Now a few lines to paper I will put, Of men's beards strange and variable cut: In which there's some do take as vain a pride, As almost in all other things beside. Some are reap'd most substantial like a brush, Which make a natural wit known by the bush: (And in my time of some men I have heard, Whose wisdom hath been only wealth and beard) Many of these the proverb well doth fit, Which says Bush natural, more hair than wit. Some seem as they were starched stiff and fine, Like to the bristles of some angry swine: And some (to set their Love's desire on edge) Are cut and pruned like to a quickset hedge. Some like a spade, some like a fork, some square, Some round, some mowed like stubble, some stark bare, Some sharp stiletto fashion, dagger like, That may with whispering a man's eyes out pike: Some with the hammer cut or Roman T, Their beards extravagant reformed must be, Some with the quadrate, some triangle fashion, Some circular, some oval in translation, Some perpendicular in longitude, Some like a thicket for their crassitude, That heights, depths, breadths, triform, square, oval, round, And rules geometrical in beards are found; Beside the upper lips strange variation, Corrected from mutation to mutation; As't were from tithing unto tithing sent, _Pride_ gives to _Pride_ continual punishment. Some (_spite their teeth_) like thatched eaves downward grows, And some grow upwards in despite their nose. Some their mustachios of such length do keep, That very well they may a manger sweep? Which in Beer, Ale, or Wine, they drinking plunge, And suck the liquor up as't were a sponge; But 'tis a Sloven's beastly _Pride_ I think To wash his beard where other men must drink. And some (because they will not rob the cup) Their upper chaps like pot hooks are turned up, The Barbers thus (like Tailors) still must be, Acquainted with each cut's variety.[2] [Footnote 1: MAY.] [Footnote 2: TAYLOR _the Water Poet_.] In comparison with such fashions, clean shaving is clear gain of time. And to what follies and what extravagances would the whiskerandoed macaronies of Bond Street and St. James's proceed, if the beard once more were, instead of the neckcloth, to “make the man!”—They who have put on the whole armour of Dandeyism, having their loins girt with—stays, and having put on the breast-plate of—buckram, and having their feet shod—by Hoby! I myself, if I wore a beard, should cherish it, as the Cid Campeador did his, for my pleasure. I should regale it on a summer's day with rose water; and, without making it an Idol, I should sometimes offer incense to it, with a pastille, or with lavender and sugar. My children when they were young enough for such blandishments would have delighted to stroke and comb and curl it, and my grand-children in their turn would have succeeded to the same course of mutual endearment.