descend as low as his Beard, and ask whether he please to be shaven or no? whether he will have his peake cut short and sharp, amiable like an inamorato, or broad pendant like a spade, or le terrible, like a warrior or soldado? whether he will have his crates cut low like a juniper bush, or his subercles taken away with a razor? If it be his pleasure to have his appendices pruned, or his mouchaches fostered to turn about his ears like the branches of a vine, or cut down to the lip with the Italian lash, to make him look like a half-faced bauby in brass. These quaint terms Master Barber, you greet Master Velvet-breeches withal, and at every word a snap with your scissors and a cringe with your knee; whereas, when you come to poor Cloth-breeches, you either cut his Beard at your own pleasure, or else in disdain ask him if he will be trimmed with Christ's cut, round like the half of a Holland cheese, mocking both Christ and us."[1]
In the reign of James the 1st. Beards continued in fashion, and I extract two out of many passages from Beaumont and Fletcher's plays; the first being, not excepting even that of Butler's Hudibras, the most humourous description of a Beard in the language. A banished
- ↑ Lilly in one of his Dramas makes a Barber say to his customer. "How, sir, will you be trimmed? Will you have a Beard like a spade or a bodkin? A penthouse on your upper lip or an ally on your chin? Your moustaches sharp at the end like shoe-maker's awls, or hanging down to your mouth like goat's flakes?"
