1827.] Historical and Liter art/. 601 



sistently with his rank and fortune, but also to submit to a salutary 

 shaving, and, after dragging him into the senate house, made him consent 

 to discharge several important public duties, which they imposed upon 

 him. It must have been an amusing spectacle to have seen the censors 

 seizing on the ex-consul, stripping him of his rags, and forcing his patrician 

 throat under the razor of a plebeian tonsor. What would I not give to 

 see a similar scene enacted in the streets of London. Why did not tho 

 respectable alderman, who incurred the indignation of his fellow citizens, 

 a few years ago, for telling them that half their London was burnt, when 

 not even a chimney was on fire why did not the sagacious Atkins retire 

 immediately to his seat in Surrey, and meditate, in solitary moodiness, 

 upon the malice of mankind, ainid the sympathizing sorrow of cabbages 

 and cauliflowers? By this time his beard would have grown into a curio- 

 sity, and would have filled the coach of any magisterial Marcellus, who 

 might have endeavoured to lure him back to the citizens of Walbrook. 

 Methinks I see him, on his restoration, wandering slowly past the Man- 

 sion-house, the very image of a distressed old clothesman! Even now 

 the censors of the city the marshals, and their men are taking him into 

 custody, and dragging him, a reluctant victim, to a radical shaver. The 

 suds are already on his face the razor is already drawn across his cheek, 

 and nothing is wanted to complete his purification for higher city prefer- 

 ments, except the descent of Gog and Magog from their pedestals to witness 

 and enjoy it. Even they are near at hand. Guildhall is expanding its gates 

 to give the giants egress, and, conscious of returning glory, is determined 

 not to close them till the cry of "fire, fire!" is once more heard within its 

 walls, and Atkins is again proclaimed dictator over all the tradesmen and 

 turtles in the city of London. 



I must not, in my enthusiasm, forget to mention, that the striplings of 

 Rome dedicated the day, on which they first performed the important 

 ceremony of shaving, to feasting, and banqueting, and other important 

 solemnities. It was the same epoch in their lives that coming of age is 

 in ours, and was celebrated with all the pride and pomp of circumstance 

 becoming such an event. Nero gave to these festivals the name of " Ludi 

 Juvenales;" and when he kept his own, put the crispings of his beard 

 into a vase of gold, and after adorning them with pearls of the purest 

 whiteness, dedicated them to the Jupiter of the Capitol. Apollo and Venus 

 were sometimes honoured with similar offerings; and Chaucer, in his 

 knight's tale, rigidly adheres to the practice of antiquity, when he makes 

 Arcite devote his beard to Mars, in the following manner: 



" And eke to this avow I will me bind; 



My beard, my hair that hangeth low adown, 



That never yet did feel offencyoun 



Of Rasour ne of Sheer, I wooll thee yeve." (give.) 



From the curious amalgamation which he repeatedly makes of the man- 

 ners and customs of different ages and countries, and from the constant 

 anachronisms of which he is guilty, I should be inclined to suspect that 

 he did not so much regard the practice of antiquity in this passage, as 

 that which the monastic orders of his time had borrowed from it. When- 

 ever an individual became a member of them, his beard was blest with 

 great formality, and then cut off and consecrated to God. Both the 

 Greek and Latin churches had a service for such consecration in the early 

 M.M. New Series. VOL. IV. No. 24. 4 H 



