33 



BEARD. 



BEARD. 



3t 



" The Persians never Bhave the hair up/>" 4 ie upper lip, but cut and 

 trim the beard upon their chin, according; M> the various forma their 

 several fancies lead them to make choicS of; whereas the Turks 

 preserve with care a very long and spreading beard, esteeming the 

 deficiency of that respected ornament a shameful mark of servile slavery." 

 The slaves in the seraglio are shaved as a mark of servitude. 



Athenseus (xiii. p. 565, edit. Casaub. Lugd. 1657) observes from 

 Chrysippus's treatise 'De honesto et voluptate,' that the Greeks wore 

 then- beards till the time of Alexander. The first person who cut his 

 beard at Athens, he adds, was ever after called KO'/XTTJC, the sharen. 

 Plutarch, in his ' Life of Theseus,' mentions incidentally that Alexander 

 cut off the beards of the Macedonian soldiers, that they might not be 

 used as handles by their enemies in battle. The Greeks continued to 

 shave the beard, till the time of Justinian, under whom long beards 

 came again into fashion, and so continued till the taking of Constan- 

 tinople by the Turks, in 1453. The Greek philosophers usually made 

 the beard a distinguishing feature in their appearance, whence the 

 proverb IK irayuvos ffo^ol. Persius (' Sat.' iv. 1) terms Socrates magister 

 barbatus, the "bearded master;" and Prudentius ('Apoth.' ii. 200) 

 bestows the same title of barbatui upon Plato. 



Varro ('De Re Rustica,' lib. ii. c. 11, edit. Commelin. 8vo, 1595, 

 p. 126) and Pliny, following his authority (' Hist. Nat.' edit. Harduin, 

 lib. vii. c. 59), say that the Romans did not begin to shave till the 

 year of the city 454, when Publius Ticinius Mena brought over barbers 

 from Sicily. Scipio Africanus, Pliny adds, was the first Roman who 

 shaved every day. The first day of shaving among the Romans was 

 subsequently considered as the entrance upon the state of manhood, 

 and was kept with festivities like a birth-day. This practice is alluded 

 to by Juvenal ('Sat.' iii. 186). Alexander ab Alexandra ('Genial. 

 Dier.' lib. v. 18) says the Roman youth consecrated the first fruits of 

 their beards to some god ; a custom which is illustrated by passages in 

 Martial, Statius, and other authors. 



Augustus, and the Roman emperors his successors, till Hadrian, 

 shaved, as appears by their coins. Hadrian was the first emperor who 

 wore a beard. (See 'Dion. Cassius,' edit. 1750, lib. Ixviii. p. 1132.) 

 Plutarch says he wore it to hide the scars in his face. The emperors 

 who followed Hadrian continued to wear beards. (Pancirollus ' de 

 Rebus Memorabilibus," edit. Francof. 1660, p. 163.) Rasche, however, 

 in his ' Lexicon Rei Num.,' notices the circumstance of Augustus 

 Buffering his beard to grow as a mark of grief for the death of Julius 

 Caesar ; and says that certain coins struck about this time at Aria, 

 A.U.C. 710, present the portrait of Augustus bearded. Dion. Cassius, 

 lib. xlviii. (edit. Hamb. 1750, torn. i. p. 551), says that Augustus put 

 off his beard about A.U.C. 717, with great ceremony and feasting. 

 Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius wore lengthened beards as philo- 

 sophers ; though Aurelius, when young, is represented without a beard. 

 Some of the Africans wore long beards, as may be seen upon the coins 

 of Juba. (See Rasche, ' Lexicon Rei Num.' tome ii. p. 2, col. 1018.) 



It would require no small apace to enter minutely into the history 

 and vicissitudes of the beard among the nations of modern Europe. 

 The Lombards, or Longobardi, derived their name entirely from its 

 length : and Eginhard, the secretary of Charlemagne, informs us that 

 the Merovingian, or first race of French kings, were equally solicitous 

 to nourish its growth ; though at a later period among the French it 

 should seem that the common people shaved the whole beard. 



The ancient Britons, according to C'sesar (' De Bello Gall." lib. v. c. 1 4), 

 wore no beards except upon the upper h'p. He probably spoke of the 

 Kentish Britons only, or of the tribes who immediately adjoined them. 

 Strabo speaks of the beards of the inhabitants of the Cassiterides, the 

 Scilly islands, as in his time like those of goats. (' Geogr." edit. 

 Falconer, Oxf. 1807, fol. lib. i. p. 239.) 



Tacitus, speaking of the Catti, one of the ancient German nations, 

 says, from the age of manhood they encouraged the growth of the hair 

 and beard, nor would lay them aside till they had slain an enemy. 

 (' De Mor. Germanorum, c. xxxi.) 



The Anglo-Saxons, at their arrival in Britain, and for a considerable 

 time after, wore beards. In the Anglo-Saxon MSS., St. Dunstan is 

 represented with a beard and whiskers ; and on the Great Seal, Edward 

 the Confessor has a pointed beard and moustaches. (See Knight's 

 Popular History of England,' vol. i. pp. 136 and 165, where they are 

 copied.) The clergy, however, were very early obliged to shave their 

 beards in obedience to the laws, and in imitation of the practice of al' 

 the Western Churches. This distinction between the clergy and the 

 laity subsisted for some time ; and a writer of the 7th century com- 

 plains that the manners of the clergy were then so corrupted, thai 

 they could not be distinguished from the laity by their actions, but 

 only by their want of beards. By degrees the English laity began to 

 imitate the clergy so far as to shave all their beards except the 

 upper lip. 



-:lish spies who were sent by Harold to discover the strength 

 and situation of the Duke of Normandy's forces, returned with the 

 account that almost all his army had the appearance of priests, as they 

 had the whole face with both lips shaven. (See Malmesbury, lib. iii. 

