Chapter I: FRY (12)

A recent writer, evidently well acquainted with the manners of the period, introduces us to a character mentioned in a former sheet. “In the midst of all, the public attention was attracted to a tall, well-made, and handsome-looking man, who was dressed in a very fashionable suit of white, trimmed with gold lace, a laced ruffled shirt, rolled white silk stockings, a white apron, and a large cocked hat, formed of gingerbread, fringed and garnished with Dutch gold. He carried on his arm a basket filled with gingerbread cakes, one of which he held up in the air; while the other hand was stuck with an easy and fashionable manner into his bosom. For this singular vendor of confectionary every one made way, and numbers followed in his train, shouting after him, ‘there goes Tiddy Doll!’ the name by which that remarkable character was known. He himself did not pass silently through the crowd, but as he went along, he poured forth a multiplicity of praises of his ware, occasionally enlivened by that song which first procured him his name.” This was at the Fair of the year 1740 concerning which the same illustrator thus continues: “The multitude behind was impelled violently forwards, a broad blaze of red light, issuing from a score of flambeaux, streamed into the air; several voices were loudly shouting, ‘room there for prince George! make way for the prince!’ and there was that long sweep heard to pass over the ground, which indicates the approach of a grand and ceremonious train. Presently the pressure became much greater, the voices louder, the light stronger, and as the train came onward, it might be seen that it consisted, firstly, of a party of yeomen of the guards clearing the way; then several more of them bearing flambeaux, and flanking the procession; while in the midst of all appeared a tall, fair, and handsome young man, having something of a plump foreign visage, seemingly about four and thirty years of age, dressed in a ruby-coloured frock coat, very richly guarded with gold lace, and having his long flowing hair curiously curled over his forehead and at the sides, and finished with a very large bag and courtly queue behind. The air of dignity with which he walked, the blue ribbon, and star and garter with which he was decorated, the small three-cornered silk court hat which he wore, whilst all around him were uncovered; the numerous suite, as well of gentlemen as of guards, which marshalled him along, the obsequious attention of a short stout person, who by his flourishing manner seemed to be a player,--all these particulars indicated that the amiable Frederick, prince of Wales was visiting Bartholomew Fair by torchlight, and that manager Rich was introducing his royal guest to all the entertainments of the place. However strange this circumstance may appear to the present generation, yet it is nevertheless strictly true; for about 1740, when the drolls in Smithfield were extended to three weeks and a month, it was not considered as derogatory to persons of the first rank and fashion, to partake in the broad humour and theatrical amusements of the place. It should also be remembered, that many an eminent performer of the last century, unfolded his abilities in a booth; and that it was once considered, as an important and excellent preparative to their treading the boards of a theatre-royal.” One of the players is thus represented as informing a spectator concerning the occupation of an itinerant actor:--“I will, as we say, take you behind the scenes. First then, a valuable actor must sleep in the pit, and wake early to sweep the theatre, and throw fresh sawdust into the boxes; he must shake out the dresses, and wind up and dust the motion-jacks; he must teach the dull ones how to act, rout up the idlers from the straw, and redeem those that happen to get into the watch-house. Then, sir, when the Fair begins, he should sometimes walk about the stage grandly, and show his dress: sometimes he should dance with his fellows; sometimes he should sing; sometimes he should blow the trumpet; sometimes he should laugh and joke with the crowd, and give them a kind of a touch-and-go speech, which keep them merry, and makes them come in. Then, sir, he should sometimes cover his state robe with a great coat, and go into the crowd, and shout opposite his own booth, like a stranger who is struck with its magnificence: by the way, sir, that’s a good trick, I never knew it fail to make an audience; and then he has only to steal away, mount his stage, and strut, and dance, and sing, and trumpet, and roar over again.”[290]

* * * * *

An advertisement in the “London Gazette” of April the 13th, 1682, shows under what authority showmen and similar persons “labour in their vocation:”--

“Whereas Mr. John Clarke, of London, bookseller, did rent of Charles Killigrew, Esq. the licensing of all ballad-singers for five years; which time is expired at Lady-day next. These are, therefore, to give notice to all ballad-singers, that they take out licences at the office of the revels, at Whitehall, for singing and selling of ballads, and small books, according to an ancient custom. And all persons concerned are hereby desired to take notice of, and to suppress all mountebanks, rope-dancers, prize-players, ballad-singers, and such as make show of motions and strange sights, that have not a licence in red and black letters, under the hand and seal of the said Charles Killigrew, Esq. master of the revels to his majesty;” and in particular it requires them to suppress two, one of them being “Thomas Teats mountebank,” who have no licence “that they may be proceeded against according to law.”

