No, no, such fellowes are _Rarae aves in
terris, nigrisque similimi cygnis_, Rare birds upon the earth, and as
geason as blacke swans. You shall have also your orient perfumes for
your nose, your fragrant waters for your face, wherewith you shall bee
all to besprinkled, your musicke againe, and pleasant harmonic, shall
sound in your eares, and all to tickle the same with vaine delight. And
in the end your cloke shall be brushed, and 'God be with you
Gentleman!'"[165]
[165] Reprint for the Shakspere Society, Part ii (1882),
pp. 50, 51.
* * * * *
A very curious Ballad of the Beard, of the time of Charles I, if not
earlier, is reproduced in _Satirical Songs and Poems on Costume_, edited
by F. W. Fairholt, for the Percy Society, in which "the varied forms of
beards which characterised the profession of each man are amusingly
descanted on":
The beard, thick or thin, on the lip or the chin,
Doth dwell so near the tongue,
That her silence in the beards defence
May do her neighbour wrong.
Now a beard is a thing that commands in a king,
Be his sceptre ne'er so fair:
Where the beard bears the sway the people obey,
And are subject to a hair.
'Tis a princely sight, and a grave delight,
That adorns both young and old;
A well-thatcht face is a comely grace,
And a shelter from the cold.
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