The Mahometans are very superstitious touching the beard. They bury the hairs which come off in combing it, and break them first, because they believe that angels have charge of every hair, and that they gain them their dismissal by breaking it. Selim I. was the first Sultan who shaved his beard, contrary to the law of the Koran. “I do it,” said he apologetically to the scandalized and orthodox mufti, “to prevent my vizier leading me by it.” He cared less for it than some of our ancestors, two centuries ago, did for their own. They used to wear pasteboard covers over them in the night, lest they should turn upon them and rumple them in their sleep! The famous Raskolniki schismatics had a similar superstition to the Mahometan one mentioned above. They considered the divine image in man to reside in the beard. Not only have the shavers of barbaric kings been accounted superior to the Prime Minister, as in our own country French _coiffeurs_ are infinitely better paid than English curates; so to be shaved by a Prince is to be exalted to ecstatic honours. Hoskins, the traveller, was so operated on by the heir apparent of the Shaghes. His royal highness used a threepenny razor, and at every stroke carried away as much chin as beard; the honour was too much for the traveller, especially when it was cut out with a blunt razor. Rogers is said to have once asked Talleyrand if Napoleon shaved himself. “Yes,” said the latter; “one who is born to be a king has some one to shave him, but they who acquire kingdoms shave themselves.” He might have added, “And the people too, pretty closely!” But I am pulling the beard to a greater extent than my readers’ patience will be inclined to bear with it. I have only to add, that the beard was a symbol of bravery as well as of wisdom; and he who had a good one on his chin was usually able to grasp a sword to some purpose in his hand. Let us therefore draw the sword too, and see what can be made of it. SWORDS. “I love an enemy, I was born a soldier; And he that at the head of his troop defies me, Binding my manly body with his sword I make my mistress.”—BONDUCA.