The late John Charles Crowle, Esq. who bequeathed his illustrated copy of “Pennant’s London” to the British Museum, which he valued at 5000_l._ was master of the revels. In that quality he claimed a seat in any part of the theatres, and being opposed by the manager of the little theatre in the Haymarket, maintained his right. He was also trumpet-major of England, to whom every one who blows a trumpet publicly (excepting those of the theatres-royal) must pay a certain sum, and therefore the office has jurisdiction of all the merry-andrews and jack-puddings of every Fair throughout England. The office of master of the revels was created under Henry VIII. in 1546. The identical seal of the office used under five sovereigns, was engraved on wood, and is in the possession of Francis Douce, Esq. F.S.A., who permitted impressions of it to be inserted first by Mr. Chalmers in his “Apology for the believers in the Shakspeare MSS.,” and next by Mr. J. T. Smith, of the British Museum, in his “Ancient Topography of London:” the legend on it is “Sigill: Offic: Jocor: Mascar: et Revell: Dnis. Reg.” Mr. Chalmers’s work also contains the “arms of the revels.”[291]

* * * * *

Mr. J. T. Smith was informed by Mr. Thomas Batrich, an ancient barber of Drury-lane, that Mr. Garrick shortly after his marriage conducted Mrs. Garrick to Yates and Shuter’s booth; Garrick being rudely pushed called upon his bill-sticker, old Palmer, who had been engaged to receive the money at the entrance of the booth, for protection. Palmer, though a very strong man, professed himself sorry he could not serve him in Smithfield; alleging that few people there knew Garrick off the stage. One of the merry-andrews who attended on the quack doctors was so much superior to the rest of his profession for wit and gesture, that he was noticed by all ranks of people. Between the seasons he sold gingerbread nuts about Covent-garden, and was the most polite and quiet vendor of the article in London; for to keep up his value at fairs, where he had a guinea a day for his performance besides presents from the multitude, he would never laugh or notice a joke when a dealer in nuts.

* * * * *

Mr. Edward Oram, who died at Hampstead in his seventy-third year, and was buried at Hendon, was intimate with Hogarth in his youth, and introduced him, soon after he left his master, to the proprietors of Drury-lane theatre, where he and Oram painted scenes conjointly, for several years, and were employed by a famous woman, who kept a droll in Bartholomew Fair to paint a splendid set of scenes. The agreement particularly specified that the scenes were to be gilt; but instead of leaf gold being used, they were covered in the usual way with Dutch metal: the mistress of the drolls declared the contract to be broken, and refused to pay for the scenes.[292]

* * * * *

Without going into a history of Bartholomew Fair, it may be remarked that in 1778 it was attended by a foreigner, who exhibited serpents that danced on silk ropes to the sound of music. In 1782, the late Mrs. Baker, proprietor of the Rochester theatre, brought here her company of comedians as “show-folk.” In four successive years, from 1779 to 1780, Mr. Hall of the City-road, eminent for his skill in the preservation of deceased animals, exhibited at the Fair his fine collection of stuffed birds and beasts, which he exhibited for many years before and afterwards at his own house. To obtain notice to it in Smithfield, he engaged sir Jeffery Dunstan to give his imitations in crying “old wigs;” but the mob were no admirers of “still life:” at Hall’s last visit they drew his fine zebra round the Fair; from thenceforth sir Jeffery’s imitations ceased to draw, and Hall came no more.

The exhibitions of living animals at this Fair have been always attractive. Hither came the “illustrious” Pidcock, with his wild beasts, and to him succeeded the “not less illustrious” Polito.

Hither also came the formerly famous, and still well-remembered Astley, with his “equestrian troop,” and his learned horse. These feats were the admiration of never-ceasing audiences, and to him succeeded Saunders with like success.

_Puppet Shows._

Flockton was the last eminent “motion-master” at Bartholomew Fair. He was himself a good performer, and about 1790 his wooden puppets were in high vogue. He brought them every year till his death, which happened at Peckham, where he resided in a respectable way, upon a handsome competence realized by their exhibition at this and the principal fairs in the country. Flockton’s “Punch” was a very superior one to the present street show. He had trained a Newfoundland dog to fight his puppet, representing the devil, whom he always conquered in due time, and then ran away with him.

A puppet-show, or play performed by puppets, was anciently called a “_motion_;” and sometimes, in common talk, a single puppet was called “a motion.” These were very favourite spectacles. In the times of the papacy, the priests at Witney, in Oxfordshire, annually exhibited a show of _The Resurrection_, &c. by garnishing out certain small puppets representing the persons of Christ, Mary, and others. Amongst them, one in the character of a waking watchman, espying Christ to arise, made a continual noise, like the sound caused by the meeting of two sticks, and was therefore commonly called _Jack Snacker of Wytney_. Lambarde, when a child, saw a like puppet in St. Paul’s cathedral, London, at the feast of Whitsuntide; where the descent of the Holy Ghost was performed by a white pigeon being let fly out of a hole in the midst of the roof of the great aisle, with a long censer, which descending from the same place almost to the ground, was swung up and down at such a length, that it reached with one sweep almost to the west-gate of the church, and with the other to the choir stairs, breathing out over the whole church and the assembled multitude a most pleasant perfume, from the sweet things that burnt within it. Lambarde says, that they everywhere used the like _dumb-shows_, to furnish sundry parts of the church service with spectacles of the nativity, passion, and ascension.

