Memoirs of an Old Wig |
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admiration alderman appeared attended barber baronet Barrister battle battle of Ramillies beauty became called Carmarthen cawl caxon character colour compliment court cover curls dean dignity disgrace disguise dress DUNCIAD England fashion feeling felt females fortune genteel looking gentleman give Gray's Inn habit hair half hand happened happy head Hesiod hoax honour John Pie King known lady late learned LENOX LIBRARY Linnæus lived Marlborough masquerade master Mayor of Garratt ment mortifying never night OLD WIG once oratory ostiary passed passion perhaps periwig person peruke pineal gland poet powder pride Prince of Orange professed purchase racter rank rapturously respectable scene Schenckius seemed serjeant short soon sort Steele tail talents Temple thee thing thought tion took town turned vice wearer Westminster Westminster Abbey Whig whilst whole wore worn young
Popular passages
Page vii - O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings...
Page 80 - But, where each science lifts its modern type, Hist'ry her pot, divinity her pipe, While proud philosophy repines to show, Dishonest sight ! his breeches rent below ; Embrowned with native bronze, lo ! Henley stands, Tuning his voice, and balancing his hands. How fluent nonsense trickles from his tongue ! How sweet the periods, neither said, nor sung ! Still break the benches, Henley ! with thy strain, While Sherlock, Hare, and Gibson preach in vain.
Page 15 - there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance.
Page 73 - Steele, in the waste of his splendid talents, had raised sudden enmities and transient friendships. The world uses such men as Eastern travellers do fountains; they drink their waters, and when their thirst is appeased, turn their backs on them. Steele lived to be forgotten. He opened his career with folly ; he hurried through it in a tumult of existence ; and he closed it by an involuntary exile, amid the wrecks of his fortune and his mind. Steele, in one of his numerous periodical works, the twelfth...
Page 94 - I snatch'd her from the rigid north, Her native bed, on which bleak Boreas blew, And bore her nearer to the sun: the sun ( As if the sun could envy) check'd his beam, Denied his wonted succour; nor with more Regret beheld her drooping than the bells Of lilies; fairest lilies, not so fair!
Page 76 - Common fame reports, that she had his figure made in wax after his death, talked to it as if it had been alive, placed it at table with her, took great care to help it to different sorts of food, had an imaginary sore on its leg regularly dressed ; and to complete all, consulted physicians with relation to its health.''^ As there seems however no better ground for these particulars than " common fame," most likely they are exaggerated.
Page 74 - And it gives me now a melancholy reflection, when I am once more inclined to visit the world in print, that the only person who introduced me to it is himself retired. To be an intruder upon solitude, I am conscious, is rudeness ; but, as the greatest souls have never been so much adored as when departed, suffer me, sir, to approach...
Page viii - About the close of the seventeenth century the peruke was made to represent the natural curl of the hair, but in such profusion, that ten heads would not have furnished an equal quantity, as it flowed down the back, and hung over the shoulders, half way down the arms. By 1721, it had become fashionable to tie one half of it on the left side into a club.
Page 65 - Tatlers, used to say that Steele paid fifty pounds per annum to his barber, and that he never rode out on airing, which he did often, but in a black full-bottomed dress periwig, the price of one of which, at that time, nearly amounted to this sum.
Page 68 - His pleasant disposition, his skill, and his integrity, were as well known as his famous snuff-box, described by Mr. Dibdin as " having a not less imposing air than the remarkable periwig of Sir Fopling of old ; which, according to the piquant note of Dr. Warburton, usually made its entrance upon the stage in a sedan chair, brought in by two chairmen, with infinite satisfaction to the audience.