sents from their friends (see Juvenal). Augustus did not shave before the age of twenty-five. Slaves among the Romans wore their beards and hair long; when manumitted they shaved the head on the Temple of Feronia, and put on a cap or "peleus" as a badge of liberty. Those who escaped from shipwreck shaved their heads; and persons acquitted of a capital crime cut their hair and shaved, and went to the capitol to return thanks to Jupiter. Le Comte observes, that the Chinese affect long beards extravagantly; but nature has balked them, and only given them very little ones, which, however, they cultivate with great care. The Europeans are strangely envied by them on this account. Upon the death of Henry IV. of France, who was succeeded by a beardless youth, the beard was proscribed. Louis XIII. ascended the throne of his glorious ancestors without a beard; and his courtiers immediately reduced their beards to whiskers, which continued in fashion at the commencement of the reign of Louis XIV., who, as well as his courtiers, were proud of wearing them, so that they wore the ornament of Turenne, Condé, Colbert, Corneille, Moliere, &c. In Spain, Philip V. ascended the throne with a shaved chin; the courtiers imitated the prince, and their example was followed by the people. The change, however, produced lamentations and murmurs. Hence arose the Spanish proverb, denoting, "Since we have lost our beards, we have lost our souls." The Portuguese have imitated them in this respect. In the reign of Catherine Queen of Portugal, when the brave John de Castro had taken the castle of Diu in India, he was under the necessity of borrowing from the inhabitants of Goa a thousand pistoles for the maintenance of his fleet; and as a security for the loan, he sent them one of his whiskers, telling them, "all the gold in the world cannot equal the value of this national ornament of my valour; and I deposit it in your hands as a security for the money." The inhabitants of Goa, it is said, generously returned both the money and his whisker. The ancient Britons shaved the body, except the head and the upper lip, as well as the Gauls. The Normans had a great aversion to beards. Among them, to allow the beard to grow was an indication of the deepest distress and misery. William the Conqueror compelled the English to shave their upper lips and heards, so that some choose rather to abandon their country than to resign their whiskers. In the fourteenth century long beards were in fashion; those of Bishop Gardiner and Cardinal Pole appear in their portraits of an uncommon size. The lawyers had a regulation imposed upon this important feature. Among the Turks and Persians the beard is a mark of authority and liberty. The Moors of Africa hold by their beards while they take an oath. The Turkish wives kiss their husbands' beards, and children their father's, as often as they come to salute them. The Jews wear a beard on the chin, but not on the upper lip or cheeks. It is the practice of the Indians of North America to pluck out the beard by the roots from its earliest appearance; and hence their faces appear smooth. Anointing the beard was practised by the Jews and Romans, and still continues in use among the Turks. The latter, when they comb their beards, hold a handkerchief on their knees, and gather very carefully the hairs that fall; and when they get together a certain quantity, they fold them up in a paper, and carry them to the place where they bury the dead. Plucking the beard was practised to cynics by way of contempt. Touching the beard was an action anciently used by supplicants. Pliny says, that the ancient Greeks had a custom of touching the chin of a person, whose compassion they wished to excite: the chin being substituted for the beard. Among the ancient French, the beard was the most sacred pledge of protection and confidence. For a long time, all letters issuing from the sovereign, had, for greater satisfaction, three hairs of his beard in the seal. For which a charter was made in the year 1121. The Russian nobility formerly nourished their beards, which continued amongst them till the Czar, Peter the Great, compelled them to part with these ornaments, sometimes by laying a swinging tax upon them; and, at others, by ordering those he found with beards, to have them pulled up by the roots, or shaved with a blunt razor, which drew the skin after it, and by these means, scarce a beard was left in the kingdom at his death: but, such a veneration had this people for those ensigns of gravity, that many of them carefully preserved them in their cabinets, to be buried with them; imagining, perhaps, they should make but an odd figure in the grave with their naked chins. So much