Harrison, in his _Description of England_, ed. 1586, p. 172, thus refers
to the vagaries of fashion of beards in his time: "I will saie nothing
of our heads, which sometimes are polled, sometimes curled, or suffered
to grow at length like womans lockes, manie times cut off, above or
under the eares, round as by a woodden dish. Neither will I meddle with
our varietie of beards, of which some are shaven from the chin like
those of Turks, not a few cut short like to the beard of marques Otto,
some made round like a rubbing brush, others with a _pique de vant_ (O
fine fashion!), or now and then suffered to grow long, the barbers being
growen to be so cunning in this behalfe as the tailors. And therfore if
a man have a leane and streight face, a marquesse Ottons cut will make
it broad and large; if it be platter like, a long slender beard will
make it seeme the narrower; if he be wesell becked, then much heare left
on the cheekes will make the owner looke big like a bowdled hen, and so
grim as a goose."[161]
[161] Reprint for the Shakspere Society, 1877, B. ii, ch. vii,
p. 169.
Barnaby Rich, in the conclusion of his _Farewell to the Military
Profession_ (1581), says that the young gallants sometimes had their
beards "cutte rounde, like a Philippes doler; sometymes square, like the
kinges hedde in Fishstreate; sometymes so neare the skinne, that a manne
might judge by his face the gentlemen had had verie pilde lucke.
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