THE Britons “like their neighbours the Gauls”^[16] (two of whose heads were shewn copied from Roman monuments,) were Bearded, though, probably, for some purpose of distinction, their Chiefs, as stated by CÆsar and others, had merely an enormous twisted moustache. The Druids and their successors, the native British Clergy, regarded this natural covering as adding to their dignity and gracing their office and their age.^[17]

Saxons.

The Anglo-Saxons brought their Beards with them which they preferred of the forked shape, and this again might be either two-pronged, or three-pronged, or plutonian and neptunian.

St. Augustine is figured with his Beard on his appearance to convert these Islands in the sixth century. His followers must soon have shaved, because a writer of the seventh century, complains that “the Clergy had grown so corrupt as to be distinguished from the Laity less by their actions than by their want of Beards.” The illustrious Alfred was so careful of the Beards of his subjects, that he inflicted the then heavy fine of twenty shillings on any one maliciously injuring the Beard of another. The Danes who invaded this country were Bearded. Fosbrooke says, some of them wore Beards with six forks, and history mentions Sueno the fork-beard.^[18]

During this period, the French monarchy was growing. Its first kings held the Beard as sacred, and ornamented it with gold. Their subjects were proud of it as marking them out to be free men in contradistinction to the degenerate Roman population. Alaric touched the Beard of Clovis as a solemn mode of confirming a treaty, and acknowledging Clovis as his godfather. The Merovingian Dynasty were Bearded. Then came Charlemagne who swore by his Beard, as did Otho the Great and Barbarossa, Emperors of Germany, after him. The following story shows the faith of those early times in the sacredness of this form of adjuration. A peasant, who had sworn a false oath on the relics of two holy Martyrs, having taken hold of his Beard, as further confirmation, heaven to punish him, caused the whole to come off in his hand!

Charlemagne also enacted that any one who should call another red beard or red-fox, should pay a heavy fine; a law explained by a prejudice embodied in two German proverbs.^[19]

and carried to its climax in the anecdote of a Spanish nobleman, who, having accused a man of some crime, and the latter being proved innocent, exclaimed, “if he did not do it he was plotting it, for the rascal has a red beard!” Those who need consolation under this calumny, traceable probably to an old notion, derived from his name, that Judas Iscariot had a red beard, I am fortunately able to refer to a sermon^[20] on that Arch-Traitor, full of wit, humor, pathos, and imagination, by the celebrated Abraham St. Clara, where red beards are nobly vindicated, and the following noted instances cited:—

During the distractions to which Charlemagne’s empire was subject after his decease, the Northmen appeared, and a band, under Rollo, having been converted and settled in what is now Normandy, became known in English History as the Normans; with whom an increasing intimacy having sprung up in the reign of Edward the Confessor, (whose head was shewn from the Bayeux tapestry,) a Norman party was gradually formed at court and Norman customs, one of which was shaving, partially adopted. Harold, as representative of the real old English party, wore his Beard as shown by a cotemporary MSS. illuminator; but William the Conqueror, and most of his followers, are figured only with a moustache and their back hair close cropped or shaven. It was this barbarous fashion that induced Harold’s spies to report to their master that the invaders were an army of Priests.

William is said to have attempted to compel the sturdy Saxons to shave, but many of them left the kingdom rather than part with their Beards. In this, as in other matters, Anglo-Saxon firmness ultimately conquered the conquerors, and the Norman sovereigns gave in to the national custom. As early as Henry I, that is only 44 years from William’s landing, we learn that Bishop Serlo met that monarch on his arrival in Normandy, and made a long harangue on the enormities of the times, especially long hair and bushy Beards, which he said they would not clip, lest the stumps should wound the ladies’ faces. Henry, with repentant obedience, submitted his hairy honors to the Bishop, who with pious zeal, taking a pair of shears from his trunk, trimmed king and nobles with his own hand. This conduct of the Bishop is curiously illustrated by a cotemporary decree of the Senate of Venice, of the year 1102, commanding all long Beards to be cut off in consequence of a Bull of Pope Paschal II, denouncing the vanity of long hair, founded on a misinterpretation of 1st Corinthians, xii, 14,^[21] which applies only to the hair of the head. On this text a sermon might be written though scarcely preached, which would “a tale unfold, would harrow up the soul.”^[22]

The stout king Stephen wore his Beard, and a Saxon chronicler complains that in the civil wars of his time, in order to extort the wealth of peaceable people, they were “hung up by their Beards;” a proof the latter were long and strong. Stephen’s cotemporary, Frederick the 1st of Germany, to prevent quarrelling, laid a very heavy fine on any one who pulled another’s Beard.

