auncyent Greke,
with a grete and long berd, a man of grete wysdom, sage,
and worthy to be praysed." And when the Fox, in another
fable, leaves the too-credulous Goat in the well,
Reynard adds insult to injury by saying to him, "O
maystre goote, yf thow haddest be [i.e. been] wel
wyse, with thy fayre berde," and so forth. (Pp. 153 and
196 of Mr. Jacobs' new edition.)--A story is told of a
close-shaven French ambassador to the court of some
Eastern potentate, that on presenting his credentials
his Majesty made sneering remarks on his smooth face
(doubtless he was himself "bearded to the eyes"), to
which the envoy boldly replied: "Sire, had my master
supposed that you esteem a beard so highly, instead of
me, he would have sent your Majesty a goat as his
ambassador."
[159] Harleian MS. No. 7334, lines 2412-2418. Printed for the
Early English Text Society.
Selim I was the first Turkish sultan who shaved his beard after his
accession to the throne; and when his muftis remonstrated with him for
this _dangerous_ innovation, he facetiously replied that he had removed
his beard in order that his vazírs should not have wherewith to _lead_
him. The beards of modern Persian soldiers were abolished in consequence
of a singular accident, which Morier thus relates in his _Second
Journey_: When European discipline was introduced into the Persian army,
Lieutenant Lindsay raised a corps of artillery. His zeal was only
equalled by the encouragement of the king, who liberally adopted every
method proposed. It was only upon the article of shaving off the beards
of the Persian soldiers that the king was inexorable; nor would the
sacrifice have ever taken place had it not happened that, in discharging
the guns before the prince, a powder-horn exploded in the hand of a
gunner who had been gifted with a very long beard, which in an instant
was blown away from his chin. Lieutenant Lindsay, availing himself of
this lucky opportunity to prove his argument on the inconvenience of
beards to soldiers, immediately produced the scorched gunner before the
prince, who was so much struck with his woeful appearance that the
abolition of military beards was at once decided upon.
It was customary for the early French monarchs to place three hairs of
their beard under the seal attached to important documents; and there is
still extant a charter of the year 1121, which concludes with these
words: "Quod ut ratum et stabile perseveret in posterum, præsentis
scripto sigilli mei robur apposui cum tribus pilis barbæ meæ."--In
obedience to his spiritual advisers, Louis VII of France had his hair
cut close and his beard shaved off. But his consort Eleanor was so
disgusted with his smooth face and cropped head that she took her own
measures to be revenged, and the poor king was compelled to obtain a
divorce from her. She subsequently gave her hand to the Count of Anjou,
afterwards Henry II of England, and the rich provinces of Poitou and
Guienne were her dowry. From this sprang those terrible wars which
continued for three centuries, and cost France untold treasure and three
millions of men--and all because Louis did not consult his consort
before shaving off his beard!
Charles the Fifth of Spain ascending the throne while yet a mere boy,
his courtiers shaved their beards in compliment to the king's smooth
face. But some of the shaven Dons were wont to say bitterly, "Since we
have lost our beards, we have lost our souls!" Sully, the eminent
statesman and soldier, scorned, however, to follow the fashion, and,
being one day summoned to Court on urgent business of State, his beard
was made the subject of ridicule by the foppish courtiers. The veteran
thus gravely addressed the king: "Sire, when your father, of glorious
memory, did me the honour to consult me in grave State matters, he first
dismissed the buffoons and stage-dancers from the presence-chamber." It
may be readily supposed that after this well-merited rebuke the grinning
courtiers at once disappeared.
Julius II, one of the most warlike of all the Roman Pontiffs, was the
first Pope who permitted his beard to grow, to inspire the faithful with
still greater respect for his august person. Kings and their courtiers
were not slow to follow the example of the Head of the Church and the
ruler of kings, and the fashion soon spread among people of all ranks.
