I have said that philosophers have not disdained to write upon the beard, and I may be honestly proud of an opportunity to follow in the wake of the philosophers. Chrysippus has chronologized its history, and it is from him we know that it was not before the reign of Alexander that shaving became a fashion in the East. Timotheus, that renowned musician, long stuck to the olden mode, and played the flute in a beard as long as his instrument, πώγωνα μέγαν ἔχων ηὔλει: and how sweetly does that last word interpret the flute’s sweet sound—ηὔλει! it dies away like a cadence beneath the lips of as great a flutist as Timotheus, our own modest and able Richardson. The first man who shaved himself at Athens acquired a name by the act. He was called _Korses_, the shaven, or clipped. Diogenes despised fashion, and therefore kept his beard. Not only that; he abused all who dispensed with it. “Ah!” he exclaimed with that mouth which lay behind a portion of his own hirsute dirtiness,—for Diogenes had a contempt for soap;—“Ah!” cried he, on encountering a friend newly mown, “art thou inclined then to reproach Nature? Wouldst thou insinuate that she had done better to have made thee a woman rather than a man?” At Rhodes all shaving was forbidden; but the Rhodians loved to display their independence of the law, and every man did what seemed best to his own chin. The same unruly sort of liberty was taken by the Byzantine barbers. The law expressly denounced razors, but scissors were tolerated. Clipping was permitted, but shaving was pronounced irreligious. Some priests shaved in spite of the decree. It was made a diocesan-court matter of; and the chief pontiff, a sort of bishop in his way, rendered an admirable judgement on the occasion. He regretted his limited powers, but he said his course was clear. Scissors were lawful, razors illegal; but the priests had first used the former, and the law did not say that razors should _not_ be used after the scissors had been applied. For his own part, he did not well know which to adopt; but he thought his reverend gentlemen would be justified in keeping razors, but not in using them—themselves. They might shave each other! One poor priest inquired what _he_ was required to do, seeing that he had no beard. “Oh,” said Λονδονικός, “in this case I have no doubt. The use of scissors is imperative; and if you do not obey the law, I will clap you into the Ecclesiastical Court.”