The ancient Britons, in the time of Czsar, wore no beards, except on the upper lip. But the Anglo Saxons, on their arrival in Britain, and for a consi derable time after, allowed their beards to grow. When, however, the Normans possessed themselves of the country, the beard had been reduced to its ancient standard, and was entirely proscribed by that people, who held beards in abhorrence. It is men tioned by sonic of our ancient historians, as one of the most wanton acts of tyranny in William the Con queror, that he compelled the English, who had been accustomed to allow the hair of their upper lips to grow, to shave their whole beards. This was so disagreeable to some of the people, that, rather than relinquish their whiskers, they Chose to abandon their country. The Russians, it is well known, spewed an equal repugnance to be shaved, when they were ordered to part with those beards, of which their ancestors had enjoyed the undisturbed possession, by an edict of Peter the Great. Many of them chose rather to pay a fine, or tax, than sub mit to this degradation ; and those who were too poor, or too parsimonious to comply with this alter native, religiously preserved the beard that ‘vas shorn off, and had it deposited in their coffins, that they might present it to St Nicholas, on his refusing to admit them into heaven as beardless Christians.
In the middle ages of Europe, the beard was oc casionally in high repute : Thus, in the 10th centu ry, King Robert of France, the rival of Charles the Simple, was not more famous for his exploits than for his long white beard, which lie suffered to hang down on the outside of his cuirass, to encourage his troops in battle, and rally them when defeated. In the 1•th century long beards were much in fashion, and continued to be the mode till the close of the 16th century. The Emperor Charles V., Pope Ju lius II., and Francis I. of France, were all great ad. mirers of long and bushy beards. At this period, John Mayo, a celebrated painter in Germany, had so vast a beard, that he was nick-named John ihe Bearded. Though he was a tall man, it was so long that it would hang upon the ground when he stood upright ; so that he usually wore it fastened to his girdle. The Emperor Charles used to take great pleasure in seeing this extraordinary beard unfasten ed, and the wind blowing it against the faces of the lords of his court. The beard of Sir Thomas More is honourably noticed in history ; and we find, from the portraits of Bishop Gardener, Cardinal Pole, &c. that beards were of an uncommon size in England in the reign of Mary I.
The beard of Henry IV. of France, which was square in form, was an object of much admiration on account of the majesty which it communicated to the fine open countenance of that amiable monarch. Beards, therefore, were in the zenith of their reputa tion during this auspicious reign. But no sooner was the throne occupied by the successor of this mo narch, Louis XIII. then a beardless youth, than,— such is the instability of all human greatness !—beards were entirely proscribed, or reduced to the insignifi cant size of whiskers. The duke of Sully, however, evinced his attachment to the memory of his master, by wearing the beard of the ancient court, notwith standing the ridicule it brought upon him. Whiskers
continued to prevail during the early part of the reign of Louis XIV. They were the ornament of Turenne, Conde, Colbert, Corneille, Moliere, &c.; and the king himself took a pride in wearing them. Much pains was bestowed in rendering them capti vating during this age of gaiety and gallantry • an& the beauty of a lover's whiskers was then a subject of exultation to a favourite fair.
The Spanish beard suffered degradation from a• cause similar to that which occasioned its dishonour..
in France. Philip V. ascended the throne with a shaved chin ; the courtiers imitated the prince, and the people, in turn, the courtiers. This revolution, however, was not congenial to the feelings of the na tion ; and there is a Spanish proverb which says, Desde que no hay Barba, no hay mas alma. " Since we have lost our beards, we have lost our souls." The love of ancient usages, and a certain gravity of character, have induced this people to retain the whisker as a mark of dignity, when the progress of refinement has exploded the beard from almost every part of Europe.
The respect in which the Portuguese held their beards during the reign of queen Catherine, is evinced by the remarkable anecdote of the brave John de Castro pledging one of his whiskers, as the best se curity he could offer to the inhabitants of Goa in India, for the repayment of a sum of money which he had borrowed for the use of his fleet. The peo ple, however, relying implicitly on his honour, re quested him to retain both the money and the whisker. Among tim early French, all letters that came from the sovereign had, for greater sanction, three hairs of his beard on the seal. There is still extant a charter of 1121, which concludes with the following remarkable words : Quod ut ratum et sta bile perseveret in posterum, prcesentis scripto sigilli mei robur apposui cum tribus pilis barlce mew.
We shall take leave of the subject of beards, with a word or two on those of ecclesiastics. During the first ages of Christianity, the priests were sometimes enjoined to wear their beards, from a notion of too much effeminacy in shaving, and that a long beard was more suitable to ecclesiastical gravity ; and some , times they were enjoined to shave, that pride might not lurk beneath a venerable beard. On the separa .tion of the Greek and Roman churches, the practice of shaving has become common among the Romanists, by way of opposition to•the Greeks, who have con tinued to pay great reverence to a well covered chin ; and are greatly scandalised at the beardless images of ,saints in the Roman churches. The shaving of the chin, and likewise of the head, according to the true ecclesiastical tonsure, is regulated by various statutes of the Romish church ; and the form of prayer is still extant which was employed in the solemnify of consecrating to God, the beard of ' an ecclesiastic when he was first shaven. By the statutes of some monasteries, it appears that the lay monks were to let their beards grow, and the priests only to shave • and a writer of the seventh century complains, that the manners of the clergy had become so cor rupted, that they could not be distinguished from the Irity by their actions, but only by their want of beards. ( rn )