And in the ever-memorable scene in the _Merry Wives of Windsor_, when
Jack Falstaff, disguised as the fat woman of Brentford, is escaping from
Ford's house, he is cuffed and mauled by Ford, who exclaims, "Hang her,
witch!" on which the honest Cambrian Sir Hugh Evans sapiently remarks:
"Py yea and no, I think the 'oman is a witch indeed. I like not when a
'oman has a great peard. I spy a great peard under her muffler!" (Act
iv, sc. 2.)
There have been several notable bearded women in different parts of
Europe. The Duke of Saxony had the portrait painted of a poor Swiss
woman who had a remarkably fine, large beard. Bartel Graefje, of
Stuttgart, who was born in 1562, was another bearded woman. In 1726
there appeared at Vienna a female dancer with a large bushy beard.
Charles XII of Sweden had in his army a woman who wore a beard a yard
and a half in length. In 1852 Mddle. Bois de Chene, who was born at
Genoa in 1834, was exhibited in London: she had "a profuse head of hair,
a strong black beard, and large bushy whiskers." It is not unusual to
see dark beauties in our own country with a moustache which must be the
envy of "young shavers." And, _apropos_, the poet Rogers is said to have
had a great dislike of ladies' beards, such as this last described; and
he happened to be in a circulating library turning over the books on the
counter, when a lady, who seemed to cherish her beard with as much
affection as the young gentlemen aforesaid, alighted from her carriage,
and, entering the shop, asked the librarian for a certain book.
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