Vlll

PREFACE.

There is not a more interesting scene in all the Iliad than the descriptionof Vulcan at work. But if such a distance of time is too remote, there isthe forge of Kawah, the blacksmith of Ispahan , he whose apron was forcenturies the banner of the Persian empire. The forge of Aurelius also,where he made the sword by which he was while emperor slain.

A scene might open in the barber’s shop of Alexandria, in which the boy Ctesibius used to play, and where the first scintillations of his geniusbroke out; while his subsequent speculations, his private essays and publicexperiments, some of which were probably exhibited before tue reigningPtolemies , might be brought into view—his pupil, Heron, and otherphilosophers and literati might also be included in the plot. Of the Con-nection of barbers with important events there is no end—there was thetatling artist of Midas, the spruce hair-dresser of Julian the emperor, theinquisitive one that saved Ceesar’s life by listening to the conversation ofassassins—the history of the silver shaving vessel with which the benevo-lent father of Marc Anthony relieved the pecuniary distresses of a friend—there was the wicked Oliver Dain; and the ancestor of Tunstall, thefamous Bishop of Durham, was barber to William the Conqueror : hencethe bishop’s coat of arms contained three combs.

Who would not go to see a representation of the impostures of theheathen priesthood 1 Men who in the daikest times applied some of thefinest principles of Science to the purposes of delusion ! With whatemotions should we enter their secret recesses in the temples !—placeswhere their Chemical processes were matured, their automaton figures andother mechanical apparatus conceived and fabricated, and where experi-ments were made before the miracles were consummated in public. Butit is impossible to enumerate a tithe of the subjects and incidents for thedrama that might be derived from the history of the arts : they are morenumerous than the mechanical professions—more diversified than articlesof traffic or implements of trades. The plots, too, might be rendered ascomplicated, and their denouement as agreeable or disagreeable as couldbe desired : and what is better than all, in such plays the moral, intel-lectual and inventive faculties of an audience would be excited and im-proved—Science would pervade every piece, and her professors wouldbe the principal performers.

THOS. EWBANK.

JVew-York, December, 1841.