for beards-in our next we shall give an account of the operators thereon. To be concluded in our next. Hudibras says, "And cut square by the Russian standard, A torn beard's like a tatter'd ensign, That's bravest which there are most rents in." See part II. Cante I. fine 172. THE TREAD MILL, BY JACOB JONES ESQ. OF THE Ingenious thought! old Nature to invert, years, For many thousand years now work the feet! With pains and perils, there to " Mill the Air," To learn this wond'rous lesson, and unlearn For just prevention of the thefts of mice: To all that man can suffer, and thrice more!! The Novelist. No. XLIV. was accustomed to say or herself, in her more gentle moods, that her bark was worse than her bite; but what teeth could have matched a tongue, which, when in full career, vouched to have been heard from the Kirk, to the Castle of St. Ronan's. To this inn came Francis Tyrrel, the the hero of the story; he was the son of the fifth Earl of Etherington, who had known Meg in former years, and did not care for her eccentricities. They, however, had no charms for the travellers of these light and giddy-paced times, and Meg's inn became less and less frequented. What carried the evil to the uttermost was, that a fanciful lady of rank in the neighbourhood, chanced to recover of some imaginary complaint by the use of a mineral well, about a mile and a half from the village; a fashionable doctor was found to write an analysis of the healing stream, with a list of sundry cures; a speculative builder took land in feu, and erected lodging-houses, shops, and even streets. At length a tontine subscription was obtained to erect an inn, which, for the more grace, was called an hotel; and so the description of Meg Dods became general. At the Well-the rival house—was a large party-to wit, Lady Penelope Penfeather, a lady of fashion, whose beauty had passed the meridian; Sir Bingo Binks, a sapient English baronet, who had been entrapped into a Scotch marriage with Miss Rachael Bonnirigs, and ST. RONAN'S WELL. was so ashamed of the union as not to SOME thirty years ago, a gentleman-like return to England, and who, for a carperson, between the age of twenty-five_riage, kept, and drove himself, a regularand thirty, arrived at the little village of St. Ronan, situated on the southern side of the Forth, about thirty miles from the English border. This village, now sunk into decay, had been once the residence of the Mowbrays, a powerful family, connected with the Douglases. Only two houses of any consequence now remained; the Mause, or clergymen's rectory, and an inn kept by Mrs. Meg Dods, the daughter of an old retainer of the Mowbray's family, who had saved money while the master was ruined. Mrs. Meg Dods was a brisk landlady, who kept a good cellar, and charged moderately. She had few or no personal charms. Her hair was of a brindled colour, betwixt black and grey, which was apt to escape in elf-locks from under her mutch when she was thrown into violent agitation-long skinny hands, terminated by stout talons-grey eyes, thin lips, a robust person, a broad, though flat chest, capital wind, and a voice that could match a choir of fish-women. She built mail coach; and Mr. Mowbray, of St. Ronan's, a young sporting gentleman. The affairs of the Well were consigned to a managing committee, to arbitrate all matters relative to the good government of the community. Each of its members appeared to be selected, as Fortunio, in the fairy tale, chose his followers, for their peculiar gifts. First on on the list stood the man of medicine, Dr. Quinbus Quackleben, who claimed right to regulate medical matters at the spring, upon the principle which, of old, assigned the property of a newly discovered country, to the first buccaneer who committed piracy on its shores. The acknowledgment of the doctor's merit, as having been first to proclaim and vindicate the merits of these healing fountains, had occasioned his being universally installed first physician and man of science, which last qualification he could apply to all purposes, from the boiling of an egg, to the giving a lecture. First in place, though perhaps second to the doctor, in real authority, was Mr. Winterblossom; a civil sort of person, who was nicely precise in his address, wore his hair cued, and dressed with powder, had knee-buckles set with Bristol stones, and a seal-ring as large as Sir John Falstaff's. In his hey-dey he had a small estate, which he had spent like a gentleman, by mixing with the gay world. He was, in short, one of those respectable links which connect the coxcombs of the present day with those of the last age, and could compare, in his own experience, the follies of both. In latter days, he had