Philip Nye, an Independent minister in the time of the Commonwealth, and
one of the famous Assembly of Divines, was remarkable for the
singularity of his beard. Hudibras, in his Heroical Epistle to the lady
of his "love," speaks of
Amorous intrigues
In towers, and curls, and periwigs,
With greater art and cunning reared
Than Philip Nye's _thanksgiving beard_.
Nye opposed Lilly the astrologer with no little virulence, for which he
was rewarded with the privilege of holding forth upon Thanksgiving Day,
and so, as Butler says, in some MS. verses,
He thought upon it and resolved to put
His beard into as wonderful a cut.
Butler even honoured Nye's beard with a whole poem, entitled "On Philip
Nye's Thanksgiving Beard," which is printed in his _Genuine Remains_,
edited by Thyer, vol. i, p. 177 ff., and opens thus:
A beard is but the vizard of the face,
That nature orders for no other place;
The fringe and tassel of a countenance
That hides his person from another man's,
And, like the Roman habits of their youth,
Is never worn until his perfect growth.
And in another set of verses he has again a fling at the obnoxious beard
of the same preacher:
This reverend brother, like a goat,
Did wear a tail upon his throat;
The fringe and tassel of a face
That gives it a becoming grace,
But set in such a curious frame,
As if 'twere wrought in filograin;
And cut so even as if 't had been
Drawn with a pen upon the chin.
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