CHAPTER CLVI.

AN ANECDOTE OF WESLEY, AND AN ARGUMENT ARISING OUT OF IT, TO SHOW THAT THE TIME EMPLOYED IN SHAVING IS NOT SO MUCH LOST TIME; AND YET THAT THE POET'S CALCULATION REMAINS OF PRACTICAL USE.

Questo medesimo anchora con una altra gagliardissima ragione vi confermo.

LODOVICO DOMINICHI.             

There was a poor fellow among John Wesley's followers, who suffered no razor to approach his chin, and thought it impossible that any one could be saved who did: shaving was in his opinion a sin for which there could be no redemption. If it had been convenient for their interests to put him out of the way, his next of kin would have had no difficulty in obtaining a lettre de cachet against him from a mad-doctor, and he might have been imprisoned for life, for this harmless madness. This person came one day to Mr. Wesley, after sermon, and said to him in a manner which manifested great concern, Sir, you can have no place in Heaven without a beard! therefore, I entreat you, let your's grow immediately!

Had he put the matter to Wesley as a case of conscience, and asked that great economist of time how he could allow himself every day of his life to bestow nine precious minutes upon a needless operation, the Patriarch of the Methodists might have been struck by the appeal, but he would soon have perceived that it could not be supported by any just reasoning.

For in the first place, in a life of such incessant activity as his, the time which Wesley employed in shaving himself, was so much time for reflection. However busy he might be, as he always was,—however hurried he might be on that particular day, here was a portion of time, small indeed, but still a distinct and apprehensible portion, in which he could call his thoughts to council. Like our excellent friend, he was a person who knew this, and he profited by it, as well knowing what such minutes of reflection are worth. For although thought cometh, like the wind, when it listeth, yet it listeth to come at regular appointed times, when the mind is in a state of preparation for it, and the mind will be brought into that state, unconsciously, by habit. We may be as ready for meditation at a certain hour, as we are for dinner, or for sleep; and there will be just as little need for an effort of volition on our part.

Secondly, Mr. Wesley would have considered that if beards were to be worn, some care and consequently some time must be bestowed upon them. The beard must be trimmed occasionally, if you would not have it as ragged as an old Jew Clothes-man's: it must also be kept clean, if you would not have it inhabited like the Emperor Julian's; and if you desired to have it like Aaron's, you would oil it. Therefore it is probable that a Zebedeean who is cleanly in his habits would not save any time by letting his beard grow.

But it is certain that the practise of shaving must save time for fashionable men, though it must be admitted that these are persons whose time is not worth saving, who are not likely to make any better use of it, and who are always glad when any plea can be invented for throwing away a portion of what hangs so heavily upon their hands.

Alas, Sir, what is a Gentleman's time!
————————there are some brains
Can never lose their time, whate'er they do.1

For in former times as much pains were bestowed on dressing the beard, as in latter ones upon dressing the hair. Sometimes it was braided with threads of gold. It was dyed to all colours, according to the mode, and cut to all shapes, as you may here learn from John Taylor's Superbiæ Flagellum.

Now a few lines to paper I will put,
Of men's beards strange and variable cut:
In which there's some do take as vain a pride,
As almost in all other things beside.
Some are reap'd most substantial like a brush,
Which make a natural wit known by the bush:
(And in my time of some men I have heard,
Whose wisdom hath been only wealth and beard)
Many of these the proverb well doth fit,
Which says Bush natural, more hair than wit.
Some seem as they were starched stiff and fine,
Like to the bristles of some angry swine:
And some (to set their Love's desire on edge)
Are cut and pruned like to a quickset hedge.
Some like a spade, some like a fork, some square,
Some round, some mowed like stubble, some stark bare,
Some sharp stiletto fashion, dagger like,
That may with whispering a man's eyes out pike:
Some with the hammer cut or Roman T,
Their beards extravagant reformed must be,
Some with the quadrate, some triangle fashion,
Some circular, some oval in translation,
Some perpendicular in longitude,
Some like a thicket for their crassitude,
That heights, depths, breadths, triform, square, oval, round,
And rules geometrical in beards are found;
Beside the upper lips strange variation,
Corrected from mutation to mutation;
As't were from tithing unto tithing sent,
Pride gives to Pride continual punishment.
Some (spite their teeth) like thatched eaves downward grows,
And some grow upwards in despite their nose.
Some their mustachios of such length do keep,
That very well they may a manger sweep?
Which in Beer, Ale, or Wine, they drinking plunge,
And suck the liquor up as't were a sponge;
But 'tis a Sloven's beastly Pride I think
To wash his beard where other men must drink.
And some (because they will not rob the cup)
Their upper chaps like pot hooks are turned up,
The Barbers thus (like Tailors) still must be,
Acquainted with each cut's variety.2

1 MAY.

2 TAYLOR the Water Poet.

In comparison with such fashions, clean shaving is clear gain of time. And to what follies and what extravagances would the whiskerandoed macaronies of Bond Street and St. James's proceed, if the beard once more were, instead of the neckcloth, to “make the man!”—They who have put on the whole armour of Dandeyism, having their loins girt with—stays, and having put on the breast-plate of—buckram, and having their feet shod—by Hoby!

I myself, if I wore a beard, should cherish it, as the Cid Campeador did his, for my pleasure. I should regale it on a summer's day with rose water; and, without making it an Idol, I should sometimes offer incense to it, with a pastille, or with lavender and sugar. My children when they were young enough for such blandishments would have delighted to stroke and comb and curl it, and my grand-children in their turn would have succeeded to the same course of mutual endearment.

Methinks then I have shown that although the Campbellian, or Pseudo-Campbellian assertion concerning the languages which might be acquired in the same length of time that is consumed in shaving, is no otherwise incorrect than as being short of the truth, it is not a legitimate consequence from that proposition that the time employed in shaving is lost time, because the care and culture of a beard would in all cases require as much, and in many would exact much more. But the practical utility of the proposition, and of the demonstration with which it has here been accompanied, is not a whit diminished by this admission. For, what man is there, who, let his business, private or public be as much as it will, cannot appropriate nine minutes a-day to any object that he likes?