Every single speaker, who, like me, attempts to entertain an audience, has not only the censure of that assembly to dread, but also every part of his own behaviour to fear. The smallest error of voice, judgment, or delivery, will be noted: "All that can be presumed upon in his favour is, a hope that he may meet with that indulgence which an English audience are so remarkable for, and that every exhibition stands so much in need of."
This method of lecturing is a very ancient custom; Juno, the wife of Jupiter, being the first who gave her husband a lecture, and, from the place wherein that oration was supposed to have been delivered, they have always, since that time, been called curtain lectures.
But, before I pretend to make free with other people's heads, it may be proper to say something upon my own, if upon my own any thing could be said to the purpose; but, after many experiments, finding I could not make any thing of my own, I have taken the liberty to try what I could do by exhibiting a Collection of Heads belonging to other people. But here is a head [shews Stevens''s head] I confess I have more than once wished on my own shoulders: but I fear my poor abilities will bring a blush into its cheeks. In this head Genius erected a temple to Originality, where Fancy and Observation resided; and from their union sprang this numerous and whimsical progeny. This is the head of George Alexander Stevens, long known and long respected; a man universally acknowledged of infinite wit and most excellent fancy; one who gave peculiar grace to the jest, and could set the table in a roar with flashes of merriment: but wit and humour were not his only excellencies; he possessed a keenness of satire, that made Folly hide her head in the highest places, and Vice tremble in the bosoms of the great: but now, blessed with that affluence which genius and prudence are sure to acquire in England, the liberal patroness of the fine arts, he now enjoys that ease his talents have earned, whilst Fame, like an evening sun, gilds the winter of his life with mild, but cheerful beams. With respect, but honest ambition, I have undertaken to fill his place, and hope my attention and zeal to please, will speak in behalf of conscious inferiority.
A HEAD, to speak in the gardener's style, is a mere bulbous excrescence, growing out from between the shoulders like a wen; it is supposed to be a mere expletive, just to wear a hat on, to fill up the hollow of a wig, to take snuff with, or have your hair dressed upon.
Some of these heads are manufactured in wood, some in pasteboard; which is a hint to shew there may not only be block-heads, but also paper-skulls.
Physicians acquaint us that, upon any fright or alarm, the spirits fly up into the head, and the blood rushes violently back to the heart. Hence it is, politicians compare the human constitution and the nation's constitution together: they supposing the head to be the court end of the town, and the heart the country; for people in the country seem to be taking things to heart, and people at court seem to wish to be at the head of things.
We make a mighty bustle about the twenty-four letters; how many changes they can ring, and how many volumes they have composed; yet, let us look upon the many millions of mankind, and see if any two faces are alike. Nature never designed several faces which we see; it is the odd exercise they give the muscles belonging to their visages occasions such looks: as, for example; we meet in the streets with several people talking to themselves, and seem much pleased with such conversation. [Here take them off.] Some people we see staring at every thing, and wondering with a foolish face of praise, [make a face here]; some laughing, some crying. Now crying and laughing are contrary effects, the least alteration of features occasions the difference; it is turning up the muscles to laugh [do so here], and down to cry.
Yet laughter is much mistook, no person being capable of laughing, who is incapable of thinking. For some people suddenly break out into violent spasms, ha, ha, ha! and then without any gradation, change at once into downright stupidity; as for example-[Here shews the example.]
In speaking about faces, we shall now exhibit a bold face. [Shews the head. ]
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This is Sir Whisky Whiffle. He is one of those mincing, tittering, tip-toe, tripping animalculæ of the times, that flutter about fine women like flies in a flower garden; as harmless, and as constant as their shadows, they dangle by the side of beauty like part of their watch equipage, as glittering, as light, and as useless; and the ladies suffer such things about them, as they wear soufflée gauze, not as things of value, but merely to make a shew with: they never say any thing to the purpose; but with this in their hands [takes up an eye-glass] they stare at ladies, as if they were a jury of astronomers, executing a writ of inquiry upon some beautiful planet: they imagine themselves possessed of the power of a rattle-snake, who can, as it is said, fascinate by a look; and that every fine woman must, at first sight, fall into their arms.—"Ha! who's that, Jack? she's a devilish fine woman, 'pon honour, an immensely lovely creature; who is she? She must be one of us; she must be comeatable, 'pon honour."—"No, Sir," replies a stranger, that overheard him, "she's a lady of strict virtue."—"Is she so? I'll look at her again—ay, ay, she may be a lady of strict virtue, for, now I look at her again, there is something devilish un-genteel about her."
