Its own grave and the state’s were made.
Philip Nye, an Independent minister in the time of the Commonwealth, and one of the famous Assembly of Divines, was remarkable for the singularity of his beard. Hudibras, in his Heroical Epistle to the lady of his “love,” speaks of
Amorous intrigues
In towers, and curls, and periwigs,
With greater art and cunning reared
Than Philip Nye’s thanksgiving beard.
Nye opposed Lilly the astrologer with no little virulence, for which he was rewarded with the privilege of holding forth upon Thanksgiving Day, and so, as Butler says, in some MS. verses,
He thought upon it and resolved to put
His beard into as wonderful a cut.
Butler even honoured Nye’s beard with a whole poem, entitled “On Philip Nye’s Thanksgiving Beard,” which is printed in his Genuine Remains, edited by Thyer, vol. i, p. 177 ff., and opens thus: