You then, to whom chastity has giuen an heire
apparant, take order that it may be apparant, and to
that purpose, let it play openly with the lascivious
wind, eu[=e] on the top of your shoulders. Experience
cries out in euery Citty, that those self-same Criticall
_Saturnists_, whose haire is shorter than their eye-brows,
take a pride to haue their hoary beards hang
slauering like a dozen of Foxetailes downe so low as
their middle. But (alas) why should the chinnes and
lippes of old men lick vp that excrement, which they
vyolently clip away from the heads of yong men? Is
it / because those long beesomes (their beards) with
sweeping the soft bosomes of their beautiful yong
wiues, may tickle their tender breasts, and make some
amends for their maisters' vnrecoverable dulnesse?
No, no, there hangs more at the ends of those long
gray haires then all the world can come to the knowledge
of. Certaine I am, that when none but the
golden age went currant vpon earth, it was higher
treason to clip haire, then to clip money: the combe
and scizers were condemned to the currying of
hackneyes: he was disfranchised for euer, that did
but put on a Barbers apron. Man, woman, and child
woare then haire longer then a law-suit; euery head,
when it stood bare or uncouered, lookt like a butter-boxes
nowle, hauing his thrumbd cap on. It was free
for all Nations to haue shaggy pates, as it is now
onely for the Irishman. But since this polling and
shauing world crept vp, locks were lockt up, and
haire fell to decay. Reuiue thou therefore the old,
buryed fashion, and (in scorne of periwigs and sheep-shearing)
keep thou that quilted head-peece on continually.
Long haire will make thee looke dreadfully
to thine enemies, and manly to thy friends. It is, in
peace, an ornament; in warre, a strong helmet. It
blunts the edge of a sword, and deads the leaden
thump of a bullet. In winter, it is a warme night-cap,
in sommer, a cooling fanne of fethers.
CHAPTER IIII
How a Gallant should behaue himselfe in Powles walkes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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