Towards the middle of the fourteenth century, false beards came much into fashion in Spain, especially in the estates of Cortez of Catalonia. This artifice, which procured the advantage that a beard gives a man, with much ease, must appear much less strange among a people whose character has gravity for basis. This mode was adopted with the greatest eagerness. The same persons had beards of different forms and colours, and could change them as they pleased: they had different ones to wear holidays and working-days; so that a man might have a short red beard in the morning and in the evening a long black one. Every one changed his appearance according to his interest. Such a commodious fashion and so much followed favoured however a great many misdemeanours; and these chin-wigs would soon have been as much the wear as those of the head, if the abuse which was made of them had not at length attracted the attention of government. Peter, king of Arragon, expressly forbade all his subjects to wear false beards. They disappeared, and were replaced by natural ones. ’Tis a great pity this mode never got beyond the Pyrenean mountains: had it but reached France it would have acquired a degree of pre-eminence, which the French alone are capable of giving. However, Spain is not the only country where false beards have been in vogue. About the end of the fourteenth century there was the largest and thickest beard seen at Paris that ever existed perhaps in the world; in fact, it was the wonder of beards. The man who wore it called himself patriarch of Constantinople; from his having such an extraordinary beard, every one was inclined to believe his assertion: so much power has appearance over the mind of man! Never was there a beard that raised such a sensation. The Parisians, as may be supposed, were unceasing in their admiration of it; and it was through favour of his beard that this patriarch, as he called himself, received the most flattering reception. He was every where loaded with honours: and this astonishing beard, which attracted the veneration of a whole people, who were enraptured with it, was nothing but a false one. What a powerful effect of the majesty of beards! but what a subject of comparison for our manners! How many revered sages, great geniuses, extolled heroes, and lords of high renown, are like this beard! It is some consolation however, that the homage of the gulled citizens is always the satire of the delusion by which they were deceived: the truth comes out sooner or later; and then all the honour of it is clearly perceived to belong to some particular virtue or talent, or a long beard. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAP. VII. _Of GOLDEN BEARDS._