Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II.: Or, The Rambles and Adventures of Bob Tallyho, Esq., and His Cousin, the Hon. Tom Dashall, Through the Metropolis; Exhibiting a Living Picture of Fashionable Characters, Manners, and Amusements in High and Low Life (1821)Badcock, John, active 1816-1830
General
Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II.: Or, The Rambles and Adventures of Bob Tallyho, Esq., and His Cousin, the Hon. Tom Dashall, Through the Metropolis; Exhibiting a Living Picture of Fashionable Characters, Manners, and Amusements in High and Low Life (1821)
Badcock, John, active 1816-1830
London (England) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
The art of puffing may be further illustrated by the
following specimen of the Sublime, which is inserted here
for the information of such persons as, residing in the
country, have had no opportunity of seeing the original.
“R---- makes gentlemen's and ladies' perukes on an entire
new system; which for lightness, taste, and ease, are
superior to any other in Europe. He has exerted the genius
and abilities of the first artists to complete his
exhibition of ornamental hair, in all its luxuriant
varieties, where the elegance of nature and convenience of
art are so blended, as at once to rival and ameliorate each
other. Here his fair patrons may uninterruptedly examine the
effects of artificial tresses, or toupees of all
complexions, and, in a trial on themselves, blend the
different tints with their own!”
The strife for pre-eminence in this art is not however
confined to this country; for we find an instance recorded
in an American newspaper, which may perhaps be equally
amusing and acceptable:--
“A. C. D. La vigne, having heard of the envious expressions
uttered by certain common barbers, miserable chin-scrapers,
and frizulary quacks, tending to depreciate that superiority
which genius is entitled to, and talents will invariably
command, hereby puts them and their vulgar arts at defiance;
and, scorning to hold parley with such sneaking imps,
proposes to any gentleman to defend and maintain, at his
shop, the head quarters of fashion, No. 6, South Gay Street,
against all persons whomsoever, his title to supremacy in
curlery, wiggery, and razory, to the amount of one hundred
dollars and upwards. As hostile as he is to that low style
of puffery adopted by a certain adventurer, 'yclept Higgins,
Lavigne cannot avoid declaring, in the face of the world,
that his education has been scientifical; that after having
finished his studies at Paris, he took the tour of the
universe, having had the rare fortune of regulating the
heads of Catherine the Second, and the Grand Turk; the King
of Prussia, and the Emperor of China; the Mamelukes of
Egypt, and the Dey of Algiers; together with all the ladies
of their respective Courts. He has visited the Cape of Good
Hope, India, Java, Madagascar, Tartary, and Kamschatka,
whence he reached the United States by the way of Cape Horn.
In England he had previously tarried, where he delivered
Lectures on Heads in great style. He has at last settled in
Baltimore, determined to devote the remainder of his days to
the high profession to which his des-tiny has called him;
inviting all the literati, the lovers of the arts and
sciences, to visit him at his laboratory of beauty, where he
has separate rooms for accommodating ladies and gentlemen,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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