Oxford, became prime minister. Harley
had been but a short time in office when
he endeavoured to procure Defoe's release,
with the view of securing his services as a
paid writer for the new government. His
efforts were not immediately successful.
Hurley, who only knew Defoe by his
writings, as Defoe only knew Harley by
his public character and services, was
slow at the work of release, on account of
obstacles in the way, but was steady and
sure; and the case having been personally
brought under the notice of Queen Anne,
"her Majesty," as Defoe narrates, "was
pleased particularly to inquire into my
circumstances and family, and by the Lord
Treasurer Godolphin to send a considerable
supply to my wife and family, and to
send me the prison money to pay my
fine and the expenses of my discharge.
Here," he adds, "is the foundation on
which I first built my first sense of duty
to her Majesty's person, and the indelible
bond of gratitude to my first benefactor
(Harley)."

Here let us leave Defoe for this while;
in the new sunshine of favour and
appreciation that was bursting upon him when his
prospects seemed the gloomiest.

LONG HAIR AND SHORT.

ST. PAUL held that it was a shame to a man
to wear his hair long, and he tells the
Corinthians so in his first epistle to them. On the
other hand, Huychius, patriarch of Jerusalem,
A.D. 600, declared the outward visible signs of
manly perfection to consist in an ample beard
and in hair flowing down the shoulders.

In remote ages, the Persians, who now have
their heads shaved, were hairy. Darius had a
most luxuriant poll, and Alexander, who
conquered him, probably paid few visits to the
haircutter's in the course of his life. Alcibiades
and his clique of roués introduced the effeminate
fashion of long hair into Greece. Before their
time the Athenians were roundheads, and it is
fair to suppose that Aristides the Just, who did
not pride himself above measure on his devotion
to the Graces, sported a crop of bristles and
ignored a comb. Herodotus relates that in token
of mourning, the Persians were wont to cut off
not only their own hair, but the manes of their
horses. The same historian tells us that the
Argians, being defeated by the Lacedaemonians,
made a sacrifice of their locks, and vowed that
they would remain shorn as long as they had
not reconquered Thyrsea. At Sparta, Lycurgus
had decreed the wearing of long hair; but this
law, to which Plutarch alludes, was never
much obeyed. The Spartans when they
attained their sixteenth year did as the young
Athenians, and burned their hair upon the altar
of either Diana or Mars. The fact is, all the
barbarians who used to come from across the
seas in those times wore flowing locks, and the
Greeks had no wish to resemble them.

Our primitive ancestors, the Britons, and
like them the Gauls, allowed their hair to grow
undisturbed. It often reached below the waist,
and men like Caractacus must have looked
curiosities. Conquered by the Romans, the
Gauls and Britons were ignominiously clipped.
In his enumeration of the Gallic tribes led into
captivity by Caesar, Lucian speaks of the
Liguses "now shorn but erewhile possessed
of an abundant mass of hair." Those of the
Gauls who obtained their liberation hastened
to let their hair grow again; in order the more
to mark the importance they attached to
flowing locks, they took to shaving their slaves. It
is thus that Ausonius speaks of four young
boys and four young girls, all shorn, as being a
customary present to a rich Gaul on his
wedding-day. At the beginning of the fifth century
Pharamond established his kingdom in the
province which thenceforth took the name of
France. The Gauls were reduced to a state of
bondage, and the conquerors laid ruthless scissors
upon their victims' polls. From this time it
became a generally understood thing all over
Europe that long hair was the exclusive appanage
of the great and noble. Not only serfs, but
free peasants and burgesses, were forbidden to
go about otherwise than cropped. The glebe
slaves on a nobleman's estate were even (during
the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries) shorn
altogether; and it is from this custom that the
practice of saluting by taking off the hat arose.
The act of uncovering the head amounted to
saying: "See, sir; I am your servant; I have
no hair."

When a nobleman was convicted of any felonious
offence, the razor was invariably applied to
his pate. Clotaire the First, King of France,
caused his own son, Gondebaud, to be shorn for
conspiring against him. And by way of adding
to the disgrace of this sentence, he immediately
afterwards issued an edict condemning to the
severest penalties any one who should by stealth
or violence cut off the hair of an honest man.

When the harsh ferocity of the early Gothic
times had a little subsided, and when
Christianity had introduced a few humane notions
into the minds of men, certain plebeians began
to murmur at the obligation of wearing bristles.
At that period the large majority of priests and
church dignitaries were sprung from the people;
the scholars, masters of schools, and public
professors, were also "churls" or "knaves"—as
it was the polite fashion to call them; and
as for the lawyers, clerks, petty magistrates,
and government secretaries, there was not one
of them but was of base blood. Still, these
base-blooded people formed the most intelligent part
of the nation, and it was humiliating to them to
have no hair, while jolter-headed boobies in
armour, who could neither read nor write,
were wearing matted locks all down their backs.
God save the mark! But why did not these
reflecting "knaves" push their reasoning a little
further? Why did they not raise a cry against
all other privileges, and so nip many injustices,