he dignity
of ahead, to shew they have taken their degrees from students in the
stable, up to the masters of arts, upon a coach-box. [_ Gives the two
heads off, and takes the book-case._]

The phrase of wooden-heads is no longer paradoxical; some people set up
wooden studies, cabinet-makers become book-makers, and a man may shew a
parade of much reading, by only the assistance of a timber-merchant. A
student in the temple may be furnished with a collection of law
books cut from a _whipping-post_; physical dictionaries may be had in
_Jesuits' bark_; a treatise upon duels in _touchwood_; the history
of opposition in _wormwood_; Shakespeare's works in _cedar_, his
commentators in _rotten wood_; the reviewers in birch, and the history
of England in _heart of oak_.

Mankind now make use of substitutes in more things than book-making and
militia-men: some husbands are apt to substitute inferior women to their
own ladies, like the idiot, who exchanged a brilliant for a piece
of broken looking-glass; of such husbands we can only say, they have
{9}borrowed their education from these libraries, and have wooden, very
wooden tastes indeed. [_ Gives it off._]

Here's a head full charged for _fun_ [_takes the head_], a comical
half-foolish face, what a great many upon the stage can put on, and what
a great many people, not upon the stage, can't put off. This man always
laughed at what he said himself, and he imagined a man of wit must
always be upon the broad grin; and whenever he was in company he was
always teasing some one to be merry, saying, "Now you, muster what do
you call 'im? do now say something to make us all laugh; come, do now
be comical a little." But if there is no {10}other person will speak, he
will threaten to "tell you a story to make you die with laughing," and
he will assure you, "it is the most bestest and most comicallest story
that ever you heard in all your born days;" and he always interlards
his narration with "so as I was a saying, says I, and so as he was
a saying, says he; so says he to me, and I to him, and he to me
again;----did you ever hear any thing more comical in all your born
days?" But after he has concluded his narration, not finding any person
even to smile at what he said, struck with the disappointment, he puts
on a sad face himself, and, looking round upon the company, he says,
"It was a good story when I heard it too: why then so, and so, and so,
that's all, that's all, gentlemen." [_Pu