Chapter I: THE HAIR.--This section I omit altogether; though with more room

at my disposal, it would be well worth translating as a curiosity. It is the essay of a finished and perfect knave, who not merely being rather bare of facts, but having literally not one solitary fact of any kind or degree, sits down to write a treatise on the mode of dressing hair amongst Hebrew ladies. Samson's hair, and the dressing it got from the Philistines, is the nearest approach that he ever makes to his subject; and being conscious that this case of Samson and the Philistines is the one sole allusion to the subject of Hebrew hair that he is possessed of, he brings it round upon the reader as often perhaps as it will bear--viz. not oftener than once every sixth page. The rest is one continued shuffle to avoid coming upon the ground; and upon the whole, though too barefaced, yet really not without ingenuity. Take, by way of specimen, his very satisfactory dissertation on the particular sort of combs which the Hebrew ladies were pleased to patronize.

'COMBS.--Whether the ladies of Palestine had upon their toilette a peculiar comb for parting the hair, another for turning it up, &c.; as likewise whether their combs were, as in ancient Rome, made of box-wood, or of ivory, or other costly and appropriate material, all these are questions upon which I--am not able, upon my honor, to communicate the least information. But, from the general silence of antiquity, prophets and all, [Footnote 7] upon the subject of Hebrew combs, my own private opinion is, that the ladies used their fingers for this purpose; in which case, there needs no more to be said on the subject of Hebrew combs.'