"[162]
[162] Reprint for the (old) Shakspeare Society, 1846, p. 217.
In Taylor's _Superbiae Flagellum_ we find the following amusing
description of the different "cuts" of beards:
Now a few lines to paper I will put,
Of mens Beards strange and variable cut:
In which there's some doe take as vaine a Pride,
As almost in all other things beside.
Some are reap'd most substantiall, like a brush,
Which makes a Nat'rall wit knowne by the bush:
(And in my time of some men I have heard,
Whose wisedome have bin onely wealth and beard)
Many of these the proverbe well doth fit,
Which sayes Bush naturall, More haire then wit.
Some seeme as they were starched stiffe and fine,
Like to the bristles of some angry swine:
And some (to set their Loves desire on edge)
Are cut and prun'de like to a quickset hedge.
Some like a spade, some like a forke, some square,
Some round, some mow'd like stubble, some starke bare,
Some sharpe Steletto fashion, dagger like,
That may with whispering a mans eyes out pike:
Some with the hammer cut, or Romane T,[163]
Their beards extravagant reform'd must be,
Some with the quadrate, some triangle fashion,
Some circular, some ovall in translation,
Some perpendicular in longitude,
Some like a thicket for their crassitude,
That heights, depths, bredths, triforme, square, ovall, round,
And rules Ge'metricall in beards are found.
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