B E A 
Call hither to the flake my two brave bears, 
Bid Salifbury and Warwick come to me.-• 
—Are thefe thy bears ? we’ll bait thy bears to death, 
And manacle the bearward in their chains. Shakefpeare. 
The name of two conflellations, called the greater and IcJJcr 
bear ; in the tail of the lefj'er bear, is the pole-ftar : 
E’en then when Troy was by the Greeks o’erthrown, 
Q he bear oppos’d to bright Orion fhone. Creech. 
“To fell the Bear’s fkinbefore he is caught.” Ital.r tender 
la pellc del orfo inarzi cbe fia preji. H. Ger. die baeren-haul 
verkatiffen ehe der bar gejloechen. The Lat. lay : ante lentcin, 
auges o lla in. We fay iikewife : “ to reckon the chickens 
before they are hatcht.” The French lay : vendre le peau 
de Pours avant qu'ilfoit pris ; or, conterfans l’bote , 1 to reckon 
yvithout the holt.’ Thefe proverbs are alldeligned to expofe 
the folly of building upon, or bragging of, uncertain things 
to come, than which nothing is more deceiving. 
Bear-garden, f [from bear ana garden. A place in 
which bears are kept for [port.—Hurrying me from the 
play-houfe, and the feenes there to tl \t bear-gardm, to the 
apes, andafl'es, and tygers. Stillinofleet. —Any place of tu¬ 
mult or mifrule.—I could nor forbear going to a place of 
renown for the gallantry of Britons, namely to the bear¬ 
garden. Speblator. 
Bear-garden, ad]. A word tifed in familiar or low 
phrafe for rude or turbulent ; as, a bear-garden fellow ; that 
is, a man rude enough to be a proper frequenter of the 
bear-garden. Bear-garden Jport, is tiled for grofs inelegant 
entertainment. 
Bear Bay, on the fouth coad of the ifland of New- 
foundland : leventy miles eall of Cape Ray. 
Bear Island, an Bland near the fouth-weft coad of 
Ireland, in Ban try bay, about five miles long, and one and 
a half wide. Lat. 51. 35. N. Ion. 9. 45. W. Greenwich. 
Bear (North), a {mall illand in St. James’s Bay, Hud- 
fon’s Bay. Lat. 54. 35. N. Ion. 81'. 20. W. Greenwich. 
Bear (South), a (mail idand in St. James’s Bay. Lat. 
54. 30. N. Ion. jli. 20. W. Greenwich. 
Bear Sound, on the wed coad of Wed Greenland. 
Lat. 63. 20. N. Ion. 49. W. Greenwich. 
Order of the Bear was a military order in Switzerland, 
erefted by the emperor Frederic II. in 1213, by way of 
acknowledgement for the lervice the Svvifs had done him, 
and in favour of the abbey of St. Gaul. To the collar of 
the order hung a medal, on which was reprel'ented a bear 
raifed on an eminence ot earth. 
Sea- Bear. See Phoca. 
Bear-Berry, f. in botany, fee Arbutus. Bear’s- 
Breech, fee Acanthus. Bear’s-Ear, fee Primula 
Auricula. Bear’s-Ear Sanicle, lee Verbascum. 
Bear’s-Foot, fee Hellebo'rus. 
BEARD,/ [.beard, Sax.] The hair that grows on the 
lips and chin : 
Ere on thy chin the fpringing beard began 
To fpread a doubtful down, and promife man. Prior. 
Beard is ufed for the face ; as, to do any thing to a man’s 
beard, is to do it in defiance, or to his face. Beard is ufed 
to mark age or virility ; as, he has a long beard, means he 
is old. Sharp prickles growing upon the ears of corn : 
The ploughman loft his fweat, and the green corn 
Hath rotted ere its youth attain’d a bea r d. Shakefpeare. 
Various have been the cuftoms and ceremonies of different 
nations in refpeft of the beard. The Tartars, from a re¬ 
ligious principle, waged a long and bloody war with the 
Perfians, declaring them infidels, merely becaufe they 
would not cut their whilkers after the rite of Tartary : and 
we find, that a confiderable branch of the religion of the 
ancients confided in the management of their beard. The 
Greeks wore their beards till the time of Alexander the 
Great; when that prince ordered the Macedonians to be 
fhaved, for fear it fhould give a handle to their enemies. 
