Some account of the beard and the moustachio, chiefly from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century / [J. Adey Repton].

  • John Adey Repton
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some account of the beard and the moustachio, chiefly from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century / [J. Adey Repton]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    relating to the barbers of former days; but before entering upon this subject, I must beg leave to men¬ tion an expression formerly used—viz. To make ‘‘ any one’s beard,” which means, to cheat him^ or to deceive him, as in the Wyf of Bathes Prologue of Chaucer:— In faith be sbal not kepe me, but me lest: Yet coude I make bis herd, so mete I the.” And again, in the Reve’s Tale, the Miller said, I trow, the clerkes were aferde Yet can a miller make a clerkes berde. For all his art.” Bulwer, who has praised the Beard, gives a quota¬ tion from Purchas’s Pilgrims on the inconvenience and filthiness of the Mustachio and the hair about the mouth, in the following words :— These men, by their practice, seem to be angry that Nature hath planted haire about the mouth, a thing very derogatorie to the honour of Nature, with whom Scaliger (when his memory failed him) '' seems to assent, supposing that by reason of their position and corporiety besetting the upper lip, and '' cloathing the mouth, they lye between the mouth and holes of the nostrils, and prove troublesome to the nose and mouth ; too nicely, withall, observing that the increase of these haires placed about the mouth, hanging down very long (being as a hedge '' about the mouth) did hinder the ingresse and egresse of those things for whose sake Nature has formed the mouth, whose office was commestion, “ or assumption of solid aliment, the potation of the
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