Page:The philosophy of beards (electronic resource) - a lecture - physiological, artistic & historical (IA b20425272).pdf/76

Under Charles the 2nd, the Beard dwindled into the mere moustache, and then vanished. And when we consider the French apery of that un-English court, it is no wonder the Beard appeared too bold and manly an ensign to be tolerated. It went out first among the upper classes in London, and by slow degrees the sturdy country squires and yeomen also yielded their free honors to the slavish effeminate fashion, which, by the force of example, descended even to the working classes, on whom it imposed new burdens and some bodily diseases from which their hardy frames had been hitherto exempt. It is to be hoped, that when any one for the future talks about the Beard being a foreign fashion, he will be reminded that it is a good old English natural fashion, and that the present custom of shaving was borrowed from France, at a time when we had no credit to borrow anything else, seeing that king, courtiers, and patriots, were al the pensioned dependents of the French monarch! The sooner therefore we cease to shave, the sooner shall we wipe out the remembrance of a disgraceful period of our history! One amusing proof that the Beard continued to be worn by the country people after its decline about the court, is afforded by an anecdote of the notorious Judge Jeffries, who, in his browbeating way, thus addressed a party before him. "If your consience be as large as your Beard, fellow! it must be a swinging one." To which the witness