The names of no inconsiderable number of barbers are inscribed on the roll of Fame. In the very foremost rank we may place that of the poor barber, Arkwright, who lived to accomplish such great things for the trade of this country. His was an instance of that material success which the dullest can comprehend, and the vulgarest worshipper of Mammon will stand agape at. To be knighted by the Sovereign, and to realize half a million of money, would be fame enough for most ambitious minds--but this is but dust in the balance, compared with the value of the vast enterprise to which the barber’s talents gave the first impulse. Wealth, beyond the dreams of avarice, has accrued from that giant industry; and yet rival manufacturers would have crushed him if they could, so blind is grasping selfishness to its own true interests. Till the age of twenty-eight, Arkwright worked at the barber’s trade, then turned dealer in hair, which he travelled about to collect and dispose of to the trade. A hair-dye he happened to get hold of was a source of considerable profit to him. But his good genius was at hand to rescue him from obscurity, and although his subsequent career appeals but little to the imagination, his fame will long endure to attest the energy and the capability of the British workman. Belzoni was another earnest spirit working out its freedom in a different way. His adventurous career is well known; had it not been for the promptings of an active mind, he might have lived and died shaving beards at Padua. Burchiello, the Florentine, gave up the razor, and courted the Muse, as he says in one of his sonnets; “La Poesia combatti col rasio.”