"Ruin seize thee, scoundrel Coe, Confusion on thy frizzing wait; Hadst thou the only comb below, "Club, nor queue, nor twisted tail, The editor of the "Gradus ad Cantabrigiam" regrets that he has not room for the Thon never more shouldst touch my pate. whole of the ode. An Ancient Barber. There is a curious print from Heemskerck, of a barber of old times labouring in his vocation: it shows his room or shop. An old woman is making square pancakes at the fire-place, before which an overfed man sits on a chair sleeping: there is a fat toping friar seated by the chimney corner, with his fingers on the crossed hands of a demure looking nun by his side, and he holds up a liquormeasure to denote its emptiness: a nunlike female behind, blows a pair of bellows over her shoulder, and seems dancing to a tune played on the guitar or cittern, by a humorous looking fellow who is standing up another nun-like female sounds a gridiron with a pair of tongs, while another friar blows an instrument through a window. These persons are perhaps sojourning there as pilgrims, for there is a print hung against the wall representing an owl in a pilgrim's habit on his journey. In this room the barber's bleeding basin is hung up, and his razor is on the mantel ledge: the barber himself is washing the chin of an aged fool, whom, from the hair lying on the ground, it appears he has just polled. A dog on his hind legs is in a fool's habit, probably to intimate that the fool is under the hands of the barber preparatory to his fraternizing with the friars and their dames. The print is altogether exceedingly humorous, and illustrative of manners: so much of it as immediately concerns the barber is given in the present engraving from it. Mr. Leigh Hunt, in “The Indicator," opposes female indifference to the hair. He says, "Ladies, always delightful, and not the least so in their undress, are apt to deprive themselves of some of their best morning beams by appearing with their hair in papers. We give notice, that essayists, and of course all people of taste, prefer a cap, if there must be any thing; but hair, a million times over. To see grapes in paper-bags is bad enough; but the rich locks of a lady in papers, the roots of the hair twisted up like a drummer's, and the forehead staring bald instead of being gracefully tendrilled and shadowed!—it is a capital offence,-a defiance to the love and admiration of the other sex,-a provocative to a paper war: and we here accordingly declare the said war on paper, not having any ladies at hand to carry it at once into their headquarters. We must allow at the same time, that they are very shy of being seen in this condition, knowing well enough, how much of their strength, like Sampson's, lies in that gifted ornament. We have known a whole parlour of them fluttered off, like a dove-cote, at the sight of a friend coming up the garden." Of the barber's art, as it was practised formerly, Mr. Archdeacon Nares gives a curious sample from Lyly, an old dramatist, one of whose characters being a barber, says, "thou knowest I have taught thee the knacking of the hands, the tickling on a man's haires, like the tuning of a citterne. I instructed thee in the phrases of our eloquent occupation, as, how, sir, will you be trimmed? will you have your beard like a spade or a bodkin? a pent-hons on your upper lip, or an ally on your chin? a low curle on your head like a bull, or dangling locke like a spaniel? your mustachoes sharpe at the ends, like shomakers' aules, or hanging downe to your mouth like goates flakes? your love-lockes wreathed with a silken twist, or shaggie to fall on your shoulders?" Barbers' shops were anciently places of great resort, and the practices observed there were consequently very often the bject of allusions. The cittern, or lute, ich hung up for the diversion of the customers, is the foundation of a pro- The peculiar mode of snapping the fingers, as a high qualification in a barber, writer. "Let not the barber be forgotis mentioned by Green, another early ten and look that he be an excellent fellow, and one that can snap his fingers with dexterity." Morose, one of Ben Jonson's characters in his "Silent Wolarly values a barber who was silent, and man," is a detester of noise, and particudid not snap his fingers." The fellow trims him silently, and hath not the knack with his shears or his fingers: and that continency in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel." is noticed in Stubbe's This obsolete practice with barbers "Anatomy of ing," says Stubbe, "oh! how gingerly Abuses." "When they come to washthey behave themselves therein. For lather, or some that rinseth of the balles, then shall your mouth be bossed with the (for they have their sweete balles wherewith all they use to washe,) your eyes closed must be anointed therewith also. Then snap go the fingers, ful bravely, Got wot. Thus this tragedy ended, comes me warme clothes to wipe and dry him withall; next, the eares must be picked, and closed together againe artificially, forsooth," &c. This citation is given by Magazine," who adds to it his own obsera correspondent to the "Gentleman's vations:-"I am old enough," he says, "to remember when the operation of shaving, in this kingdom, was almost exclusively performed by the barbers: what I speak of is some three-score years ago, at which time gentlemen-shavers were unknown. Expedition was then a prime quality in a barber, who smeared the lather over his customers' faces with his hand; for the delicate refinement of the brush had not been introduced. The