Henry II, is said to have had a vision in which all classes of his subjects reproached him in his sleep for his tyranny and oppression. A cotemporary MSS. illuminator, having fortunately designed several cartoons, really much more expressive than some in the New Houses of Parliament, from which we learn that the faces of all classes of the people and of the Clergy then appeared as nature made them, I selected one, representing the leaders of the distressed agriculturalists of that remote period, because while it illustrated my subject, it seemed to possess great interest for that patient and much enduring class. One could almost imagine the stout fellow with the one-sided Saxon spade, to be urging on the heroes with the pitchfork and scythe, nearly in the words of Marmion,

Henry’s Queen Eleanor had been previously the wife of Louis VII, of France, who having been persuaded by his Priests to shave off his Beard, so disgusted Eleanor that she obtained a divorce.^[24]

Richard the Lion-hearted was Bearded like a lion, and though he was so absorbed in the Crusades that he did not redress, yet he acknowledged the justice of the complaints of the celebrated Longbeard, “Earl of London and King of the Poor,” who did honor to his Beard by resisting oppression, and perished, after an heroic struggle, the victim of cowardice and treachery. The monuments of Roger, Bishop of Sarum, and Andrew, Abbot of Peterborough, shew that Bishops wore the Beard, and Abbots and Monks shaved in this reign.

John had what was called “a Judas’ Beard,” of which his actions were every way worthy. Fortunately, the bold Barons outbearded him, and Magna Charta was the result. His son, Henry III, had a moderate Beard, and the longest reign till George III. Edward I, shewed the Scots what a long Beard could do with long shanks, and a long head to back it.^[25] This king has been called the English Justinian, both he and the Roman Emperor being noted for improving the laws, and cherishing their Beards. Edward the 2nd’s Beard, like his character, was more ornamental than strong, and his reign is chiefly memorable for the composition of that favorite old song quoted by Shakspeare, “’Tis merry in hall, when Beards wag all!”

Edward the 3rd’s bold Beard spread terror in Scotland and France, and that of his son, the Black Prince—young as he died—was an apt type of his “prowess in the tented field.”

Richard the 2nd, with all his faults, was neither deficient in Beard nor in courage—the latter shewn in his meeting with Wat Tyler, and his defence against his assassins. Henry IV, the crafty Bolingbroke, had a chin cover, in whose every curl lurked an intrigue, of which his son, Henry V, who was made of other metal, was so ashamed, we presume, that he wore in penitence a shaven chin throughout his ten years’ reign, as may be seen by his monument in Westminster Abbey, the remains of which still exist.

Shaving continued partially in fashion in Henry the 6th’s reign, who himself in later life was Bearded like a Philosopher, accustomed to moralize over the ups and downs of life, of which he had no common share. Edward the 4th shaved out of foppery; as did that smooth-faced rascal, Richard III, who “could smile and smile and be a villain.” Henry the 7th shaved himself and fleeced his people.

As may be seen in MSS. illuminations, and as we read in Chaucer and elsewhere, the majority of the people stuck to their Beards, uninfluenced by the fluctuations of court fashions. The poet, who was born in Edward the 3rd’s time, and died in Henry the 4th’s, speaks of “the merchant’s forked Beard;” “the Franklin’s white as a daisy;” “the shipman’s shaken by many a tempest;” “the miller’s red as a fox, and broad as though it were a spade;” the Reeve’s close trimmed; the Sompnour’s piled; and ends by a contemptuous allusion to the Pardonere with his small voice:

