And in its drooping half-shut eye,
A dreamy pleasure we espy.
And while the result of shaving is a mere negation, depriving us of a natural protection, and exposing us to disease, the other process, consume what time we will, is natural and instinctive, and attended with the satisfaction of adding the grace of neatness to nature’s stamp of man’s nobility.
III. “That the ladies dont like it!” This Professor Burdach and Dr. Elliotson, pronounce a foul libel.[[42]] Ladies by their very nature like every thing manly; and though from custom the Beard may at first sight have a strange look, they will soon be reconciled to it, and think, with Beatrice, that a man without, “is only fit to be their waiting gentlewoman.”[[43]] I have already mentioned one instance of a queen despising her husband, because he was priest-ridden enough to shave; and here I present you with a second in this veritable portrait (shewing it) of a painter in the reign of George I, of the name of Liotard, who having returned from his travels in the East, with this fine flow of curling comeliness, was irresistible. He followed his fate, and married, but then, alas, unhappy wretch! took one day the whim to shave off his Eastern glory. Directly his wife saw him, the charm of that ideal which every true woman forms of her lover, was broken; for instead of a dignified manly countenance, her eyes fell upon a small pinched face, with nose celestial and mouth most animally terrestial,
And such a little perking chin,
To kiss it seemed almost a sin!
IV. “That a Beard may be very comfortable in Winter but too hot in Summer!” The better races of the sons of torrid Africa wear Beards, as did the ancient Numidians, and Tyro-African Carthaginians before them. The Arab in the arid parching desert cherishes his! Are we afraid of being warmer than these in an English Summer? Besides, as we have already shewn, the Beard is a non-conductor of heat as well as cold.[[44]]
Having now, ladies and gentlemen, offered proofs that the Beard is a natural feature of the male face, and designed by Providence for distinction, protection, and ornament, and shewn you historically, that while there was never any sufficient reason alleged for leaving it off, unless a heaven condemned superstition, or the capricious dictates of fops and profligates, afford to any sound mind reasonable motives of action, need I ask you not to oppose the efforts of those who, reverencing the Creator’s laws as above the dictates of man, conceive themselves justified in returning to the more natural course. On our part we will, notwithstanding all that we have said, freely allow any one to continue the practice of shaving, who will be content with the same plea as a certain Duke de Brissac, who was often overheard uttering the following soliloquy while adjusting his razor to the proper angle. “Timoleon de Cosse, God hath made thee a Gentleman, and the King hath made thee a Duke; it is right and fit, however, that thou shouldst have something to do, therefore thou shalt shave thyself!”
HADDOCK, (LATE PAWSEY,) PRINTER, IPSWICH.