But I will test (as an American would say,—though let it be observed in passing that I do not advocate the use of Americanisms.) I will test Mr. Campbell's assertion. And as the Lord President of the New Monthly Magazine has not favored the world with the calculations upon which his assertion, if his it be, is founded, I will investigate it, step by step, with which intent I have this morning, Saturday, May the fifteenth, 1830, minuted myself during the act of shaving.
The time employed was, within a second or two more or less, nine minutes.
I neither hurried the operation, nor lingered about it. Every thing was done in my ordinary orderly way, steadily, and without waste of time.
Now as to my beard, it is not such a beard as that of Domenico d'Ancona, which was delle barbe la corona, that is to say the crown of beards, or rather in English idiom the king.
Una barba la più singulare
Che mai fosse discritta in verso o'n prosa,
A beard the most unparallell'd
That ever was yet described in prose or rhyme,
and of which Berni says that the Barber ought to have felt less reluctance in cutting the said Domenico's throat, than in cutting off so incomparable a beard. Neither do I think that mine ever by possibility could vie with that of Futteh Ali Shah, King of Persia at this day: nay, I doubt whether Macassar Oil, Bear's grease, Elephant's marrow, or the approved recipe of sour milk with which the Persians cultivate their beards, could ever bring mine to the far inferior growth of his son's, Prince Abbas Mirza. Indeed no Mussulmen would ever look upon it, as they did upon Mungo Park's, with envious eyes, and think that it was too good a beard for a Christian. But for a Christian and moreover an Englishman, it is a sufficient beard; and for the individual a desirable one: nihil me pœnitet hujus barbæ; desirable I say, inasmuch as it is in thickness and rate of growth rather below the average standard of beards. Nine minutes therefore will be about the average time required for shaving, by a Zebedeean,—one who shaves himself. A professional operator makes quicker work; but he cannot be always exactly to the time, and at the year's end as much may have been lost in waiting for the barber, as is gained by his celerity of hand.
Assuming then the moderate average of nine minutes, nine minutes per day amount to an hour and three minutes per week; an hour and three minutes per week are fifty-four hours thirty-six minutes per year. We will suppose that our shaver begins to operate every day when he has completed his twentieth year; many, if not most men, begin earlier; they will do so if they are ambitious of obtaining whiskers; they must do so if their beards are black, or carroty, or of strong growth. There are then fifty years of daily shaving to be computed; and in that time he will have consumed two thousand, seven hundred and thirty hours in the act of shaving himself. I have stated the numbers throughout in words, to guard against the mistakes which always creep into the after editions of any book, when figures are introduced.
Now let us see whether a man could in that time acquire a competent knowledge of seven languages.
I do not of course mean such a knowledge as Professor Porson and Dr. Elmsley had attained of Greek, or as is possessed by Bishop Blomfield and Bishop Monk,—but a passable knowledge of living languages, such as would enable a man to read them with facility and pleasure, if not critically, and to travel without needing either an interpreter—or the use of French in the countries where they are spoken.
Dividing therefore two thousand seven hundred and thirty, being the number of hours which might be appropriated to learning languages,—by seven,—the number of languages to be learnt, we have three hundred and ninety hours for each language; three hundred and ninety lessons of an hour long,—wherein it is evident that any person of common capacity might with common diligence learn to read, speak and write—sufficiently well for all ordinary purposes, any European language. The assertion therefore, though it might seem extravagant at first, is true as far as it goes, and is only inaccurate because it is far short of the truth.