So highly prized was the beard in former times that Baldwin, Prince of
Edessa, as Nicephorus relates in his Chronicle, pawned his beard for a
large sum of money, which was redeemed by his father Gabriel, Prince of
Melitene, to prevent the ignominy which his son must have suffered by
its loss. And when Juan de Castro, the Portuguese admiral, borrowed a
thousand pistoles from the citizens of Goa he pledged one of his
whiskers, saying, "All the gold in the world cannot equal this natural
ornament of my valour." And it is said the people of Goa were so much
affected by the noble message that they remitted the money and returned
the whisker--though of what earthly use it could prove to the gallant
admiral, unless, perhaps, to stuff a tennis ball, it is not easy to say.
To deprive a man of his beard was a token of ignominious subjection, and
is still a common mode of punishment in some Asiatic countries. And such
was the treatment that the conjuror Pinch received at the hands of
Antipholus of Ephesus and his man, in the _Comedy of Errors_, according
to the servant's account of the outrage, who states that not only had
they "beaten the maids a-row," but they
bound the doctor,
Whose beard they have singed off with brands of fire;
And ever as it blazed they threw on him
Great pails of puddled mire to quench the hair (v, 1).
In Persia and India when a wife is found to have been unfaithful, her
hair--the distinguishing ornament of woman, as the beard is considered
to be that of man--is shaved off, among other indignities.
Don Sebastian Cobbarruvius gravely relates the following marvellous
legend to show that nothing so much disgraced a Spaniard as pulling his
beard: "A noble of that nation dying (his name Cid Lai Dios), a Jew, who
hated him much in his lifetime, stole privately into the room where his
body was laid out, and, thinking to do what he never durst while living,
stooped down and plucked his beard; at which the body started up, and
drawing out half way his sword, which lay beside him, put the Jew in
such a fright that he ran out of the room as if a thousand devils had
been behind him. This done, the body lay down as before to rest; and,"
adds the veracious chronicler, "the Jew after that turned
Christian."--In the third of Don Quevedo's Visions of the Last Judgment,
we read that a Spaniard, after receiving sentence, was taken into
custody by a pair of demons who happened to disorder the set of his
moustache, and they had to re-compose them with a pair of curling-tongs
before they could get him to proceed with them!
By the rules of the Church of Rome, lay monks were compelled to wear
their beards, and only the priests were permitted to shave.[160] The
clergy at length became so corrupt and immoral, and lived such
scandalous lives, that they could not be distinguished from the laity
except by their close-shaven faces. The first Reformers, therefore, to
mark their separation from the Romish Church, allowed their beards to
grow. Calvin, Fox, Cranmer, and other leaders of the Reformation are all
represented in their portraits with long flowing beards. John Knox, the
great Scottish Reformer, wore, as is well known, a beard of prodigious
length.
[160] In a scarce old poem, entitled, _The Pilgrymage and the
Wayes of Jerusalem_, we read:
The thyrd Seyte beyn prestis of oure lawe,
That synge masse at the Sepulcore;
At the same grave there oure lorde laye,
They synge the leteny every daye.
In oure manner is her [i.e. their] songe,
Saffe, here [i.e. their] _berdys be ryght longe_,
That is the geyse of that contre,
_The lenger the berde the bettyr is he_;
The order of hem [i.e. them] be barfote freeres.
The ancient Britons shaved the chin and cheeks, but wore their
moustaches down to the breast. Our Saxon ancestors wore forked beards.
The Normans at the Conquest shaved not only the chin, but also the back
of the head. But they soon began to grow very long beards. During the
Wars of the Roses beards grew "small by degrees and beautifully less."
Queen Mary of England, in the year 1555, sent to Moscow four accredited
agents, who were all bearded; but one of them, George Killingworth, was
particularly distinguished by a beard five feet two inches long, at the
sight of which, it is said, a smile crossed the grim features of Ivan
the Terrible himself; and no wonder. But the longest beard known out of
fairy tales was that of Johann Mayo, the German painter, commonly called
"John the Bearded." His beard actually trailed on the ground when he
stood upright, and for convenience he usually kept it tucked in his
girdle. The emperor Charles V, it is said, was often pleased to cause
Mayo to unfasten his beard and allow it to blow in the faces of his
courtiers.--A worthy clergyman in the time of Queen Elizabeth gave as
the best reason he had for wearing a beard of enormous length, "that no
act of his life might be unworthy of the gravity of his appearance."
