Chapter 24

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.

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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.

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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."

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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.

INDEX.

Abbas the Great, 107. Abraham: jealous of his wives, 197; arrival in Egypt, 197; his servant in Sodom, 202; Ishmael's wives, 203; the 'ram caught in a thicket,' 205; the idols, 251. Abstinence, advantages of, 20. Acrostic in the Bible, 251. Adam and Eve, 191, 267, 268. Addison's Spectator, 359. Advice to a conceited man, 44; gratuitous, 261. Aesop--_see_ Esop. Affenschwanz, etc., 192. Aino Folk-Tales, 312. Akhlák-i Jalaly, 23, 261. Aladdin's Lamp, 144. Alakésa Kathá, 176. Alexander the Great, 253, 254. Alfonsus, Petrus, 99, 100, 227, 231, 241. Alfred the Great, 315. Ali, Mrs. Meer Hassan, 270. Ambition, vanity of, 254. Amír Khusrú, 18. Ancestry, pride of, 22. Androgynous nature of Adam, 191, 192. Ant and Nightingale, 41. Antar, the Arabian poet-hero, 46. Anthologia, 259. Anwarí, the Persian poet, 106. Aphorisms of Saádí, 7, 41, 44, 125; of the Jewish Fathers, 260. Apparition, the golden, 136. Arab and his camel, 82. Arab Sháh, 87. Arabian lovers, 283, 294. Arabian Nights, 93, 123, 178, 196, 212. Archery feat, 20. Arienti, 203. Ashaab the covetous, 93. Ass, the singing, 149. Astrologer's faithless wife, 36. Attár, Farídu 'd-Dín, 51. Athenæus, 262. Athenians and Jewish boys, 117, 118. Auvaiyár, Tamil poetess, 25, 27, 44. Avarice, 44. Avianus, 44. Aymon, Four Sons of, 317.