It says:--
"Now of beards there be such company,
Of fashions such a throng,
That it is very hard to treat of the beard,
Tho' it be never so long."
It did not remain popular for any length of time, the razor
everywhere keeping down its growth.
[Illustration: The Gunpowder Conspirators, from a print published
immediately after the discovery. Shows the Beards in Fashion in 1605.]
Sir Walter Scott's great grandsire was called "Beardie." He was an
ardent Jacobite, and made a vow that he would never shave his beard
until the Stuarts were restored. "It would have been well," said the
novelist, "if his zeal for the vanished dynasty had stopped with letting
his beard grow. But he took arms and intrigued in their cause, until he
lost all he had in the world, and, as I have heard, ran a narrow risk of
being hanged, had it not been for the interference of Anne, Duchess of
Buccleuch and Monmouth." Sir Walter refers to him in the introduction to
Canto VI. of "Marmion":--
"With amber beard and flaxen hair,
And reverend apostolic air.
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