Queen Elizabeth, in the first year of her reign, made an abortive
attempt to abolish her subjects' beards by an impost of 3s. 4d. a year
(equivalent to four times that sum in these "dear" days) on every beard
of more than a fortnight's growth. And Peter the Great also laid a tax
upon beards in Russia: nobles' beards were assessed at a rouble, and
those of commoners at a copeck each. "But such veneration," says Giles
Fletcher, "had this people for these ensigns of gravity that many of
them carefully preserved their beards in their cabinets to be buried
with them, imagining perhaps that they should make but an odd figure in
their grave with their naked chins."
The beard of the renowned Hudibras was portentous, as we learn from
Butler, who thus describes the Knight's hirsute honours:
His tawny beard was th' equal grace
Both of his wisdom and his face;
In cut and dye so like a tile,
A sadden view it would beguile:
The upper part whereof was whey,
The nether orange mixt with grey.
This hairy meteor did denounce
The fall of sceptres and of crowns;
With grisly type did represent
Declining age of government,
And tell, with hieroglyphic spade,
Its own grave and the state's were made.
Philip Nye, an Independent minister in the time of the Commonwealth, and
one of the famous Assembly of Divines, was remarkable for the
singularity of his beard. Hudibras, in his Heroical Epistle to the lady
of his "love," speaks of
Amorous intrigues
In towers, and curls, and periwigs,
With greater art and cunning reared
Than Philip Nye's _thanksgiving beard_.
Nye opposed Lilly the astrologer with no little virulence, for which he
was rewarded with the privilege of holding forth upon Thanksgiving Day,
and so, as Butler says, in some MS. verses,
He thought upon it and resolved to put
His beard into as wonderful a cut.
Butler even honoured Nye's beard with a whole poem, entitled "On Philip
Nye's Thanksgiving Beard," which is printed in his _Genuine Remains_,
edited by Thyer, vol. i, p. 177 ff., and opens thus:
A beard is but the vizard of the face,
That nature orders for no other place;
The fringe and tassel of a countenance
That hides his person from another man's,
And, like the Roman habits of their youth,
Is never worn until his perfect growth.
And in another set of verses he has again a fling at the obnoxious beard
of the same preacher:
This reverend brother, like a goat,
Did wear a tail upon his throat;
The fringe and tassel of a face
That gives it a becoming grace,
But set in such a curious frame,
As if 'twere wrought in filograin;
And cut so even as if 't had been
Drawn with a pen upon the chin.
As it was customary among the peoples of antiquity who wore their beards
to cut them off, and for those who shaved to allow their beards to grow,
in times of mourning, so many of the Presbyterians and Independents
vowed not to cut their beards till monarchy and episcopacy were utterly
destroyed. Thus in a humorous poem, entitled "The Cobler and the Vicar
of Bray," we read:
This worthy knight was one that swore,
He would not cut his beard
Till this ungodly nation was
From kings and bishops cleared.
Which holy vow he firmly kept,
And most devoutly wore
A grisly meteor on his face,
Till they were both no more.
In _Pericles, Prince of Tyre_, when the royal hero leaves his infant
daughter Marina in charge of his friend Cleon, governor of Tharsus, to
be brought up in his house, he declares to Cleon's wife (Act iii, sc.
3):
Till she be married, madam,
By bright Diana, whom we honour all,
Unscissored shall this hair of mine remain,
Though I show well in't;
and that he meant his beard is evident from what he says at the close of
the play, when his daughter is about to be married to Lysimachus,
governor of Mitylene (Act v, sc. 3):
And now
This ornament, that makes me look so dismal,
Will I, my loved Marina, clip to form;
And what these fourteen years no razor touched,
To grace thy marriage day, I'll beautify.
Scott, in his _Woodstock_, represents Sir Henry Lee, of Ditchley, whilom
Ranger of Woodstock Park (or Chase), as wearing his full beard, to
indicate his profound grief for the death of the "Royal Martyr," which
indeed was not unusual with elderly and warmly devoted Royalists until
the "Happy Restoration"--save the mark!