There may be added to the particulars of a former exhibition, a puppet-showman’s bill at the British Museum, which announces scriptural subjects in the reign of Anne, as follows: “At Crawley’s booth, over against the Crown Tavern, in Smithfield, during the time of _Bartholomew Fair_, will be presented a little opera, called _the Old Creation of the World_, yet newly revived; with the addition of _Noah’s Flood_; also several fountains playing water during the time of the play. The last scene does present Noah and his family coming out of the ark, with all the beasts two by two, and all the fowls of the air seen in a prospect sitting upon trees; likewise over the ark is seen the sun rising in a glorious manner: moreover a multitude of angels will be seen in a double rank which presents a double prospect, one for the sun, the other for a palace, where will be seen _six angels ringing of bells_. Likewise machines descend from above, double and treble, with _Dives rising out of hell, and Lazarus seen in Abraham’s bosom_, besides several figures dancing jigs, sarabands, and country dances, to the admiration of the spectators; with the merry conceits of _Squire Punch, and Sir John Spendall_.”

These “motions” or puppet-shows were fashionable at this period in other places, and among fashionable people.

In the “Tatler” of May 14, 1709, there is an account of a puppet-show in a letter from Bath, describing the rivalry of Prudentia and Florimel, two ladies at that watering-place. Florimel bespoke the play of “Alexander the Great,” to be acted by the company of strollers on Thursday evening, and the letter-writer accepted the lady’s invitation to be of her party; but he says, “Prudentia had counterplotted us, and had bespoke on the same evening, the puppet-show of the _Creation of the World_. She had engaged every body to be there; and to turn our leader into ridicule, had secretly let them know that the puppet _Eve_ was made the most like Florimel that ever was seen. On Thursday morning the puppet-drummer, with Adam and Eve, and several others that lived before the flood, passed through the streets on horseback to invite us all to the pastime; and Mr. Mayor was so wise as to prefer these innocent people, the puppets, who he said were to represent christians, before the wicked players who were to show Alexander an heathen philosopher. When we came to _Noah’s_ flood in the show, _Punch_ and his wife were introduced dancing in the ark. Old Mrs. Petulant desired both her daughters to mind the moral; then whispered to Mrs. Mayoress, ’this is very proper for young people to see,’ Punch at the end of the play made Madame Prudentia a bow, and was very civil to the whole company, making bows till his buttons touched the ground.” Sir Richard Steele in the “Spectator” of March 16, 1711, intimates that Powell, the puppet-showman, exhibited religious subjects with his puppets, under the little piazza in Covent-garden; and talks of “his next opera of _Susannah_, or _Innocence Betrayed_, which will be exhibited next week with a pair of new _elders_.”

It is observed in a small pamphlet,[293] that “music forms one of the grand attractions of the Fair, and a number of itinerant musicians meet with constant employment at this time.” A band at the west-end of the town, well known for playing on winter evenings before the Spring-garden coffee-house, and opposite Wigley’s great exhibition-room, consisted of a double drum, a Dutch organ, the tambourine, violin pipes, and the Turkish jingle, used in the army. This band was generally hired at one of the first booths in the Fair; but the universal noise arising from so many other discordant instruments, with the cry of “show them in! just going to begin!” prevented their being attended to.

The pamphlet referred to mentions the performances by a family of tumblers, who went about with a large caravan, and attended all the Fairs near town; and that at the beginning of the last century, Clarke and Higgins made themselves famous for their wonderful exertions in this way. They would extend the body into all deformed shapes, stand upon one leg, and extend the other in a perpendicular line, half a yard above the head. The tumblers of the present day do not attempt such wonderful exploits, but they put their bodies into a variety of singular postures, and leap with remarkable facility.

Lane was a celebrated performer at this Fair, and had several pupils who succeeded him in practising the grand and sublime art of legerdemain, and various tricks with cards and balls. The secrets of fortune were disclosed; unmarried damsels were told when and to whom they were to be married; and the widow when she should strip herself of her weeds, and enter anew into matrimony; knives were run through the hand without producing blood; knives and forks swallowed as of easy digestion; and fire and sparks proceeded out of a man’s mouth as from a blacksmith’s forge.

During Bartholomew Fair there were swings without number, besides round-abouts and up-and-downs. In the latter, the “young gentleman,” with his fair partner, were elated by the undulating motion, or rather vertical rotation of the machine; and while thus in motion, could survey the busy scene around, and hear its roar. The effect cannot be described which a stranger experienced upon entering Smithfield, and beholding the immense number of these vehicles, which appeared as if soaring into the clouds.

Then too, about the year 1815, a well-known eccentric character might be seen with plum-pudding on a board, which he sold in slices. He possessed as much drollery as any mountebank in the Fair, and had as various characteristic traits of oddity. He always walked without his hat, and his hair powdered and tied _a la queue_, in a neat dress, with a clean apron: his voice, strong and forcible, made many a humorous appeal in behalf of his pudding, large quantities of which he dealt out for “ready money,” and provoked a deal of mirth by his pleasantry.

