well as the mind. It is necessary to prevent languor, which
will always be the consequence where reflection is {112}more exerted
than sensation. Thus, in every public exhibition, the senses of hearing
and seeing should be gratified in every manner that is consistent with
the nature of what is produced for the observation of the mind. But
although this apparatus was necessary as a representation, it may be
dispensed with as a closet satire: for, not being confined to read two
or three hours, we can shut the book whenever it becomes uninteresting,
which we cannot at a public lecture. We are then confined to one place
and one object during its performance. It is this which renders every
lecture, that is not accompanied by some apparatus, so tiresome to the
auditor. We, therefore, read such lectures as are upon literary Subjects
with more pleasure than we hear them delivered. But lectures on anatomy,
experimental philosophy, astronomy, and every other that admits of
apparatus, we hear and see with much more pleasure and improvement than
when we read them. In regard to the Lecture on Heads, as the apparatus
is not necessary to make the reader comprehend the force and meaning of
the satire more than he can from the words themselves, we make no doubt
but its perusal will afford such pleasure as to increase its estimation,
if possible, {113}with the public. From a more close attention they will
discover beauties of wit, humour, character, and imitation, that were
not perceived during its representation: for the minds of an audience
are very susceptible of being diverted from attending to what is
represented before them.

The company whom they are with, or the attractions of others whom they
see among an audience, frequently suspend the attention while it loses
the greatest beauties of the performance. But, when we are reading a
performance in our closet, whatever is capable of pleasing from its
novelty, propriety, or excellence, is not liable to be lost from any
obstruction or interference by other objects.

Consciousness, therefore, of the entertainment this Lecture will afford
to the reader, as well as the auditor and spectator, is the chief
inducement of submitting it thus, in its only original state, for his
approbation.

End of Project Gutenberg's A Lecture On Heads, by Geo. Alex. Stevens

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