a man have a leane and streight face, a marquesse Ottons cut will make
it broad and large; if it be platter like, a long slender beard will
make it seeme the narrower; if he be wesell becked, then much heare left
on the cheekes will make the owner looke big like a bowdled hen, and so
grim as a goose."[161]

[161] Reprint for the Shakspere Society, 1877, B. ii, ch. vii,
p. 169.

Barnaby Rich, in the conclusion of his _Farewell to the Military
Profession_ (1581), says that the young gallants sometimes had their
beards "cutte rounde, like a Philippes doler; sometymes square, like the
kinges hedde in Fishstreate; sometymes so neare the skinne, that a manne
might judge by his face the gentlemen had had verie pilde lucke."[162]

[162] Reprint for the (old) Shakspeare Society, 1846, p. 217.

In Taylor's _Superbiae Flagellum_ we find the following amusing
description of the different "cuts" of beards:

Now a few lines to paper I will put,
Of mens Beards strange and variable cut:
In which there's some doe take as vaine a Pride,
As almost in all other things beside.
Some are reap'd most substantiall, like a brush,
Which makes a Nat'rall wit knowne by the bush:
(And in my time of some men I have heard,
Whose wisedome have bin onely wealth and beard)
Many of these the proverbe well doth fit,
Which sayes Bush naturall, More haire then wit.