Henry VIII, as you may still see on many sign boards, for which his bluff, bloated face is so well adapted, had his Beard close clipped. Once he swore to Francis the 1st that he would never cut it till he had visited the latter, who swore the same; and when long Beards had become the fashion at the French Court, Sir Thomas Bulleyn was obliged to excuse Henry’s bad faith, by alleging that the Queen of England felt an insuperable antipathy to a bushy chin, which, from the known considerate conduct of Henry to his wives, must have been a very plausible plea! Sir T. Moore shaved previous to his imprisonment. His Beard being then allowed to grow, he conceived such an affection for it, that before he laid his head on the block he carefully put it on one side, remarking “that it at least was guiltless of treason, and ought not to be punished.”

Although Francis I, and his Court, cherished their Beards, the Chancellor Duprat advised the imposition of a tax on the Beards of the clergy, and promised the king a handsome revenue. The bishops and wealthier clergy paid the tax and saved their Beards; but the poorer ministers were not so fortunate. In the succeeding reign, the clergy determined on revenge; so when Duprat (son of the Chancellor) was returning in triumph from the council of Trent, to take possession of the bishopric of Claremont, the dean and canons closed the brass gates of the chancel, through which they were seen armed with shears and razor, soap and basin, and pointing to the statutes, “de radendis barbis.” Notwithstanding his remonstrances, they refused to induct him unless he sacrificed his Beard, which was the handsomest of his time. He is said to have retired to his castle, and died of vexation.

In the same reign, John de Morillers was also objected to by the Chapter of Orleans; but the cunning fellow produced a letter from the king stating, that the statutes must be dispensed with in his case, as his majesty intended to employ him in countries where he could not appear without a Beard.

At the court of the rival of Francis, Charles the 5th, who had himself a right royal covering to his chin, lived John Mayo, his painter, a very tall man, but with a Beard so long, that he could stand upon it; and in which he took much pride, suspending it by ribbons to his button-hole. Sometimes this mass of hair, by command of the Emperor, was unfastened at table, and doors and windows being thrown open, the imperial mind took intense delight in seeing it blown into the faces of his grimacing courtiers. Another noted German Beard was that of a merchant of Braunau in Bavaria, which was so long, that it would have draggled on the ground, had it not been incased by its proud owner in a beautiful velvet bag.^[26]

The promising Edward the 6th died before his Beard developed; his sister Mary’s husband had one of the true Spanish cut.

In the time of “good Queen Bess,” when

she, who was no prude, and had a right royal sympathy with every thing manly and becoming, surrounded herself with men, who to the most punctilious courtesy, joined the most adventurous spirit; and the Beard, as might have been expected, grew and flourished mightily. Hence we are not surprised at the wonderful efforts made by her subjects in arms, and arts, and literature, so as to make her reign an era to which we look back with patriotic pride, and from which our best writers still draw as from a well of deep perennial flow.^[28]

A feeble reflection of some of the heads of this period were exhibited on the walls of the lecture room, as the sagacious Burleigh; the adventurous Raleigh; the rash but brave Essex; Nottingham, the High Admiral who scattered the Armada; Gresham the Merchant Prince, who found his Beard no hindrance to business; and the Poet of Poets, whether ancient or modern, Shakspeare.

As might be expected, the dramatic literature of the time is full of allusions to that feature which men still honored and admired. Lear can find no more pathetic outburst of insulted majesty, in addressing his vile daughter Goneril, than the words—

and when Regan insults the faithful Gloster, the latter exclaims—

In a more mocking humour, Shakspeare makes Cressida say of Troilus’s chin, “alas poor chin! many a wart is richer!” And Rosalind to Orlando, “I will pardon you for not having a neglected Beard, for truly your having in Beard is a younger brother’s revenue.”

Then as characteristics, we have the black, white, straw-colored, orange-tawney, purple-in-grain, and perfect yellow. The soldier Bearded like a pard; the justice with Beard of formal cut; the sexton’s hungry Beard; and the Beard of the general’s cut; and that fine passage, which you will pardon my quoting, if only to supply an obvious correction naturally lost sight of by Beardless commentators. If instead of the puerile conceit, stairs of sand, we read layers of sand, we not only restore metaphorical beauty but literal truth; for what is more deceitful than a layer of sand, and the Beard is “a layer of hair.”

