ART. IV-A CORSAIR EXPRESSION.

La Pigonotomie, ou L'art D'apprendre a se Raser SoiMeme, avec la maniere de connoître toutes sortes de Pierres propres à affiler tous les outils ou instruments; et les moyens de preparer les cuirs pour repasser les Resoirs, la maniere d'enfaire de trés-bons; suiri d'une Observation importante sur la Saignée. Par J. J. Perret, Maître et Marchand Coutilier, Ancien JeréGarde. A Paris, Chez Dufour, Libraire, Rue de la Vieille-Draperie, vis-a-vis L'Eglise Sainte Croix, au Bon Pasteur: MDCCLXIX.

At the conclusion of our paper entitled The Hair, and printed in the twenty-seventh number of this REVIEW, we promis ed to return to the subject then opened, and to write of Beards and Wigs. In our present paper we shall consider the subject, BEARDS AND WHISKERS.

It may be safely argued, as a general physiological principle, that whatever evinces a free and natural development of any part of the body is by necessity beautiful. Deprive the lion of his mane, the cock of its comb, the peacock of the emerald plumage of its tail, the ram and deer of their horns, and they not only become displeasing to the eye, but lose much of their power and vigor. And it is easy to apply this reasoning to the hairy ornaments of a man's face. The caprice of fashion alone forces the Englishman to shave off those appendages which give to the male countenance that true masculine character indicative of energy, bold daring, and decision. The presence or absence of the beard as an addition to the face, is the most marked and distinctive peculiarity between the countenance of the two sexes. Who can hesitate to admire the noble countenance of the Osmanli Turk of Constantinople, with his un-Mongolian length of beard? Ask any of the fair sex whether they will not approve and admire the noble countenance of Mehemet Ali, Major Herbert Edwardes, the hero of the Punjab, Sir Charles Napier, and others, as set off by the beard?-We may ask with Beatrice

"What manner of man is he?

Is his head worth a hat, or his chin worth a beard?"

We have noticed the whiskers and beards of many of our most eminent physicians and merchants encroaching upon their former narrow boundaries, while it is well known that not a few of our divines have been long convinced of the folly of disobeying one of nature's fixed laws; but hitherto, their unwillingness to shock the prejudice of their congregations, have prevented them from giving effect to their convictions. The London Methodist Quarterly Review recently took up the subject, and the following is an extract from it :

"It may surprise not a few when we say that the bronchitic affections under which ministers of the gospel so frequently labour, are often due to the violation of a hygienic law. The fact that the Creator planted a beard upon the face of the human male, thus making it a law of his physical being, indicates, in a mode not to be misunder stood, that the distinctive appendage was bestowed for the purpose of being worn. Moreover, physiologically considered, those views are corroborated by experience; for diseases of the throat have, in many instances, been traced directly to the shaving of the beard, the liability disappearing with its growth, and vice versû. Let, then, all our ministers of religion wear beards, for the Bible and nature are in favour of it; nor is the great head of the Church, Christ him. self, ever seen in a painting without a beard; and it was said by the early Christian father, Tertullian, that to shave the beard, is blasphemy against the face."

Dr. Dixon, a leading physician of New York, in his influential publication, The Scalpel, strongly advocates the wearing of the beard, and some able letters have recently appeared on the subject in the Montreal Herald, a commercial daily journal of Canada.

A recent decree of the Emperor of Austria forbids his civil functionaries, of whatever grade, to wear beards. "Genteel" whiskers and properly trimmed moustaches may still be worn. The new regulation is any thing but popular with those whose chins have not been familiar with cold steel since the year of grace 1811.

The mode in which young men wear their beards is the one solemn question of the Neapolitan government at the present time (April, 1853). A little more or less hair on the chin of a pale dandy, makes the State tremble. However absurd this may appear to Englishmen, it is no joke for the Neapolitans, who are dragged daily into the barbers' shops by the police, and their beards trimmed according to the political creed of the authorities, who just now believe,

that nature grows rebellious on the lip. The police wanted a decree to appear, prohibiting men from wearing hair on their chins, but His Majesty is said to have declined his signature to the document, so that the inspectors are obliged to act without official authority.

Lorenzo Benoni gives some passages in the life of an Italian, which portray this systein of merciless persecution.

"I am now twenty-one, and a thick circlet of hairs has grown under my chin. I should also have a pair of beautiful moustaches-the object of my ambition as a child—if moustaches were not unmercifully proscribed. I have made several attempts towards wearing them, but they were all frustrated. One day, a long, long time ago, M. Merlini, meeting me in the peristyle of the University, with a show of down upon my lip, protested, with sundry indescribable nods, jerks, and grimaces, that he had taken me for a pioneer. I understood the hint, and my budding moustaches fell under the razor. Twelve months later, the moustaches having reappeared thicker than ever, the Director of Police had the kindness to send me word through my father, that if I did not shave them off of my own accord, he would have them cut off for me; a very simple ceremony, not at all unprecedented. Two Carabineers would take you by each arm, force you into a barber's shop, and stand present during the operation"

In a general order issued from the Adjutant General's office, at Washington, to the American army, it is laid down that the beard is to be worn at the pleasure of the individual, provided it be kept short, and neatly trimmed. The reason given for the permission being that "the human beard is equally valuable as a protection against the cold blast of the north, and the scorching suns of the south." In our navy, on the contrary, the Admiralty has made it incumbent on all commanders of stations, to issue orders that no officer or man is to be allowed to wear "unseemly tufts of hair under the chin ;" and the moustache is, in like manner, strictly prohibited.

