time is full of allusions to that feature which men still honored and admired. Lear can find no more pathetic outburst of insulted majesty, in addressing his vile daughter Goneril, than the words—
"Art not ashamed to look upon this Beard?"
and when Regan insults the faithful Gloster, the latter exclaims—
"By the kind Gods! 'tis most ignobly done
To pluck me by the Beard!"
In a more mocking humour. Shakspeare makes Cressida say of Troilus's chin, "alas poor chin! many a wart is richer!" And Rosalind to Orlando, "I will pardon you for not having a neglected Beard, for truly your having in Beard is a younger brother's revenue."
Then as characteristics, we have the black, white, strawcolored, orange-tawney, purple-in-grain, and perfect yellow. The soldier Bearded like a pard; the justice with Beard of formal cut; the sexton's hungry Beard; and the Beard of the general's cut; and that fine passage, which you will pardon my quoting, if only to supply an obvious correction naturally lost sight of by Beardless commentators. If instead of the puerile conceit, stairs of sand, we read layers of sand, we not only restore metaphorical beauty but literal truth; for what is more deceitful than a layer of sand, and the Beard is "a layer of hair."