Another extraordinary beard was that of Van Butchell, the quack doctor,
who died at London in 1814, in his 80th year. This singular individual
had his first wife's body carefully embalmed and preserved in a glass
case in his "study," in order that he might enjoy a handsome annuity to
which he was entitled "so long as his wife remained above ground." His
person was for many years familiar to loungers in Hyde Park, where he
appeared regularly every afternoon, riding on a little pony, and wearing
a magnificent beard of twenty years' growth, which an Oriental might
well have envied, the more remarkable in an age when shaving was so
generally practised.--A jocular epitaph was composed on "Mary Van
Butchell," of which these lines may serve as a specimen:
O fortunate and envied man!
To keep a wife beyond life's span;
Whom you can ne'er have cause to blame,
Is ever constant and the same;
Who, qualities most rare, inherits
A wife that's dumb, yet _full of spirits_.
The celebrated Dr. John Hunter is said to have embalmed the body of Van
Butchell's first wife--for the bearded empiric married again--and the
"mummy," in its original glass case, is still to be seen in the Museum
of the Royal College of Surgeon's, Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, London.
It was once the fashion for gallants to dye their beards various
colours, such as yellow, red, gray, and even green. Thus in the play of
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, Bottom the weaver asks in what kind of beard
he is to play the part of Pyramis--whether "in your straw-coloured
beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your
French crown-coloured beard, your perfect yellow?" (Act i, sc. 2.) In
ancient church pictures, and in the miracle plays performed in medieval
times, both Cain and Judas Iscariot were always represented with yellow
beards. In the _Merry Wives of Windsor_, Mistress Quickly asks Simple
whether his master (Slender) does not wear "a great round beard, like a
glover's paring-knife," to which he replies: "No, forsooth; he hath but
a little wee face, with a little yellow beard--a Cain-coloured beard"
(Act i, sc. 4).--Allusions to beards are of very frequent occurrence in
Shakspeare's plays, as may be seen by reference to any good Concordance,
such as that of the Cowden Clarkes.
Harrison, in his _Description of England_, ed. 1586, p. 172, thus refers
to the vagaries of fashion of beards in his time: "I will saie nothing
of our heads, which sometimes are polled, sometimes curled, or suffered
to grow at length like womans lockes, manie times cut off, above or
under the eares, round as by a woodden dish. Neither will I meddle with
our varietie of beards, of which some are shaven from the chin like
those of Turks, not a few cut short like to the beard of marques Otto,
some made round like a rubbing brush, others with a _pique de vant_ (O
fine fashion!), or now and then suffered to grow long, the barbers being
growen to be so cunning in this behalfe as the tailors. And therfore if
a man have a leane and streight face, a marquesse Ottons cut will make
it broad and large; if it be platter like, a long slender beard will
make it seeme the narrower; if he be wesell becked, then much heare left
on the cheekes will make the owner looke big like a bowdled hen, and so
grim as a goose."[161]
[161] Reprint for the Shakspere Society, 1877, B. ii, ch. vii,
p. 169.
Barnaby Rich, in the conclusion of his _Farewell to the Military
Profession_ (1581), says that the young gallants sometimes had their
beards "cutte rounde, like a Philippes doler; sometymes square, like the
kinges hedde in Fishstreate; sometymes so neare the skinne, that a manne
might judge by his face the gentlemen had had verie pilde lucke."[162]
[162] Reprint for the (old) Shakspeare Society, 1846, p. 217.
In Taylor's _Superbiae Flagellum_ we find the following amusing
description of the different "cuts" of beards:
Now a few lines to paper I will put,
Of mens Beards strange and variable cut:
In which there's some doe take as vaine a Pride,
As almost in all other things beside.
Some are reap'd most substantiall, like a brush,
Which makes a Nat'rall wit knowne by the bush:
(And in my time of some men I have heard,
Whose wisedome have bin onely wealth and beard)
Many of these the proverbe well doth fit,
Which sayes Bush naturall, More haire then wit.
