The full-bottom wig, like the lion's mane, hath something noble in it, and adds not only dignity, but sagacity to the countenance [fig. 16 p. I]: but were it to be worn as large again, it would become a burlesque; or were an improper person to put it on, it would then too be ridiculous.
When improper, or incompatible excesses meet, they always excite laughter; more especially when the forms of those excesses are inelegant, that is, when they are composed of unvaried lines.
For example, the figure refer'd to in the margin [Fig. 17 p. I], represents a fat grown face of a man, with an infant's cap on, and the rest of the child's dress stuff'd, and so well placed under his chin, as to seem to belong to that face. This is a contrivance I have seen at Bartholomew-fair, and always occasion'd a roar of laughter. The next [Fig. 18 p. I] is of the same kind, a child with a man's wig and cap on. In these you see the ideas of youth and age jumbled together, in forms without beauty.
So a Roman general [Fig. 19 p. I], dress'd by a modern tailor and peruke-maker, for tragedy, is a comic figure.——The dresses of the times are mix'd, and the lines which compose them are straight or only round.
Dancing-masters, representing deities, in their grand ballets on the stage, are no less ridiculous. See the Jupiter [Fig. 20 p. I].
