164 / H A 
mentioned as one of their greateft beauties. Not con¬ 
tented with the natural colour of their hair, which was 
commonly fair or yellow, they made ufe of certain 
wafhes to render it (till brighter. One of thele was a 
compofition of lime, the allies of certain vegetables, and 
tallow. They made ufe of various arts alfo to make 
the hair of their heads grow thick and long ; which laft 
was not only efteemed a great beauty, but was confjder- 
ed as a mark of dignity and noble birth. Boadicea, queen 
of the Britons, is defcribed by Dio with very long hair, 
flowing over her (houlders, and reaching down below 
the middle of her back. The Britons fhavediill their 
beards; except their upper lips ; the hair of which they, 
as well as the Gauls, allowed to grow to a very incon¬ 
venient length. 
In after-times, the Anglo-Saxons and Danes alfo con- 
fiderea fine hair as one of .the greateft ornaments of their 
perfons, and were at ho little pains in drefling it to ad¬ 
vantage. Young ladies before marriage wore their hair 
uncovered aiid untied, flowing in ( ringlets over their 
fhoulders ; but as fcon as they were married, they cut 
it (horter, tied it up, and put on a head-drefs according 
to the prevailing, faftiion. To have the hair entirely 
cut off was fo great a difgrace, that it was one of the 
fevered punifhments inflidled on thofe women who were 
guilty of adultery. The Danifh officers who were quar¬ 
tered upon the Englifh, in the reigns of Edgar the Peace¬ 
able and bf Ethelred the Unready, were the heroes of 
thofe times, and were particularly attentive to the drels- 
i rig of their hair; which they combed at leaf! once every 
day, and thereby captivated the afteCtions of the Eng- 
lifh ladies. The clergy, both fecular and regular, were 
obliged to (have the crowns of their heads, and keep 
their hair Ihort, which diftinguifhed them from the lai¬ 
ty ; and feveral canons were made againfl their conceal¬ 
ing their tonfure, or allowing their hair to grow long. 
The fhape of this clerical tonfure was the fubjedt of 
long and violent debates between the Englifh clergy on 
the one hand, and thofe of the Scots and Pitts on the 
cither ; that of the former being circular, the latter only 
femicircular. It appears very plainly, that long flow¬ 
ing hair was universally efteetned as a great ornament; 
and_thc tonfure of the clergy was conlidered as an -aft 
of mortification and felf-denial, to which many of tliem 
fubmitted with re Instance, and endeavoured to conceal 
as much as poflible. Some of them who aftefted the re¬ 
putation of fitperior fanftity inveighed with great bit- 
ternefs againfl the" long hair of the laity ; and laboured 
' earneftly to perfuade them to cut it fliort, in imitation 
of the clergy. Thus the famous St. Wulftan, bifliop of 
Worceller, is faid to have declaimed with great vehe¬ 
mence againfl luxury of all kinds, but chiefly againfl 
long hair as mod criminal and mofl universal. “ The 
Englifh (fays William of Malmfbury in his life of St. 
Wulftan') were very vicious in their manners, andplunged 
in luxury, through the long peace which they had en¬ 
joyed in the reign of Edward the Confeffor. The holy 
prelate Wulftan reproved the wicked of all ranks with 
great boldnefs ; but he rebuked thofe with the greateft 
feverity who were proud of their long hair. When any 
of thofe vain people bowed their heads before him to 
receivd his blefling, before he gave it, he cut a lock of 
their hair with a little (harp knife, which he carried 
about himf or that purpofe ; and commanded them, by 
way of penance for their fins, to cut all the reft of their 
hair in the fame manner. If any of them refufed to Com¬ 
ply with this command, he denounced the molt dread¬ 
ful judgments upon them, reproached them for their ef¬ 
feminacy, and foretold, that, as they imitated women in 
the length of their hair, they would imitate them in their 
cowardice when their country was invaded ; which was 
accomplifhed at the landing of the Normans.” 
This continued to be long a topic of declamation 
among the clergy, who evemriprefented it as one of the 
greateft crimes, and riioft certain marks of reprobation. 
I 'll. 