George Alexander Stevens be-rhymes the Fair in his day thus:--

Here were, first of all, crowds against other crowds driving
Like wind and tide meeting, each contrary striving;
Shrill fiddling, sharp fighting, and shouting and shrieking,
Fifes, trumpets, drums, bagpipes, and barrow girls squeaking--
“Come my rare round and sound, here’s choice of fine ware!”
Though all was not sound sold at Bartelmew Fair.
Here were drolls, hornpipe-dancing, and showing of postures,
With frying black puddings, and opening of oysters;
With salt-boxes, solos, and galley folks squalling,
The tap-house guests roaring, and mouth-pieces bawling.
Here’s “Punch’s whole play of the gunpowder plot,”
“Wild beasts all alive,” and “peas pudding all hot.”
“Fine sausages” fried, and “the Black on the wire,”
“The whole court of France,” and “nice pig at the fire.”
Here’s the up-and-downs, “who’ll take a seat in the chair?”
Tho’ there’s more up-and-downs than at Bartelmew Fair.
Here’s “Whittington’s cat,” and “the tall dromedary,”
“The chaise without horses,” and “queen of Hungary.”
Here’s the merry-go-rounds, “Come who rides, come who rides, sir,”
Wine, beer, ale, and cakes, fire eating besides, sir,
The fam’d “learned dog,” that can tell all his letters,
And some _men_, as _scholars_, are not much his betters.

* * * * *

Before the commencement of the last century, Bartholomew Fair had become an intolerable nuisance, and the lord mayor and aldermen, to abate its depravity, issued a prohibition on the 25th of June, 1700, against its lotteries and interludes. Subsequent feints of resistance were made to its shows, music, and other exhibitions, without further advantage than occasional cessation of gross violations against the public peace.

In sir Samuel Fludyer’s mayoralty, interludes were prohibited by a resolution of the court of aldermen. This resolution has been annually put forth, and annually broken by the court itself. When alderman Bull filled the civic chair, he determined to carry the resolution into effect, and so far accomplished his purpose as not to allow any booths to be erected; but want of firmness in his predecessors had inspirited the mob, and they broke the windows of the houses in Smithfield. Alderman Sawbridge in his mayoralty was equally determined against shows, and the mob was equally determined for them; he persisted, and they committed similar excesses. Yet we find that in the year 1743, the resolution had been complied with. The city would not permit booths to be erected, and “the Fair terminated in a more peaceable manner than it had done in the memory of man.”[294] This quiet, however, was only temporary, for on the 23rd of August, 1749, a gallery in Phillips’s booth broke down, and four persons were killed; a silversmith, a plasterer, a woman, and a child, and many others were dangerously bruised; one of the maimed had his leg cut off the next morning.[295] This accident seems to have aroused the citizens: on the 10th of July, 1750, a petition was presented to the lord mayor and court of aldermen, signed by above one hundred graziers, salesmen, and inhabitants in and near Smithfield, against erecting booths for exhibiting shows and entertainments there, during Bartholomew Fair, as not only annoying to them in their callings, but as giving the profligate and abandoned opportunity to debauch the innocent, defraud the unwary, and endanger the public peace.[296]

On the 17th of July, 1798, the court of common council referred it to the committee of city lands, to consider the necessity and expediency of abolishing Bartholomew Fair: in the course of the previous debate it was proposed to shorten the period to one day, but this was objected to on the ground that the immense crowd from all parts of the metropolis would endanger life.[297]

In September, 1825, Mr. Alderman Joshua Jonathan Smith, previous to entering on an examination of forty-five prisoners charged with felonies, misdemeanours, assaults, &c. committed in Smithfield during the Fair of that year, stated, that its ancient limits had been extended into several adjoining streets beyond Smithfield; he said he had particularly noticed this infringement in St. John-street, Clerkenwell on the north side, and nearly half-way down the Old Bailey, on the south; and he was determined, with the aid of his coadjutors, to take such further steps as would in future “lessen the criminal extension which had arisen, if not abolish the degrading scene altogether.”[298]

At other periods besides these, there were loud complaints against Bartholomew Fair; and as in 1825, the corporation of London appears seriously to have been engaged in considering the nuisance, its end may be contemplated as near at hand. It is to the credit of the civic authorities, that though shows and interludes were permitted, the Fair of that year was more orderly than any other within memory. Yet even these regulations are inefficient to the maintenance of the reputation the city ought to hold in the estimation of other corporations. The Fair was instituted for the sale of cloth, cattle, and other necessary commodities: as these have, for many years past, wholly disappeared from it, the _use_ of the Fair has wholly ceased; its _abuse_ alone remains, and that abuse can only be destroyed by the utter extinction of the Fair. To do this is not to “interfere with the amusements of the people,” for the people of the metropolis do not require such amusements; they are beyond the power of deriving recreation from them. The well-being of their apprentices and servants, and the young and the illiterate, require protection from the vicious contamination of an annual scene of debauchery, which contributes nothing to the city funds, and nothing to the city’s character but a shameful stain.

* * * * *

Bartholomew Fair must and will be put down. It is for this reason that so much has been said of its former and present state. No person of respectability now visits it, but as a curious spectator of an annual congregation of ignorance and depravity.

* * * * *

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Mushroom. _Agaricus Campestris._
Dedicated to _St. Laurence Justinian_.

[273] Stowe.

[274] Strutt.

[275] Mr. Nares’s Glossary.

[276] Fosbroke Dict. Antiq.

[277] Smith’s Anc. Top. of London.

[278] Maitland.

[279] Stow.

[280] Fitz Stephen.

[281] Cotton MS.

[282] Harl. MS. Strutt.

[283] Stow.

[284] Ibid.

[285] Maitland.