M. Jourdan states, that when the long hair worn by the soldiers in the revolutionary war was cut off in all the regi ments, many complained of headaches of several weeks' continuance. Persons in the habits of wearing long beards, have often been afflicted with rheumatic pains in the face, or with sore throat, upon shaving them off. In several cases of frequently recurring, or of chronic, sore throat, Dr. Copland (Dict. of Pract. Medicine), tells us wearing the beard under the chin and upon the throat, has prevented a return of this complaint.

The annals of the beard are rather interesting. Within the range of modern history, it has gone out and come into fashion about a dozen times. At the present moment, it is gradually creeping into favor, and in the course of a few years it may, probably, approach the zenith of its glory, again to be cried down as "vulgar," and shorn of all its pristine charms.

Many of our readers have no doubt seen the portraits of such men as Drake, Raleigh, Francis Bacon, Vandyke, and all the remarkable men of the times of Elizabeth and the two Charles's. Compare those faces, set off by magnificent beards, with the portraits of our closely shaved moderns, in their high, stiff-starched shirt collars; the eye at once acknowledges the superiority of the former in the picture; why does it not extend its judgment to the living pictures ?-The reason is-Fashion deters.

"By Jupiter,

Were I the wearer of Antonius' beard,

I would not shave to-day."

Beards never flourished in England so universally as previous to the Norman conquest, and as the Normans only wore whiskers, they were thought by the English spies to be an army of priests.

Beards were worn in the reigns of Mary, Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I., but not generally.

A correspondent in the late Douglas Jerrold's Weekly News, some six years since, urged the subject with much force and justice:

Why," said he, "should men cut off what nature has given them for use, comfort, and ornament, and as a distinguishing characteristic of their sex! Is shaving a pleasing operation? If the choice lay between two evils, something might be urged in favour of the custom of shaving ; but I do most strenuously contend that the beard is a positive good. It is useful, for it affords naturally what we are forced to supply artificially-warmth and protection to the throat. If the fashion of wearing beards was to come in, we should have no more sore throats. It is ornamental-if you doubt it, look at Cardinal Benbo's picture-at the portraits of Titian, Shakspeare, Fletcher, Spencer, Chaucer, Alfred, Plato, I could name a great man who wore a beard, for every hair which I painfully shaved off this morning. It sets off the face as in a frame; it gives dignity, and conveys the idea of strength, decision, manliness, depth of intellect, solidity, in short, everything may be said in its favour-nothing against it. What!' I hear a fair friend exclaim, would the wretch have our husbands, our brothers, our sons and our nephews, wear nasty beard's

and look like Frenchmen?' Certainly not, Madam; and one reason why we should not look like Frenchmen is that our beards would not be nasty. If we ceased to shave, we should not cease to use soap and water, and I will venture to say that the English beard would be the cleanest, glossiest, handsomest thing in the world. Besides, the beard which I advocate, is the beard given us by nature, in the form in which she caused it to grow. I would not have it touched by the razor; let the scissors curtail and shape it when too exuber. ant, but my cry is a bas the razor! You very seldom see a foreigner with the beard, the whole beard, and nothing but the beard. He shaves off his whiskers or moustache, or in some way or other manages to disfigure himself. Now what I want is, the whole or none. Once admit that the use of the razor may be advantageous to some extent, and 1 am as far off my end as ever. Dear Madam, you know not the pains of shaving, and the beauties of the beard."

The poet Campbell is said to have calculated that a man who shaves himself every day, and lives to the age of three score and ten, expends during his life as much time in the act of shaving as would have sufficed for learning seven languages. Southey in his "The Doctor" (vol. 5), states that he tested this assertion by timing himself, and he found that he occupied ordinarily nine minutes; but if he had to strop his razor, another minute or two would have been lost.

"Now (he goes on to state) as to my beard, it is not such a beard as that of Domenico d'Ancona, which was delle barbe la corona, that is to say the crown of beards, or rather in English idiom, the king. "Una barba la più singulare

Che mai fosse discritta in verso o'u prossa."

A beard the most unparallel'd

That ever was yet described in prose or rhyme.

And of which Berni says, that the barber ought to have felt less reluctance in cutting the said Domenico's throat, than in cutting of so incomparable a beard. Neither do I think that mine, even by possibility, could vie with that of Futteh Ali Shab, King of Persia at this day; nay, I doubt whether Macassar oil, bear's grease, ele phant's marrow, or the approved receipt of sour milk with which the Persians cultivate their beards, could ever bring mine to the far inferior growth of his son's, Prince Abbas Mirza. Indeed no Mussul man would ever look upon it, as they did upon Mungo Park's, with envious eyes, and think that it was too good a beard for a Christian. But for a Christian, and moreover an Englishman, it is a sufficient beard; and for the individual a desirable one: nihil me pœnitel hujus barba; desirable I say, inasmuch as it is in thickness and rate of growth rather below the average standard of beards. Nine minutes therefore will be about the average time required for shaving, by a Zebedeean-one who shaves himself. A professional operator makes quicker work; but he cannot be always exactly to the time, and at the year's end, as much may have been lost in waiting for the barber, as is gained by his celerity of hand.