Shall not my verse despise;
It is more fit for a nutmeg, but yet
It grates poor prisoners' eyes.
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.
Last, the clown doth rush, with his beard like a bush,
Which may be well endur'd."
Charles I. wore the Vandyke-beard, made familiar to us by the great
artist. This fashion, set by the king, was followed by nearly the whole
of his Cavaliers. It has been thought by some students of this subject
that with the tragic death of the king the beard disappeared, but if we
are to put our faith in an old song, dated 1660, we must conclude that
with the Restoration it once more came into fashion. It says:--
"Now of beards there be such company,
Of fashions such a throng,
That it is very hard to treat of the beard,
Tho' it be never so long."
It did not remain popular for any length of time, the razor
everywhere keeping down its growth.
[Illustration: The Gunpowder Conspirators, from a print published
immediately after the discovery. Shows the Beards in Fashion in 1605.]
Sir Walter Scott's great grandsire was called "Beardie." He was an
ardent Jacobite, and made a vow that he would never shave his beard
until the Stuarts were restored. "It would have been well," said the
novelist, "if his zeal for the vanished dynasty had stopped with letting
his beard grow. But he took arms and intrigued in their cause, until he
lost all he had in the world, and, as I have heard, ran a narrow risk of
being hanged, had it not been for the interference of Anne, Duchess of
Buccleuch and Monmouth." Sir Walter refers to him in the introduction to
Canto VI. of "Marmion":--
"With amber beard and flaxen hair,
And reverend apostolic air.
Small thought was his, in after time
E'er to be pitched into a rhyme.
The simple sire could only boast
That he was loyal to his cost;
The banish'd race of kings revered,
And lost his land--but kept his beard."
He died in 1729 at Kelso. "Beardie's" second son, named Robert, was a
farmer at Sandyknowe, and was Sir Walter Scott's grandfather.
A contributor to _Notes and Queries_, for October 1st, 1859, gives the
following interesting particulars of a Shaving Statute relating to
Ireland:--"In a parliament held at Trim by John Talbot, Earl of
Shrewsbury, then Lord-Lieutenant, anno 1447, 25 Henry VI., it was
enacted 'That every Irishman must keep his upper lip shaved, or else be
used as an Irish enemy.' The Irish at this time were much attached to
the national foppery of wearing mustachios, the fashion then throughout
Europe, and for more than two centuries after. The unfortunate Paddy who
became an enemy for his beard, like an enemy was treated; for the
treason could only be pardoned by the surrender of his land. Thus two
benefits accrued to the king: his enemies were diminished, and his
followers provided for; many of whose descendants enjoy the confiscated
properties to this day, which may appropriately be designated
Hair-breadth estates." The effects of this statute became so alarming
that the people submitted to the English revolutionary razor, and found
it more convenient to resign their beards than their lands. This
agrarian law was repealed by Charles I., after existing two hundred
years.
The Macedonian soldiers were ordered by Alexander to shave, lest their
beards should be handles for the enemy to capture them by. The smooth
chin was adopted in the Greek army. To pull a person's beard has from
remote times been regarded as an act of most degrading insult. Dr Doran
tells a tragic story bearing on this usage. "When the Jew," says the
doctor, "who hated and feared the living Cid Rui Dios, heard that the
great Spaniard was dead, he contrived to get into the room where the
body lay, and he indulged his revengeful spirit by contemptuously
plucking at the beard. But the 'son of somebody' (the hidalgo) was
plucked temporarily into life and indignation by the outrage; and
starting up, endeavoured to get his sword, an attempt which killed the
Jew by mere fright which it caused." In Afghanistan "the system of
administering justice was such," says the "Life of Abdur Rahman"
(London, 1890) "that the humble were able to bring their claims before
the sovereign by the simple process of getting hold of the sovereign's
beard and turban, which meant to throw one's complaints on the shame of
his beard, to which he was bound to listen. One day I was going to the
Hum-hum (Turkish bath) when a man and his wife, running fast, rushed
into the bathroom after me, and the husband, having got hold of my beard
from the front, the wife was pulling me at the same time from behind. It
was very painful, as he was pulling my beard rather hard. As there was
no guard or sentry near to deliver me from their hands, I begged them to
leave my beard alone, saying that I could listen without my beard being
pulled, but all in vain. I was rather sorry that I had not adopted the
fashion of the Europeans, whose faces are clean shaven. I ordered that
in future a strong guard should be placed at the door of the Hum-hum."
