custody by a pair of demons who happened to disorder the set of his
moustache, and they had to re-compose them with a pair of curling-tongs
before they could get him to proceed with them!

By the rules of the Church of Rome, lay monks were compelled to wear
their beards, and only the priests were permitted to shave.[160] The
clergy at length became so corrupt and immoral, and lived such
scandalous lives, that they could not be distinguished from the laity
except by their close-shaven faces. The first Reformers, therefore, to
mark their separation from the Romish Church, allowed their beards to
grow. Calvin, Fox, Cranmer, and other leaders of the Reformation are all
represented in their portraits with long flowing beards. John Knox, the
great Scottish Reformer, wore, as is well known, a beard of prodigious
length.

[160] In a scarce old poem, entitled, _The Pilgrymage and the
Wayes of Jerusalem_, we read:

The thyrd Seyte beyn prestis of oure lawe,
That synge masse at the Sepulcore;
At the same grave there oure lorde laye,
They synge the leteny every daye.
In oure manner is her [i.e. their] songe,
Saffe, here [i.e. their] _berdys be ryght longe_,
That is the geyse of that contre,
_The lenger the berde the bettyr is he_;
The order of hem [i.e. them] be barfote freeres.

The ancient Britons shaved the chin and cheeks, but wore their
moustaches down to the breast. Our Saxon ancestors wore forked beards.
The Normans at the Conquest shaved not only the chin, but also the back
of the head. But they soon began to grow very long beards. During the
Wars of the Roses beards grew "small by degrees and beautifully less."

Queen Mary of England, in the year 1555, sent to Moscow four accredited
agents, who were all bearded; but one of them, George Killingworth, was
particularly distinguished by a beard five feet two inches long, at the
sight of which, it is said, a smile crossed the grim features of Ivan
the Terrible himself; and no wonder. But the longest beard known out of
fairy tales was that of Johann Mayo, the German painter, commonly called
"John the Bearded." His beard actually trailed on the ground when he
stood upright, and for convenience he usually kept it tucked in his
girdle. The emperor Charles V, it is said, was often pleased to cause
Mayo to unfasten his beard and allow it to blow in the faces of his
courtiers.--A