 The Normans, indeed, not only ' shaved their beards themselves, bu' 

 when they became possessed of authority, they obliged others to 

 imitate their example. It is mentioned by some of our historians as 

 one of the most wanton acts of tyranny in William the Conqueror 

 that he compelled the English (who had been accustomed to let the 

 ARTS 4ND SCI. DIV. VOL. II. 



:air of their upper lip grow) to shave their whole beards ; and this 

 vas so disagreeable to many of them, that they chose rather to abandon 

 heir country than to lose their whiskers. (See ' Mat. Paris,' edit. 1640 ; 

 Vit. Abbat. S. Albani,' torn. i. p. 46.) Ordericus Vitalis, p. 81 5, relates 

 a curious anecdote of Henry I. submitting to lose his beard at the 

 remonstrance and by the hands of Serlo, archbishop of Sens. 



In the higher classes of society the beard, in a greater or less degree, 

 vas encouraged by the English for a series of centuries, as is evident 

 >om the sepulchral monuments of our kings and chief nobility, and 

 rom portraits where they remain. Edward III. is represented upon 

 lis tomb at Westminster with a beard which would have graced a 

 >hilosopher. Stowe, in his 'Annals,' edit. 1631, p. 571, in his account 

 if the reign of Henry VIII. under 1535, says, " The 8th of May the 

 dng commanded all about his court to poll their heads, and, to give 

 ;hem example, he caused his own head to be polled, and from thence- 

 :orth his beard to be knotted, and no more shaven." The practice of 

 wearing the beard continued to a late period ; and the reader will 

 readily call to recollection the portraits of Paulet Marquess of Win- 

 chester, Cardinal Pole, and Bishop Gardiner, all ornamented with 

 lowing beards, in the reign of Mary I. In the reign of Elizabeth, 

 jeards of different cut were appropriated to different characters and 

 professions. Shakspere, in ' Henry V.,' act. iii. sc. 6, speaks of a " beard 

 of the general's cut." Mr. Knight has remarked on the passage, that 

 ' beards of a particular cut had then appropriate names, and were 

 sometimes characteristic of professions. The steeletto beard and the 

 spade beard appears to have belonged to the military profession ; 

 though the cut of particular generals settlers of the fashion might 

 vary. Southampton is always represented with the steeletto beard, 

 Essex with the spade beard." The soldier had one fashion, the judge 

 another, the bishop different from both. Malone has quoted an old 

 ballad, inserted in a miscellany entitled ' Le Prince d' Amour,' 8vo, 1660, 

 in which some of these forms are described and appropriated. (See 

 Reed's ' Shaksp.' 8vo, Lond. 1803, vol. xii. p. 399.) Taylor, the Water- 

 Poet, in his ' Whip of Pride,' likewise describes the fashions of the 

 beard as they still continued to subsist in his time : 



" Now a few lines to paper I will put, 

 Of men's beards' strange and variable cut ; 

 In which there's some do take as vain a pride 

 As almost in all other things beside. 

 Some are rcap'd most substantial like a brush, 

 Which makes a nat'ral wit known by the bush ; 

 (And in my time of some men I have heard, 

 Whose wisdom have been only wealth and beaid.) 

 Many of these the proverb well doth fit, 

 Which says, ' Bush natural, more hair than wit.* 

 Some seem as they were starch'd stiff and fine, 

 Like to the bristles of some angry swine ; 

 And some (to set their love's desire on edge) 

 Are cut and pruned like to a quickset hedge. 

 Some like a spade, some like a fork, some square, 

 Some round, some mow'd like stubble, some stark hire ; 

 Some sharp, stiletto-fashion, dagger-like, 

 That may with whisp'ring, a man's eyes outpike ; 

 Some with the hammer-cut, or Roman T, 

 Their beards extravagant reform'd must be ; 

 Some with the quadrate, some triangle fashion, 

 Some circular, some oval in translation ; 

 Some perpendicular in longitude, 

 Some like a thicket for their crassitude. 

 That heights, depths, breadths, triforme, square, oval, round, 

 And rules geometrical in beards are found. 

 * * * * 



The barbers thus (like tailors) still must be 

 Acquainted with each cut's variety." 



The beard now gradually declined, and the court of Charles I. was 

 the last in which even a small one was cherished. After the restora- 

 tion of King Charles II., moustachios or whiskers continued, but the 

 rest of the face was shaven ; and in a short time the process of shaving 

 the entire face became universal. 



The beard went out of fashion in France in the reign of Louis XIII., 

 and in Spain when Philip V. ascended the throne. In Russia it con- 

 tinued somewhat longer. Butler, in his ' Hudibras ' (part ii. canto i.), 

 alludes to the beard " cut square by the Russian standard." Dr. Giles 

 Fletcher, in his ' Treatise of Russia,' observes, "that the Russian nobility 

 and quality accounting it a grace to be somewhat gross and burly, they 

 therefore nourished and spread their beards to have them long and 

 broad. This fashion continued among them till the time of the Czar 

 Peter the Great, who compelled them to part with these ornaments, 

 sometimes by laying a swingeing tax upon them, and at others by 

 ordering those he found with beards to have them pulled up by the 

 roots, or shaved with a blunt razor, which drew the skin after it, and 

 by these means scarce a beard was left in the kingdom at his death : 

 but such a veneration had this people for these ensigns of gravity, that 

 many of them carefully preserved their beards in their cabinets, to be 

 buried with them, imagining perhaps that they should make but an 

 odd figure in the grave with their naked chins." 



Within the last fifty years, however, the beard has made its re- 

 appearance in most European countries, and with it the moustache 

 and whiskers. Its first use would seem to have been in the French 

 army during the rule of Bonaparte ; from thence it extended to 



D 