Some of the ancient faiths regarded the beard as an appendage not to be
touched with the razor, and a modern instance bearing on the old belief
will be read with interest. Mr Edward Vizetelly, in his entertaining
volume "From Cyprus to Zanzibar" (London, 1901), tells some good stories
about the priests in Cyprus. Mr Vizetelly went to the island as soon as
it passed into the hands of the British Government, and remained there a
few years. "On one occasion," he says, "when I happened to be in the
bazaar at Larnaca in the early afternoon, I was amazed to witness all
the shopkeepers, apart from the Maltese, suddenly putting up their
shutters, as if panic-stricken, but without any apparent cause.
Inquiring the reason, it was only vouchsafed to me that someone had
shaved off a priest's beard." The priest had been imprisoned for felling
a tree in his own garden, which was against the laws of the land then in
force. When in gaol the recalcitrant priest had his unclean hair and
beard shorn off, in accordance with the prison regulations. The
authorities were not aware that the hirsute adornments of the Orthodox
Catholic faith were sacred. The act roused the Cyprist ire, and the High
Commissioner had to issue orders that if any priest was locked up in
future his hair and beard were to be left alone.
Respecting the beard are some popular sayings, and we deal with a few as
follows.
A familiar example is "To pull the devil by the beard." When Archbishop
Laud was advised to escape from this country he said, "If I should get
into Holland, I should expose myself to the insults of those sectaries
there, to whom my character is odious, and have every Anabaptist come to
pull me by the beard." This insulting saying is by no means confined to
England. To demand a person's beard was regarded as a still greater
insult. King Ryons, when he sent a messenger to King Arthur to demand
his beard, received the following answer:--
"Wel, sayd Arthur, thou hast said thy message, ye whiche is ye
most vylaynous and lewdest message that ever man herd sent unto a kynge.
Also thou mayst see, my berd is ful yong yet to make a purfyl of hit.
But telle thou thy kynge this, I owe hym none homage, ne none of myn
elders, but, or it be longe to, he shall do me homage on bothe his
kneys, or else he shall lese his hede by ye feith of my body, for
this is ye most shamefullest message that ever I herd speke of. I
have aspyed, thy kyng met never yet with worshipful men; but tell hym, I
wyll have his hede without he doo me homage. Thenne ye messager
departed." ("The Byrth, Lyf and Actes of Kyng Arthur," edit, by Caxton,
1485, reprinted 1817.)
"To make any one's beard" is an old saying, which means "to cheat him,"
or "to deceive him." We read in Chaucer's _Prologue to the Wife of
Bath_ thus:--
"In faith he shal not kepe me, but me lest:
Yet coude I make his berd, so mete I the"
[Illustration: Geoffrey Chaucer, born about 1340, died 1400.]
And again, in the "Reve's Tale," the Miller said:--
"I trow, the clerkes were aferde
Yet can a miller make a clerkes bearde,
For all his art."
A more familiar saying is "To beard a person," meaning to affront him,
or to set him at defiance. Todd explains the allusion in a note in his
edition of Spenser's _Faerie Queene_--"did beard affront him to his
face"; so Shakespeare's _King Henry IV._, Part I. Act i.: "I beard thee
to thy face"--Fr. "Faire la Barbe à quelqu'un." Ital. "Fa la barbe ad
uno" (Upton.)
See Steevens's note on the use of the word Beard in _King Henry IV._,
which is adopted, he says, "from romances, and originally signified to
'cut off the beard.'" Mr John Ady Repton, F.S.A., to whom we are mainly
indebted for our illustrations of these popular sayings, directs
attention to a specimen of defiance expressed in Agamemnon's speech to
Achilles, as translated by Chapman:--
--"and so tell thy strength how eminent
My power is, being compared with thine;
all other making feare
To vaunt equality with me, or in this
proud kind beare
Their beards against me."
In Shirley's play, _A Contention for Honour and Riches_, 1633:--
"You have worn a sword thus long to show ye hilt,
Now let the blade appear.
COURTIER.--Good Captain Voice,
It shall, and teach you manners; I have yet
No ague, I can look upon your buff,
And punto beard, and call for no strong waters."
