Why shave?, or, Beards v. barbery / by H.M.

  • H. M
Date:
[between 1880 and 1889?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Why shave?, or, Beards v. barbery / by H.M. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    5> sung about the beard, or of the noblest poets who have worn it, but, at any rate, we may recall the typical beards described by Chaucer, “ 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 “piled” beard of the Sompnour; whilst of the thin¬ voiced Pardonere, it is said, “ no beard had he, nor never none should have.” Our own day has seen at least three poets of the first rank who have themselves worn beards, Lord Tennyson, Mr. Browning, and Mr. Longfellow, and, glancing back to the days of Elizabeth, we recall the poet of all poets, bearded and every inch a man, as also in their various ways were his compeers, Raleigh, Essex, Nottingham, and Gresham, the merchant prince, one of the celebrities of Lombard-street. In Shakespeare’s pages we find the soldier “ bearded like a pard;” the hungry-bearded sexton; the Justice with beard of formal cut, and many another. Here, too, we read of the many cowards who— . . . . “ wear yet upon their chins The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars, Who, inward searched, have livers white as milk, And there assume hut valour’s excrement, To make themselves redoubted.” Upon Shakespeare’s authority we have it, that “ there are men whose beards deserve not so honourable a grave as to stuff a botcher’s cushion, or to be entombed in an ass’s pack-saddle.” Gloster exclaims, when insulted by Regan:-— “ By the kind gods ! ’tis most ignobly done To pluck me by the beard!” And Lear himself cries out in his outraged majesty, addressing his daughter Goneril: — <£ Art not ashamed to look upon this beard?” Rosalind speaks of Orlando’s beard, as “ a younger brother’s revenue,” and Cressida declares of the chin of Troilus, “ many a wart is richer.” This is not merely a man’s question. What says Pericles, Prince of Tyre?—- “ And now, This ornament that makes me look so dismal, Will I, my lov’d Marina, clip to form; And what this fourteen years no razor touch’d, To grace thy marriage-day, I’ll beautify.” Evidently, from Shakespeare’s point of view, to be without a beard or to have a mean one, was contemptible. As thus:—■ “ He had a little wee face, with a little yellow beard; a Cain-coloured beard.” “ If,” says Falstaff, “ I w^ere sawed into quantities, I should make four dozen of such bearded staves as Master Shallow.” And, again, but this time speaking of Prince Henry: —