The English clergy do not appear to have estimated beards by Van Helmont’s scale. One of the body, in the reign of Elizabeth, cherished his beard as an incentive to righteousness. “He wore it,” he said, “to remind him that no act of his life should be unworthy of the gravity of his appearance.” This good gentleman’s beard assuredly did not deserve what Shakspeare affirms some men’s _do_, namely, “not so honourable a grave as to stuff a botcher’s cushion, or to be entombed in an ass’s pack-saddle.” Henry VIII. on the other hand, would not tolerate monitorism even from his own beard, and he accordingly and characteristically cut it short. Perhaps this monarch wished also to have it out of the way of petitioners; for stroking the beard, in sign of supplication for mercy, was for thousands of years a recognized fashion, as may be seen in the Classics, and in Shakspeare, _passim_. It will be remembered that Hudibras stroked his own beard before he proceeded to “honour the shadow” of the lady’s shoe-tie. This act has been editorially declared to have been done as in sign of asking for her favour; from the recollection, I suppose, of Thetis “palming” the chin of Jupiter; but I think it was merely a piece of gallantry, “dressing” as it were, for the occasion, as in Congreve’s ‘Way of the World,’ wherein it is said, “The gentlemen wait but to comb, Madam, and will wait on you.” Formerly, no gallant ascended to a lady’s boudoir without first combing his peruke at the foot of the stairs, and assuring himself, by a glance at his pocket mirror, that he was as well-looking a fop as ever wasted morning in talking nonsense to a speaking and painted doll. To pull another person’s beard, was to inflict on the wearer the most degrading insult that could be thought of. When the Jew, who hated and feared the living Cid Rui Dios, heard that the great Spaniard was dead, he contrived to get into the room where the body lay, and he indulged his revengeful spirit by contemptuously plucking at the beard. But the “son of somebody” (the _hidalgo_) was plucked temporarily into life and indignation by the outrage; and starting half up, endeavoured to get at his sword,—an attempt which killed the Jew by the mere fright which it caused. To shave a Moslem’s beard was once a penalty as terrible as to a Chinese the cutting off of his extended tail; and Christian princes have so esteemed the appendage, that they have pawned the beard, or a portion of it, for money lent, and redeemed the sacred pledge punctually at the promised hour. They would have forfeited all claim to be honoured of men, or rewarded of God, had they failed in their contract. In modern times they pledge only their words; and as words are of less value than beards, they are not so careful about the redemption thereof. That terribly mendacious personage, the Czar Nicholas, has, at all events, made his “parole de _gentleman_” to be synonymous with deliberate falsehood.