"It is difficult to ascertain," says Repton, "when the custom of pulling
the nose superseded that of pulling the beard, but most probably when
the chin became naked and close shaven, affording no longer a handle for
insult." In the reign of James II., William Cavendish, Earl of
Devonshire, paid £30,000 for offering this insult to a person at Court.
An earlier instance of pulling the nose may be found in Ben Jonson's
_Epicæne, or the Silent Woman_, Act iv. sc. 5.
In "Aubrey's Letters" is an allusion to wiping the beard. "Ralph Kettle,
D.D.," we read, "preached in St Mary's Church at Oxford, and, in
conclusion of a sermon, said, 'But now I see it is time for me to shutt
up my booke, for I see the doctors' men come in wiping their beards from
the ale-house' (he could from the pulpit plainly see them, and 't was
their custome to go there, and, about the end of the Sermon, to return
to wayte on their masters)." An old play by Lyly, entitled _Mother
Bombie_ (1597-98), Act i. sc. 3, contains the following passage:--
"Tush, spit not you, and I'll warrant I, my beard is as good as a
handkerchief."
Our quotations from old plays are mainly drawn from Repton's little
book, "Some account of the Beard and Moustachio," of which one hundred
copies were printed for private circulation in 1839.
The extracts which we have reproduced are not such as to cause the beard
to find favour with the ladies. In Marston's _Antonio and Melida_,
(1602), Act v., we read as follows:--
"PIERO.--Faith, mad niece, I wonder when thou wilt marry?
"ROSSALINE.--Faith, kind Uncle, when men abandon jealousy,
forsake taking tobacco, and cease to wear their beards so rudely long.
Oh! to have a husband with a mouth continually smoking, with a bush of
furze on the ridge of his chin, ready still to flop into his foaming
chaps; ah! 't is more than most intolerable."
In another part of the same play are other objections to the mustachios.
We find in other old plays allusions to women combing and stroking
beards. "There is no accounting," says Repton, "for the taste of ladies.
Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, with his large massive beard, won the
heart of the fair sister of Henry VIII. Although the 'Cloth of friez may
not be too bold,' the courtship was most probably begun by the lady
(_i.e._ the Cloth of Gold). Although ladies do not speak out, they have
a way of expressing their wishes by the 'eloquence of eyes.' That the
fair princess ever amused herself in combing or brushing her husband's
beard is not recorded in the history of England." Many references find a
place in bygone plays relating to combs and brushes for the beard.
Starching the beard was an operation which occupied some time if
carefully performed. It is stated in the "Life of Mrs Elizabeth Thomas,"
published in 1731, of Mr Richard Shute, her grandfather, a Turkey
merchant, that he was very nice in the mode of that age, his valet
being some hours every morning in starching his beard, and curling his
whiskers, during which time a gentleman, whom he maintained as a
companion, always read to him upon some useful subject. In closing, we
have to state that cardboard boxes were worn at night in bed to protect
the beard from being disarranged.
TAXING THE BEARD
Beards, in some instances, were taxed in bygone England, but not to the
same extent as in Russia, which had numerous singular laws in force for
nearly sixty years. In nearly all parts of Europe, by the commencement
of the eighteenth century, the custom of wearing beards had been given
up. Peter the Great was wishful that his subjects should conform to the
prevailing fashion. In 1705 he imposed a tax upon all those who wore
either a beard or a moustache, varying from thirty to one hundred
roubles per annum. It was fixed according to the rank of the taxpayer. A
peasant, for instance, was only required to pay two dengops, equal to
one copeck, whenever he passed through the gate of a town. This tax gave
rise to much discontent, and in enforcing it the utmost vigilance had
to be exercised to prevent an outbreak in the country. Notwithstanding
this, the law was, in 1714, put into operation in St Petersburg, which
had previously been exempt. In 1722 it was ordered that all who retained
their beards should wear a particular dress and pay fifty roubles
annually. If a man would not shave, and was unable to pay, he was
sentenced to hard labour. This law was extended to the provinces, but in
1723 peasants bringing produce into towns were wholly relieved from this
tax. Peter passed away in 1725, and Catherine I. confirmed all the
edicts relating to the beard in the ukase dated 4th August 1726.
A decree was issued by Peter II. in 1728 permitting peasants employed in
agriculture to wear their beards. Fifty roubles had to be paid by all
other persons, and the tax was rigidly enforced. The Empress Anne took a
firm attitude against the beard. In 1731 she promulgated a ukase by
which all persons not engaged in husbandry retaining their beards were
entered in the class of Raskolnicks, in addition to paying the beard tax
of fifty roubles, double the amount of all other taxes.