sense enough to extricate himself from his course of dissipation, though with impaired health and impoverished fortune. Mr. Winterblossom was also distinguished for possessing a few curious engravings, and other specimens of art, with the exhibition of which he occasionally beguiled a wet morning at the public room. They were collected, "viis et modis," said the man of law, another distinguished member of the committee, with a knowing cock of his eye, to his next neighbour. Of this person little need be said. He was a large-boned, loud-voiced, red-faced old man, named Micklewham; a country writer, or attorney, who managed the matters of the 'Squire much to the profit of one or other, if not both. His nose projected from the front of his broad vulgar face, like the stile of an old sundial, twisted all of one side. He was as great a bully in his profession, as if he had been military instead of civil. After the man of law comes Captain Mungo Mac Turk, a Highland lieutenant on half-pay, and that of ancient standing; one who preferred toddy of the strongest to wine, and in that fashion and cold drams finished about a bottle of whiskey per diem, whenever he could come by it. He was a general referee in all quarrels, an occupation which procured Captain Mac Turk a good deal of respect at the Well; for he was precisely that sort of person who is ready to fight with any one -whom no one could find an apology for declining to fight with-in fighting with whom considerable danger was incurred, for he was ever and anon showing that he could snuff a candle with a pistol ball. Still remains to be mentioned the man of religion-the gentle Mr. Simon Chatterley, who had strayed to St. Ronan's Well from the banks of Cam, or Isis, and who piqued himself, first on his Greek, and, secondly, on his politeness to the ladies. There was yet another member of this select committee, Mr. Michael Meredith, who might be termed the man of mirth, or, if you please, the Jack-pudding to the company, whose business it was to crack the best joke, and sing the best song he could. The curiosity of this august assembly having been excited by the singularly retired habits of Mr. Francis Tyrrel, the stranger guest at the original hostelrie of Mrs. Meg Dods, an invitation was sent him in the names of the whole party to favour them with his company on an early day. During his visit, he had an opportunity of meeting with Clara Mowbray, and of renewing for a moment an acquaintance with her of long standing. The father of Francis Tyrrel, the fifth Earl of Etherington, had, during his travels on the continent in early youth, married a certain beautiful orphan, Marie de Martigny, the mother of our hero.This nobleman taking advantage of the irregularity, and as he then deemed illegality, of this union of the heart, found it to suit his convenience to marry again from interested motives, and accordingly wedded a Miss Bulmer, by whom he had another son, Valentine Bulmer, who, on his father's death, took possession of his titles and estates, on the plea of his elder brother's illegitimacy. The young men had nevertheless been educated together, and up to a certain period had been constant associates. They had met several years before in the neighbourhood of St. Ronan's Well, the beautiful sister of Mowbray, and Francis Tyrrel, and she had then formed the tender connection already alluded to. As at this time the father of the young men shewed an evident desire to do justice to his elder son, and admit the legitimacy of his birth, the efforts of the younger brother were devoted unremittingly to vilify and misrepresent him. In an unlucky hour Francis Tyrrel made his brother his confidant, and the latter conjecturing that the connection would, on no account, be approved of by the father, used every possible exertion to promote it, and was unwearied in his endeavours to facilitate the intercourse of the lovers. Their interviews having been terminated by the harsh command of Clara's father, Valentine volunteered his services as the medium of communication, and finally advised Francis to propose a secret marriage. In a hapless hour he consented, and all the preliminaries arranged, the pastor of the parish agreed to perform the ceremony, on a supposition hinted by the treacherous Valentine, that the object of the lover was to do justice to the betrayed maiden. It was finally settled that the lovers should meet at the Old Kirk when the twilight became deep, and set off in a chaise for England immediately after the ceremony. About this juncture, however, the younger brother became acquainted with a circumstance which completely altered all his views on the subject of this marriage. It appears that his grand uncle