Note 55 — No. XI.

Buzz Prose.—The learned reader will perceive that this is an elegant metonymy, by which the quality belonging to the outside of the head is transferred to the inside. Buzz is an epithet usually applied to a large wig. It is here used for swelling, burly, bombastic writing.

There is a picture of Hogarth’s (the Election Ball, we believe), in which there are a number of Hats thrown together in one corner of the room; and it is remarked as a peculiar excellence that there is not a Hat among them of which you cannot to a certainty point out the owner among the figures dancing, or otherwise distributed through the picture.

We remember to have seen an experiment of this kind tried at one of the Universities with the wig and writings here alluded to. A page taken from the most happy and elaborate part of the writings was laid upon a table in a barber’s shop, round which a number of wigs of different descriptions and dimensions were suspended, and among them that of the Author in question. It was required of a young student, after reading a few sentences in the page, to point out among the wigs that which must of necessity belong to the Head in which such sentences had been engendered. The experiment succeeded to a miracle. The learned reader will now see all the beauty and propriety of the metonymy.