The darksome cave they enter, wher they find
That cursed man, low sitting on the ground,
Musing full sadly in his sullein mind:

His griesic lockes, long growen and unbound,
Disordred hong about his shoulders round,
And hid his face, through which his hollow eyne
Lookt deadly dull, and stared as astound;

His raw-bone cheekes, through penurie and pine,
Were shronke into his iawes, as he did never dine.*

The best picture of this passion is Hogarth's, whose scene is admirably chosen, and consists of the gaming-house, with its horrible implements and furniture, in which the maddening sufferer had thrown his last stake, and met his utter ruin.

Tension, then, permanent or alternating, is the main character of the violent and repulsive passions; but if the attack be abrupt and intolerably vehement, the nervous system becomes instantaneously exhausted, as by a stroke of lightning; and the muscles are instantly relaxed, paralyzed, and powerless. Milton has given us an exquisite exemplification of this in the following picture of Adam, immediately after the first deadly transgression.

On th' other side Adam, soon as he heard
The fatal trespass done by Eve, amazed,
Astonied stood, and blank! while horror chill
Ran through his veins, and all his joints relax'd.
From his slack hand the garland wreath'd for Eve
Down dropp'd, and all the faded roses shed.
Speechless he stood, and pale

But let us turn to a pleasanter subject. I have said, that in the expression of the attractive passions all is flexible and pliant. Their characters are necessarily less powerful, and many of them are common to the entire class. In perfect tranquillity and content of mind, when all the passions are lulled into a calm, and the gentle spirit of imagination alone is stirring on the surface of the mental lake, there is, as I have already observed, a softened outline, a smooth and uniform sweep of the entire figure; every feature of the body uniting in the repose of the soul. Such is often the picture of him who loves Nature for her own sake, and listens with soothing meditation amid the steeps, the woods, or the wilds, that stretch their romantic scenery around him; and calls for no companions, for he feels no solitude.

To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
Slowly to trace the forest's shady scene,

Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been;

To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,

With the wild flock that never needs a fold;

Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean;

This is not solitude: 't is but to hold

Converse with Nature's charms, and see her stores unroll❜d.†

But let this tranquillity be broken in upon by any of the agreeable passions, and still something of the same softness and pliancy of feature will remain and the changes will be neither numerous nor powerful. This remark may be strikingly verified by turning to Le Brun; and still more so by turning to other French pathematists, who have still farther subdivided the passions. IN ADMIRATION and agreeble SURPRISE, there is a slight muscular agitation; and a gentle advance to stretching or tenseness in simple ATTENTION, VENERA TION, and elevated REVERY; but there is no constraint. The whole is calm, placid, and void of exertion. RAPTURE and LAUGHTER make a somewhat nearer approach to the former qualities, and especially the low broad grin of the Dutch painters; but the muscles, though stretched, are still flexible and at ease. In eager DESIRE we approximate more closely the tension of the violent and repulsive passions: but eager desire is a compound emotion; it is desire with uneasiness, and, consequently, borders on pain, if it do not enter its boundary.

* Faerie Queene, b. i. cantos ix XXXV.

† Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, canto ii

Hence the attractive affections are far more easy to be expressed by the painter than by the poet, and fall immediately within the range of classical sculpture, which limits itself to the calm and the dignified, and has rarely been known to wander into the regions of intensity, distortion, or violence. The poet, incapable of catching those transient lights and shades, that unutterable play of feature into feature, by which the passions of this class are chiefly distinguished from each other, is compelled to have recourse to collateral imagery, complex personification, or allegorical accompaniments. To this remark it will be difficult to find an exception in any writer. Let us take Collins as an example, who is one of the best and boldest of our lyric bards. His description of Hope, in his celebrated Ode to the Passions, is exquisitely fine, but, after all, somewhat indefinite; the whole of its figure being that of a beautiful nymph, with fair eyes, an enchanting smile, and wavy golden hair, accompanied with a lyre or some other instrument, for we are not told what, which she strikes to a song of future or prospective pleasure, amid the echo of surrounding and responsive rocks, and woods, and valleys.