The witty Robert Green, published in 1592, a curious dialogue,^[30] from which we get a glimpse into a Barber’s shop of Queen Elizabeth’s time. Cloth-breeches complains of the Barber’s attention to Velvet-breeches in these terms. “His head being once dressed, which requires in combing and brushing some two hours; then being curiously washed with no worse than a camphor ball, you descend as low as his Beard, and ask whether he please to be shaven or no? whether he will have his peake cut short and sharp, amiable like an innamorato, or broad pendant like a spade, or le terrible, like a warrior or soldado? whether he will have his crates cut low like a juniper bush, or his subercles taken away with a razor? If it be his pleasure to have his appendices pruned, or his moustaches fostered to turn about his ears like the branches of a vine, or cut down to the lip with the Italian lash, to make him look like a half-faced bauby in brass. These quaint terms Master Barber, you greet Master Velvet-breeches withal, and at every word a snap with your scissors and a cringe with your knee; whereas, when you come to poor Cloth-breeches, you either cut his Beard at your own pleasure, or else in disdain ask him if he will be trimmed with Christ’s cut, round like the half of a Holland cheese, mocking both Christ and us.”^[31]

In the reign of James the 1st, Beards continued in fashion, and I extract two out of many passages from Beaumont and Fletcher’s plays; the first being, not excepting even that of Butler’s Hudibras, the most humourous description of a Beard in the language. A banished prince in disguise, having been elected “King of the Beggars” on account of his Beard; Higgen the Orator of the Troop proceeds in this fashion:—

In his Queen of Corinth we learn that—

The last line alluding to Coryate the traveller’s recent introduction of the dinner-fork from Italy.

Of this Roman T-Beard another writer humorously says—

and then adds—

In 1610, died Henry IV, of France, whose Beard is said “to have diffused over his countenance a majestic sweetness and amiable openness;” his son Louis XIII,^[33] ascending the throne while yet a minor, the courtiers and others, to keep him in countenance, began to shave, leaving merely the tuft called a mouche or royal. Sully, however, the famous minister of Henry, stoutly refused to adopt the effeminate custom. Being sent for to court, and those about the king having mocked at his old-fashioned Beard, the duke indignantly turned to Louis and said, “Sire! when your father of glorious memory did me the honor to hold a consultation on grave and important business, the first thing he did was to order out of the room all the buffoons and stage dancers of his court!” About this time also, Marshal Bassompierre having been released from a long imprisonment, declared the chief alteration he found was, “that the men had lost their Beards and the horses their tails.”

Under our first Charles,^[34] the sides of the face were often shaven, and the Beard reduced to the moustache, and a long chin-tuft, as in the portrait of that monarch, retaining however still some of its former gracefulness. As the contest grew hotter between Cavalier and Roundhead, doubtless some of the latter cropped chin as well as head; though others are said to have been so careful of their Beards, as to provide them with pasteboard night-caps to prevent the hairs being rumpled.

In one instance it was worn long for a sign, as we see by the following verse—

Under Charles the 2nd, the Beard dwindled into the mere moustache, and then vanished. And when we consider the French apery of that un-English court, it is no wonder the Beard appeared too bold and manly an ensign to be tolerated. It went out first among the upper classes in London, and by slow degrees the sturdy country squires and yeomen also yielded their free honors to the slavish effeminate fashion, which, by the force of example, descended even to the working classes, on whom it imposed new burdens and some bodily diseases from which their hardy frames had been hitherto exempt. It is to be hoped, that when any one for the future talks about the Beard being a foreign fashion, he will be reminded that it is a good old English natural fashion, and that the present custom of shaving was borrowed from France, at a time when we had no credit to borrow anything else, seeing that king, courtiers, and patriots, were all the pensioned dependents of the French monarch! The sooner therefore we cease to shave, the sooner shall we wipe out the remembrance of a disgraceful period of our history!

