And yf he had, who dyd hym shave,
Syth that a barber he coulde not have.
Well, then, ye prove hym there a knave,
Bicause his berde he dyd so save :
I fere it not.

Sampson, with many thousandes more
Of auncient phylosophers (!), full great store,
Wolde not be shaven, to dye therefore ;
Why shulde you, then, repyne so sore?
Admit that men doth imytate

Thynges of antyquité, and noble state,

Such counterfeat thinges oftymes do mytygate
Moche ernest yre and debate:

I fere it not.

Therefore, to cease, I thinke be best;
For berdyd men wolde lyve in rest.
You prove yourselfe a homly gest,

So folysshely to rayle and jest ;

For if I wolde go make in ryme,

How new shavyd men loke lyke scraped swyne,

And so rayle forth, from tyme to tyme,

A knavysshe laude then shulde be myne:

I fere it not.

What should this avail him? he asks; and so let us all be good friends, bearded and unbearded.1

But Andrew Borde, if he did ever write a tract against beards, must have formerly held a different opinion on the subject, for in his Breviary of Health,

1 The Treatise answerynge the boke of Berdes, Compyled by Collyn Clowte, dedicated to Barnarde, Barber, dwellyng in Banbury: "Here foloweth a treatyse made, Answerynge the treatyse of doctor Borde upon Berdes."-Appended to reprint of Andrew Borde's Introduction of Knowledge, edited by Dr. F. J. Furnivall, for the Early English Text Society, 1870-see pp. 314, 315.

first printed in 1546, he says: "The face may have many impediments. The first impediment is to see a man having no beard, and a woman to have a beard." It was long a popular notion that the few hairs which are sometimes seen on the chins of very old women signified that they were in league with the arch-enemy of mankind-in plain English, that they were witches. The celebrated Three Witches who figure in Macbeth, " and palter with him in a double sense," had evidently this distinguishing mark, for says Banquo to the "weird sisters" (Act i, sc. 2):

And in the ever-memorable scene in the Merry Wives of Windsor, when Jack Falstaff, disguised as the fat woman of Brentford, is escaping from Ford's house, he is cuffed and mauled by Ford, who exclaims, Hang her, witch!" on which the honest Cambrian Sir Hugh Evans sapiently remarks: "Py yea and no, I think the 'oman is a witch indeed. I like not when a 'oman has a great peard. I spy a great peard under her muffler!" (Act iv, sc. 2.)

There have been several notable bearded women in different parts of Europe. The Duke of Saxony had the portrait painted of a poor Swiss woman who had a remarkably fine, large beard. Bartel Græfjë, of Stuttgart, who was born in 1562, was another bearded woman. In 1726 there appeared at Vienna a female dancer with a large bushy beard.

Charles XII of Sweden had in his army a woman who wore a beard a yard and a half in length. In 1852 Mddle. Bois de Chêne, who was born at Genoa in 1834, was exhibited in London: she had "a profuse head of hair, a strong black beard, and large bushy whiskers." It is not unusual to see dark beauties in our own country with a moustache which must be the envy of "young shavers." And, apropos, the poet Rogers is said to have had a great dislike of ladies' beards, such as this last described; and he happened to be in a circulating library turning over the books on the counter, when a lady, who seemed to cherish her beard with as much affection as the young gentlemen aforesaid, alighted from her carriage, and, entering the shop, asked the librarian for a certain book. The polite man of books replied that he was sorry he had not a copy at present. "But," said Roger, slily, "you have the Barber of Seville, have you not?" yes," said the bookseller, not seeing the poet's drift, "I have the Barber of Seville, very much at your ladyship's service." The lady drove away, evidently much offended, but the beard afterwards disappeared. Talking of barbers-but they deserve a whole paper to themselves, and they shall have it, from me, some day, if I live a little longer.

In No. 331 of the Spectator, Addison tells us how his friend Sir Roger de Coverley, in Westminster Abbey, pointing to the bust of a venerable old man,

asked him whether he did not think "our ancestors looked much wiser in their beards than we without them. For my part," said he, "when I am walking in my gallery in the country, and see my ancestors, who many of them died before they were my age, I cannot forbear regarding them as so many patriarchs, and at the same time looking upon myself as an idle, smock-faced young fellow. I love to see your Abrahams, your Isaacs, and your Jacobs, as we have them in old pieces of tapestry, with beards below their girdles, that cover half the hangings."

During most part of last century close shaving was general throughout Europe. In France the beard began to appear on the faces of Bonaparte's "braves," and the fashion soon extended to civilians, then to Italy, Germany, Spain, Russia, and lastly to England, where, after the gradual enlargement of the side-whiskers, the full beard is now commonly worn to the comfort and health of the wearers.