But thou, O Hope, with eyes so fair,
What was thy delighted measure?
Still it whisper'd promised pleasure,
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail.
Still would her touch the strain prolong,

And from the rocks, the woods, the vale,

She call'd on Echo still through all the song.

And where her sweetest theme she chose,

A soft responsive voice was heard at every close,
And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair.

The portrait is graceful, elegant, and animated; but I may venture to say, that the only real expression of the character of Hope, is derived, not from the features of her person, but from the subject of her song, the whisper of promised pleasure, the hail of distant scenes. I say not this, however, as a proof of the imperfection of the artists, but of the art itself.

Let us try another description from the same captivating production. The mellow horn having just been sounded and laid down by MELANCHOLY, the poet proceeds as follows:

But O how alter'd was its sprightlier tone

When CHEERFULNESS, a nymph of hea'thut hue,

Her bow across her shoulders slung,

Her buskins gemm'd with morning dew,

Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung,

The hunter's call, to Faun and Dryad known.

The oak-crown'd sisters and their chaste-eyed queen,

Satyrs and sylvan boys were seen

Peeping from forth their alley, green;

Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear,

And Sport leap'd up, and seized his beechen spear.

The remark I have just made will apply to the whole of this admirable grou than which a finer or more correct and accordant was never offered to the world. The passion of CHEERFULNESS gives, indeed, a specific expression and character to the countenance that sufficiently identifies it to the beholder, and is sufficiently capable of being seized and fixed by the painter; but it is not calculated for poetry, and the only feature Mr. Collins has copied into his description is that of a healthy hue. But he has admirably atoned for this poverty of his art by the picturesque scenery and associates with which he has surrounded her, and in which the province of poetry has an inexhaustible mine of wealth: and as much exceeds that of painting as painting exceeds poetry in the delineation of specific features and attitudes. Cheerfulness, though not distinguishable by the features of her person, is sufficiently made known to us by the company she keeps, by her attire, her manner, and her accoutrements.

One of the finest pictures and sweetest groupings of this allegorical kind to be met with in our own language, is contained in the following verses of Dr. Darwin's Ode to May in his Botanic Garden. They are worthy of Anacreon or Pindar.

Born in yon blaze of orient sky,

Sweet MAY, thy radiant form unfold;
Unclose thy blue, voluptuous eye,

And wave thy shadowy locks of gold.
For thee the fragrant zephyrs blow;
For thee descends the sunny shower;
The rills in softer murmurs flow,

And brighter blossoms gem the bower.
Light Graces, dress'd in flowry wreaths,
And tip-toe joys their hands combine;
While Love the fond contagion breathes,
And, laughing, dances round thy shrine.

This subject is a pleasing one; but it swells before me to infinity, and I must drop it. In the lecture for next week, we shall enter upon the doctrine of physiognomy, or the permanent influence of the mind upon the exterior of the body.

LECTURE XIII.

ON PHYSIOGNOMY AND CRANIOGNOMY, OR THE EXPRESSION OF THE TEMPER AND TALENTS.

THE ingenuity of man is never satisfied with research. In tracing out the disposition of the mind by the variable features of the face, it has been discovered that this last, though a general criterion, is not always an infallible sign. It does not in every instance, it is said, disclose even the present and acting emotion; for, in some persons, the symbols are naturally slight and evanescent; while in others, from a long and skilful course of hypocrisy and dissimulation, they are repressed, or even fraudulently exchanged, for symbols representative of affections which have no real existence. But still less do they manifest the fixed and permanent propensity of the mind, which is ever pursuing its specific drift, whatever be the transition of the passions or of the features from one character to another. And it has hence been inquired whether there may not be some soberer and less variable index by which the natural bent and tendency of the mind may be detected; a something that no art can imitate, no dissimulation conceal, inwoven in the toughest and hardest, as well as in the softer and more flexible parts of the body-in the very tissue and figure of the bones; and, consequently, which

Grows with our growth, and strengthens with our strength.

