THE MODERN SPECTATOR No. V

1811-08 :Pages 87-92

The art of overcharging in description, and attracting notice by exaggerated representation, as applied to the incitement of public curiosity, has, I think, attained the utmost perfection of which it is susceptible. It was formerly, in a great degree, confined to the mountebank and the empiric; and the panaceas which promised to cure every disease, and remove every infirmity, incident to the human frame, alone addressed themselves with any actual perseverance to the credulity of the pubic. But now, it is not merely the auctioneer, or the dealer in articles of fashion or luxury, who finds the utility of what is called puffing: men of science, education, and what are called the liberal professions; ministers, statesmen, orators, lawyers, and beauties, find a puff essential to their various objects and personal importance. It is an age of puffing, and every one who is anxious for celebrity, must apply to it, from the framer of a treaty to the maker of a blacking-ball; from a duchess, in all the splendid attire of a birth-day, to the Hottentot Venus.

Now, as I hold this practice to be of national use, by opening a path to genius, encouraging invention, and presenting their ever-varying productions, in a pleasing way, to public notice; as it has the same efficacy and allurement by its mode of employing the press, as a superior mind and elegant fancy give to ordinary conversation; as it is little more than decorating truth with those seducing exaggerations which render it more attractive, than that display of dress, which, in make and material, affords such a heightening charm to beauty; as it is of such acknowledged advantage in our commercial country, by enlivening the current of trade, and consequently accelerating the circulation of money; as it is often found to aid modest merit; and, as without it,

So many beauteous flowers would blush unseen,

And waste their sweetness on the desert air:

“Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”

― Thomas Gray, An Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard

any hints, I should presume, for its improvement, or the establishing certain principles for a scientific regulation of it, must be of national benefit. I cannot, therefore, employ this paper to a more laudable purpose than by inserting an essay on the subject, which I found in the portfolio of a very ingenious friend, now no more, whose last will and testament gave it to my possession. It is verbatimas follows:

Instructions for Hair-dressers, Perfumers, and all others whom it may concern.

It may, perhaps, be thought injudicious in me, to begin with professions that seem to have exhausted the art I propose to teach. But I take their beaten track, in order to give a more striking exhibition of my skill, and to prove that I am capable of creating novelty, where it may naturally enough be considered as next to impossible that any novelty could be produced.

I shall begin, therefore, by supposing a well-instructed, fashionable hair-dresser, &c. to have boiled up, clarified, and scented a large quantity of unguent, composed of mutton suet and chicken’s grease, with a small infusion of tar; and that it appears upon the shelves of his shop in pots of an elegant form, covered with pink or pea-green paper, and adorned with a copper-plate label, supported by cupids, with the following inscription in variegated letters:--Louis Pomade’s Capillary Crescive. These materials being ready for sale, the proprietor must announce it to the public, in all the fashionable newspapers, by an advertisement of this description:--

All false Hair at an end.

”Whereas it is a very great and lamentable disgrace to the fair and lovely part of the creation, Heaven’s last, best work, that they should be so frequently obliged to wear wigs, while the gentlemen so very generally wear their own hair: Louis Pomade begs leave to acquaint all ladies of fashion, as well as fashionable gentlemen, whom any accident or illness may have obliged to have recourse to the peruke-maker for an imitative covering of hair for that noble and capital part of the human frame, called the head, that he is the sole inventor, manufacturer, and proprietor of a pomatum called the Capillary Crescive, which causes such an amazing increase of vegetation in the human hair, that, in future, every lady or gentleman, tho’ reduced to an absolute state of Calvinism, may be assured of possessing, in a very short time, a sufficient quantity of hair for all the purposes of fashionable head-dress. It is equally useful for the eyebrows,” &c. &c.

When this advertisement, strengthened by a diffusive circulation of hand-bills, has sufficiently proclaimed this Capillary Panacea, the proprietor must proceed to inform the public of some indisputable examples of its astonishing operations. This will be best done by the puff narrative, which may be to the following purpose:

”On Thursday last, as a young lady was crossing the upper part of Berkeley-square, a rude gust of wind took the liberty of bearing away her bonnet, and left her an object of much unseemly mirth to the vulgar passengers. The laugh, however, of the beholders was soon converted into the utmost astonishment, when they beheld her tresses, which the loosened ribbon could no longer contain, fall down in a graceful flow almost to her knees. The uncommon length, beauty, and thickness of the lady’s hair gathered such an immediate crowd about her, that she was obliged to take refuge in an adjoining shop, from the troublesome curiosity of the beholders: and though the footman who followed her, almost immediately recovered her head-dress, it was some time before the patience of the crowd was exhausted, who waited to see the long-haired lady make her re-appearance.”

The foregoing paragraph must be inserted successively in all the morning, and some of the evening papers, and may be immediately succeeded by the following puff intelligent

”It is proper to inform the public, that the lady whose enormous head of hair occasioned so much curiosity in Berkeley-square, a few days since, and has created no small conversation among the fashionable circles, was, within these eighteen months, without a hair on her head, having been obliged to be shaved, in consequence of a delirious fever; and surely it ought to be known for the public benefit, that her present very extraordinary tresses have proceeded from the application of that astonishing pomatum, known by the title of Louis Pomade’s Capillary Crescive.

When this essential intelligence is properly circulated, it may, after some interval, be followed up by the puff precautionary and puff inventive.

Precaution and Proof.