One amusing proof that the Beard continued to be worn by the country people after its decline about the court, is afforded by an anecdote of the notorious Judge Jeffries, who, in his browbeating way, thus addressed a party before him. “If your conscience be as large as your Beard, fellow! it must be a swinging one.” To which the witness replied, “If consciences be measured by Beards, I am afraid your lordship has none at all.”

In 1700, Charles V ascended the throne of Spain, with a smooth chin; and his example was gradually followed, though the popular feeling has been condensed into the proverb—“Since we have lost our Beards, we have lost our souls;” and no one can question that loss of Beard and empire in that country have singularly coincided.

Two brief anecdotes will shew the sense of honor which formerly resided in Spanish and Portuguese Beards.

Cid Rai Diaz dying, a spiteful Jew stole into the room to do what he durst not when Diaz was alive—pluck the noble Spaniard’s Beard! As he stooped for the purpose, the body started up and drew the sword lying in state by its side. The Jew fled horror-struck; the corpse smiled grimly, and resumed its repose; and the Jew turned Christian.

When the brave John de Castro had taken the Indian fortress of Dieu, being in want of supplies, he pledged one of his moustaches for a thousand pistoles, saying “all the gold in the world cannot equal the value of this natural ornament of my valour.” The inhabitants of Goa, especially the ladies, were so struck with this magnaminous sacrifice, that they raised the money and redeemed the pledge.

The last European nation to lay aside the Beard was the Russian, in whose ancient code it was enacted that whoever plucks hair from another’s Beard shall be fined four times as much as for cutting off a finger. Peter the Great, (who always remained a semi-savage), like many other half-informed reformers, sought to accomplish his objects by arbitrary measures rather than by moral persuasion. Having, when in the west, seen unbearded faces, he jumped to the conclusion that absence of Beard was a necessary part of civilization; forgetting that a shaven savage is a savage still. He therefore ordered all his subjects to shave, imposing a tax of one hundred roubles on all nobles, gentlemen, tradesmen, and artizans, and a copeck on the lower classes. Great commotions were the result; but Peter was obstinate and made a crusade with scissors and razor, much resembling a Franco-African Razzia, which you know means a clean shave of everything with very dirty hands! Some, to avoid disgrace, parted with their Beards voluntarily, but all preserved the hairs to be buried in their coffins; the more superstitious believing that unless they could present theirs to St. Nicholas, he would refuse them admission to heaven as Beardless Christians.

One of the most difficult tasks was to deal with the army; in this, Peter proceeded with characteristic cunning. Through the agency of the priests, the soldiers were told that they were going to fight the Turks, who wore Beards, and that their patron saint St. Nicholas would not be able to protect his beloved Russians, unless they consented to distinguish themselves by removing their Beards! You see how stale are the Czar’s late tricks! Convinced by this pious fraud, the credulous soldiers obeyed the imperial mandate. The next war, however, was against the Swedes, and the soldiers, who had suffered severely from shaving, turned the tables upon the priests, and said, “the Swedes have no Beards, we must therefore let ours grow again, lest, as you say, the holy Nicholas should not know us!”

It is a note-worthy historical fact, which shews the danger arising from discarding the natural for the artificial, that as Beards died out, false hair came in. A mountain of womanish curls rested on the head, and was made to fall in effeminate ringlets over neck and shoulders, while the whole face was kept as smooth, and smug, and characterless as razor could make it. This renders it so disagreeable a task to look through a series of Kneller’s portraits, who, clever as he was, could not impart the freedom and vigour of nature to this absurd fashion. A portrait of Addison,^[37] was shewn as an illustration, because, as has been seen, though he complied with the mode, he was occasionally favored with visions of better times, past and to come.^[38]

To the reign of false curls, succeeded that still more egregious outrage—that climax of coxcombry—powder, pomatum, and pigtails! The former to give the snows of age to the ruddy face of youth; the latter being, I suppose, an attempt of some bright genius to outdo nature,

This was the period when every breeze was a Zephyr, every maid a ChlÖe, every woman a Venus, and every fat squinting child a Cupid! Later German critics even christen the writers of this school, “the Pigtail Poets.”^[39]