Anfelm archbifhop of Canterbury went fo far as to pro¬ 
nounce the then terrible fentence of excommunication 
againfl all who wore long hair, for which pious zeal he 
was very much commended. Serlo, a Norman bifliop, aci 
quired'great honour by a fermon which he preached 
before Henry I. in 1104, againfl long and curled hair, 
with which the king and all his courtiers were fo much 
mffefted, that they confented torefign their flowing ring¬ 
lets, of which they had been fo vain. The. prudent 
prelate gave them no time to change their minds, but 
immediately pulled'a pair of (hears out of his fieeve, 
and performed the operation with his own hand. Ano¬ 
ther incident happened fhortly after, which gave a tem¬ 
porary check to the' prevailing fondnefs for long hair. It 
is thus related by a contemporary hiltorian: “An event 
happened; A. D. 1129, which feenitd very wonderful 
'to our young gallants;- who, forgetting that they were 
men, .had transformed themlelves into women by the 
length of their hair. A certain knight, who was very 
proud.of his long luxuriant hair, dreamed that a perfon 
fuffocated hint with its curls. As foon as he awoke 
from his fleep, lie cut his hair to a decent length. The 
report of this Cpread over all England, andalmoft all the 
knights reduced their hair to the proper ftandard. But 
this reformation was not of long continuance ; for in lels 
than a year all who wiflied to appear fafhionable return¬ 
ed to their former wickednefs, and contended with the 
ladies in length of hair.” 
The fafhion of wearing long hair was now retained by 
the men, until the enormous flowing white wigs came 
to be the vogue, which at once gave dignity to all ranks, 
fronvthe king to the philofopher. White hair not be¬ 
ing to be got in fuffieient quantities to fuppl^ the de¬ 
mand, the dealers had recource to artificial means of 
rendering hair of every other colour white. For this 
piirpofe they fpread it on the grafs to bleach like linen, 
frequently foaking-it and walking it in a lixivious water. 
This lye, with tile force of the fun and air, was foon 
.found to bring hair of all colours to a perfeft whitenels; 
but after being worn for a fhort time -the filvery white- 
nefs went off, and the hair became of the miferable co¬ 
lour of a dead walnut-leaf. To remedy this evil, hair- 
powder was introduced, and thus wigs of all colours were 
made white. The laft of our kings who wore this kind 
of wig was George II. 
Hair (till makes a very confiderable article in com¬ 
merce, efpecially fince the fafhion of falfe hair has ob¬ 
tained. The hair of the growth of the northern coun¬ 
tries, as England, Scotland, See. is valued much beyond 
that of the more fouthern ones, as Italy, Spain, thefoutli 
of France, &c. The merit of good hair confifls in its 
'being well fed, and neither too coarfe nor too (lender; 
the bignefs rendering it lefs fufceptible of the artificial 
curl, and difpofing it rather to frizzle, and the fmall- 
nefs making its curl of too fhort duration. For the che. 
mical properties of hair, and methods of turning red or 
fandy hair to a brown or black, fee the article Chemis¬ 
try, vol. iv. p. 371. to which we may add, that in the 
year 1806, hair was fubjefted to fome new chefni’cal ex¬ 
periments by M. Vauquelin, of the National Inllitute 
at Paris. By dififolving it in water by means'of Papin’s 
digefter, and afterwards examining the folution and 
its refiduum, he fucceeded in extracting nine different 
fubftances ; an animal matter fimilar to mucilage, two 
kinds of oil, iron in a peculiar (late, fome particles of 
ox yd of manganefe, phofphat and a fmall portion of car- 
bonat of lime, a confiderable portion of filica, and much 
fulphur. Black hair yielded an oil of the fame colour, 
while red hair produced a reddifli-coloured oil, and 
white one wholly colourlefs. The lalt contained al¬ 
ways an excels of fulphur, and the white, in particular, 
magnefian phofphat. 
HAIR, or Hayr, a country of Africa, in 4 he defert 
of Sahara. Lat. 25. N. Ion. 2. 30,. E. Greenwich. 
HAIR'BRAINED, adj. [This fiiould be written hare¬ 
brained, 