Some seeme as they were starched stiffe and fine,
Like to the bristles of some angry swine:
And some (to set their Loves desire on edge)
Are cut and prun'de like to a quickset hedge.
Some like a spade, some like a forke, some square,
Some round, some mow'd like stubble, some starke bare,
Some sharpe Steletto fashion, dagger like,
That may with whispering a mans eyes out pike:
Some with the hammer cut, or Romane T,[163]
Their beards extravagant reform'd must be,
Some with the quadrate, some triangle fashion,
Some circular, some ovall in translation,
Some perpendicular in longitude,
Some like a thicket for their crassitude,
That heights, depths, bredths, triforme, square, ovall, round,
And rules Ge'metricall in beards are found.
Besides the upper lip's strange variation,
Corrected from mutation to mutation;
As 'twere from tithing unto tithing sent,
Pride gives to Pride continuall punishment.
Some (spite their teeth) like thatch'd eves downeward grows,
And some growes upwards in despite their nose.
Some their mustatioes of such length doe keepe,
That very well they may a maunger sweepe:
Which in Beere, Ale, or Wine, they drinking plunge,
And sucke the liquor up, as 'twere a Spunge;
But 'tis a Slovens beastly Pride, I thinke,
To wash his beard where other men must drinke.
And some (because they will not rob the cup),
Their upper chaps like pot hookes are turn'd up;
The Barbers thus (like Taylers) still must be,
Acquainted with each cuts variety--
Yet though with beards thus merrily I play,
'Tis onely against Pride which I inveigh:
For let them weare their haire or their attire,
According as their states or mindes desire,
So as no puff'd up Pride their hearts possesse,
And they use Gods good gifts with thankfulnesse.[164]
[163] Formed by the moustache and a chin-tuft, as worn by
Louis Napoleon and his imperialist supporters.
[164] _Works of John Taylor, the Water Poet, comprised in the
Folio edition of 1630_. Printed for the Spenser Society,
1869. "_Superbiae Flagellum_, or the Whip of Pride," p. 34.
The staunch Puritan Phillip Stubbes, in the second part of his _Anatomie
of Abuses_ (1583), thus rails at the beards and the barbers of his day:
"There are no finer fellowes under the sunne, nor experter in their
noble science of barbing than they be. And therefore in the fulnes of
their overflowing knowledge (oh ingenious heads, and worthie to be
dignified with the diademe of follie and vaine curiositie), they have
invented such strange fashions and monstrous maners of cuttings,
trimings, shavings and washings, that you would wonder to see. They have
one maner of cut called the French cut, another the Spanish cut, one
called the Dutch cut, another the Italian, one the newe cut, another the
old, one of the bravado fashion, another of the meane fashion. One a
gentlemans cut, another the common cut, one cut of the court, another of
the country, with infinite the like vanities, which I overpasse. They
have also other kinds of cuts innumerable; and therefore when you come
to be trimed, they will aske you whether you will be cut to looke
terrible to your enimie, or amiable to your freend, grime and sterne in
countenance, or pleasant and demure (for they have divers kinds of cuts
for all these purposes, or else they lie). Then when they have done all
their feats, it is a world to consider, how their mowchatowes [i.e.,
moustaches] must be preserved and laid out, and from one cheke to
another, yea, almost from one eare to another, and turned up like two
hornes towards the forehead. Besides that, when they come to the cutting
of the haire, what snipping and snapping of the cycers is there, what
tricking and toying, and all to tawe out mony, you may be sure. And when
they come to washing, oh how gingerly they behave themselves therein.
For then shall your mouth be bossed with the lather or fome that riseth
of the balle (for they have their sweet balles wherewith-all they use to
washe), your eyes closed must be anointed therewith also. Then snap go
the fingers ful bravely, God wot. Thus this tragedy ended, comes me
warme clothes, to wipe and dry him withall; next the eares must be
picked and closed againe togither artificially forsooth. The haire of
the nostrils cut away, and every thing done in order comely to behold.
