252 A Dissertation on Beards, [MARCH, 



any thing to lead him by. The Mufti, however, reprimanded him very 

 severely for it, declaring, that his motive could not be admitted as a 

 justification, until he had likewise cut off his nose. For this impertinent 

 reprimand Selim cut off the Mufti's head. His Beglerbegs and Bassas 

 shewed their disapprobation of his conduct by cherishing their beards 

 till they reached a most preposterous prolixity. Still the Sultan was 

 undismayed ; and, as a proof that he intended to pursue his own beard- 

 less system, condemned the most clamorous of his opponents sometimes 

 to the bow-string, and sometimes to become shavelings like himself. 

 There was much unnecessary rashness in this procedure. A wise man 

 should not risk the forfeiture of a crown for such an insignificant absur- 

 dity as either a beard or a mass ; and Selim ought to have recollected 

 that the deposition and strangulation of Emir Seleyman was occasioned 

 \ry the resentment which Chassan, the captain of the Janissaries, felt at 

 having a similar disgrace inflicted upon himself. The Turks, however, 

 were not to be driven, even by Selim's example, from their ancient 

 habits; and to this day they remain the most devoted admirers and 

 partizans of lengthy beards. They even deem the Persians guilty of a 

 damnable heresy in abridging them occasionally with the scissors, and 

 in stripping the upper jaw entirely of its natural foliage a practice, by- 

 the-by, which has involved that nation more than once in long and 

 bloody wars with their neighbours the Tartars, who hold that their own 

 mode is the only orthodox and legitimate mode of trimming the whisker. 

 And yet the first Schahs of Persia were sumptuous to a fault in the orna- 

 mental structure of their beards ; for if St. Chrysostom is to be credited 

 and who dares avow his disbelief of a saint? they even wove and matted 

 them together by threads and buttons of solid gold. 



I must here pause in my progress to state that the Turks used for- 

 merly to shave their slaves, in order to shew that they were both men- 

 tally and corporeally degraded ; and that the Moors, who are somewhat 

 akin to the Turks in custom and religion, treat their inn-keepers with 

 great contempt, because they run up and down their houses with 

 chins as smooth, and clothes as soft, as those of women. In one part 

 of Morocco a curious custom prevailed some centuries ago, and, for 

 aught I know, may prevail even at present. In the province of Heez, 

 those who were not married durst not, in the time of Leo Africanus, 

 wear a beard. That was a privilege which nothing but a wife could 

 confer ; and to wish a man joy of his beard was, in so many wor^s, to 

 congratulate him on his marriage. The beggars of the country never 

 failed to reap a harvest on its first appearance. " May God pour his 

 blessings on your beard," was a grateful benison to the Benedicts of 

 Mauritania, and generally produced its reward in the pleasant shape of a 

 shower of sequins. 



It would be as tedious for the reader to peruse as for me to collect 

 the scattered information which travellers afford respecting the rough- 

 ness of the chins of the barbarous inhabitants of the almost unknown 

 countries, which extend to the south of Gibraltar, between Ceuta on 

 the one side and Japan on the other ; but I believe that I may assert 

 that, in all of them, where nature permits a beard to sprout, the use of 

 the razor, if not unknown, is absolutely interdicted by all powerful cus- 

 tom. The Chinese, to whom nature has given very small beards, are 

 extravagantly fond of very long ones, and feel great envy at the supe- 

 rior fertility of the European face. The Russians were formerly great 

 objects of their admiration ; but the exterminating edict, which Czar 