by his mother's side was related to the Mowbray family, and had left a singular will, bequeathing an immense estate to the eldest son of the Earl of Etherington, provided he formed a matrimonial connection with a lady of the house of St. Ronan. After some consideration, he meditated a deep scheme to crown his ambitious views, and under circumstances which remove in some measure the improbability that may appear from a naked statement of the facts to attach to it, personated his brother (to whom he bore a strong resemblance) on the evening appointed for the rendezvous. He succeeded so far in imposing on Clara. "We got into the carriage,' says he in a confession he afterwards made, "and were a mile from the church, when my unlucky or lucky brother stopped the chaise by force-through what means he had obtained knowledge of my little trick, I never have been able to learn. Solmes has been faithful to me in too many instances, that I should suspect him in this important crisis. I jumped out of the carriage, pitched fraternity to the devil, and, betwixt desperation and something very like shame, began to cut away with a couteau de chasse, which I had provided in case of necessity. All was in vain-I was hustled down under the wheel of the carriage, and, the horses taking fright, it went over my body.". Clara Mowbray was reduced to a state of mind bordering on distraction, and her lover only consented to a suspension of his revenge on an arrangement, that Valentine should give up all idea of seeing his betrothed again, or even of returning to the neighbourhood of which she resided. Meanwhile, during his eldest son's absence in foreign climes, the father dies, and Valentine Bulmer (as he was named after his mother) took possession of the title and estates of the Earl of Etherington. It was only on hearing that his perfidious brother was, in defiance of his stipulation, about to return to St. Ronan's Well, that Francis repaired thither to watch his motions. At this time, however, he became possessed of documents which required only a legal process in order to enable him to vindicate to himself his birthright. The titular Earl assiduously cultivates the acquaintance of Mowbray, the brother of Clara, to whom he makes formal pro posals for her hand, and is warmly seconded by him, ignorant as he was of her connection with Francis. They are, however, received with disgust and even horror by Clara. The Earl fleeces Mowbray, the Laird of St. Ronan's, as he was called, of the whole of his property, as well as that of his sister, at the gaming table. In a state of desperation arising from his losses and a report that has reached him injurious to the honour of his sister (a report originating in the foul aspersion which had been cast upon her by the traitor Valentine, in order to induce the clergyman to consent to marry them clandestinely), Mowbray returns home determined to seek a full explanation with Clara, and to compel her marriage with the Earl of Etherington. In the violence of his passion he even meditates her death; but her meekness and her tears subdue him, and he quits her saying," Clara, you should to-night thank God that saved you from a great danger, and me from a deadly sin." Through the intervention of a very worthy old gentleman of the name of Touchwood, one of those excellent but eccentric persons, who, having amassed a large fortune, are on the look-out for an heir, the intrigues of the titular Earl of Etherington ends in his own discomfiture. Clara Mowbray, in the agony of fear and desperation, fled from her brother's house within an hour of her interview with him, and after wandering about the greater part of a November night, is attracted by a light from the Manse of the clergyman. To this dwelling had been removed a few days before a wretched woman who had been one of the wicked instruments of the Earl of Etherington, and under the same roof does Clara also meet with her un happy lover. We have no means of knowing whether she actually sought Tyrrel, or whether it was, as in the former case, the circumstance of a light still burning where all around was dark, that attracted her; but her next apparition was close by the side of her unfortunate lover, then deeply engaged in writing, when something suddenly gleamed on a large, old-fashioned mirror, which hung on the wall opposite. He looked up, and saw the figure of Clara, holding a light (which she had taken from the passage) in her extended hand. He stood for an instant with his eyes fixed on this fearful shadow, ere he dared turn round on the substance which was thus reflected. When he did so, the fixed and pallid countenance almost impressed him with the belief that he saw vision, and he shuddered when, stooping beside him, she took his hand. "Come away!" she said, in a hurried voice 16 come away, my brother follows to kill us both. Come, Tyrrel, let us fly-we shall easily escape him. Hannah Irwin is on before but, if we are overtaken, I will have no more fighting-you shall promise me we shall not-we have had but too much of that but you will be wise in future." "Clara Mowbray !" exclaimed Tyrrel. "Alas! is it thus! Stay-do not go,' for she turned to make her escape" stay -stay sit down.” "I must go," she replied, "I must go -I am called-Hannah Irwin is gone before to tell all, and I must follow. Will you not let me go?