[Gutenberg 21822] • A Lecture On Heads / As Delivered By Mr. Charles Lee Lewes, To Which Is Added, An Essay On Satire, With Forty-Seven Heads By Nesbit, From Designs By Thurston, 1812

George Alexander Stevens (1710-1780), was an English actor, playwright, poet, and songwriter. He was born in the parish of St. Andrews, in Holborn, a neighbourhood of London. After spending many years as a travelling actor, he performed for the theatre in Covent Garden. Stevens was most famous in his lifetime for his Lecture on Heads, a satirical alecturea on heads and fashion, with some addition by Mr. Pilon; which parodied the popularity of physiognomy. The lecture was first performed in 1764, and became an immediate success; he went on to perform it on tour throughout Great Britain, in Ireland, and in the American colonies at Boston and Philadelphia. He was also known as a popular songwriter, especially known for his bawdy drinking-songs and patriotic songs such as Liberty-Hall and The Briton. Many of both kinds were collected in his Songs, Comic and Satyrical (1788). Stevens also authored several dramatic pieces for the stage, a novel entitled Tom Fool, and a satire, The Birthday of Folly.