In 1743 the Empress Elizabeth confirmed the existing decrees in all
their force. Peter III., on his accession to the throne in 1762,
intended to strengthen the laws of his predecessors, and prepared some
stringent measures; but his sudden death prevented them from being put
into force. His widow, Catherine II. (1762), did not share his feelings
in this matter, and immediately on obtaining sovereign power she removed
every restriction relating to the beard. She invited the Raskolnicks,
who had fled from the country to avoid the objectionable edicts, to
return, and assigned land to them for their settlement.
[Illustration: Russian Beard Token, A.D. 1705.]
During thirty-eight years in Russia, the beard-token or Borodoráia (the
bearded), as it was called, was in use. As we write we have one of these
tokens before us, and on one side are represented a nose, mouth,
moustaches, and a large flowing beard, with the inscription "dinge
vsatia," which means "money received"; the reverse bears the year in
Russian characters (equivalent to "1705 year"), and the black eagle of
the empire.
Our facts are mainly drawn from a paper by Mr Walter Hawkins in the
"Numismatic Chronicle," volume vii., 1845. He says that beard-tokens
are rare, and he thinks that the national aversion to their origin
probably caused their destruction or dispersion after they had served
their purpose for the year.
POWDERING THE HAIR
In the olden days hair-powder was largely used in this country, and many
circumstances connected with its history are curious and interesting. We
learn from Josephus that the Jews used hair-powder, and from the East it
was no doubt imported into Rome. The history of the luxurious days of
the later Roman Empire supplies some strange stories. At this period
gold-dust was employed by several of the emperors. "The hair of
Commodus," it is stated on the authority of Herodian, "glittered from
its natural whiteness, and from the quantity of essences and gold-dust
with which it was loaded, so that when the sun was shining it might have
been thought that his head was on fire."
It is supposed, and not without a good show of reason, that the Saxons
used coloured hair-powder, or perhaps they dyed their hair. In Saxon
pictures the beard and hair are often painted blue. Strutt supplies
interesting notes on the subject. "In some instances," he says, "which,
indeed, are not so common, the hair is represented of a bright red
colour, and in others it is of a green and orange hue. I have no doubt
existing in my own mind, that arts of some kind were practised at this
period to colour the hair; but whether it was done by tingeing or dyeing
it with liquids prepared for that purpose according to the ancient
Eastern custom, or by powders of different hues cast into it, agreeably
to the modern practice, I shall not presume to determine."
It was customary among the Gauls to wash the hair with a lixivium made
of chalk in order to increase its redness. The same custom was
maintained in England for a long period, and was not given up until
after the reign of Elizabeth. The sandy-coloured hair of the queen
greatly increased the popularity of the practice.
The satirists have many allusions to this subject, more especially those
of the reigns of James and Charles I. In a series of epigrams entitled
"Wit's Recreations," 1640, the following appears under the heading of
_Our Monsieur Powder-wig_:--
"Oh, doe but marke yon crisped sir, you meet!
How like a pageant he doth walk the street!
See how his perfumed head is powdered ore;
'Twou'd stink else, for it wanted salt before."
In "Musarum Deliciæ," 1655, we read:--
"At the devill's shopps you buy
A dresse of powdered hayre,
On which your feathers flaunt and fly;
But i'de wish you have a care,
Lest Lucifer's selfe, who is not prouder,
Do one day dresse up your haire with a powder."
From the pen of R. Younge, in 1656, appeared "The Impartial Monitor."
The author closes with a tirade against female follies in these words:
"It were a good deed to tell men also of mealing their heads and
shoulders, of wearing fardingales about their legs, etc.; for these
likewise deserve the rod, since all that are discreet do but hate and
scorn them for it." A _Loyal Litany_ against the Oliverians runs thus:--
"From a king-killing saint,
Patch, powder, and paint,
Libera nos, Domine."
Massinger, in the "City Madam," printed in 1679, describing the dress of
a rich merchant's wife, mentions powder thus:--
"Since your husband was knighted, as I said,
The reverend hood cast off, your borrowed hair
Powdered and curled, was by your dresser's art,
Formed like a coronet, hanged with diamonds
And richest orient pearls."