lathering of the beard being finished, the operator threw off the lather adhering to his hand, by a peculiar jerk of the arm, crack, this being a more expeditious which caused the joints of the fingers to Nares Glos. + Smith's Ance. Topog. Lond. mode of clearing the hand than using a towel for that purpose; and the more audible the crack, the higher the shaver stood in his own opinion, and in that of his fraternity. This then, I presume, is the custom alluded to by Stubbe." Mr. J. T. Smith says, "The entertaining and venerable Mr. Thomas Batrich, barber, of Drury-lane, informs me, that before the year 1756, it was a general custom to lather with the hand; but that the French barbers, much about that time, brought in the brush. He also says, that "A good lather is half the shave," is a very old remark among the trade. In a newspaper report of some proceedings at a police office, in September, 1825, a person deposing against the prisoner, used the phrase " as common as a barber's chair;" this is a very old saying. One of Shakspeare's clowns speaks of "a barber's chair, that fits all," by way of metaphor; and Rabelais shows that it might be applied to any thing in very common use. The Barber's Pole is still a sign in country towns, and in many of the villages near London. It was stated by lord Thurlow in the house of peers, on the 17th of July, 1797, when he opposed the surgeons' incorporation bill that, "By a statute still in force, the barbers and surgeons were each to use a pole. The barbers were to have theirs blue and white, striped, with no other appendage; but the surgeons, which was the same in other respects, was likewise to have a gallipot and a red rag, to denote the particular nature of their vocation." The origin of the barber's pole is to be traced to the period when the barbers were also surgeons, and practised phlebotomy. To assist this operation, it being necessary for the patient to grasp a staff, a stick or a pole was always kept by the barber-surgeon, together with the fillet or bandaging he used for tying the patient's arm. When the pole was not in use the tape was tied to it, that they might be both together when wanted. On a person coming in to be bled the tape was disengaged from the pole, and bound round the arm, and the pole was put into the person's hand: after it was done with, the tape was again tied on the pole, and in this state, pole and tape were often hung • Nares's Glossary. at the door, for a sign or notice to passengers that they might there be bled: doubtless the competition for custom was great, because as our ancestors were great admirers of bleeding, they demanded the operation frequently. At length instead of hanging out the identical pole used in the operation, a pole was painted with stripes round it, in imitation of the real pole and its bandagings, and thus came the sign. That the use of the pole in bleeding was very ancient, appears from an illumination in a missal of the time of Edward I., wherein the usage is represented. Also in "Comenii Orbis pictus," there is an engraving of the like practice. "Such a staff," says Brand, who mentions these graphic illustrations, "is to this very day put into the hand of patients undergoing phlebotomy by every village practitioner." The News Sunday-paper of August 4, 1816, says, that a person in Alston, who for some years followed the trade of a barber, recently opened a spirit-shop, when to the no small admiration and amusement of his acquaintance, he hoisted over his door the following lines :Rove not from pole to pole, but here turn in, Where naught exceeds the shaving, but the gin. The south corner shop of Hosier-lane, Smithfield, is noticed by Mr. J. T. Smith as having been "occupied by a barber whose name was Catch-pole; at least so it was written over the door: he was a whimsical fellow; and would, perhaps because he lived in Smithfield, show to his customers a short bladed instrument, as the dagger with which Walworth killed Wat Tyler." To this may be added, a remark not expressed by Mr. Smith, that Catch-pole had a barber's pole for many years on the outside of his door.* Catch-pole's manœuvre to catch customers, and get his shop talked about, was very successful. It is observed in the "Spectator," that-"The art of managing mankind is only to make them stare a little, to keep up their astonishment, to let nothing be familiar to them, but ever to have something in your sleeve, in which they must think you are deeper than they are." The writer of the remark exemplifies it by this story:-"There is an inge Smith's Anc. Topog. Lond. 1 nious fellow, a barber of my acquaintance, who, besides his broken fiddle and a dryed sea-monster, has a twine-cord, strained with two nails at each end, over his window, and the words, rainy, dry, wet, and so forth, written to denote the weather according to the rising or falling of the cord. We very great scholars are not apt to wonder at this: but I observed a very honest fellow, a chance customer, who sat in the chair before me to be shaved, fix his eye upon this miraculous performance during the operation upon his chin and face. When those, and his head also, were cleared of all incumbrances and excrescences, he looked at the fish, then at the fiddle, still grubbing in his pockets, and casting his eye again at the twine, and the words writ on each side; then altered his mind as to farthings, and gave my friend a silver sixpence. The business, as I said, is to keep up the amazement: and if my friend had had only the skeleton and kitt, he must have been contented with a less