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CI
Which holy vow he firmly kept,
And most devoutly wore
A grizzly meteor on his face,
'Till they were hoth no more."*
* Taylor, the Water Poet, who lived from the end of Elizabeth
to nearly the end of the Commonwealth, thus humorously des-
cribes the various fashions of this appendage.
" Now a few bines to paper I will put,
Of men's Beards strange and variable cut,
In which there's some that take as vain a pride,
As almost in all other things beside:
Some are reaped most substantial like a brush,
Which makes a natural wit known by the bush;
And in my time of some men I have heard,
Whose wisdom hath been only wealth and Beard :
Many of these the proverb well doth fit,
Which says bush natural more hair than wit:
Some seem as they were starched stiff and fine,
Like to the bristles of some angry swine;
And some, to set their loves' desire on edge,
Are cut and prun'd like to a quickset hedge.
Some like a spade, some like a fork, some square,
Some round, some mow'd like stubble, some stark bare,
Some sharp, stilletto-fashion,* dagger-bike,
That may, with whispering, a man's eyes outpike.
Some with the hammer cut or Roman T,
Then* Beards extravagant reform'd must be;
Some with the quadrate, some triangle-fashion,
Some circular, some oval in translation;
Some perpendicular in longitude,
Some like a thicket for their crassitude.
The heighths, depths, breadths, triform, square, oval, round,
And rules geometrical in Beards are found."
* The stiletto Beard For he that doth wear
It makes me afeard A dagger in his face,
It is so sharp beneath : What must he wear in his sheath."
Old Author.
" Who make sharp Beards and little breeches Deities.
Beaumont and Fletcher.