From such inquiries has arisen the study, for it can scarcely be called the science, of PHYSIOGNOMY,-Temper-indication, or Temper-dialling, for such is the meaning of physiognomy, when strictly translated. It is a figurative term, which supposes the body to be a dial-plate on which the habitual turn or bearing of the mind is shadowed by means of the index or gnomon of some fixed and prominent external distinction, which retains its power and purpose amid all the fleeting changes of the passions, and the mask of made-up smiles and serenity.

This study is of early date, and in its descent to our own day has met with a perpetual alternation of evil report and good report, in proportion as it has acquired the favouritism or encountered the rejection of public opinion. Aristotle appears to have been the first philosopher who attempted to reduce it to any thing like a scientific pursuit, and to fix it upon any thing like permanent and undeniable principles. His definition of it is excellent: "It is the science," says he, "by which the dispositions of mankind are discoverable by the features of the body, and especially by those of the countenance." And in the developement of this pursuit he advanced it as a leading doctrine, that a peculiar form of body is invariably accompanied by a peculiar dispo

sition of mind; that a human intellect is never found in the corporeal form of a beast; and that the mind and body exercise a reciprocal influence over each other: referring us for examples of the former to delirium and intoxication, in which the mental follows upon the corporeal derangement; and, for examples of the latter, to the passions of fear and joy, in which the body inversely displays the affections of the mind.

As the result of this principle and illustration, he argues, and no modern writer upon the subject has ever argued more clearly, that whenever among mankind a certain bodily character appears, which by prior experience and observation has been found uniformly accompanied by a certain mental disposition, we have a right to infer that it is necessarily connected with it; and we may fairly and legitimately ascribe it to the individual that exhibits such character. And, pursuing this line of application, he tells us farther, that our observations may be drawn from other animals as well as from men; for, as a lion possesses one bodily form and mental character, and a hare another, the corporeal characteristics of the lion, such as strong hair, deep voice, large extremities, when discernible in a human being, cannot fail to raise in the mind an idea of the strength and courage of that noble animal; while the slender limbs, soft down, and other features of the hare, whenever visible, or approximated among mankind, betray the mental character of that pusillanimous quadruped.

It is impossible to refuse our assent to sentiments so just and obvious; and to this extent almost every one is a physiognomist by nature; for no man can walk the streets without noticing, in the first place, a marked and striking difference between one face and another face, one form and another form; and, in the second place, without ascribing, in consequence of such difference, the possession of vigour to one person that passes by, wisdom to a second, magnanimity to a third, folly to a fourth, debility to a fifth, and meanness to a sixth.

Physiognomy, therefore, as to its general principles, has perhaps never been altogether neglected; it seems in almost every age to have influenced men's opinion and conduct in first associating with strangers; and has not unfrequently excited a favourable or an unfavourable prepossession before a word has been spoken or an action performed. As a science, though an imperfect one, it was pursued, upon the general doctrines of Aristotle, among the Greeks and Romans, till the downfall of all the sciences upon the irruption of the northern barbarians into Europe, towards the close of the fifth century; and was for a long time so systematically cultivated at Rome, that Cicero was in the habit of publicly availing himself of its force whenever, by employing it so as to excite contempt or hatred, it could be turned to the advantage of his client; of which we have striking examples in his orations against Piso, and in favour of Roscius; while we learn from Suetonius that the emperor Titus engaged a professed physiognomist, of the name of Narcissus, to examine the features of Pritannicus as to his character and chance of success in his claims upon the empire against himself; who, it appears, gave an opinion in favour of Titus, and declared, and, according to the event, declared truly, that Britannicus would never live to assume the imperial purple. In this curious fact of history we find physiognomy united at an early period of the Roman empire with magic or judicial astrology; and we also find that upon its revival, on the general resurrection of science about the middle of the fifteenth century, one of its first and most unfortunate occurrences was a connexion of the same kind; from which it only separated to form other and successive alliances with metaphysical theology, alchymy, the doctrine of signatures and sympathies, and the theosophy of the Mystics and Rosicrucians. So that it again fell into contempt with the most liberal and enlightened part of mankind; who, however, did not give themselves the trouble to sift the wheat from the chaff. And though occasionally started afresh in literary journals, and other publications of considerable merit and authority, as, for example, by Dr. Gwyther and Dr. Parsons in our own Philosophical Transactions; by Pernetti and Le Cat, in the Transactions of the Berlin

