The hair of young men usually begins to grow down upon their chins at fifteen years of age, and sometimes sooner. These hairs proceed from the superfluity of heat, the fumes whereof ascend to their chin, like smoke to the funnel of a chimney; and because it cannot find an open passage by which it may ascend higher, it vents itself forth in the hairs which are called the beard. There are very few, or almost no women at all, that have hairs on their cheeks; and the reason is, that those humours which cause hair to grow on the cheeks of a man are by a woman evacuated in the monthly courses, which they have more or less, according to the heat or coldness of their constitution, and the age and motion of the moon, of which we have spoken at large in the first part of this book. Yet sometimes women of a hot constitution have hair to be seen on their cheeks, but more commonly on their lips, or near their mouths, where the heat most aboundeth. And where this happens, such women are much addicted to the company of men, and of a strong and manly constitution. A woman who hath little hair on her cheeks, or about her mouth and lips, is of a good complexion, weak constitution, shamefaced, mild and obedient, whereas a woman of a more hot constitution is quite otherwise. But in a man, a beard well composed and thick of hair, signifies a man of good nature, honest, loving, sociable and full of humanity; on the contrary, he that hath but a little beard, is for the most part proud, pining, peevish and unsociable. They who have no beards, have always shrill and a strange kind of squeaking voices, and are of a weak constitution, which is apparent in the case of eunuchs, who, after they are deprived of their virility are transformed from the nature of men into the condition of women. Great and thick ears are a certain sign of a foolish person, or a bad memory and worse understanding. But small and thin ears show a person to be of a good wit, grave, sweet, thrifty, modest, resolute, of a good memory, and one willing to serve his friend. He whose ears are longer than ordinary, is thereby signified to be a bold man, uncivil, vain, foolish, serviceable to another more than to himself, and a man of small industry, but of a great stomach.