Note 1105 — APPENDIX I. AN ESSAY ON THE ANCIENT MINSTRELS IN ENGLAND.

It has, however, been suggested to the editor by the learned and ingenious author of Irish Antiquities, 4to. that the ancient mimi among the Romans had their heads and beards shaven, as is shown by Salmasius in Notis ad Hist. August. Scriptores VI. Paris, 1622, fol. p. 385. So that this peculiarity had a classical origin, though it afterwards might make the minstrels sometimes pass for ecclesiastics, as appears from the instance given below. Dr. Burney tells us that histriones and mimi abounded in France in the time of Charlemagne (ii. 221), so that their profession was handed down in regular succession from the time of the Romans, and therewith some leading distinctions of their habit or appearance; yet with a change in their arts of pleasing, which latterly were most confined to singing and music.