The last action in this tragedie is the paiment of monie. And least
these cunning barbers might seeme unconscionable in asking much for
their paines, they are of such a shamefast modestie, as they will aske
nothing at all, but standing to the curtisie and liberalitie of the
giver, they will receive all that comes, how much soever it be, not
giving anie againe, I warrant you: for take a barber with that fault,
and strike off his head. No, no, such fellowes are _Rarae aves in
terris, nigrisque similimi cygnis_, Rare birds upon the earth, and as
geason as blacke swans. You shall have also your orient perfumes for
your nose, your fragrant waters for your face, wherewith you shall bee
all to besprinkled, your musicke againe, and pleasant harmonic, shall
sound in your eares, and all to tickle the same with vaine delight. And
in the end your cloke shall be brushed, and 'God be with you
Gentleman!'"[165]
[165] Reprint for the Shakspere Society, Part ii (1882),
pp. 50, 51.
* * * * *
A very curious Ballad of the Beard, of the time of Charles I, if not
earlier, is reproduced in _Satirical Songs and Poems on Costume_, edited
by F. W. Fairholt, for the Percy Society, in which "the varied forms of
beards which characterised the profession of each man are amusingly
descanted on":
The beard, thick or thin, on the lip or the chin,
Doth dwell so near the tongue,
That her silence in the beards defence
May do her neighbour wrong.
Now a beard is a thing that commands in a king,
Be his sceptre ne'er so fair:
Where the beard bears the sway the people obey,
And are subject to a hair.
'Tis a princely sight, and a grave delight,
That adorns both young and old;
A well-thatcht face is a comely grace,
And a shelter from the cold.
When the piercing north comes thundering forth,
Let a barren face beware;
For a trick it will find, with a razor of wind,
To shave a face that's bare.
But there's many a nice and strange device
That doth the beard disgrace;
But he that is in such a foolish sin
Is a traitor to his face.
Now of beards there be such company,
And fashions such a throng,
That it is very hard to handle a beard,
Tho' it be never so long.
The Roman T, in its bravery,
Both first itself disclose,
But so high it turns, that oft it burns
With the flames of a torrid nose.
The stiletto-beard, oh, it makes me afear'd,
It is so sharp beneath,
For he that doth place a dagger in 's face,
What wears he in his sheath?
But, methinks, I do itch to go thro' the stitch
The needle-beard to amend,
Which, without any wrong, I may call too long,
For a man can see no end.
The soldier's beard doth march in shear'd,
In figure like a spade,
With which he'll make his enemies quake,
And think their graves are made.
* * * * *
What doth invest a bishop's breast,
But a milk-white spreading hair?
Which an emblem may be of integrity
Which doth inhabit there.
* * * * *
But oh, let us tarry for the beard of King Harry,
That grows about the chin,
With his bushy pride, and a grove on each side,
And a champion ground between.
"Barnes in the defence of the Berde" is another curious piece of verse,
or rather of arrant doggrel, printed in the 16th century. It is
addressed to Andrew Borde, the learned and facetious physician, in the
time of Henry VIII, who seems to have written a tract against the
wearing of beards, of which nothing is now known. In the second part
Barnes (whoever he was) says:
But, syr, I praye you, yf you tell can,
Declare to me, when God made man,
(I meane by our forefather Adam)
Whyther he had a berde than;
And yf he had, who dyd hym shave,
Syth that a barber he coulde not have.
Well, then, ye prove hym there a knave,
Bicause his berde he dyd so save:
I fere it not.
* * * * *
Sampson, with many thousandes more
Of auncient phylosophers (!), full great store,
Wolde not be shaven, to dye therefore;
Why shulde you, then, repyne so sore?
Admit that men doth imytate
Thynges of antyquité, and noble state,
Such counterfeat thinges oftymes do mytygate
Moche ernest yre and debate:
I fere it not.
Therefore, to cease, I thinke be best;
For berdyd men wolde lyve in rest.
You prove yourselfe a homly gest,
So folysshely to rayle and jest;
For if I wolde go make in ryme,
How new shavyd men loke lyke scraped swyne,
And so rayle forth, from tyme to tyme,
A knavysshe laude then shulde be myne:
I fere it not.
