'A Very Wild Extravagant Dream'

In his Spectator essay for January 15, 1712, Joseph Addison tells us he spent the day with friends, “an Assembly of Virtuosos,” one of whom describes “many curious Observations” regarding human anatomy. The conversation inspires in Addison “a very wild Extravagant Dream” in which he witnesses the dissection of a “Beau’s Head” and a “Coquet’s Heart.” Addison is writing in deep satirical mode, so you might anticipate where this is going. A “Beau” in the eighteenth century, according to Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary, signified “a man of dress; a man whose great care is to deck his person.” We might say fop, dandy or clothes horse. For “coquette,” Johnson gives “a gay, airy girl; a girl who endeavours to attract notice.” Both are types still with us, of course. Most of the essay concerns the Beau and a detailed and fanciful catalogue of his brain and its parts: “There was a large Cavity on each side of the Head, which I must not omit. That on the right Side was filled with Fictions,…