[286] Nares.

[287] Hentzner.

[288] Old Ballads.

[289] Ward’s London Spy.

[290] New European Magazine, 1822-3.

[291] Smith’s Anc. Topog. Lond.

[292] Ibid.

[293] 12mo., “published by John Arliss, No. 87, Bartholomew Close,”
about 1810.

[294] Gentleman’s Magazine.

[295] Ibid.

[296] Ibid.

[297] Ibid.

[298] Ibid.

~September 6.~

_St. Pambo_ of Nitria, A. D. 385. _St. Eleutherius_, Abbot. _St.
Bega_, or _Bees_, 7th Cent.

_St. Eleutherius._

Alban Butler boldly says, that this saint raised a dead man to life. He died at Rome, in St. Andrew’s monastery, about the year 585.

* * * * *

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Autumnal Dandelion. _Apargia Autumnalis._
Dedicated to _St. Pambo_.

~September 7.~

_Cloud_, A. D. 560. _St. Regina_, or _St. Reine_, A. D. 251. _St.
Evurtius_, A. D. 340. _St. Grimonia_, or _Germana_. _St. Madelberte_,
A. D. 705. _Sts. Alchmund_ and _Tilberht_, Bps. of Hexham, A. D. 780
and 789. _St. Eunan_, first Bp. of Raphoe.

_St. Enurchus_, or _Evurtius_.

This saint is in the church of England calendar, and therefore in the English almanacs, but on what ground it is difficult to conjecture; for Butler himself merely mentions him as a bishop of Orleans, who lived in the reign of Constantine, and died about 340:--he adds, that “his name is famous, but his history of no authority.”

“_Fine Feathers make fine Birds._”

The subjoined letter, dated the 7th of September, 1825, appears in _The Times_ newspaper of the following day:--

_To the Editor of the Times._

Sir,--I consider it necessary to inform the public, through your paper, that there is a fellow going about the town, (dressed like a painter,) imposing upon the unwary, by selling them painted birds, for foreign ones. He entered my house on Monday last, and after some simple conversation with the customers in the room, he introduced the topic of his birds, which he had in a paper bag, stating that he had been at work in a gentleman’s family at the west end of the town, and the gentleman being on the point of leaving England for a foreign country, he made him a present of them; “but,” says he, “I’m as bad as himself, for I’m going down to Canterbury to-morrow morning myself, to work, and they being of no use to me, I shall take them down to Whitechapel and sell them for what I can get.” Taking one out of the bag, he described it as a Virginia nightingale, which sung four distinct notes or voices: the colour certainly was most beautiful; its head and neck was a bright vermilion, the back betwixt the wings a blue, the lower part to the tail a bright yellow, the wings red and yellow; the tail itself was a compound mixture of the above colours, the belly a clear green--he said it was well worth a sovereign to any gentleman. However, after a good deal of lying, bidding, and argument, one of the party offered five shillings, which he at last took; and disposing of the others much in the same way, he quickly decamped. In the course of an hour after, a barber, a knowing hand in the bird way, who lives in the neighbourhood, came in, and taking a little water, with his white apron he transferred the variegated colours of the nightingale to the white flag of his profession. The deception was visible--the swindler had fled--and the poor hedge-sparrow had his unfortunate head severed from his body, for being forced to personate a nightingale.

A LICENSED VICTUALLER.

_Upper Thames-street._

By the preceding letter in _The Times_, a great number of persons were first acquainted with a fraud frequently practised. As a useful and amusing communication it has a place here. It may, however, be as well to correct an error which the intelligent “Licensed Victualler” falls into by venturing beyond a plain account, to indulge in figurative expression. It is not doubted that his “barber, a knowing hand in the bird way,” wore “a white apron;” but when the “Licensed Victualler” calls the barber’s white apron “the _white_ flag of his profession,” he errs; a _white_ apron may be the “flag” of the “Licensed Victualler’s profession,” but it is not the barber’s “flag.”

Randle Holme, an indisputable authority, in his great work on “Heraldry,” figures a barber as above. “He beareth _argent_,” says Holme; “a barber bare-headed with a pair of cisers in his right hand, and a comb in his left, clothed in _russet_, his apron _checque_ of the first, and _azure_; a barber is always known by his checque party-coloured apron, therefore it needs not mentioning.” Holme emphatically adds, “neither can he be termed a barber, (or poler, or shaver,) as anciently they were called, till his apron be about him;” that is to say, “his checque party-coloured apron.” This, and this only, is the “flag of his profession.”

Holme derives the denomination barber from _barba_, a beard, and describes him as a cutter of hair; he was also anciently termed a _poller_, because in former times to _poll_ was to cut the hair: to _trim_ was to cut the beard, after shaving, into form and order.