”Whereas the waiting-woman of a lady of the first distinction, in consequence of her being daily employed in anointing her lady’s hair, every day for about a month, with the Capillary Crescive, has found the palms of her hands to be covered with a thin pile, or hair; it is recommended to all persons applying this extraordinary unguent, to beware of using it without gloves. At the same time, Louis Pomade begs leave to inform the public, that, to remedy this inconvenience, he has invented a particular kind of skin, or bladder-glove, some hundred dozen pairs of which are now manufacturing, for the purpose of accommodating his customers, and preventing the very unpleasant incident that is here related; but which, at the same time, proves the uncommon crescent powers of his pomatum.”

The attention of the public may also be renewed by the following puff historical.

”The celebrated Capillary Crescive is not the invention of its present proprietor, Louis Pomade, as he pretends, it being well known that he received it from a very learned physician and profound chemist, as a reward for having saved his life, when the doctor was attacked by robbers, within a few leagues of Basle, in Switzerland.”

A few illustrative paragraphs may, from time to time, grace the columns of a morning paper to good effect; and I will venture to assert, that a pomatum composed, as may be easily done, to do no harm, and to be capable of some good, when recommended according to this system, will advance the fortune of any Louis Pomade, or, mulatis mutandis, any other ingenious artist, who has the good sense to adopt, and the spirit to prosecute, such a plan as that which has been proposed.

For the Use of young Physicians.

For the sake of the instructions I am about to give, I must suppose that a young doctor of medicine, qualified at all points for his profession, arrives in town, and enters upon the career of medical life. Fortunate circumstances sometimes happen that elevate men at once into so high a degree of popular notice, as precludes all application to adventitious arts to bring them forward. But my physicians must be unfavoured by any of these fortunate aids, and be considered as waiting with an honest, but ardent impatience, for the moment when public opinion is to enrol him among its favoured objects.

It must be his first business, therefore, to let the world know that there is such a phycisian in existence as himself; and for this purpose I should advise him to publish a book.

If he does not possess those inventive talents which may qualify him to strike out some ingenious and novel hypothesis, he must take the old track, and give somewhat of variety to its progress. His University Thesis may serve as a superstructure, whereon he may build an attractive medical edifice. This may be done with some pains, which he will have the leisure to employ, and some study which I suppose him amply qualified to pursue. To this work he will prefix his name, with its professional additions, and must take care to give it all the advantage of copious advertisement. Some sale there may be a right to expect, a few copies may be judiciously distributed as from the author, and his publisher will help him, by means of fresh titlepages, to new editions whenever he pleases. So that he will gain some credit, at least, among those who read little more than advertisements and titlepages; and they form no inconsiderable part of the world. His name, therefore, will now be generally known as a physician, and he must employ the obvious and ready means which the metropolis offers, that he should be personally known as such. His medical work should also be dedicated to some person or lady of quality or fashion, who may be thereby introduced to recommend or consult the author. At all events, the literary patron or patroness will, for the sake of their own credit and consequence, speak will of the book, which cannot but answer a beneficial purpose.

Thus introduced to the notice of the public, and having acquired a genteel personal acquaintance, which may be increased by a summer’s visit to a watering place, I shall recommend my medical aspirant, on the first opportunity, to offer himself a candidate as a physician to some hospital, infirmary, or dispensary. This attempt will tend very much to enlarge his acquaintance; and as I shall suppose his manners to be genteel, and his deportment ingratiating, may attach persons to his interest. If he has any chance of success, he will naturally stand the issue of an election, and the zeal of those who have supported him, if he should fail, may be of future service in more ways than one. If his prospect is discouraging, he must decline the contest with a good grace, and immediately insert something like the following address in all the papers.

TO THE GOVERNORS, &c. &c.

My Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen,

”If I had been earlier in my application to succeed the late Doctor, &c. &c. &c. I have every reason to believe that I should have obtained the object of my honest ambition. The regret at pre-engagement which was expressed by many, and the good opinion I appeared to possess of those whose favour I solicited on the occasion, justify my making such a flattering declaration. But, in the present state of the contest, I think it my duty to leave my competitor in the uninterrupted prospect of that success, to which your protection will conduct him, and which, I am most willing to acknowledge, his merits so well deserve: and flattering myself, that on some future occasion, I may retain the good opinion which has been universally expressed of me in the course of my solicitation, I have the honour of being,” &c. &c.--

Such a public address will continue to advance the object of being known; the assertions it contains will be taken for granted by all who read it, and will annex an idea of merit, modesty, and liberality to the name which subscribes it; all of which will form no trifling preparative to future practice.

I shall now presume, that, from his own recommendation, or that of others, the sickness r absence of a family physician, or some sudden emergency, our young doctor may have been called to some person of rank or fashion. I will also imagine, that as persons in that station of life are often sick when nothing ails them, and are disposed to take alarm at the most trifling indisposition, the accidental patient may be very easily restored to health. This being accomplished, the following historical intelligence may be inserted among the news of the day.

”On Saturday evening, Lord or Lady T-----, or Sir George or Lady S-----, or Mr. or Mrs. W-----, was suddenly taken ill, to the great alarm of the whole family; but by the timely skill of the physician called in on the occasion, we have the very great pleasure to inform the public, that he or she is now entirely out of danger.”

This circumstance being duly circulated, it must be succeeded by the following illustrative anecdote.

”The physician who was so successful in preserving the life of that excellent character, &c. &c. when he or she was seized in such an alarming manner on Saturday evening last, was not Dr. B-----, who is the family physician, but Dr. D-----, of G-----street, who was called in, as Dr. B----- was, at the time, so ill himself, as to be confined to his bed.”

The book may, at this time, be again announced to the public, and it is not to be doubted, but, by taking a ready advantage of circumstances, and applying certain attractive literary hints, &c. according to the foregoing instructions, that our young doctor will be soon raised above any kind of puffs but those of his own patients.