Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1892-06-11
MANS ADORNMENT.
ANCIENT NOTIONS CONCERNING THE
NOW POPULAR BEARD.

A Distinguishing Feature of Fashions
able Men During the Reign of Queen
Flizabeth-It Declined ia Favor Dur
ing the Eighteenth Century. but has
Esgninsd Its Former Popularity.
In England, during the sixteenth GEN.
Jury, members of the legal fraternity
who wore boards were held in disfavOr,
and subjected to various small annoy
ances from court and people. This oppo-
sition was the very thing needed to give
.he beard popularity; and during the
.eign of Elizabeth it became the mark Of
every man of fashion. The peaked
beard became supreme during the days
Of James l, and continued in power
down to the great revolution. Shakes
peore and Ben Jonson both followed this
fashion. With Cromwell and tho
Roundhead regime the hair was clipped
close and the beard shaved almost en-
tirely. Charles II made a weak attempt
to renew the old fashion by wearing a
few hairs on the chin, but this died out,
and during the eighteenth century the
beard was not worn by people of posi-
ton in England. During the early de-
:ades of the present century boards were
carce. Punch was very facetious over
what it termed the French fashion Of
beard and mustache. The ugly mutton
chop whiskers which were then looked
on as the acme Of taste, offended the ris-
ing generation, and the result was gem
eral return to the wearing of boards. In
America boards had come into vogue
long before, as our great republic in
those DAYS looked to France rather than
to Britain for its fashions. The stage.
like the greater world, has always had
its traditional boards, the shape and limo
of which are guarded with jealous care.
In the old mystery plays Judas was
always presented with beard of brill
liant red, while the devil was played in
a long and pointed one Of black. This
latter characteristic was inherited by
Mephistopheles on the modern stage.
Othello generally wears a forked beard
with pronounced negro fizzle. NAL
volios beard belongs to the old pique-
dsvant variety and is triumph Of silly
foppery. We all know how Bottom en-
acted Pyramus, "either in your straw
J
your purple ingram beard. OF your
French crown beard, your perfect yell
low" The literature of the beard is re-
plete with anecdote and romance. Sir
Thomas Moore when on the scaffold
drew his long beard aside from the exc
cutioners block, saying that it, at least,
had not wrought treason. During the
time Of the early Georges many Jacobite
gentlemen vowed never to shave their
5eards until the Stuarts were once more
seated on the throne. Another and
EARLIER example of persons vowing not to
shave was Edmund Blanchville, an Irish
gentleman, who from the execution of
Charles to the restoration allowed his
beard to grow unshorn. When the Duke
of Ormonde told Charles II of Blanch-
ville's VOW, Charles promised to give his
faithful subject farthing for every hair
In his wonderful beard. This promise,
however, like many Of the merry mon
srch's, was soon forgotten. And so,
though men may come and razors go,
the beard grows on forever 1t is ire
pressible as humor, obstinate as ambi-
ton, and unconvertible as sin. At this
moment it is asserting itself upon mil
lions of chins. Whether it has come to
stay or is gradually giving way to the
tnustache pleasing to all feminine eyes,
1t is impossible to divine. Who can say
with certainty what shall be the condi-
ton of our chins forty years hence?