* * * * *

The instrument-case of a barber, and the instruments in their several divisions, are particularly described by Holme. It contained his looking-glass, a set of horn combs with teeth on one side and wide, “for the combing and readying of long, thick, and stony heads of hair, and such like perriwigs;” a set of box combs, a set of ivory combs with fine teeth on both sides, an ivory beard-comb, a beard-iron called the forceps, being a curling iron for the beard, a set of razors, tweezers with an earpick, a rasp to file the point of a tooth, a hone for his razors, a bottle of sweet oil for his hone, a powder box with sweet powder, a puff to powder the hair, a four square bottle with a screwed head for sweet water, wash balls and sweet balls, caps for the head to keep the hair up, trimming cloths to put before a man, and napkins to put about his neck, and dry his hands and face with. After he was shaved and barbed, the barber was to hold him the glass, that he might see “his new-made face,” and instruct the barber where it was amiss: the barber was then to “take off the linens, brush his clothes, present him with his hat, and, according to his hire, make a bow, with ‘_your humble servant, sir_.’”

The same author thus figures

He describes it to be “a wooden turned stick, having a socket in the streight peece, and another in the cross or overthwart peece; this he sticketh in his apron strings on his left side or breast when he useth to trim by candlelight.”

* * * * *

Without going into every particular concerning the utensils and art of “Barbing and Shaving,” some may be deemed curious, and therefore worthy of notice. It is to be observed, however that they are from Randle Holme, who wrote in 1688, and relate to barbers of former days.

The barber’s washing or trimming-basin had a circle in the brim to compass a man’s throat, and a place like a little dish to put the ball in after lathering. Holme says, that “such a like bason as this, valiant Don Quixote took from a bloody enchanting barber, which he took to be a golden head-piece.”

The barber’s basin is very ancient; it is mentioned by Ezekiel the prophet. In the middle age it was of bright copper.[299]

This is a figure of the old razor of a superior kind, tipped with silver; “that is,” says Holme, “silver plates engraven are fixed upon each end of the haft, to make the same look more gent and rich.” The old man, being fidgetted by this ornament, declares, “it is very oft done by yong proud artists who adorne their instruments with silver shrines, more then seting themselves forth by the glory that attends their art, or praise obtained by skill.” Before English manufactures excelled in cutlery, razors were imported from Palermo.[300] Razors are mentioned by Homer.

“This is a small chafer which they use to carry about with them, when they make any progress to trim or barb gentiles at a distance, to carry their sweet water (or countreyman’s broth) in; the round handle at the mouth of the chafer is to fall down as soon as their hand leaves it;” so says Holme. Mr. J. T. Smith remarks, that “the _flying barber_ is a character now no more to be seen in London, though he still remains in some of our country villages; he was provided with a napkin, soap, and pewter bason, the form of which may be seen in many of the illustrative prints of Don Quixote.” The same writer speaks of the barber’s chafer as being--“A deep leaden vessel, something like a chocolate pot, with a large ring, or handle, at the top; this pot held about a quart of water boiling hot, and thus equipped, he flew about to his customers.” These chafers are no longer made in London; the last mould which produced them was sold in New-street, Shoe-lane, at the sale of Mr. Richard Joseph’s moulds for pewter utensils, in January, 1815: it was of brass and broken up for metal.[301]

This was a metal firepot, with a turning handle, and much used during winter, especially in shops without fire-places. It was carried by the handle from place to place, but generally set under a brass or copper basin with a flat broad bottom, whereon if linen cloths were rubbed or let remain, they in a little time became hot or warm for the barber’s use.

This is their ancient shape. “In former times these were much used to curl the side locks of a man’s head, but now (in 1688) wholly cast aside as useless; it openeth and shutteth like the forceps, only the ends are broad and square, being cut within the mouth with teeth curled and crisped, one tooth striking within another.”

_Scissors._

_Hair_-scissors were long and broad in the blades, and rounded towards the points which were sharp.

_Beard_-scissors had short blades and long handles.

The _barber’s_ scissors differed in these respects from others; for instance, the _tailor’s_ scissors had blunt points, while the _seamster’s_ scissors differed from both by reason of their smallness, some of them having one ring for the thumb only to fit it, while the contrary ring or bow was large enough to admit two or three fingers.

~Beards.~

“A full face with a sharp-pointed beard is termed, in blazon, a man’s face with a _pick-a-devant_ (or sharp pointed,) beard.” Mr. Archdeacon Nares’s “Glossary” contains several passages in corroboration of Holme’s description of this beard.

This Holme calls “the _broad_ or _cathedral_ beard, because bishops and grave men of the church anciently did wear such beards.” Besides this, and the _pick-a-devant_, he says there are several sorts and fashions of beards, viz. “the _British_ beard hath long mochedoes, (mustachios) on the higher lip, hanging down either side the chin, all the rest of the face being bare:--the _forked_ beard is a broad beard ending in two points:--the _mouse-eaten_ beard, when the beard groweth scatteringly, not together, but here a tuft and there a tuft,” &c.

