Which holy vow he firmly kept,
And most devoutly wore
A grizzly meteor on his face,
'Till they were both no more."[1]
"Now a few lines 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,[2] dagger-like,
That may, with whispering, a man's eyes outpike.
Some with the hammer cut or Roman T,
Their 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."
- ↑ Taylor, the Water Poet, who lived from the end of Elizabeth to nearly the end of the Commonwealth, thus humorously describes the various fashions of this appendage.
- ↑
The stiletto Beard
It makes me afeard
It is so sharp beneath:
For he that doth wear
A dagger in his face,
What must he wear in his sheath,"
Old Author."Who make sharp Beards and little breeches Deities.
Beaumont and Fletcher.