payment." It was customary with barbers to have their shops lighted by candles in brass chandeliers of three, four, and six branches. Mr. Smith noticing their disuse says, "Mr. Batrich has two suspended from his ceiling; he has also a set of bells fixed against the wall, which he has had for these forty years. These are called by the common people Whittington's Bells. In his early days, about eighty years back, when the newspapers were only a penny a-piece, they were taken in by the barbers for the customers to read during their waiting time. This custom is handed to us by the late E. Heemskerck, in an etching by Toms, of a barber's shop, composed of monkies, at the foot of which are the following lines: "A barber's shop adorn'd we see, Mr. Smith's inquiries concerning barbers have been extensive and curious. He says, "On one occasion, that I might indulge the humour of being shaved by a woman, I repaired to the Seven Dials, where, in Great St. Andrew's-street, a slender female performed the operation, whilst her husband, a strapping soldier in the Horse-guards, sat smoking his pipe. There was a famous woman in Swallowstreet, who shaved; and I recollect a black woman in Butcher-row, a street formerly standing by the side of St. Cle ment's church, near Temple-bar, who is said to have shaved with ease and dexterity." His friend Mr. Batrich informed him that he had read of "the five barberesses of Drury-lane, who shamefully mal-treated a woman in the reign of Charles II." Mr. Batrich died while Mr. Smith's "Ancient Topography of London," was passing through the press. The "Glasgow Chronicle," about the year 1817, notices the sudden death, in Calton, of Mr. John Falconer, hairdresser, in Kirk-street. While in the act of shaving a man, he staggered, and was falling, when he was placed on a chair, and expired in five minutes. His shop was the arena of all local discussion, and was therefore denominated the Calton coffeeroom. His father and he had been in the trade for upwards of half a century. His father was the first who reduced the price of shaving to a halfpenny; and when his brethren in the town wished him again to raise it, he replied, Charge a penny! Jock and me are just considering about lowering it to a farthing." He would never take more than a halfpenny though it was offered him; and being very skilful at his business, and of a frank jocular turn, he had a large share of public favour, and was enabled even at this low rate to gather money and build houses. He died about sixteen years before his son, who carried on the business. He often said others wrought for need, but he did it for pleasure or recreation, and never was so happy as when he was improving the countenances of the lieges. He was generally allowed to be at the top of his profession. Some old men whom he and his father had shaved for fifty years, boasted that they were never touched by another: : one very old customer regularly came for many a year to his shop every Saturday night from the western extre mity of the town. His shop was furnished with two dozen of antique chairs, as many pictures, and a musical clock, and for a long time he had a good library of books, but they at length nearly wholly disappeared, and he took up to his house te few that remained as his own share. two different times, when trade was dull, At This Roman catholic festival is in the church of England calendar and almanacs. According to Butler and other Romish writers, "the title of the mother of God was confirmed to the virgin Mary" by the traditions of their church; and her nativity has been kept "above a thousand years,' ," with matins, masses, homilies, collects, processions, and other forms and ceremonies ordained by that hierarchy. Some of its writers "attribute the institution of this feast to certain revelations which a religious contemplative had; who, they say, every year upon the 8th of September, heard most sweet music in heaven, with great rejoicings of the angels; and once asking one of them the cause, he answered him, that upon that day was celebrated in heaven the nativity of the mother of God; and upon the relation of this man, the church began to celebrate it on earth." Upon this it is observed and related by the late Mr. Brady thus: "A circumstance so important in its nature, and unfolded in so peculiar and miraculous a manner, was of course communicated to the then reigning pope, Servius; who immediately appointed a yearly feast to give an opportunity for the religious on earth to join with the angels in this great solemnity;' and there have been some contemplations dedicated for this occasion, wherein is unfolded, 'for the benefit of mankind,' certain circumstances of her sallies of love and union with God,' even before her pious mother St. Anne gave her being! It is somewhat extraordinary, that, notwithstanding the day of the nativity of the virgin was so clearly proved, after having been forgotten for many centuries, pope Servius, when he appointed the festival, did not also honour it with an octave or vigil; for it appears that pope Innocent IV. has the credit of the octave which he instituted A. D. 1244, and that pope Gregory XI. appointed the vigil A.D.1370. At the death indeed of Gregory IX. it was in contemplation to observe an octave upon the following occasion: the cardinals had been long shut up without agreeing upon the appointment of a successor to the deceased pope, when some of these holy men made a vow to the virgin, that if through her merits they could come to a decision they would in future observe * Ribadeneira. |