* * * * *

Guillaume Duprat, bishop of Clermont, who assisted at the council of Trent, and built the college of the Jesuits at Paris, had the finest beard that ever was seen. It was too fine a beard for a bishop, and the canons of his cathedral, in full chapter assembled, came to the barbarous resolution of shaving him. Accordingly, when next he came to the choir, the dean, the _prevot_, and the _chantre_ approached with scissors and razors, soap, basin and warm water. He took to his heels at the sight, and escaped to his castle of Beauregard, about two leagues from Clermont, where he fell sick for vexation, and died.[302]

* * * * *

Ancient monuments represent the Greek heroes to have worn short curled beards. Among the Romans, after the year 454, B. C., philosophers alone constantly wore a beard; the beard of their military men was short and frizzed. The first emperors with a long and thick beard were Hadrian, who wore it to hide his wounds, and Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius, who wore it as philosophers: a thick beard was afterwards considered an appendage that obtained for the emperors veneration from the people.[303]

~Wigs.~

It is figured as seen above by Holme, who also calls it in his peculiar orthography a “perawicke,” and says it was likewise called “a _short bob_, a _head of hair_--a wig that hath short locks and a hairy crown.” He describes it with some feeling. “This is a counterfeit hair which men wear instead of their own; a thing much used in our days by the generality of men; contrary to our forefathers who got estates, loved their wives, and wore their own hair; but,” says he, “in _these_ days (1688) there is no such things!”

He further gives the following as

This he puts forth as being “by artists called a long-curled-wig, with a _suffloplin_, or with a _dildo_, or pole-lock;” and he affirms, that “this is the sign or cognizance of the perawick-maker.”

That the peruke was anciently a barber’s sign, is verified by a very rare, and perhaps an unique engraving of St. Paul’s cathedral when building, with the scaffolding poles and boards up. This print, in the possession of the editor of the _Every-Day Book_, represents a barber’s shop on the north-side of St. Paul’s churchyard, with the barber’s pole out at the door, and a swinging sign projecting from each side of the house, a peruke being painted on each.

This peruque, with a “curled foretop and bobs,” was “a kind of _travelling wig_, having the side or bottom locks turned up into bobs or knots tied up with ribbons.” Holme further calls it “a _campaign-wig_,” and says, “it hath knots or bobs, or a dildo, on each side, with a curled forehead.”

_A Grafted Wig_

is described by Holme as “a perawick with a turn on the top of the head, in imitation of a man’s hairy crown.”

This is so called by Holme; he also calls it “a _peruque_, with the crown or top cut off; some term it the _border_ of a peruque:” he adds, that “women usually wear such borders, which they call curls or locks when they hang over their ears.” He further says, they were called “_taures_ when set in curls on the forehead,” and “_merkins_” when the curls were worn lower, or at the sides of the face.

“Some,” says Holme, “term this curled forehead a _bull-head_, from the French word _taure_, because _taure_ is a bull; it was the fashion of women to wear _bull-heads_, or bull-like foreheads, anno 1674, and about that time: this is the coat (of arms) of _Taurell_, a French monsieur, or seigneur.”

According to our chief authority, Holme, a female thus “quoiffed,” with “a pair of locks and curls,” was in “great fashion, about the year 1670.” He adds, that “they are _false locks_, set on wyres, to make them stand at a distance from the head; as the _fardingales_ made their clothes stand out (from the hips downwards) in queen Elizabeth’s reign.”

There is a little difficulty in naming this head dress; for Holme is so diffuse and indignant that he gives it no term though he describes the engraving. The figure is remarkable because it is in many respects similar to the manner wherein the ladies of 1825 adjust the head. It will be remembered that Holme was a herald, and though his descriptions have not hitherto been here related in his armorial language, he always sets them out so, in his “storehouse of armory and blazon.” It may be amusing to conclude these extracts from him with his description of this figure in his own words: thus then the old “deputy for the kings of arms” describes it:--

“He beareth _argent_ a woman’s face; her forehead adorned with a knot of _diverse coloured_ ribbons; the head with a ruffle quoif, set in corners, and the like ribbons behind the head. This,” says Holme, “is a _fashion-monger’s_ head, tricked and trimed up, according to the mode of these times, wherein I am writing of it; and, in my judgment, were a fit _coat_ for such seamsters as are skilled in inventions. _But_” (he angrily breaks forth,) “_what_ do I talk of _arms_ to _such_, by reason they will be shortly old, and therefore not to be endured by them, whose brains are always upon new devises and inventions! But _all_ are brought again from the _old_; for there is no _new_ thing under the sun; for what _is_ now, _hath been_ formerly!”

* * * * *

In the great dining-room at Lambeth-palace, there are portraits of all the archbishops, from Laud to the present time. In these we may observe the gradual change of the clerical dress, in the article of wigs. Archbishop Tillotson was the first prelate who wore a wig, which then was not unlike the natural hair, and worn without powder.[304]

* * * * *

It is related of a barber in Paris, that, to establish the utility of his bag-wigs, he caused the history of Absalom to be painted over his door; and that one of the profession, at a town in Northamptonshire, used this inscription, “Absalom, hadst thou worn a perriwig, thou hadst not been hanged.”[305] It is somewhere told of another that he ingeniously versified his brother peruke-maker’s inscription, under a sign which represented the death of Absalom and David weeping; he wrote up thus:--

“Oh, Absalom! Oh, Absalom!
Oh, Absalom! my son,
If thou hadst worn a perriwig,
Thou hadst not been undone!”

* * * * *

The well-known, light, flaxen wig of Townsend, the well-known police-officer, is celebrated in a song beginning thus:--

_Townsend’s Wig._

_Tune_--“Nancy Dawson.”

