“O Absalom, unhappy sprig,
Thou shouldst have worn a perriwig.”
The barber’s chair may be regarded as the centre of the system. The proverb “As common as a barber’s chair” is well known, and Shakspere’s clown adds “it fits all buttocks”—the word is not ours—the seat of honour, if you please, reader, furnished with twin cushions to protect the sacred Luz, out of which the Rabbins say the renewed mammal is to sprout forth at the resurrection, as you are probably aware. In old prints, the chattels of a barber’s shop are usually few and mean enough; but the chair—the descendant of the sella tonsoria—bears some rude flourishes of art, is broad and massive and well-cushioned, as became the throne of so many grave potentates. One is as much astonished at the size of the combs, scissors, and razors of the ancient barbers as at the giant arms and armour worn by the knights of old. What ponderous blades these artists wielded it is fearful to contemplate. There is an old joke that some barber advertised shaving by the acre, and cutting blocks with a razor one would think not impossible with such weapons. Actius’ razor, which was of the keenest, must have been after this fashion. As razors are of very old date, it may interest some one to know that, long before Sheffield or Sheffield blades were thought of, Palermo did business in their commodity. The presiding deity was not unfrequently the greatest curiosity about the place. A certain knack of snapping the fingers was a common practice among them; tradition says, it recalled to mind the clicking of the shears used by their great ancestors. Morose, in Ben Jonson’s “Silent Woman,” so detested this sound, as indeed he did noises of all kind, that meeting with a barber who was without this trick of his profession, he thought it so eminent a virtue, that he made him chief of his counsel, which reminds one of Adrian’s rebuke to his gossip of a barber, who, in reply to the man’s query how he should like to be shaved, said—silently! But barber’s were better employed than in curing the ill-humours of the Morose family. In Stubbes’ Anatomie of Abuses (1583) is a dialogue about old barbers, which we will in part transcribe:
“There are no finer fellowes under the sunne, nor experter in their noble science of barbing than they be; and therefore, in the fulness of their overflowing knowledge, (oh! ingenious heads, and worthy to be dignified with the diademe of folly and vain curiositie!) they have invented such strange fashions and monstrous manners of cutting, trimmings, shavings, and washings, that you would wonder to see.... Besides that, when they come to the cutting of the haire, what snipping and snapping of the cycers is there, what tricking and trimming, what rubbing, what scratching, what combing and clawing, what trickling and toying, and all to tawe out money, you may be sure. And when they come to washing, oh! how gingerly they behave themselves therein; for then shall your mouth be bossed with the lather or fome that riseth of the balles (for they have their sweete balles wherewithall they use to washe); your eyes closed must be anointed therewith also. Then snap go the fingers; ful bravely, God wot. Thus, this tragedy ended, comes me warme clothes to wipe and dry him withall; next the eares must be picked and closed togither againe artificially forsooth; the hair of nostrils cut away, and every thing done in order comely to behold. The last action in this tragedie is the paiment of monie. And least these cunning barbers might seem unconscionable in asking much for their paines, they are of such a shamefast modestie, as they will aske nothing at all, but, standing to the curtesie and liberalitie of the giver, they will receive all that comes, how much soever it be, not giving anie again, I warrant you; for take a barber with that fault, and strike off his head. No, no, such fellows are Raræ in terris, nigrisque simillimi cygnis,—“Rare birds upon the earth, and as geason as black swans.” You shall have also your Orient perfumes for your nose, your fragrant waters for your face, wherewith you shall bee all to besprinkled: your musicke againe, and pleasant harmonie shall sound in your eares, and all to tickle the same with vaine delight. And in the end your cloke shall be brushed, and, God be with you, gentleman!...* * * * * * But yet I must needs say (these nisities set apart) barbers are verie necesarie, for otherwise men should grow verie ougglisom and deformed, and their haire would in processe of time overgrowe their face, rather like monsters, than comlie sober Christians.”
Stubbes, himself, was an inveterate trifler—one of an army of pigmies warring against cranes; but we acquit him of all malice; he belonged to that numerous class who originate nothing, but find fault with everything—
“The long-neck’d geese of the world for ever hissing dispraise
Because their natures are little,”
as Tennyson calls them. An apt turn for flattery was very requisite in an accomplished barber—one of the most difficult things, by the way, for humanity to attain to; for if satire should wound, like a keen razor, “with a touch that’s scarcely felt or seen,” flattery, like rouge, should be applied with a very delicate hand, indeed. Suckling’s verses allude to this hazardous feat:
“When I’m at work, I’m bound to find discourse
To no great purpose, of great Sweden’s force,