Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/441

 BEARD 421 according to Pliny, the first of the Romans who daily submitted to the razor. The antique busts and coins prove that the Roman emperors shaved until the time of Hadrian, who is said to have let his beard grow to conceal an ugly scar. The philosophers, however, from the earliest periods seem to have affected the full- grown beard, it being esteemed by them, as among the Greeks, a symbol of wisdom. All the ancient inhabitants of Europe wore beards at the earliest period of which any record ex- ists. The fashion, however, seems to have varied with them subsequently at different times. The Lombards or Longobards derived their name from the practice of going unshaved. We learn from Tacitus that the ancient Ger- mans cultivated the beard from its first growth until they had killed an enemy in battle, and from Julius Caesar that the Britons merely allowed the mustache to grow. Until the in- troduction of Christianity the Anglo-Saxons all wore beards without distinction, but then the clergy were compelled by law to shave. The English princes were in the habit of wearing mustaches till the conquest of William I., and they felt it to be a very great indignity when the conqueror compelled them to cut them off, in accordance with the Norman fashion. The practice and precepts of 'the Christian fathers, who, like the Jewish rabbis, denounced sha- ving as a violation of the law of God, made the wearing of the beard during the early medias- val centuries a distinguishing fashion of the continental kings, nobles, and dignitaries. Roy- al personages were in the habit of weaving gold with the beard, or ornamenting it with tags of that metal. Of long beards, one of the most wonderful was that of a German artist of the name of John Mayo, who was called John the Bearded ; it reached the ground when he stood up, and he was consequently obliged to tuck it into his girdle. Till the sep- aration of the Greek from the Latin church, which began in the 8th century, the popes, emperors, nobles, and, except in England, the priests had scrupulously abstained from the use of the razor. Leo III., to distinguish him- self from the patriarch of Constantinople, re- moved his beard. Thirty years later Gregory IV., pursuing the same system, enjoined penal- ties upon every bearded priest. In the 12th century the prescription which required all the clergy to shave their faces was extended to the laity, and even to monarchs. Godefroi, bishop of Amiens, refused the offerings of any one who wore a beard. A preacher directed his elo- quence against King Henry I. of England be- cause he wore a beard, and the monarch yield- ed. Frederick Barbarossa offered a similar example of resignation. The confessor of Louis VII. of France refused him absolution till he submitted to lose his beard. This was not long kept up. In the 13th century Pope Honorius III., in order to conceal a disfigured lip, allowed his beard to grow, and inaugurated anew the fashion, which became prevalent in Europe in the age of Francis I. The right of the clergy to wear their beards was then again disputed. Francis imposed a heavy tax upon every bearded bishop, and in 1561 the college of the Sorbonne decided, after mature deliberation, that a beard was contrary to sacerdotal mod- esty. In the reign of Henry IV. there were various styles, distinguished as the pointed beard, the square beard, the round beard, the aureole beard, the fan-shaped beard, the swallow-tailed beard, and the artichoke-leaf beard. In England, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the beard was worn generally by those of higher rank, and was trimmed in a style more or less distinctive of each class. The fashion of wearing- the beard declined under the Stuarts, and at the restoration there was no hair worn upon the face but the mustache, j which, however, was luxuriantly cultivated by the courtiers and gallants of those days. The decline of the beard in France dates from Louis XIII., and in Spain from the accession of Philip V. The Russians retained their beards until Peter the Great returned from his western tour, when one of his first edicts toward the compulsory civilization of his people had refer- ence to the beard. He taxed this appendage, and afterward ordered all those he found bearded to have the hair plucked out with pin- cers or shaven with a blunt razor. Thus the practice of shaving became almost universal in Europe until a comparatively recent period. France was the first to return to the old fash- ion of wearing the beard, and England was the last. The practice of wearing the beard is ad- vocated by many physicians for hygienic rea- sons, as protecting the throat from cold and damp. BEARD. I. James II.. an American painter, born in Buffalo, N. Y., in 1815. In early in- fancy he was removed to Painesville in north- ern Ohio, where at the age of 14 he be- gan to paint portraits, after having received only four lessons from a travelling artist. He subsequently practised portraiture in many parts of Ohio, and finally settled in Cincinnati, where he gained the friendship of Henry Clay, Gens. Harrison and Taylor, and other public men, of most of whom he painted portraits. For many years he was esteemed the leading artist in his peculiar walk. In 1846 he pro- duced his first original picture, " The North Carolina Emigrants," which was exhibited and sold in New York, and at once established his reputation as a genre painter. Among his other pictures are "The Long Bill" and "The Land Speculator;" and his latest work, "Out all Night," has been engraved in London. Of late years he has devoted himself principally to composition and the painting of domesticated animals. His works are characterized by nat- ural force and simplicity, with correct draw- ing, and a keen sense of humor. II. William H., an American painter, brother of the pre- ceding, born in Painesville, Ohio, about 1824. At 21 years of age he took up portrait