-Nay, if you will hold me by force, I know I must sit down-but you will not be able to keep me for all that." A convulsive fit followed, and seemed, by its violence, to explain that she was indeed bound for the last and darksome journey. The maid, who at length answered Tyrrel's earnest and repeated summons, fled terrifled at the scene she witnessed, and carried to the Manse the alarm. The old landlady was compelled to exchange one scene of sorrow for another, wondering within herself what fatality could have marked this single night with so much misery. When she arrived at home, what was her astonishment to find there the daughter of the house, which, even in their alienation, she had never ceased to love, in a state little short of distraction, and attended by Tyrrel, whose state of mind seemed scarce more composed than that of the unhappy patient. The oddities of Mrs. Dods were merely the rust which had accumulated upon her character, but without impairing its native strength and energy; and her sympathies were not of a kind acute enough to disable her from thinking and acting as decisively as circumstances required. "Mr. Tyrrel," she said, "this is nae sight for men folk-ye maun rise and gang to another room. "I will not stir from her," said Tyrrel "I will not remove from her either now, or as long as she or I may live." "That will be nae lang space, Master Tyrrel, if ye winna be ruled by common sense. Tyrrel started up, as if half comprenending what she said, but remained motionless. "Come, come," said the compassionate landlady; "do no stand looking on a sight sair enough to break a harder heart than yours, hinny-your ain sense tells ye, ye canna stay here-Miss Clare shall be well cared for, and I'll bring word to your room-door frae half-hour to halfhour how she is." The necessity of the case was undeniable, and Tyrrel suffered himself to be led to another apartment, leaving Miss Mowbray to the care of the hostess and her female assistants. He counted the hours in an agony less by the watch than by the visits which Mrs. Dods, faithful to her promise, made from interval to interval, to tell him that Clara was not better-that she was worse and, at last, that she did not think that she could live over morning. It required all the deprecatory influence of the good landlady to restrain Tyrrel, who, calm and cold on common occasions, was proportionably fierce and impetuous when his passions were afloat, from bursting into the room, and ascertaining, with his own eyes, the state of the beloved patient. At length, there was a long interval-an interval of hours so long, indeed, that Tyrrel caught from it the agreeable hope that Clara slept, and that sleep might bring refreshment both to mind and body. Mrs. Dods, he concluded, was prevented from moving for fear of disturbing her patient's slumber; and, as if actuated by the same feeling which he imputed to her, he ceased to traverse his apartment, as his agitation had hitherto dictated, and throwing himself into a chair, forbore to move even a finger, and withheld his respiration as much as possible, just as if he had been seated by the pillow of the patient. Morning was far advanced, when his landlady appeared in his room with a grave and anxious countenance. "Mr. Tyrrel," she said, "ye are a Christian man." "Hush, hush, for Heaven's sake!" he replied; 66 you will disturb Miss Mowbray. 66 "Naething will disturb her, puír thing," answered Mrs. Dods; they have mickle to answer for that brought her to this." 66 They have they have, indeed," says Tyrrel, striking his forehead; " and I will see her avenged on every one of them!-Can I see her ?" "Better not better not," said the good woman; but he burst from her and rushed into the apartment. "Is life gone?-Is every spark extinct?" he exclaimed eagerly to a country surgeon, a sensible man, who had been summoned from Marchthorn in the course of the night. The medical man shook his head He rushed to the bedside, and was convinced by his own eyes that the being whose sorrows he had both caused and shared, was now insensible to all |