wn time.

Having thus enforced the utility of satire in general, and specified the
defects and properties of {108}its particular kinds, we shall proceed to
make a few observations on the peculiar merit of the Lecture on Heads.
We have already seen that it possesses every quality of all other
satires in itself: it only, therefore, remains to consider its wit,
humour, character, and apparatus; which are its essensial properties.
The wit of this Lecture is as various as the subjects which it
satirises. Its brilliancy charms, its poignancy convicts while it
chastises, and its pertinency always adorns the sentiment or observation
it would illustrate. The variety of its species always entertains, but
never satiates. Even puns please, from the aptness and pleasantry of
their conceits. His wit is so predominant, that, if we may be allowed
the expression, it is discovered in his silence. A most striking example
of this is where he uses the rhetorical figure called the Aposiopesis,
or suppression, in displaying the head of a prostitute: he introduces
it with saying, "This is the head of a woman of the town, or a ------;
but, whatever other title the lady may have, we are not entitled here to
take notice of it." Nothing can be more delicate than this suppression:
it displays a tenderness and liberality to the frailty of female nature,
which does as much credit to his feelings as to his genius.

{109}We know not a more happy instance of giving expression to silence,
or giving an idea without verbal assistance, than is contained in the
above character.

The humour of this Lecture is grotesque, lively, and delicate; it
varies its form with the character it ridicules. Nothing can surpass the
humorous whimsicality of his situations and expressions; for they please
as much from the fanciful manner in which he places the ridiculous to
our view, as from the resemblance with which he so naturally describes
the prototype. His description of a London Blood cannot fail to excite
laughter in the features of the greatest cynic. The natural propensity
which mankind has to laugh at mischief never was more happily gratified
than from his describing this character _pushing a blind horse into a
china-shop_. Had he chosen any other animal, the effect would not have
been so great on his audience. If it had been an ass, it would have
been attended with an idea of the obstinacy and the reluctance of this
animal, which would have suggested its being to