B.

THE EYES.

BLUE eyes are, generally, more significant of weakness, effeminacy, and yielding, than brown and black. True it is there are many powerful men with blue eyes, but I find more strength, manhood, and thought, combined with brown than with blue. Wherefore does it happen that the Chinese, or the people of the Philippine islands, are very seldom blue eyed, and that Europeans only, or the descendants of Europeans, have blue eyes in those countries? This is the more worthy enquiry because there are no people more effeminate, luxurious, peaceable, or indolent than the Chinese.

Choleric men have eyes of every colour, but more brown, and inclined to green, than blue. This propensity to green is almost a decisive token of ardour, fire, and courage.

I have never met with clear blue eyes in the melancholic; seldom in the choleric; but most in the phlegmatic temperament, which, however, had much activity.

When the under arch described by the upper eyelid is perfectly circular, it always

denotes goodness and tenderness, but also fear, timidity, and weakness.

The open eye, not compressed, forming a long acute angle with the nose, I have but seldom seen, except in acute and understanding persons.

Hitherto I have seen no eye, where the eyelid formed a horizontal line over the pupil, that did not appertain to a very acute, able, subtle man; be it understood I have met with this eye in many worthy men, but men of great penetration, and simulation.

Wide, open, eyes, with the white seen under the apple, I have observed in the timid, and phlegmatic; and, also, in the courageous and rash. When compared, however, the fiery and the feeble, the determined and the undetermined, will easily be distinguished. The former are more firm, more strongly delineated, have less obliquity, have thicker, better cut, but less skinny, eyelids.

ADDITION.

FROM THE GOTHA COURT CALENDAR, 1771, OR RATHER FROM BUFFON.

"THE colours most common to the eyes are the orange, yellow, green, blue, grey, and grey

mixt with white. The blue and orange are most predominant, and are often found in the same eye. Eyes supposed to be black are only yellow, brown, or a deep orange; to convince ourselves of which we need but look at them closely, for when seen at a distance, or turned toward the light, they appear to be black; because the yellow brown colour is so contrasted to the white of the eye that the opposition makes it supposed black. Eyes, also, of a less dark colour, pass for black eyes, but are not esteemed so fine as the other, because the contrast is not so great. There, also, are yellow, and bright yellow, eyes, which do not appear black, because the colours are not deep enough to be overpowered by the shade.

"It is not uncommon to perceive shades of orange, yellow, grey, and blue, in the same eye, and, whenever blue appears, however small the tincture, it becomes the predominant colour, and appears in streaks, over the whole iris. The orange is in flakes, round, and at some little distance from, the pupil; but is so strongly effaced by the blue that the eye appears wholly blue, and the mixture of orange is only perceived when closely inspected.

"The finest eyes are those which we imagine to be black or blue. Vivacity and fire, which * are the principal characteristics of the eyes, are the more emitted when the colours are deep and contrasted, rather than when slightly shaded. Black eyes have most strength of expression, and most vivacity; but the blue have most mildness, and, perhaps, are more arch. In the former there is an ardour uninterruptedly bright, because the colour, which appears to us uniform, every way emits similar reflections. But modifications are distinguished in the light which animates blue eyes, because there are various tints of colour which produce various reflections.

"There are eyes which make themselves remarkable by having what may be said to be no colour. They appear to be differently constituted from others. The iris has only some shades of blue, or grey, so feeble that they are almost white, in some parts; and the shades of orange, which intervene, are so small that they scarcely can be distinguished from grey or white, notwithstanding the contrast of these colours. The black of the pupil is then too marking, because the co

* Together with the form and delineation.

lour of the iris is not deep enough, and, as I may say, we see only the pupil, in the centre of the eye. These eyes are unmeaning, and their glance is fixed and dead.

"There also are eyes the colour of the iris of which is almost green; but these are more uncommon than the blue, the grey, the yellow, and the yellow brown. There are people too whose eyes are not both of the same colour. This variety which is found in the colour of the eyes is peculiar to the human species, the horse, and the dog *.

(2) "The images of our secret agitations are particularly painted in the eyes. The eye appertains more to the soul than any other organ; seems affected by, and to participate in, all its emotions; expresses sensations the most lively, passions the most tumultuous, feelings the most delightful, and sentiments the most delicate. It explains them in all their force, in all their purity, as they take birth, and transmits them by traits so rapid as to infuse into other minds the fire, the activity, the very image with which themselves are inspired. The eye at once receives and reflects the intelligence of

*This is a mistake, witness the Persian cat. T.