King Lear has been known to appear
without his beard--Mr. Garrick, as his portrait reveals, played the
part with a clean-shaven face, and John Kemble followed his example;
but could the ghost of Hamlet's father ever have defied the poet's
portraiture of him, and walked the platform of Elsinore Castle without
a "sable-silvered" chin? Has an audience ever viewed tolerantly a bald
Romeo, or a Juliet grown gray in learning how to impersonate that
heroine to perfection? It is clear that at a very early date the
players must have acquired the simple arts of altering and amending
their personal appearance in these respects.
The accounts still extant of the revels at court during the reigns of
Elizabeth and James contain many charges for wigs and beards. Thus a
certain John Ogle is paid "for four yeallowe heares for head-attires
for women, twenty-six shillings and eightpence;" and "for a pound of
heare twelvepence." Probably the auburn tresses of Elizabeth had made
blonde wigs fashionable. John Owgle, who is no doubt the same trader,
receives thirteen shillings and fourpence for "eight long white berds
at twenty pence the peece.
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