Academy; and in the separate writings of Lancisi, Haller, and Buffon; it was not till the appearance of the elegant and popular work of M. Lavater, the well-known dean of Zurich, that physiognomy was again able to establish itself as a scientific pursuit in the good opinion of mankind.

The two grand objects of M. Lavater were to clear physiognomy of its mystical and other adventitious connexions, and to advance it to the rank of an exact and demonstrable science. The first of these was as judicious as the second was absurd: for he himself was at the time in possession of nothing more than a certain number of detached facts or fragments, which he did not venture to communicate to the world in any higher form than that of essays. His work is chiefly distinguished by a spirit of analysis, and at times of anatomy, to which no other work on the subject had hitherto pretended. Instead of generalizing the human form, and taking the features by the group, as was the case with Aristotle, and is the case with mankind at large, he aimed at separating the features from each other, and endeavoured to assign to each its peculiar bearing. And, fully believing that the general character of the mental disposition runs with a uniform and uninterrupted harmony through every feature and every organ, he frequently trusted to a single feature or a single organ for its developement. In doing which he usually selected such as were least flexible, and by the mass of mankind least suspected; as the form of the bones, particularly those of the head or face; the shape of the ears, hands, feet, or even of the nails; and he hereby endeavoured to baffle all dissimulation, and to avoid confounding the permanent temper with those occasional flights of passion by which the flexible features are disturbed and varied.

We have not time to follow up M. Lavater's hypothesis into these points of detail, nor would it be altogether worth our while if we had. The author was a learned and most excellent man, but at the same time a man of a warm and enthusiastic imagination; and notwithstanding that his remarks are in many respects precise, and his distinctions acute, and afford evident proof of their being the result of actual observation; and notwithstanding, moreover, that they are richly illustrated, after the laudable example of Baptista Porta, by expressive and elegant engravings,-the declamatory tenor of his style, the singularity and extravagance of many of his opinions, his peremptory and decisive tone upon the most vague and disputable topics, his puffing up trifles into matters of magnitude, and the absurd extreme to which he pushed his hypothesis, so as to make it embrace and exemplify the face and features of all nature as well as those of man and the higher ranks of quadrupeds; these and various other sproutings of the warm and luxuriant fancy I have just referred to, prevented his work from obtaining more than a transient popularity; and it sunk beneath the attacks of M. Formey and other continental writers, who laboured, and some of them perhaps disingenuously, to point out its defects and extravagances.

Perhaps one of the most whimsical of M. Lavater's opinions is, that no person can make a good physiognomist unless he is a well-proportioned and handsome man; a position which seems to be altogether at variance with his own progress in the study, for the dean of Zurich had few pretensions to such a figure. Another singularity of opinion was that of his extending his physiognomic characters to the peculiarity of the handwriting; and in this instance reviving the reveries of many of the ancient mystics, who pretended to confide in the same mark; while by interweaving into the body of this science a belief in apparitions, and this, too, upon very peculiar and fanciful principles, he has indirectly connected it with the dark and exploded study of divination, from which it was one of his first and most prominent objects to separate it.

I will only farther observe, that in the wide extent to which he carried this favourite and fascinating science of his heart, he describes the whole material world as subject to its dominion; amuses us with a developement of the propensities, partialities, and ruling passions, not only of men and quadrupeds, but of birds, fishes, reptiles, and insects, from the unequivocal language of