Ulmus of Padua wrote a folio volume on the Beard, as he well might, if the length of his discourse were proportioned to the noble beards it was his privilege to illustrate, and the dignity and gravity of the subject he had to discuss. Hotoman wrote a “Treatise,” and Pierius Valerianus an “Eulogium” on beards. Those of Italy and Spain alone are worthy of a separate treatise. Many an Arab would rather lose his head than part with his beard--it is part of his religion to honour it; he swears by his beard: and Mahommed, we are told, never cut his. In Spain, in old times, it was held in like reverence: an insult to the beard could only be wiped out with blood. The seated corpse of the Cid--so runs the story--knocked down a Jew who dared to offend against its majesty by touching but a hair of the beard. It was reserved for the pencil of Velasquez to give immortality to the martial beards of Spain, which flourished proudly, and grew fiercely, amid the strife and smoke of battles. The decline and fall of the Spanish beard is attributed to Philip V. and his courtiers, in whose reign it was abolished. Many a brave Spaniard felt the privation keenly; and it became a common saying, “Since we have lost our beards, we seem to have lost our souls.” The Longobardi, or Lombards, have made themselves a place in history; and stubborn enough they proved at times, as Frederic I., the renowned old Barbarossa, found to his cost. And was there not the terrible Blue Beard--that incarnation of villainy and bloodthirstiness of our childhood. Who has forgotten the beards of the Persian kings, interwoven with gold; or the long white beard of the old Laconian mentioned by Plutarch, who being asked why he let it grow so long, replied, “It is that seeing continually my white beard, I may do nothing unworthy of its whiteness?” Fuller, however, says, “Beard was never the true standard of brains;” nor of valour either, if we may trust Bassanio: “How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars; Who inward search’d, have livers white as milk; And these assume but valour’s excrement, To render them redoubted.”