The last European nation to lay aside the Beard was the Russian, in whose ancient code it was enacted that whoever plucks hair from another’s Beard shall be fined four times as much as for cutting off a finger. Peter the Great, (who always remained a semi-savage), like many other half-informed reformers, sought to accomplish his objects by arbitrary measures rather than by moral persuasion. Having, when in the west, seen unbearded faces, he jumped to the conclusion that absence of Beard was a necessary part of civilization; forgetting that a shaven savage is a savage still. He therefore ordered all his subjects to shave, imposing a tax of one hundred roubles on all nobles, gentlemen, tradesmen, and artizans, and a copeck on the lower classes. Great commotions were the result; but Peter was obstinate and made a crusade with scissors and razor, much resembling a Franco-African Razzia, which you know means a clean shave of everything with very dirty hands! Some, to avoid disgrace, parted with their Beards voluntarily, but all preserved the hairs to be buried in their coffins; the more superstitious believing that unless they could present theirs to St. Nicholas, he would refuse them admission to heaven as Beardless Christians. One of the most difficult tasks was to deal with the army; in this, Peter proceeded with characteristic cunning. Through the agency of the priests, the soldiers were told that they were going to fight the Turks, who wore Beards, and that their patron saint St. Nicholas would not be able to protect his beloved Russians, unless they consented to distinguish themselves by removing their Beards! You see how stale are the Czar’s late tricks! Convinced by this pious fraud, the credulous soldiers obeyed the imperial mandate. The next war, however, was against the Swedes, and the soldiers, who had suffered severely from shaving, turned the tables upon the priests, and said, “the Swedes have no Beards, we must therefore let ours grow again, lest, as you say, the holy Nicholas should not know us!” It is a note-worthy historical fact, which shews the danger arising from discarding the natural for the artificial, that as _Beards died out, false hair came in_. A mountain of womanish curls rested on the head, and was made to fall in effeminate ringlets over neck and shoulders, while the whole face was kept as smooth, and smug, and characterless as razor could make it. This renders it so disagreeable a task to look through a series of Kneller’s portraits, who, clever as he was, could not impart the freedom and vigour of nature to this absurd fashion. A portrait of Addison,[37] was shewn as an illustration, because, as has been seen, though he complied with the mode, he was occasionally favored with visions of better times, past and to come.[38] Footnote 37: