BARBER
(See also Hair)
With odorous oil thy head and hair are sleek;
And then thou kemb'st the tuzzes on thy cheek:
Of these, my barbers take a costly care.
Of a thousand shavers, two do not shave so
much alike as not to be distinguished.
But he shaved with a shell when he chose,
'Twas the manner of primitive man.
Thy boist'rous locks, no worthy match
For valour to assail, nor by the sword
But by the barber's razor best subdued.
The first (barbers) that entered Italy came
out of Sicily and it was in the 454 yeare after the foundation of Rome. Brought in they were by P. Ticinius Mena as Verra doth report for before that time they never cut their hair. The first that was shaven every day was Scipio Africanus, and after him cometh Augustus the Emperor who evermore used the rasor. Pliny—Natural History. Bk. VII. Ch.LIX. Holland's trans. </poem>
Our courteous Antony,
Being barber'd ten times o'er, goes to the feast.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 227.
Whose beard they have sing'd off with brands of fire;
And ever, as it blaz'd, they threw on him
Great pails of puddled mire to quench the hair:
My master preaches patience to him and the while
His man with scissors nicks him like a fool.
Comedy of Errors. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 171.
And his chin new reap'd,
Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home.
Henry IV. Pt. I. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 34.
I must to the barber's; * * * for methinks
I am marvellous hairy about the face.
Midsummer Night's Dream. Act IV. Sc. 1.
L. 23.
The barber's man hath been seen with him,
and the old ornament of his cheek hath already
stuffed tennis-balls.
Much Ado About Nothing. Act III. Sc. 2.
L.45.
A Fellow in a market town.
Most musical, cried Razors up and down.
John Wollcot—Farewell Odes. Ode 3.
BASIL
Pycnanthemum
The basil tuft, that waves
Its fragrant blossom over graves.
Moore—Lalla Rookh. Light of the Harem.
BAT
The sun was set; the night came on apace,
And falling dews bewet around the place;
The bat takes airy rounds on leathern wings,
And the hoarse owl his woeful dirges sings.
Gay—Shepherd's Week. Wednesday; or, The
Far different there from all that charm'd before,
The various terrors of that horrid shore;
Those matted woods where birds forget to sing.
But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling.
| author = Goldsmith
| work = The Deserted Village. L. 345.
Ere the bat hath flown
His cloister'd flight.
Macbeth. Act III. Sc.^. L. 40.
On the bat's back I do fly
After summer merrily.
Act V. Sc. 1. L. 91.
BEACH BIRD
Thou little bird, thou dweller by the sea,
Why takest thou its melancholy voice,
And with that boding cry
Along the waves dost thou fly?
Oh! rather, bird, with me
Through this fair land rejoice!
R. H. Dana—The Little Beach Bird.
BEAR
Make ye no truce with Adam-zad—the Bear
that walks like a man.
Kipling—The Truce of the Bear.
BEAUTY
Beauty soon grows familiar to the lover,
Fades in his eye, and palls upon the sense.
What is lovely never dies,
But passes into other loveliness,
Star-dust, or sea-foam, flower or winged air.
T. B. Aldrich—A Shadow of the Night.
I must not say that she was true,
Yet let me say that she was fair;
And they, that lovely face who view,
They should not ask if truth be there.
Matthew Arnold—Euphrosyne.
The beautiful are never desolate;
But some one alway loves them—God or man.
If man abandons, God himself takes them.
Bailey—Festus. Sc. Water and Wood MidL. 370.
