But, what’s the rarest sight of all,
Your humble servant shows himself—
On this my chiefest hope depends.
Now, if you will my cause espouse,
In Journals pray direct your friends
To my Museum-Coffee-house;
And in requital for the timely favour,
I’ll gratis bleed, draw teeth, and be your shaver.
Steele, alluding to Don Saltero, asks, “why must a barber be for ever a politician, a musician, an anatomist, a poet, and a physician?” He was evidently puzzled to account for the varied talents of the brotherhood.
The sons of barbers have, likewise, achieved great distinction: we may instance Jeremy Taylor, secretary Craggs, the friend of Addison; Tonson, the publisher; Turner, the painter; and Lord Tenterden. We are told by one whose testimony we cannot doubt, that when Lord Tenterden visited Canterbury in company with his son, he took him to the very spot where his own father had carried on his humble trade, and said, “Charles, you see this little shop; I have brought you here on purpose to show it you. In that shop your grandfather used to shave for a penny! That is the proudest reflection of my life! While you live never forget that, my dear Charles.” Lord St. Leonards, we believe, rose from a sphere equally humble, and his father followed the same trade. Lord Campbell has rescued the name of “Dick Danby” from oblivion by a kindly notice in one of his volumes, “One of the most intimate friends I have ever had:” says his lordship, “was Dick Danby, who kept a hair-dresser’s shop under the Cloisters in the Inner Temple. He could tell who were getting on and who were without a brief, who succeeded by their talents and who hugged the attorneys, who were desirous of becoming puisne judges, and who meant to try their fortune in parliament, which of the chiefs was in a failing state of health, and who was next to be promoted to the collar of S.S. Poor fellow! he died suddenly, and his death threw a universal gloom over Westminster Hall, unrelieved by the thought that the survivors who mourned him might pick up some of his business—a consolation which wonderfully softens the grief felt for the loss of a favourite Nisi Prius leader.” We may conclude by quoting the words of the same learned author:—“Although there be something exciting to ridicule in the manipulations of barbers, according both to works of fiction and the experience of life, there is no trade which furnishes such striking examples of ready wit, of entertaining information, and of agreeable manners.”