Juvenal, ii. 99, and Martial, vi. 64, 4, laugh at such, as use a mirror while shaving. Knives and razors of _brass_, are of great antiquity, according to the Archæological Æliana, p. 39.--Fosbroke, p. 351, says, that razors are mentioned by Homer. But I am going to a funeral, this afternoon, as an amateur, and it is time for me to shave--not with a razor of brass, however--Pradier is too light for me--I use the Chinese. Hutchinson, i. 153, says, that Leverett was the first Governor of Massachusetts, who is painted without a beard, and that he laid it aside, in Cromwell's court. China is the paradise of barbers. There, according to Mr. Davis, they abound. No man shaves himself, the part, to be shorn, being out of his reach. There would be no difficulty in removing the scanty hair upon their chins; but the exact tonsure of the crown, without removing one hair from the Chinaman's long tail, that reaches to his heels, is a delicate affair. Their razors are very heavy, but superlatively keen. No. CXLI. Barbers were chiefly peripatetics, when I was a boy. They ran about town, and shaved at their customers' houses. There were fewer shops. This was the genteel mode in Rome. The wealthy had their domestic barbers, as the planters have now, among their slaves. I am really surprised, that we hear of so few throats cut at the South. Some evidence of this custom--not of cutting throats--may be found, in one of the neatest epitaphs, that ever was written; the subject of which, a very young and accomplished slave-barber, has already taken a nap of eighteen hundred years. I refer to Martial's _epitaphium_, on Pantagathus, a word, which, by the way, signifies one, who is good at everything, or, as we say--a man of all works. It is the fifty-second, of Book VI. Its title is _Epitaphium Pantagathi, Tonsoris_: Hoc jacet in tumulo raptus puerilibus annis Pantagathus, domini cura, dolorque sui, Vix tangente vagos ferro resecare capillos Doctus, et hirsutas excoluisse genas. Sic, licet, ut debes, Tellus placata, levisque; Artificis levior non potes esse manu. In attempting a version of this, I feel, as if I were about to disfigure a pretty spinster, with a mob-cap. Here lies Pantagathus, the slave, Petted he liv'd, and died lamented; No youth, like him could clip and shave, Since shears and razors were invented. So light his touch, you could not feel The razor, while your cheeks were smoothing; And sat, unconscious of the steel, The operation was so soothing. Oh, mother Earth, appeas'd, since thou Back to thy grasping arms hast won him, Soft be thy hand, like his, and now Lie thou, in mercy, lightly on him. Rochester was right; few things were ever benefited, by translation, but a bishop.