The image contains the following text:
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 peaceahle 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. illumina-
tor, 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,
" Charge, Sibthorp,* charge! On, Stanley, on!"
ancient hut from our own history : matters not to he met with in
ordinary histories; hut too abundant in the pages of satirists and
moralists, who were hardy enough to lash the prevalent follies and
vices of the times in which they lived.
* I trust my honest and uncompromising brother Beard will
pardon the liberty I have taken with his name No one can he a