John Gay, in his poem, "Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of
London," published in 1716, advises in passing a coxcomb--
"Him like the Miller, pass with caution by,
Lest from his shoulder clouds of powder fly."
We learn from the "Annals of the Barber-Surgeons" some particulars
respecting the taxing of powder. On 8th August 1751, "Mr John Brooks,"
it is stated, "attended and produced a deed to which he requested the
subscription of the Court; this deed recited that by an Act of
Parliament passed in the tenth year of Queen Anne, it was enacted that a
duty of twopence per pound should be laid upon all starch imported, and
of a penny per pound upon all starch made in Great Britain, that no
perfumer, barber, or seller of hair-powder should mix any powder of
alabaster, plaster of Paris, whiting, lime, etc. (sweet scents
excepted), with any starch to be made use of for making hair-powder,
under a pain of forfeiting the hair-powder and £50, and that any person
who should expose the same for sale should forfeit it and £20." Other
details were given in the deed, and the Barber-Surgeons gave it their
support, and promised twenty guineas towards the cost of passing the
Bill through Parliament.
A few years prior to the above proceeding we gather from the
_Gentleman's Magazine_ particulars of some convictions for using powder
not made in accordance with the laws of the land. "On the 20th October,
1745," it is recorded, "fifty-one barbers were convicted before the
commissioners of excise, and fined in the penalty of £20, for having in
their custody hair-powder not made of starch, contrary to Act of
Parliament: and on the 27th of the same month, forty-nine other barbers
were convicted of the same offence, and fined in the like penalty."
Before powder was used, the hair was generally greased with pomade, and
powdering operations were attended with some trouble. In houses of any
pretension was a small room set apart for the purpose, and it was known
as the powdering-room. Here were fixed two curtains, and the person went
behind, exposing the head only, which received its proper supply of
powder without any going on the clothes of the individual dressed. In
the _Rambler_, No. 109, under date 1751, a young gentleman writes that
his mother would rather follow him to his grave than see him sneak about
with dirty shoes and blotted fingers, hair unpowdered, and a hat
uncocked.
We have seen that hair-powder was taxed, and on the 5th of May, 1795, an
Act of Parliament was passed taxing persons using it. Pitt was in power,
and being sorely in need of money, hit upon the plan of a tax of a
guinea per head on those who used hair powder. He was prepared to meet
much ridicule by this movement, but he saw that it would yield a
considerable revenue, estimating it at as much as £200,000 a year. Fox,
with force, said that a fiscal arrangement dependent on a capricious
fashion must be regarded as an absurdity, but the Opposition were
unable to defeat the proposal, and the Act was passed. Pitt's powerful
rival, Charles James Fox, in his early manhood, was one of the most
fashionable men in London. Here are a few particulars of his "get up"
about 1770, drawn from the _Monthly Magazine_: "He had his chapeau-bas,
his red-heeled shoes, and his blue hair-powder." Later, when Pitt's tax
was gathered, like other Whigs, he refused to use hair-powder. For more
than a quarter of a century it had been customary for men to wear their
hair long, tied in a pig-tail and powdered. Pitt's measure gave rise to
a number of Crop Clubs. The _Times_ for April 14th, 1795, contains
particulars of one. "A numerous club," says the paragraph, "has been
formed in Lambeth, called the Crop Club, every member of which, on his
entrance, is obliged to have his head docked as close as the Duke of
Bridgewater's old bay coach-horses. This assemblage is instituted for
the purpose of opposing, or rather evading, the tax on powdered heads."
Hair cropping was by no means confined to the humbler ranks of society.
The _Times_ of April 25th, 1795, reports that: "The following noblemen
and gentlemen were at the party with the Duke of Bedford, at Woburn
Abbey, when a general cropping and combing out of hair-powder took
place: Lord W. Russell, Lord Villiers, Lord Paget, etc., etc. They
entered into an engagement to forfeit a sum of money if any of them
wore their hair tied, or powdered, within a certain period. Many
noblemen and gentlemen in the county of Bedford have since followed the
example: it has become general with the gentry in Hampshire, and the
ladies have left off wearing powder." Hair powder did not long continue
in use in the army, for in 1799 it was abolished on account of the high
price of flour, caused through the bad harvests. Using flour for the
hair instead of for food was an old grievance among the poor. In the
"Art of Dressing the Hair," 1770, the author complains:--