Of all the wigs in Brighton town,
The black, the grey, the red, the brown,
So firmly glued upon the crown,
There’s none like Johnny Townsend’s:
It’s silken hair and flaxen hue,
(It is a scratch, and not a quene,)
Whene’er it pops upon the view,
Is known for Johnny Townsend’s!

* * * * *

Wigs were worn by the Romans when bald; those of the Roman ladies were fastened upon a caul of goat-skin. Perriwigs commenced with their emperors; they were awkwardly made of hair, painted and glued together.

False hair was always in use, though more from defect than fashion; but the year 1529 is deemed the epoch of the introduction of long perriwigs into France; yet it is certain that ladies _tetes_ were in use here a century before. Mr. Fosbroke, from whose “Encyclopædia of Antiquities” these particulars are derived, says, “that strange deformity, the judge’s wig, first appears as a _general_ genteel fashion in the seventeenth century.” Towards the close of that century, men of fashion combed their wigs at public places, as an act of gallantry, with very large ivory or tortoiseshell combs, which they carried in their pockets as constantly as their snuffboxes. At court, in the mall of St. James’s-park, and in the boxes of the theatre, gentlemen conversed and combed their perukes.

~Hair.~

Horace Walpole relates that when the countess of Suffolk married Mr. Howard, they were both so poor, that they took a resolution of going to Hanover before the death of queen Anne, in order to pay their court to the future royal family. Having some friends to dinner, and being disappointed of a full remittance, she was forced to sell her hair to furnish the entertainment. Long wigs were then in fashion, and the countess’s hair being fine, long, and fair, produced her twenty pounds.

* * * * *

A fashion of wearing the hair gave rise to a college term at Cambridge, which is thus mentioned and explained in a dictionary of common parlance at that university:--

“APOLLO. One whose hair is loose and flowing;
Unfrizzled, _unanointed_, and untied;
No powder seen.----

“His royal highness prince William of Gloucester was an _Apollo_ during the whole of his residence at the university of Cambridge! The strange fluctuation of fashions has often afforded a theme for amusing disquisition. ‘I can remember,’ says the pious archbishop Tillotson, in one of his sermons, discoursing on this _head_, viz. _of hair!_ ‘since the wearing the hair _below_ the ears was looked upon as a _sin_ of the first magnitude; and when ministers generally, whatever their text was, did either find, or make occasion to reprove the great _sin_ of long hair; and if they saw any one in the congregation guilty in that kind, they would point him out particularly, and _let fly at him_ with great zeal.’ And we can remember since, the wearing the hair _cropt_, i. e. above the ears, was looked upon, though not as a ‘sin,’ yet as a very vulgar and _raffish_ sort of a thing; and when the _doers_ of newspapers exhausted all their wit in endeavouring to rally the new-raised corps of _crops_, regardless of the noble duke who _headed_ them; and, when the rude, rank-scented rabble, if they saw any one in the streets, whether time, or the tonsor, had thinned his flowing hair, would point him out particularly, and ‘let fly at him,’ as the archbishop says, till not a shaft of ridicule remained! The tax upon hair powder has now, however, produced all over the country very plentiful _crops_. Among the _Curiosa Cantabrigiensia_, it may be recorded, that our ‘most _religious_ and gracious king,’ as he was called in the liturgy, Charles the Second, who, as his worthy friend, the earl of Rochester, remarked,

‘never said a foolish thing,
Nor ever _did_ a wise one,’--

sent a letter to the university of Cambridge, forbidding the members to wear _perriwigs_, smoke tobacco, and read their sermons! It is needless to remark, that tobacco has not yet made its _exit in fumo_, and that _perriwigs_ still continue to adorn ‘the _heads of houses_!’--Till the present all prevailing, all accommodating fashion of crops became general at the university, no young man presumed to dine in hall till he had previously received a handsome trimming from the hair-dresser. An inimitable imitation of ‘The Bard’ of Gray, is ascribed to the pen of the honourable Thomas (the late lord) Erskine, when a student at Cambridge. Mr. E. having been disappointed of the attendance of his college barber, was compelled to forego his _commons_ in hall! An odd thought came into his head. In revenge, he determined to give his hair-dresser a good _dressing_; so he sat down, and began as follows:--

“‘Ruin seize thee, scoundrel Coe,
Confusion on thy frizzing wait;
Hadst thou the only comb below,
Thou never more shouldst touch my pate.

“‘Club, nor queue, nor twisted tail,
Nor e’en thy chatt’ring, barber, shall avail
To save thy horse-whipped back from daily fears
From Cantab’s curse, from Cantab’s tears.’”

The editor of the “Gradus ad Cantabrigiam” regrets that he has not room for the whole of the ode.

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 liquor-measure to denote its emptiness: a nun-like 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-hous 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 subject of allusions. The _cittern_, or lute, which hung up for the diversion of the customers, is the foundation of a proverb.[306] The cittern resembled the guitar. In Burton’s “Winter Evening Entertainments,” published in 1687, with several wood-cuts, there is a representation of a barber’s shop, where the person waiting his turn is playing on a lute.[307]

The peculiar mode of _snapping the fingers_, as a high qualification in a barber, is mentioned by Green, another early writer. “Let not the barber be forgotten: 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 Woman,” is a detester of noise, and particularly values a barber who was silent, and did 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.”[308]