Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Phrenology, Sound, Amusement, Music, Education

    Discusses an advertisement in which the 'Practical Phrenologist' Mrs Hamilton announces her performances of 'Phrenology illustrated by Music'. Elaborates on the connections between music and phrenology, including the remark that 'Handel [...] displayed the organ of Veneration in his Oratorios'. Recognising the difficulties of illustrating 'the whole of Phrenology by Music in one evening', advises Mrs Hamilton to do it by means of a symphony of thirty-five movements, each one consisting of music carefully chosen to represent a phrenological organ ('Self-esteem', for instance, 'would blow its own trumpet'). Contends that Mrs Hamilton's lecture 'on living heads from the audience' will be more suitable than arias on 'anatomical and physiological facts'.