CHAPTER CLIV.

A POET'S CALCULATION CONCERNING THE TIME EMPLOYED IN SHAVING, AND THE USE THAT MIGHT BE MADE OF IT. THE LAKE POETS LAKE SHAVERS ALSO. A PROTEST AGAINST LAKE SHAVING.

Intellect and industry are never incompatible. There is more wisdom, and will be more benefit, in combining them than scholars like to believe, or than the common world imagine. Life has time enough for both, and its happiness will be increased by the union.

SHARON TURNER.             

The poet Campbell is said to have calculated that a man who shaves himself every day, and lives to the age of threescore and ten, expends during his life as much time in the act of shaving, as would have sufficed for learning seven languages.

The poet Southey is said to carry shaving to its ne plus ultra of independency, for he shaves sans looking-glass, sans shaving-brush, sans soap, or substitute for soap, sans hot-water, sans cold-water, sans every thing except a razor. And yet among all the characters which he bears in the world, no one has ever given him credit for being a cunning shaver!

(Be it here observed in a parenthesis that I suppose the word shaver in this so common expression to have been corrupted from shaveling; the old contemptuous word for a Priest.)

But upon reflection, I am not certain whether it is of the poet Southey that this is said, or of the poet Wordsworth. I may easily have confounded one with the other in my recollections, just as what was said of Romulus might have been repeated of Remus while they were both living and flourishing together; or as a mistake in memory might have been made between the two Kings of Brentford when they both quitted the stage, each smelling to his nosegay, which it was who made his exit P. S. and which O. P.

Indeed we should never repeat what is said of public characters (a denomination under which all are to be included who figure in public life, from the high, mighty and most illustrious Duke of Wellington at this time, down to little Waddington) without qualifying it as common report, or as newspaper, or magazine authority. It is very possible that the Lake poets may, both of them, shave after the manner of other men. The most attached friends of Mr. Rogers can hardly believe that he has actually said all the good things which are ascribed to him in a certain weekly journal; and Mr. Campbell may not have made the remark which I have repeated, concerning the time employed in mowing the chin, and the use to which the minutes that are so spent might be applied. Indeed so far am I from wishing to impute to this gentleman upon common report, anything which might not be to his credit, or which he might not like to have the credit of, that it is with the greatest difficulty I can persuade myself to believe in the authenticity of his letter to Mr. Moore upon the subject of Lord and Lady Byron, though he has published it himself, and in his own name.

Some one else may have made the calculation concerning shaving and languages, some other poet, or proser, or one who never attempted either prose, or rhyme. Was he not the first person who proposed the establishment of the London University, and if this calculation were his, is it possible that he should not have proposed a plan for it founded thereon, which might have entitled the new institution to assume the title of the Polyglot College?

Be this as it may, I will not try the sans-every-thing way of shaving let who will have invented it: never will I try it, unless thereto by dire necessity enforced! I will neither shave dry, nor be dry-shaved, while any of those things are to be obtained which either mitigate or abbreviate the operation. I will have a brush, I will have Naples soap, or some substitute for it, which may enable me always to keep a dry and clean apparatus. I will have hot-water for the sake of the razor, and I will have a looking-glass for the sake of my chin and my upper lip. No never will I try Lake shaving, unless thereto by dire necessity enforced.

Nor would I be enforced to it by any necessity less dire than that with which King Arthur was threatened by a messager from Kynge Ryons of North-walys; and Kynge he was of all Ireland and of many Iles. And this was his message, gretynge wel Kynge Arthur in this manere wyse, sayenge, “that Kynge Ryons had discomfyte and overcome eleaven Kynges, and everyche of hem did hym homage, and that was this; they gaf hym their beardys clene flayne off, as moche as ther was; wherfor the messager came for King Arthurs beard. For King Ryons had purfyled a mantel with Kynges berdes, and there lacked one place of the mantel, wherfor he sent for his berd, or els he wold entre in to his landes, and brenne and slee, and never leve tyl he have thi hede and thi berd.” If the King of the Lakes should require me to do him homage by shaving without soap, I should answer with as much spirit as was shown in the answer which King Arthur returned to the Messenger from King Ryons. “Wel, sayd Arthur, thow hast said thy message, the whiche is the most vylanous and lewdest message that ever man herd sente unto a Kynge. Also thow mayst see, my berd is ful yong yet to make a purfyl of hit. But telle thow thy Kynge this; I owe hym none homage, ne none of mine elders; but or it be longe to, he shall do me homage on bothe his kneys, or els he shall lese his hede by the feithe of my body, for this is the most shamefullest message that ever I herd speke of. I have aspyed, thy King met never yet with worshipful man; but telle hym, I wyll have his hede without he doo me homage: Then the messager departed.”