As for the razors you have bought,—
Upon my soul, I never thought
That they would shave.”
“Not shave” cries Hodge, with wondering, staring eyes,
And voice not much unlike an Indian yell—
“What were they made for, then, you knave?” he cries.
“Made,” quoth the fellow, with a smile, “to sell.”
The names of no inconsiderable number of barbers are inscribed on the roll of Fame. In the very foremost rank we may place that of the poor barber, Arkwright, who lived to accomplish such great things for the trade of this country. His was an instance of that material success which the dullest can comprehend, and the vulgarest worshipper of Mammon will stand agape at. To be knighted by the Sovereign, and to realize half a million of money, would be fame enough for most ambitious minds—but this is but dust in the balance, compared with the value of the vast enterprise to which the barber’s talents gave the first impulse. Wealth, beyond the dreams of avarice, has accrued from that giant industry; and yet rival manufacturers would have crushed him if they could, so blind is grasping selfishness to its own true interests. Till the age of twenty-eight, Arkwright worked at the barber’s trade, then turned dealer in hair, which he travelled about to collect and dispose of to the trade. A hair-dye he happened to get hold of was a source of considerable profit to him. But his good genius was at hand to rescue him from obscurity, and although his subsequent career appeals but little to the imagination, his fame will long endure to attest the energy and the capability of the British workman. Belzoni was another earnest spirit working out its freedom in a different way. His adventurous career is well known; had it not been for the promptings of an active mind, he might have lived and died shaving beards at Padua. Burchiello, the Florentine, gave up the razor, and courted the Muse, as he says in one of his sonnets;
“La Poesia combatti col rasio.”
Jasmin, the French poet of Agen, rose from extreme poverty to comfort and independence as a barber, and acquired a well-earned reputation by his pleasant verses “Les Papillotes,” and the Poem “L’Aveugle de Castel Cuillé.” Allan Ramsey must be numbered with the barber poets; and literature is indebted to Winstanley, a barber of the time of Charles II., for his “Lives of the English Poets.” These, however, have earned other titles than those conferred by their original calling; there are others, whose sole claim to notice is their professional reputation. Among the most noted barbers of their day we may mention “the gentleman barber” to the Earl of Pembroke, who built a large house with tennis-courts and bowling-green, nick-named Shaver’s Hall, the resort of the gayest of the nobility, where many a fortune was lost and won; and Farr who opened the well-known coffee-house, “The Rainbow,” in Fleet Street, hard by Temple Bar. Lillie who had a shop at the corner of Beaufort Buildings, in the Strand, whose fame is preserved in the pages of the Tatler and Spectator. Honest Bat Pigeon, of whom Steele and Addison make honourable mention. Gregory, the famous peruke-maker, from whom the wig called a “Gregorian” took its name, and who lies buried in the church of St. Clement Danes, with an epitaph in rhyme, writ, says Aubrey, by a Baron of the Exchequer. Shammeree, the fashionable wig-maker of the reign of William III.; and Stewart, the author of the “The Noble Art of Hair-dressing.” Amid minor celebrities, Don Saltero occupies a conspicuous place—he opened his museum-coffee-house, in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, in 1695. Sir Hans Sloane supplied him with many curiosities for his museum. His own name was James Salters. He claimed to have some skill on the fiddle, could draw a tooth, made most excellent punch, and was esteemed a virtuoso and a wit. He includes himself among the oddities at the Chelsea Knackatory, with much complacency, in the following verses: