In a late paper, I mentioned the project of an ingenious author for the
erecting of several handicraft prizes to be contended for by our British
artisans, and the influence they might have towards the improvement of
our several manufactures. I have since that been very much surprised by
the following advertisement, which I find in the _Post-boy_ of the 11th
instant, and again repeated in the _Post-boy_ of the 15th:--
"On the 9th of October next will be run for upon Coleshill-heath, in
Warwickshire, a plate of six guineas value, three heats, by any horse,
mare, or gelding that hath not won above the value of 5 pounds, the
winning horse to be sold for 10 pounds, to carry 10 stone weight, if
14 hands high; if above or under, to carry or be allowed weight for
inches, and to be entered Friday, the 5th, at the Swan in Coleshill,
before six in the evening. Also, a plate of less value to be run for
by asses. The same day a gold ring to be grinn'd for by men."
The first of these diversions that is to be exhibited by the 10 pounds
race-horses, may probably have its use; but the two last, in which the
asses and men are concerned, seem to me altogether extraordinary and
unaccountable. Why they should keep running asses at Coleshill, or how
making mouths turns to account in Warwickshire, more than in any other
parts of England, I cannot comprehend. I have looked over all the
Olympic games, and do not find anything in them like an ass-race, or a
match at grinning. However it be, I am informed that several asses are
now kept in body-clothes, and sweated every morning upon the heath: and
that all the country-fellows within ten miles of the Swan grin an hour or
two in their glasses every morning, in order to qualify themselves for
the 9th of October. The prize which is proposed to be grinned for has
raised such an ambition among the common people of out-grinning one
another, that many very discerning persons are afraid it should spoil
most of the faces in the county; and that a Warwickshire man will be
known by his grin, as Roman Catholics imagine a Kentish man is by his
tail. The gold ring which is made the prize of deformity, is just the
reverse of the golden apple that was formerly made the prize of beauty,
and should carry for its poesy the old motto inverted:
_Detur tetriori_.
Or, to accommodate it to the capacity of the combatants,
The frightfull'st grinner
Be the winner.
In the meanwhile I would advise a Dutch painter to be present at this
great controversy of faces, in order to make a collection of the most
remarkable grins that shall be there exhibited.
I must not here omit an account which I lately received of one of these
grinning matches from a gentleman, who, upon reading the above-mentioned
advertisement, entertained a coffee-house with the following
narrative:--Upon the taking of Namur, amidst other public rejoicings made
on that occasion, there was a gold ring given by a Whig justice of peace
to be grinned for. The first competitor that entered the lists was a
black, swarthy Frenchman, who accidentally passed that way, and being a
man naturally of a withered look and hard features, promised himself good
success. He was placed upon a table in the great point of view, and,
looking upon the company like Milton's Death,
Grinned horribly a ghastly smile.
His muscles were so drawn together on each side of his face that he
showed twenty teeth at a grin, and put the country in some pain lest a
foreigner should carry away the honour of the day; but upon a further
trial they found he was master only of the merry grin.
The next that mounted the table was a malcontent in those days, and a
great master in the whole art of grinning, but particularly excelled in
the angry grin. He did his part so well that he is said to have made
half a dozen women miscarry; but the justice being apprised by one who
stood near him that the fellow who grinned in his face was a Jacobite,
and being unwilling that a disaffected person should win the gold ring,
and be looked upon as the best grinner in the county, he ordered the
oaths to be tendered unto him upon his quitting the table, which the
grinner refusing, he was set aside as an unqualified person. There were
several other grotesque figures that presented themselves, which it would
be too tedious to describe. I must not, however, omit a ploughman, who
lived in the further part of the county, and being very lucky in a pair
of long lantern jaws, wrung his face into such a hideous grimace that
every feature of it appeared under a different distortion. The whole
company stood astonished at such a complicated grin, and were ready to
assign the prize to him, had it not been proved by one of his antagonists
that he had practised with verjuice for some days before, and had a crab
found upon him at the very time of grinning; upon which the best judges
of grinning declared it as their opinion that he was not to be looked
upon as a fair grinner, and therefore ordered him to be set aside as a
cheat.
The prize, it seems, fell at length upon a cobbler, Giles Gorgon by name,
who produced several new grins of his own invention, having been used to
cut faces for many years together over his last. At the very first grin
he cast every human feature out of his countenance; at the second he
became the face of spout; at the third a baboon; at the fourth the head
of a bass-viol; and at the fifth a pair of nut-crackers. The whole
assembly wondered at his accomplishments, and bestowed the ring on him
unanimously; but what he esteemed more than all the rest, a country
wench, whom he had wooed in vain for above five years before, was so
charmed with his grins and the applauses which he received on all sides,
that she married him the week following, and to this day wears the prize
upon her finger, the cobbler having made use of it as his wedding ring.
This paper might perhaps seem very impertinent if it grew serious in the
conclusion. I would, nevertheless, leave it to the consideration of
those who are the patrons of this monstrous trial of skill, whether or no
they are not guilty, in some measure, of an affront to their species in
treating after this manner the "human face divine," and turning that part
of us, which has so great an image impressed upon it, into the image of a
monkey; whether the raising such silly competitions among the ignorant,
proposing prizes for such useless accomplishments, filling the common
people's heads with such senseless ambitions, and inspiring them with
such absurd ideas of superiority and pre-eminence, has not in it
something immoral as well as ridiculous.