K E A 



B E A 



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 Constantinople by the Turks, 

 hi 1J53. The Greek philosophers usually made the beard 

 a distinguishing feature in their appearance, whence the pro- 

 verb IK Ttayuvog oo<t>oi, Persius (Sat, iv. 1) terms Socrates 

 magister barbatus, the ' bearded master ;' and Prudentius 

 (Ano/h. ii. 200) bestows the same title of barbatus upon 

 Plato. 



Varro (De Re Rustica, lib. ii. c. 1 1, edit. Commelin. 8vo. 

 1 59i, 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 45-1, 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 (Sal. iii. 186). 

 Alexander ab Alexandra (Genial. Diet-, lib. v. $ 18) says 

 tiie 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. Casiius, 

 edit. 1 750, lib. Ixviii. p. 1 132.) 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, how- 

 ever, in his Lexicon Rei Num., notices the circumstance of 

 Augustus suffering his beard to grow as a mark of grief 

 for the death of Julius Caesar ; and says that certain coins 

 struck about this timo at Aria, A.UC. 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 philosophers ; though Aurelius, when 

 young, is represented without a beard. [See ANTOXINUS.] 

 Some of the Africans wore long l>eards, as may be seen 

 upon the coins of Juba. (See Rasche, Lexicon Rei Num. 

 torn. ii. p. 2, col. 1018.) 



It would require no small space 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 antient Britons, according to Caesar (De Bella Ga.lt. 

 lib. v. c. 14), wore no beards except upon the upper lip. 

 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 

 inlands, 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 antient 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. Dr. Henry (Hist. Gr. 

 Brit. 4to. Edinb. 1774, vol. ii. p. 585), however, says that 

 after the introduction of Christianity their clergy were 

 obliged to shave their beards in obedience to the laws, and 

 in imitation of the practice of all the Western churches. 

 This distinction, he adds, between the clergy and the laity- 

 subsisted for some timo ; and a writer of the seventh cen- 

 tury complains that the manners of the clergy were then so 

 corrupted, that 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 

 n^ to shave all their beards except the upper lip. 



The English 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 



Nonnans, indeed, not only shaved their beards themselves, 

 but 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 hair of their upper 

 lips grow) to shave their whole beards; and this was to 

 disagreeable to many of them, that they chose rather to 

 abandon their country than to lose their whiskers. (See 

 Mat. Paris, edit. 1640; Vit. Abbat. S. Albani, torn. i. p. 46.) 

 Ordericus Vitalis, p. 815, relates a curious anecdote of 

 Henry I. submitting to lose his beard at the remonstrance 

 and by the hands of Serlo, archbishop of Sees. 



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

 a less degree, was encouraged by the English fora series of 

 centuries, as is evident from the sepulchral monuments of 

 our kings and chief nobility, and from portraits where they 

 remain. Edward III. is represented upon his tomb at 

 Westminster with a beard which would have graced a phi- 

 losopher. Stowe, in his Annals, edit. 1631, p. 571, in his 

 account of the reign of Henry VIII. under 1535, says, ' The 

 8th of May the king commanded all about his court to poll 

 their heads, and, to give them example, he caused his own 

 head to be polled, and from thenceforth 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 

 Winchester, Cardinal Pole, and Bishop Gardiner, all orna- 

 mented with flowing beards, in the reign of Mary I. The 

 commentators on Shakspeare show tl*dt in the reign of 

 Elizabeth beards of different cut were appropriated to dif- 

 ferent characters and professions. 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 (Works, fol. 1630, p. 43), 

 likewise describes the fashions of the beard as they still 

 continued to subsist in his time : 



' Now a few linos to paper I will put, 

 Of meu's beards' strange and variable cut; 

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

 As almost in all other things beside. 

 Some are reap'd most substantial like a brush, " 

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

 (And in my timo of some mm I have he.ird. 

 \Vii<,,e wisdom have been only wealth and beard.) 

 Many of tliese thf proverb well (loth lit, 

 Which says, " Hush natural, more hair than wit." 

 Some seem as they were starched stilt and tiui.*, 

 Like to the bristles of some angry swine; 

 And some (to set their love's desire on <-dge~) 

 Are cut and pruned like 1o a quickset hedge. 

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

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

 Some sharp, stiletto- fashion, dagger-like. 

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

 Some with the hammer-cut, or Human 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 restoration of King Charles II., mus- 

 tachios 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 continued somewhat longer. Butler, 

 in his Hudibras (part ii. canto i. Grey's edit. 8vo. Cambr. 

 1 744, vol. ii. p. 299), alludes to the beard ' cut square by the 

 Russian standard ;' which Grey illustrates by the following 

 extract from The Northern Worthies, or the Lives of Peter 

 the Great and his illustrious Consort Catherine, 8vo. Lond. 

 1 728, pp. 84, 85 : ' Dr. Giles Fletcher, in his Treatise of 

 Russia, observes, that the Russian nobility and quality ac- 

 counting 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 



NO. 217. 



[THE PENNY CYCLOPAEDIA.] 



VOL. IV.-O 



