You know them to be wise by their beards. This was used to be applied to persons who placed all knowledge and goodness in dress, and external appearance, or in the performance of certain ceremonies. «I fast twice a week», said the Pharisee, «and give tithes of all I possess», but he was not accepted. «Si philosophum oporteat ex barba metiri, hircos primam laudem ablaturos», if the beard made the philosopher, then the goat would have a just right to that title, or as the Greek epigrammatist has it,

«If beards long and bushy true wisdom denote,
Then Plato must yield to a shaggy he-goat».

«At non omnes monachi sunt, qui cuculo onerantur, nec omnes generosi, qui torquem gestant auream, aut reges, qui diadernate insigniuntur»; but all are not monks who wear a cowl, or gentlemen who are decorated with golden chains, or kings who are crowned. Those only in reality deserve the titles, who act consistently with the characters they assume. For there are many who talk of Robin Hood, who never shot with his how. Diga barba qua haga, let your beard advise you; that is, let it remind you that you are a man, and that you do nothing unbecoming that character.

Philosophers even to the beard. Oh, he is a wise man, you may see it by his beard, may be applied ironically to persons of grave and serious manners, who wish to pass themselves off for men of more learning, or knowledge, than they really possess. As the beard is not completely formed until the age of manhood, it has always been considered as an emblem of wisdom. Il est tems d'etre sage, quand on a la barbe au menton, it is time to be wise now that you have a beard on your chin; and, Hombre de barba, with the Spaniards, means a man of knowledge, or intelligence. Diga barba que haga, let your beard advise you what is befitting you to do, and a poca barba, poca virguenza, little beard, little shame, or modesty. Quixadas sin barbas no merecen ser honradas, chins without beards deserve no honour. Faire la barbe, among the French, means to deceive, or impose on anyone, by superior address or cunning; also, to excel in wisdom and sagacity. Among the Persians, and perhaps generally in the east, the beard is held in great reverence, and to speak of it slightingly or disrespectfully, would be resented, and for a stranger to violate it, by touching it, would probably be avenged by instant death.

Men with beards. The term was applied by the Romans to persons of plain, simple, and rustic or primitive manners, who still retained the customs of their ancestors. They had not learned to shave their beards, which only began to be practised among them four hundred and fifty years after the building of the city. The first barbers, Pliny tells us, were introduced there from the island of Sicily.