REVISION BY MR. LAVATER.

I HAVE read this second volume of the Physiognomonical Fragments, which are only occasionally abridged, with the greatest attention; and find little to add, alter, or explain. Some few errors of the press excepted, I have nothing but what follows to remark.

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Page 43-" Among the portrait painters "I hold sacred Mignard, Largilliere, Rigaud, Kneller, Reynolds, and Vandyke.-I pre"fer Mignard's and Rigaud's portraits to Vandyke's, who is often deficient in industry and illusion, since he rather con"sidered the whole and the spirit of the -I "countenance than its minute parts. honour Vandyke perhaps as highly as any man; but should some of his pictures which I have not seen be more laboriously and minutely finished, still it is generally true that for the physiognomist and his studies, his heads (not including the forms, in which he was so fortunate, nor the foreheads and

eye

brows, to which he so well knew how to impart individuality and character) contain too few of the small lines, and the distinct parts have too little precision; he principally painted to produce effect at the distance of a few paces.

2.

Page 95-" Let a number of shades be “taken and classed according to the foreheads, we shall shew in its place that all "real and possible human foreheads may "be classed under certain signs, and that "their classes are not innumerable.”—I wish to promise less than I shall perform, yet I hope, should I not publish this classification during my life, to leave it behind me at my death.

3.

Page 102-To the judgment on the outline from a bust of Cicero, I wish to add"Often disposed to contemn, and imagines "it has an inherent right so to contemn."

4.

Page 137 Not very penetrating."Read more accurately-The outline of this forehead is deficient in penetration; or, as

I may with greater propriety say, the almost unerring penetration of the original is wanting. The shade has likewise an air of importance, of self-complacency, which is as distant from the modesty of the man as heaven is from earth.

5.

Head, number 1, facing page 241-Is more pointed (or conical) in the engraving than in the drawing on which the judgment was given.

6.

Page 257-" A touchstone for many coun"tenances."-Instead of this obscure remark add the following-The physiognomist will never overlook the signs of wisdom which exist in a countenance that may be supposed foolish, although it be really wise; he will not be so mistaken: he will be able to investigate them all, and arrange them according to these four classes.

7.

Page 257-"The son is often brought in "debtor to the great understanding of the father."-I know not whether I have or have not elsewhere made this remark, but

it seems a general law of nature to interrupt the propagation of great minds.

These are all the remarks I have to make on this Second Volume. May this also effect some good, however little.

JUNE 9, 1784.

J. C. LAVATER.

END OF VOL. 11.