The _Tonstrinæ_, or barbers' shops, in Rome, were seldom visited by any, but the humbler classes. They were sometimes called the _Shades_. Horace, Ep. i. 7, 50, describes Philippus, an eminent lawyer, as struck with sudden envy, upon seeing Vulteius Mena, the beadle, sitting very much at ease, in one of these shades, after having been shaved, and leisurely cleaning his own nails, an office commonly performed by the barbers:-- Adrasum quendam vacua tonsoris in umbra, Cultello proprios purgantem leniter ungues. There were she-barbers, in Rome, residing in the _Saburra_ and _Argiletum_, very much such localities, as "_the Hill_," formerly in Boston, or _Anthony Street_, in New York. Martial describes one of these _tonstrices_, ii. 17-- Tonstrix Saburræ fancibus sedet primis, etc. Some there were, of a better order. Plautus, Terence, and Theophrastus have many allusions to the barbers' shops. They have ever been the same "_otiosorum conciliabula_," that they were, when Terence wrote--resorts of the idle and garrulous. In old times--very--not now, of course--not now, a dressmaker, who was mistress of her business, knew that she was expected to turn out so much work, and so much _slander_. That day has fortunately gone by. But the "barber's tale" is the very thing that it was, in the days of Oliver Goldsmith, and it was then the very thing, that it was, as I verily believe, in the days of Ezekiel. There are many, who think, that a good story, not less than a good lather, is half the shave. It is quite _in rerum natura_, that much time should be consumed, in waiting, at the _tonstrinæ_--the barbers' shops; and to make it pass agreeably, the craft have always been remarkable, for the employment of sundry appliances--amusing pictures around the walls--images and mechanical contrivances--the daily journals--poodles, monkeys, squirrels, canaries, and parrots. In the older countries, a barber's boy was greatly in request, who could play upon the _citterne_, or some other musical instrument. If there had not been a curious assemblage of _materiel_, in an old Roman _tonstrina_, it would not have been selected as an object for the pencil. That it was so selected, however, appears from a passage in Pliny, XXXV. 37. He is writing of Pureicus--arte paucis postferendus: proposito, nescio an destruxerit se: quoniam humilia quidem sequutus, humilitatis tamen summam adeptus est gloriam. Tonstrinas, sutrinasque pinxit, et asellos, et obsonia, ac similia--He had few superiors in his art: I know not if the plan he adopted was fatal to his fame; for, though his subjects were humble, yet, in their representation, he attained the highest excellence. He painted barbers' and shoemakers' shops, asses, eatables, and the like. A rude sketch of Heemskerck's picture of a barber's shop lies now upon my table. Here is the poodle, with a cape and fool's cap, walking on his hind legs--the suspended bleeding basin, and other et cætera of the profession.