The stout king Stephen wore his Beard, and a Saxon chronicler complains that in the civil wars of his time, in order to extort the wealth of peaceable people, they were "hung up by their Beards;" a proof the latter were long and strong. Stephen's cotemporary. Frederick the 1st of Germany, to prevent quarrelling, laid a very heavy fine on any one who pulled another's Beard.
Henry II, is said to have had a vision in which all classes of his subjects reproached him in his sleep for his tyranny and oppression. A cotemporary MSS, illuminator, having fortunately designed several cartoons, really much more expressive than some in the New Houses of Parliament, from which we learn that the faces of all classes of the people and of the Clergy then appeared as nature made them, I selected one, representing the leaders of the distressed agriculturalists of that remote period, because while it illustrated my subject, it seemed to possess great interest for that patient and much enduring class. One could almost imagine the stout fellow with the one-sided Saxon spade, to be urging on the heroes with the pitchfork and scythe, nearly in the words of Marmion,
"Charge. Sibthorp,[1] charge! On. Stanley, on!"
- ↑ I trust my honest and uncompromising brother Beard will pardon the liberty I have taken with his name No one can be a more sincere admirer than myself of the manly way in which he maintains his opinions on all occasions, and the humorous kindness of disposition which renders him beloved in private and in public. I should always esteem him as a public man, were it only for his long and single-handed fight against that economical iniquity—that suicidal tax on prudence and foresight, and bounty on improvidence-the Fire Insurance Duty!
