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should either be my adieu, as the thing least important, or as a recreation on my arrival. Pardon me, men of renown; I have been credulous in your favour, but I daily become more circumspect. Far be it from me to depreciate your worth. I know many, whose presence does not diminish but increase fame; yet will I be careful, that remorse shall ́ neither dazzle nor cloud my reason.

It would be much more agreeable to me to mix unknown with the multitude, visit churches, public walks, hospitals, orphan-houses, and assemblies of ecclesiastics and men of the law. I would first consider the general form of the inhabitants, their height, proportion, strength, weakness, motion, complexion, attitude, gesture, and gait. I would observe them individually; see, compare, close my eyes, trace in imagination all I had seen, open them again, correct my memory, and close and open them alternately. I would study for words, write, and draw with a few determinate traits, the general form, so easy to be discovered. I would compare my drawings with the known general form of the people. How easily might a summary, an index of the people, be obtained!

Having made these familiar to me, I would descend to the particular, would search for the general form of the head, would ask, Is it most confined to the cylindrical, the spherical, the Is the square, the convex, or the concave? countenance open, is it writhed, is it free, or

forked? I would next examine the forehead, then the eyebrows, the outline and colour of the eyes, the nose, and especially the mouth when it is open; and the teeth, with their appearances, to discover the national characteristic.

Could I but define the line of the opening of the lips, in seven promiscuous countenances, I imagine I should have found the general physiognomonical character of the nation or place. I almost dare to establish it as an axiom, that what is common to six or seven persons of any place, taken promiscuously, is more or less common to the whole. Exceptions there may be, but they will be rare.

In the next place, I would plant myself in a public walk, or at the crossing of streets. There I would wait patiently for the unknown noble countenance, uncorrupted by fame and adulation, which certainly, most certainly, I should find for in all countries on earth, wherever a hundred common men are assembled, one not common may be found; and out of a thousand,

ten.

I must have, indeed, little eye, little sensibility for noble humanity, little faith in Providence, which seeks its adorers, if I did not find this one in a hundred, or at least in the ten among a thousand. He that seeketh shall find. I waited not in vain. He came, I found him, he passed by me. And what were the tokens by which I discovered him, in every town, every nation, under every cope of heaven, and among

all people, kindred, and tongues?-By the general combination of the countenance, by the. upper outline of the forehead, the eyebrows, the basis of the nose, and the mouth, so conformable to each other, so parallel and horizontal, at the first glance. By the wrinkless, compressed, yet open forehead, the powerful eyebrows; the easily discerned, easily delineated space between the eyebrows, which extends itself to the back of the nose, like the great street from the marketplace to the chief gate of a city. By the shut but freely breathing mouth; the chin, neither haggard nor fleshy; the deep and shining attraction of the eye; which all, uncautiously and unintentionally, betrayed themselves to my research; or I discovered him even in his foreign and distorted form, from which the arrogant, self-supposed handsome, would turn with contempt. I see through his disguise, as I should the hand of a great master through the smear of varnish.

I approach the favourite of heaven. I question him concerning what I do, and what I do not wish to know, that I may hear the voice of the soul proceeding from the mouth; and, viewing him nearer, I see all the obliquities of distortion vanish. I ask him concerning his occupation, his family, his place of residence. I inquire the road thither. I come unexpectedly upon him into his house, into his workshop; he rises, I oblige him to be seated, to continue his labour. I see his children, his wife, and am de.

lighted. He knows not what I want, nor do I know myself, yet am I pleased with him, and he with me. I purchase something or nothing, as it happens. I inquire particularly after his friends. "You have but few, but those few are faithful." He stands astonished, smiles or weeps, in the innocence and goodness of his heart, which he wishes to conceal, but which is open as day. He gains my affection; our emotions are reciprocally expanded and strengthened; we separate reluctantly, and I know I have entered a house which is entered by the angels of God.

Oh! how gratefully, how highly is he rewarded for his labours who travels, interested in behalf of humanity, and with the eyes of a man, to collect, in the spirit, the children of God, who are scattered over the world! This appears to me to be the supreme bliss of man, as it must be of angels.

If I do not meet him, I have no resource but in society. Here I hear him most who speaks least, mildest, and most unaffectedly. Wherever I meet the smile of self-sufficiency, or the oblique look of envy, I turn away, and seek him who remains oppressed by the loud voice of confidence. I set myself rather beside the answerer than the man of clamorous loquacity; and still rather beside the humble inquirer than the voluble solver of all difficulties.

He who hastens too fast, or lags behind, is no companion of mine. I rather seek him who

walks with a free, firm, and even step; who looks but little about him; who neither carries his head aloft, nor contemplates his legs and feet. If the hand of affliction be heavy on him, I set myself by his side, take his hand, and, with a glance, infuse conviction to his soul, that God is love.

In my memory I retain the simple outlines of the loud and the violent, the laughter and the smiler, of him who gives the key, and him who takes. I then commit them to paper; my collection increases. I compare, arrange, judge, and am astonished. I every where find similarity of traits, similarity of character; the same humanity every where, and every where the same tokens.

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CHAP. XLV.

A Word to Princes and Judges.

FOR your use, most important of men, how willingly would I write a treatise. Who so much as you need a perfect knowledge of man, free from cabal, or the intervention of self-interest! Suffer me to approach your throne, and present my address.

In your most secret common-place book, keep an index to each class of character among men, taken from at least ten of the most accurate

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