The first French Revolution made an end of all this trumpery, and though Alison and other professed historians have not classed the event among the good things flowing from that fearful flood of blood and blasphemy, it was not one of the least, and society cannot rejoice too much at being delivered from the example of systematic frippery, frivolity, and tricked-out vice of the later French Sovereigns, imitated as they were by most of the petty puppet Princes of Germany—

About the rise of the first Napoleon to power, a more simple, severe, and classic taste, was beginning to prevail, and this dictated a return to the Beard. Under the military despotism, however, of that Emperor, moustaches were forbidden to civilians, and the Beard restrained to that petty, hairy imitation of a reversed triangle—called after its reviver, who never personally wore it—the imperial, as if to denote to the people that they were to have the smallest possible share in the empire.

With every attempt at freedom on the Continent, the Beard re-appears; it was one of the most effective standards in the war of freedom, when Germany rose against Napoleon. In 1830, it was partially revived in France, and later still it has made many a perjured continental monarch^[40] “quake and tremble in his capital,” and reminded him that in spite of neglected promises and false oaths, the reign of injustice “hangs but on a hair,” of which the police will not always be able to check the free growth.

I have now merely to notice very briefly, four modern objections to the Beard.

I. “That it is less cleanly than shaving.” To this, the answer is, that depends upon the wearer; and it will take less time to keep clean, than to shave, especially where, as in England, every one washes the face more than once a day. Besides, if this were an argument, we had better shave the head and eyebrows as well.

II. “That it would take as much time to keep the Beard in order, as to shave.” Supposing even it did, still there is a most important difference both in the two operations and in their results. For the process of combing and brushing the Beard, instead of being tedious, uncertain, and often painful, like shaving,^[41] confers a positively delightful sensation, similar to that which one may imagine a cat to experience,

And while the result of shaving is a mere negation, depriving us of a natural protection, and exposing us to disease, the other process, consume what time we will, is natural and instinctive, and attended with the satisfaction of adding the grace of neatness to nature’s stamp of man’s nobility.

III. “That the ladies dont like it!” This Professor Burdach and Dr. Elliotson, pronounce a foul libel.^[42] Ladies by their very nature like every thing manly; and though from custom the Beard may at first sight have a strange look, they will soon be reconciled to it, and think, with Beatrice, that a man without, “is only fit to be their waiting gentlewoman.”^[43] I have already mentioned one instance of a queen despising her husband, because he was priest-ridden enough to shave; and here I present you with a second in this veritable portrait (shewing it) of a painter in the reign of George I, of the name of Liotard, who having returned from his travels in the East, with this fine flow of curling comeliness, was irresistible. He followed his fate, and married, but then, alas, unhappy wretch! took one day the whim to shave off his Eastern glory. Directly his wife saw him, the charm of that ideal which every true woman forms of her lover, was broken; for instead of a dignified manly countenance, her eyes fell upon a small pinched face, with nose celestial and mouth most animally terrestial,

IV. “That a Beard may be very comfortable in Winter but too hot in Summer!” The better races of the sons of torrid Africa wear Beards, as did the ancient Numidians, and Tyro-African Carthaginians before them. The Arab in the arid parching desert cherishes his! Are we afraid of being warmer than these in an English Summer? Besides, as we have already shewn, the Beard is a non-conductor of heat as well as cold.^[44]

Having now, ladies and gentlemen, offered proofs that the Beard is a natural feature of the male face, and designed by Providence for distinction, protection, and ornament, and shewn you historically, that while there was never any sufficient reason alleged for leaving it off, unless a heaven condemned superstition, or the capricious dictates of fops and profligates, afford to any sound mind reasonable motives of action, need I ask you not to oppose the efforts of those who, reverencing the Creator’s laws as above the dictates of man, conceive themselves justified in returning to the more natural course. On our part we will, notwithstanding all that we have said, freely allow any one to continue the practice of shaving, who will be content with the same plea as a certain Duke de Brissac, who was often overheard uttering the following soliloquy while adjusting his razor to the proper angle. “Timoleon de Cosse, God hath made thee a Gentleman, and the King hath made thee a Duke; it is right and fit, however, that thou shouldst have something to do, therefore thou shalt shave thyself!”