What should this avail him? he asks; and so let us all be good friends,
bearded and unbearded.[166]
[166] _The Treatise answerynge the boke of Berdes, Compyled by
Collyn Clowte, dedicated to Barnarde, Barber, dwellyng
in Banbury_: "Here foloweth a treatyse made, Answerynge
the treatyse of doctor Borde upon Berdes."--Appended to
reprint of Andrew Borde's _Introduction of Knowledge_,
edited by Dr. F. J. Furnivall, for the Early English Text
Society, 1870--see pp. 314, 315.
But Andrew Borde, if he did ever write a tract against beards, must have
formerly held a different opinion on the subject, for in his _Breviary
of Health_, first printed in 1546, he says: "The face may have many
impediments. The first impediment is to see a man having no beard, and a
woman to have a beard." It was long a popular notion that the few hairs
which are sometimes seen on the chins of very old women signified that
they were in league with the arch-enemy of mankind--in plain English,
that they were witches. The celebrated Three Witches who figure in
_Macbeth_, "and palter with him in a double sense," had evidently this
distinguishing mark, for says Banquo to the "weird sisters" (Act i, sc.
2):
You should be women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so.
And in the ever-memorable scene in the _Merry Wives of Windsor_, when
Jack Falstaff, disguised as the fat woman of Brentford, is escaping from
Ford's house, he is cuffed and mauled by Ford, who exclaims, "Hang her,
witch!" on which the honest Cambrian Sir Hugh Evans sapiently remarks:
"Py yea and no, I think the 'oman is a witch indeed. I like not when a
'oman has a great peard. I spy a great peard under her muffler!" (Act
iv, sc. 2.)
There have been several notable bearded women in different parts of
Europe. The Duke of Saxony had the portrait painted of a poor Swiss
woman who had a remarkably fine, large beard. Bartel Græfjë, of
Stuttgart, who was born in 1562, was another bearded woman. In 1726
there appeared at Vienna a female dancer with a large bushy beard.
Charles XII of Sweden had in his army a woman who wore a beard a yard
and a half in length. In 1852 Mddle. Bois de Chêne, who was born at
Genoa in 1834, was exhibited in London: she had "a profuse head of hair,
a strong black beard, and large bushy whiskers." It is not unusual to
see dark beauties in our own country with a moustache which must be the
envy of "young shavers." And, _apropos_, the poet Rogers is said to have
had a great dislike of ladies' beards, such as this last described; and
he happened to be in a circulating library turning over the books on the
counter, when a lady, who seemed to cherish her beard with as much
affection as the young gentlemen aforesaid, alighted from her carriage,
and, entering the shop, asked the librarian for a certain book. The
polite man of books replied that he was sorry he had not a copy at
present. "But," said Roger, slily, "you have the _Barber of Seville_,
have you not?" "O yes," said the bookseller, not seeing the poet's
drift, "I have the _Barber of Seville_, very much at your ladyship's
service." The lady drove away, evidently much offended, but the beard
afterwards disappeared. Talking of barbers--but they deserve a whole
paper to themselves, and they shall have it, from me, some day, if I
live a little longer.
* * * * *
In No. 331 of the _Spectator_, Addison tells us how his friend Sir Roger
de Coverley, in Westminster Abbey, pointing to the bust of a venerable
old man, asked him whether he did not think "our ancestors looked much
wiser in their beards than we without them. For my part," said he, "when
I am walking in my gallery in the country, and see my ancestors, who
many of them died before they were my age, I cannot forbear regarding
them as so many patriarchs, and at the same time looking upon myself as
an idle, smock-faced young fellow. I love to see your Abrahams, your
Isaacs, and your Jacobs, as we have them in old pieces of tapestry, with
beards below their girdles, that cover half the hangings."
* * * * *
During most part of last century close shaving was general throughout
Europe. In France the beard began to appear on the faces of Bonaparte's
"braves," and the fashion soon extended to civilians, then to Italy,
Germany, Spain, Russia, and lastly to England, where, after the gradual
enlargement of the side-whiskers, the full beard is now commonly
worn--to the comfort and health of the wearers.