over the head of Pompey, sinking beneath his assassins, and casting an expiring look of affliction and reproach, while he exclaims, Et tu Brute? Belshazzar feasting with his nobles, turning pale at the hand-writing on the wall. The tyrant enraged, butchering his slaves, and surrounded by condemned wretches entreating mercy from the uplifted sword.

"Sensation having a relative influence on the voice, must not there be one principal tone or key, by which all the others are governed, and will not this be the key, in which he speaks when unimpassioned, like as the countenance at rest contains the propensities to all such traits as it is capable of receiving? These keys of voice a good musician, with a fine ear, should collect, class, and learn to define, so that he might place the key of the voice beside any given countenance, making proper allowances for changes, occasioned by the form of the lungs, exclusive of disease. Tall people, with a flatness of breast, have weak voices.

"This idea, which is more difficult to execute than conceive, was inspired by the various tones in which I have heard yes and no pronounced. The various emotions under which these words are uttered, whether of assurance, decision, joy, grief, ridicule, or laughter, will give birth to tones as various. Yet each man has his peculiar manner, respondent to his character, of saying yes, no, or any other word. It will be open, hesitating, grave, trifling, sympathizing, cold

peevish, mild, fearless, or timid. What a guide for the man of the world, and how do such tones display or betray the mind!

"Since we are taught by experience, that, at certain times, the man of understanding appears foolish, the courageous cowardly, the benevolent perverse, and the cheerful discontented, we might, by the assistance of these accidental traits, draw an idea of each motion; and this would be a most valuable addition, and an important step in the progress of physiognomy.

CHAP. XXXIX.

Extracts from NICOLAI and WINKELMANN,

Extracts from Nicolai.

1.

"THE distorted or disfigured form may originate as well from external as from internal causes; but the consistency of the whole is the consequence of conformity between internal and external causes; for which reason moral goodness is much more visible in the countenance than moral evil."

This is true, those moments excepted when moral evil is in act.

2.

The end of physiognomy ought to be, not

conjectures on individual, but the discovery of general character."

The meaning of which is, the discovery of general signs of powers and sensations, which cer tainly are useless, unless they can be individually applied,since our intercourse is with individuals.

3.

"It would be of great utility to physiognomy were numerous portraits of the same man annually drawn, and the original, by that means,

well known."

It is possible, and perhaps only possible, to procure accurate shades, or plaster casts. Minute changes are seldom accurately enough attended to by the painter, for the purpose physiognomy.

4.

of

"The most important pursuit of the physiog nomist in his researches will ever be, in what manner is a man considered capable of the impressions of sense. Through what kind of perspective does he view the world? What can he give? What receive?

5.

"That very vivacity of imagination, that quickness of conception, without which no man can be a physiognomist, is probably almost in separable from other qualities which render the

highest caution necessary, if the result of his observations is to be applied to living persons."

This I readily grant; but the danger will be much less if he endeavours to employ his quick sensations in determinate signs; if he be able to pourtray the general tokens of certain powers, sensations, and passions, and if his rapid imagition be only busied to discover and draw resemblances.

Extracts from Winkelmann.

1.

"THE characteristic of truth is internal sensation, and the designer who would present such natural sensation to his academy, would not obtain a shade of the true, without a peculiar addition of something, which an ordinary and unimpassioned mind cannot read in any model, being ignorant of the action peculiar to each sensation and passion.

The physiognomist is formed by internal sensation, which if the designer be not, he will give but the shadow, and only an indefinite and confused shadow, of the true character of nature.

2.

66 The forehead and nose of the Greek gods and goddesses form almost a straight line. The heads of famous women, on Greek coins, have similar profiles, where the fancy might not be

indulged in ideal beauties. Hence we may con jecture, that this form was as common to the an cient Greeks as the flat nose to the Calmuc, or the small eye to the Chinese. The large eyes of Grecian heads, in gems and coins, support this conjecture."

This ought not to be absolutely general, and probably was not, since numerous medals shew the contrary, though in certain ages and countries such might have been the most common form. Had only one such countenance, however, presented itself to the genius of art, it would have been sufficient for its propagation and continuance. the signification of such a form. The nearer the approach to the perpendicular, the less is there characteristic of the wise and graceful; and the higher the character of worth and greatness, the more obliquely the lines retreat. The more straight and perpendicular the profile of the forehead and nose is, the more does the profile of the upper part of the head approach a right angle, from which wisdom and beauty will fly with equally rapid steps. In the usual copies of these famous ancient lines of beauty, I generally find the expression of meanness, and, if I dare to say, of vague insipidity. I repeat, in the copies; in the Sophonisba of Angelica Kauffman, for instance, where probably the shading under the hair has been neglected, and where the gentle arching of the lines, apparently were scarcely attainable.

This is less our concern than