606 A Dissertation on Beards. DEC. 



notwithstanding, distinguished by the prolixity of their beards. This is 

 proved by a letter of safe-conduct, which Edward the Second granted, in 

 the year 131J, to his valet, Peter Auger, who, having tirst made a vow 

 not to shave his beard, and having then been foolish enough to keep it, 

 was afraid lest its great size should lead the populace on the Continent, 

 where he was going as a pilgrim, to take him for a Templar, and to punish 

 him at pleasure, for the various crimes then generally attributed to that 

 warlike order. The facts which I have just quoted are sufficient to shew 

 that the learned Hospinianus is mistaken when he says, in his history of 

 Monachism, that the custom of shaving the beard did not creep into the 

 church till about the year J200, and that it then came in with the porten- 

 tous doctrine of transubstantiation, which innocent the Third succeeded in 

 establishing about the same period. Though I feel obliged to notice this 

 slight chronological error on his part, I cannot refrain from joining in the 

 ridicule which he casts on the grave reasons assigned by the priests for sub- 

 mitting their beards to the razor. "They said that one of them was 

 founded on their fears lest, in the sacrifice of the mass, their beards should 

 dip in the sacred blood of our Lord, or should retain some portion of his 

 body, by coming in contact with the consecrated wafer. On account of 

 this danger, silver tubes were formerly invented, and let into the chalice, to 

 enable the laity to draw the blood from it without polluting it. Wonderful 

 saints ! They sell this sacrifice of theirs to all comers for three farthings, 

 and yet tremble with pious fear lest any part of it should contract 

 pollution, by adhering to their beards! Is not this straining at a gnat, 

 and swallowing a camel ? By the course, however, which they adopted, 

 they not only prudently obviated the danger which they apprehended, but 

 also usefully consulted the interest of the barber, who is in general a 

 favourite with their reverences, on account of the valuable assistance he 

 can lend them in their pleasures." I know that rigid Catholics will set me 

 down, as well as Hospinianus, for an impious blasphemer, in consequence 

 of the opinion which I have just quoted, and will give very different 

 reasons from those, which have just been assigned, for the conduct of their 

 priesthood. As I have no wish to turn polemic, I shall turn from their 

 invectives with the single observation, that it is an undeniable fact, that, 

 for some centuries before the time mentioned by Hospinianus, the mode in 

 which the Roman priests had divested themselves and their saints of beards 

 had formed a ground of schism between their church and that of the Patriarch 

 of Constantinople. There is a sarcasm in the Facetiae of Poggio, which 

 illustrates aptly enough the distinction between the ministers of the two 

 churches in his time. A Greek cardinal so Poggio calls him came to the 

 Holy See, adorned with a long beard. The courtiers of the Roman Consistory 

 wondered that he did not follow the custom of the place in which he lived, 

 and shave it off. Cardinal Angelotti, on learning their surprise, said, " The 

 cardinal knows well what he is about, and sees that, among the many she- 

 goats of Rome, a he-goat is sure to find a comfortable residence." A 

 little later in the papacy, I believe, of Clement the Seventh a simul- 

 taneous effort was made, by a considerable portion of the Catholic clergy 

 in different parts of Europe, to obtain the sanction of the Pope to their 

 resumption of the beard. Pierius then wrote his celebrated apology for it. 

 The work is able and erudite, but produced no effect upon the Pope, who 

 recollected that what infallibility has at one period declared incorrect, 

 infallibility cannot, at another period, declare correct. He, therefore, 

 denounced the innovation, and consigned the sacerdotal beard, as before, to 