Wigs, as well as books, are furniture for the head, and both wigs and books are sometimes equally voluminous. We may therefore suppose this wig [shews a large wig] to be a huge quarto in large paper; this is a duodecimo in small print [takes the knowing head]; and this a jockey's head, sweated down to ride a sweepstakes. [Takes the jockey's head.] Now a jockey's head and a horse's head have great affinity, for the jockey's head can pull the horse's head on which side of the post the rider pleases: but what sort of heads must those people have who know such things are done, and will trust such sinking funds with their capitals? These are a couple of heads which, in the Sportsman's Calendar, are called a brace of knowing ones; and, as a great many people about London affect to be thought knowing ones, they dress themselves in these fashions, as if it could add to the dignity of ahead, to shew they have taken their degrees from students in the stable, up to the masters of arts, upon a coach-box. [ Gives the two heads off, and takes the book-case.]
The phrase of wooden-heads is no longer paradoxical; some people set up wooden studies, cabinet-makers become book-makers, and a man may shew a parade of much reading, by only the assistance of a timber-merchant. A student in the temple may be furnished with a collection of law books cut from a whipping-post; physical dictionaries may be had in Jesuits' bark; a treatise upon duels in touchwood; the history of opposition in wormwood; Shakespeare's works in cedar, his commentators in rotten wood; the reviewers in birch, and the history of England in heart of oak.
Mankind now make use of substitutes in more things than book-making and militia-men: some husbands are apt to substitute inferior women to their own ladies, like the idiot, who exchanged a brilliant for a piece of broken looking-glass; of such husbands we can only say, they have borrowed their education from these libraries, and have wooden, very wooden tastes indeed. [ Gives it off.]
Here's a head full charged for fun [takes the head], a comical half-foolish face, what a great many upon the stage can put on, and what a great many people, not upon the stage, can't put off. This man always laughed at what he said himself, and he imagined a man of wit must always be upon the broad grin; and whenever he was in company he was always teasing some one to be merry, saying, "Now you, muster what do you call 'im? do now say something to make us all laugh; come, do now be comical a little." But if there is no other person will speak, he will threaten to "tell you a story to make you die with laughing," and he will assure you, "it is the most bestest and most comicallest story that ever you heard in all your born days;" and he always interlards his narration with "so as I was a saying, says I, and so as he was a saying, says he; so says he to me, and I to him, and he to me again;——did you ever hear any thing more comical in all your born days?" But after he has concluded his narration, not finding any person even to smile at what he said, struck with the disappointment, he puts on a sad face himself, and, looking round upon the company, he says, "It was a good story when I heard it too: why then so, and so, and so, that's all, that's all, gentlemen." [Puts on a foolish look, and gives the head off.]
Here is Master Jacky [takes the head], mamma's darling; when she was with child of him she dreamt she was brought to bed of a pincushion. He was never suffered to look into a book for fear of making him round-shouldered, yet was an immense scholar for all that; his mamma's woman had taught him all Hoyle by heart, and he could calculate to a single tea-spoonful how much cream should be put into a codlin tart. He wears a piece of lace which seems purloined from a lady's tucker, and placed here, to shew that such beings as these can make no other use of ladies' favours than to expose them. Horace had certainly such a character in view by his dulcissime rerum—"sweetest of all things;" all essence and effeminacy; and that line of his—Quid Agis, dulcissime rerum? may be rendered, "What ails you, master Jacky?" As they have rivalled the ladies in the delicacy of their complexion, the ladies therefore have a right to make reprisals, and to take up that manliness which our sex seems to have cast off.