According to Pliny, the Romans did not begin to (have 
till the year of Rome 454, when P. Ticinius brought over 
B E A tij 
a (lock of barbers from Sicily. Perfons of quality had their 
children lliaved the firft time by others of the fame or 
greater quality, who, by this means, became god-father or 
adoptive father of the children. Anciently, indeed, a 
a perfon became god-father of the child by barely touch¬ 
ing his beard : thus hiftorians relate, that one of the ar¬ 
ticles of the treaty between Alaric and Clovis was, that 
Alaric fhould touch the beard of Clovis to become his 
god- father. 
As to ecclefiaftics, the difeipline has been very different 
on the article of beards : fometimes they have been en¬ 
joined to wear them, from a notion of too much effemi¬ 
nacy in (having, and that a long beard was more fuitable 
to the eccleliaffical gravity ; and fometimes again they 
were forbid it, as imagining pride to lurk beneath a vene¬ 
rable beard. The Greek and Roman churches have been 
long together by. the ears about their beards : (ince the 
time of their reparation, the Romanills feern to have given 
mure into the practice of lhaving, by way of oppolition 
to the Greeks ; and have even made lome exprefs confri- 
tutions de radendis barbis. The Greeks, on the contrary, 
efpoufe very zealoufly the caufe of long beards, and are 
extremely fcandalized at the beardlefs images of faints in 
the Roman churches. By the ftatutes of fotiie monalleries 
it appears, that the lay-monks were to let their beards 
grow, and the priells among them to (have ; and that the 
beards of all that were received into the monalleries, were 
bleff'ed w ith a great deal of ceremony. There are (till ex¬ 
tant the prayers tiled in the folemnity of confecrating the- 
beard to God, when an ecClefiaftic was (haven. 
Le Comte obferves, that the Chinefe aff'edt long beards- 
extravagantly ; but nature has baulked them, and only 
given them very little ones, 'which, how'.ever, they culti¬ 
vate with infinite care: the Europeans are ftrangely envied' 
by them on this account, andelteemed the greatell men in 
the world. Chryfoltons obferves, that the kings of Pvt fia 
had their beads wove or matted together with gold-thread ; 
and fome of the firft kings of France had their bears knot¬ 
ted and buttoned with gold. Among the Turks, it is- 
more infamous for any one to have his beard cut off, than 
among us to be publicly whipt or brandedwith a hot iron.. 
There are abundance in that country, who would prefer 
death to this punifhment. The Arabs make the prefer- 
vation of their beards a capital point of religion, becaufe 
Mahomet never cut his. Hence the razor is never draw n: 
over the grand fignior’s face. The Perfians, who clip- 
them, and (have above the jaw, are reputed heretics. It 
is Iikewife a mark of authority and liberty among them, 
as well as among the Turks. They w ho ferve in the fe- 
raglio, have their beards fhaven, as a lign of their fervi- 
tude. They do not fiiffer it to grow till the fultan has fet 
them at liberty, which is bellowed as a reward upon them, 
and is always accompanied with fome employment. 
The 1110ft celebrated ancient writers, and feveral modern 
ones, have fpoken honourably of the fine beards of anti¬ 
quity. Homer [peaks highly of the white beard of Neftor 
and that of old king Priam. Virgil deferibes Mezentiits’s, 
which was fo thick and long as to coverall his bread ; 
Chryfippus praifes the noble beard of Timothy, a famous 
player on the Hute. Pliny the younger telLs us of the 
white beard of Euphrates, a Syrian philofopher ;. and lie 
takes pleafure in relating the refpeft mixed with fear with, 
which it infpired the people. Plutarch fpeaks of the 
long white beard of an old Laconian, who, being alked 
why he let it grow fo, replied, “’Tis that, feeing conti¬ 
nually my white beard, I im*j' do nothing unworthy of its- 
whitenefs.” Strabo relates, that the Indian philofopiiers,, 
the Gymnofopliifts, were particularly attentive to make 
the length of their beards contribute to captivate the ve¬ 
neration of the people. Diodorus, after him, gives a 
very particular and circumftantial hiftory of the beards of 
the Indians. Juvenal does not forget that of Antilochus 
the fon of Neftor. Feneldn, in deferibing a prieft of Apollo 
in all his magnificence, tells us, that he had a white beard 
down to his-gudle. But Perlius. fee ms to outdo all thefe 
authors: 
