Page:Elizabethan & Jacobean Pamphlets.djvu/259

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Thomas Dekker
239

vyolently clip away from the heads of yong men? Is it / because those long beesomes (their beards) with sweeping the soft bosomes of their beautiful yong wiues, may tickle their tender breasts, and make some amends for their maisters' vnrecoverable dulnesse? No, no, there hangs more at the ends of those long gray haires then all the world can come to the knowledge of. Certaine I am, that when none but the golden age went currant vpon earth, it was higher treason to clip haire, then to clip money: the combe and scizers were condemned to the currying of hackneyes: he was disfranchised for euer, that did but put on a Barbers apron. Man, woman, and child woare then haire longer then a law-suit; euery head, when it stood bare or uncouered, lookt like a butter-boxes nowle, hauing his thrumbd cap on. It was free for all Nations to haue shaggy pates, as it is now onely for the Irishman. But since this polling and shauing world crept vp, locks were lockt up, and haire fell to decay. Reuiue thou therefore the old, buryed fashion, and (in scorne of periwigs and sheep-shearing) keep thou that quilted head-peece on continually. Long haire will make thee looke dreadfully to thine enemies, and manly to thy friends. It is, in peace, an ornament; in warre, a strong helmet. It blunts the edge of a sword, and deads the leaden thump of a bullet. In winter, it is a warme nightcap, in sommer, a cooling fanne of fethers.