Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/479

It we turn to Europe and begin with classical times, having—

the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand, Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold, we may remember that the Greeks and Eomans once styled as barbarians, or bearded, unshaven savages, all nations who were out of the pale of their own customs and religion. Nevertheless, the young Roman, anxious for beard and moustache, used to apply the household oil to his chin and cheeks, in order to bring thereon that incipient fringe which would entitle him to be called ",barbatulus." The full-furnished man was "barbatus." It was not till the beard ceased to be universally worn, and Sicilian barbers set up in Rome (about 300 B.C.), that the Romans began to apply the word, translated "barbarous," to the rude men and manners of the early ages, and of the beard universal. But, after all, we may still see, in old counter feit presentments, that the fashionable, clipped beard of young Roman " swells " in the last days of the Republic, and of some of the emperors from the. time of Hadrian, is not nearly so majestic as the flowing hair depending from the chin of Numa Pompilius. Nero offered some of the hair of his beard to Jupiter Capitolinus, who could have furnished a dozen emperors from his own. Homer, Virgil, Pliny, Plutarch, Strabo, Diodorus, Juvenal, Persius, are among the writers who furnish material for a volume on beards. One Roman emperor, Julian, wrote a work on the subject, which is commonly supposed to be as fierce a denunciation against beards, as King James s Blast was against tobacco ; but Julian in his Misopogon, or Enemy of the Beard, descants satirically " with pleasure and even with pride," says Gibbon, " on the length of his nails and the inky blackness of his hands, protests that although the greatest part of his body was covered with hair, the use of the razor was confined to his head alone, and celebrated with visible complacency the shaggy and populous beard which he fondly cherished, after the example of the philosophers of Greece." Persius undoubtedly associated wisdom with the beard. He exhausted the whole vocabulary of praise when he designated Socrates by the term Magister Barbatus. In this, however, there is less wit than in the rejoinder of the young ambassa dor to a king, who had expressed his wrath at having a beardless youth sent to him as an envoy. " If," said the latter, "my master had thought you would have laid so much account on a beard, he would have sent you a goat."|1}}

The most notable circumstance in the history of the beard among the Greeks is that of its abolition, in the Macedonian army, at least, for strategic reasons. Alexander the Great abolished the beards of his soldiers, for the sufficient reason that they gave handles to their enemies whereby to lay hold of them. The Macedonian warriors probably obeyed with reluctance; but obedience was as much a matter of course as it was with the Ephori who, by Lacedaemonian law, had to undergo what seemed the ridiculous ceremony of being shaved, merely to show their ready obedience to legal enactment. As they were mortal men, it may be supposed that acquisition of office was happy compensation for the loss of a beard.

Goth is equivalent for the older term of Barbarian. One is about as unjust in its application as the other. Gothic rudeness is often illustrated by the case of the "ugly rush" made by the northern warriors into the Capitol, where the conscript fathers sat in silence and fearlessness, waiting events. One of these unlettered soldiers lifted his hand to the beard of an old legislator, who, taking it for insult, smote the Goth to the ground. Let us do the Goth the justice of believing that, awed by the stern mute majesty of the senators, he raised his hand reverentially to the beard. At all events, the taking it with such prompt and painful action was dearly paid for in the swift retaliation which followed.

If the phrase be not too light for use, we would say that as beards existed before barbers, the Europeans, like all other people, were originally a bearded people. The beard is perhaps more general now in Germany than elsewhere in Europe ; and Germany affords an example of the longest beard known, out of fairy story, in the person of the painter Johan Mayo, whose beard was so long that when he stood upright it still trailed on the ground ; accordingly, he often doubled it up in his girdle. Germany knows him as John the Bearded, just as it does one of its emperors as Frederick Barbarossa; but many nations, ancient and modern, can boast of men and monarchs who have been nicknamed from their beards.

When Peter the Great levied a tax on Russian beards, he was only following a precedent which once existed in England. Noble chins were assessed at a rouble ; your commoner chin at a copec. It caused commotion, and there was much compulsory shaving of those who did not pay. Beards are not now valued in Russia. He who wears one seems to acknowledge that he has no very high place in the social scale. On the other hand, beards were highly treasured in Spain till the time of Philip V., who was unable to cultivate one. As was to be expected, this infirmity set the fashion of affecting the infirmity ; but beardless dons were wont to exclaim with a sigh, " Since we have lost our beards, we have lost our souls ! " Thus, they unconsciously adopted something akin to the super stition of the Roskolniki, a sect of schismatics who obstin ately maintained that the divine image resided in the beard. Portugal was not behind Spain in appreciating the beard. When the Portuguese admiral, Juan de Castro, borrowed a thousand pistoles from the city of Goa, he lent in pledge one of his whiskers, -saying, " All the gold in the world cannot equal this natural ornament of my valour." In these modern days one would not think much, of the security of such a material guarantee, nor of the modesty of the admiral who might have the face to offer it.

As Spaniards denuded their chins because their king

could not grow a beard, so the French grew beards, long after they had gone out of fashion, because their king .found it necessary to do so. Francis the First, having wounded his chin, concealed the ugly scar by covering it with a beard; and all loyal chins forthwith affected to have scars to conceal. But when fashion and loyalty were united the beard was carefully tended. It was not as in the time of the idle, helpless, and long haired kings, who were less potential than their chief officers, when the wild, dirty, and neglected beard was a type of that majesty, made up of shreds and patches, which used to be paraded before the people on a springless cart. Three hairs from a French king s beard under the waxen seal stamped on royal letter or charter, were supposed to add greater security for the fulfilment of all promises made in the document itself. In course of time fashion complimented majesty ; a certain sort of moustache was called a "royale,"and the little tuft beneath the lower lip was known by the term "imperiale." As a rule, the French chin assumed the appearance of that of the king for the time being. The royal portrait reflects a general fashion from which only the disloyal or the indifferent departed. On the subject of shaving, Talleyrand once drew a fine distinction. Rogers asked him if Napoleon shaved himself. "Yes," replied the statesman; "one born to be a king has some one to shave him ; but they who acquire kingdoms shave themselves." Tradition has exaggerated accounts of bearded prisoners in the Bastille,

but there was an official there whose duty consisted in