254 A Dissertation on Beards, [MARCH, 



a palm in length ; but other writers assert that it reached down to his 

 feet, forming, I suppose, a comfortable coverlet for his body, whenever 

 he had occasion to bivouack. That his immediate successors belonged 

 to the bearded brotherhood is sufficiently proved by several of their 

 charters now in existence. It appears from them, that it was customary, 

 both in France and Germany, whenever it was the object of the sove- 

 reign to give more than ordinary strength and solemnity to his grants, 

 to affix some of his beard to them with his seal ; and Ducange, in his 

 Glossary, adduces several curious instances of that practice. The great 

 feudatories followed the example of their imperial masters ; and if the 

 Emperor Frederick the First obtained the distinctive title of Barbarossa 

 from his red beard, a vassal of his empire, Baldwin, fourth count of Flanders, 

 gained equal celebrity under the title of Honesta Barba, or handsome 

 beard. In the middle of the fifteenth century, the beard had nearly lost 

 its station on the German face. Lochter, who translated Sebastian 

 Brandt's " Ship of Fools" into Latin verse, complains bitterly of the 

 effeminacy of his countrymen in this respect, and gives beard haters a 

 conspicuous place in the cargo of passengers which he places on board 

 of it. I know not whether it was his indignant scurrility that rescued 

 the beards of his countrymen from the ravages of the razor ; but several 

 incidental notices in the writings of cotemporary authors induce me to 

 believe that, about a century afterwards, the beards of Germany were 

 allowed to grow to a most portentous longitude. Dr. Bulwer, in his 

 Anthropometamorphosis, p. 210, assures us, upon his veracity, that many 

 Germans wore their beards trussed up in their bosoms, because they 

 reaahed to their feet when they were folded out. Peter Daniel Huet, 

 the learned Bishop of Avranches, also celebrates their magnitude in some 

 very elegant Latin verses, and mentions a ludicrous use to which they 

 were put in his time at Hardenberg, in Westphalia. Whenever a burgo- 

 master was to be elected, the burgesses assembled in solemn conclave, 

 and, seating themselves about a round table, rested their ponderous 

 beards upon it. A little animal, which, according to Gibbon, signifies 

 love, and which, according to observation, always travels south, when 

 found in Scotland, was then placed with great ceremony in its centre. 

 Its motions were watched with tremulous anxiety ; for the individual in 

 whose beard it first sought shelter, was elected burgomaster for the 

 ensuing year, amidst the festive congratulations of his admiring fellows.* 

 I am aware that the truth of this anedote is positively denied by,several 

 of the erudite antiquarians of Germany ; and the learned Heumann, in 

 the second volume of his Pcecile, which was published 150 years after 

 the Bishop of Avranches's work, creates a smile by the grave indigna- 

 tion with which he lectures the Frenchman for giving it circulation. 

 ' ' I am surprised," says he, " that M. Huet should have believed such a 

 story. Does not every man of common sense immediately discern the 



* Mox Hardenbergam sera sub nocte venimus ; 

 Ridetur nobis veteri mos ductus ab ovo ; 

 Quippe, ubi deligitur revoluto tempore Consul, 

 Barbati circa mensam statuuntur acerna.m, 

 Hispidaque imponunt attenti menta Quirites. 

 Porrigitur series barbarum desuper ingens. 

 Beslia, pes, mordax, sueta intercrescere sordes, 

 Ponitur in medio ; turn cujus, numine Divum, 

 Barbara adiit, fcsto hunc gratulantur numine Putres, 

 Atquc celcbratur subjecta per oppida Consul. 



Huet. Epist. II. 



