he is apt, from the warm and sanguine character of his nature, sometimes to defend the rights of injured honour at the expence of some degree of propriety and decorum; but beyond that he will not step. He will not himself act a dishonourable part, though it were to produce the greatest possible good, or to gratify the strongest temptation to revenge. The rage, the indignation, the storm of fury, that you have just witnessed, which appeared to threaten destruction to every thing within its reach, was, therefore, the ebullition of a moment-the overflowings of a too ardent or mistaken zeal, in defence of some, perhaps, imaginary infringement of that great rule of right, by which he wishes to govern his own conduct. It has burst

Like spark from smitten steel and straight, 'tis cool again.

Decide not then too hastily; judge not of any man from the mere temporary action of the moveable parts of his countenance; but from the general tenour of his conduct and

disposition, as you see his character portrayed in the fixed and permanent lines and contour of his whole physionomy. Let excessive anger be censured; but let not the whole man be condemned." Such would be the different conclusions to which two persons would come; the one judging merely pathognomically; the other, in the enlarged spirit of physiognomical discrimination.

Lavater, in his admirable lecture on this branch of the science, after stating, as already intimated, that Pathognomy has to do with dissimulation, adds, that Physiognomy is under no. such necessity; it is not to be deceived or misled. It warns us not to take him for a rich man who offers usurious interest, nor to reckon him poor who refuses to give five per cent. In other words, to the eye of pathognomy, the poor may appear rich; while the physionomist only admits him to be so, who is so in fact, although he may appear poor at the moment of decision.

66

These two sciences," continues this ami

...e founded on the basis of

considered as inseparable.

st study them together; and, by

will easily discover the relation

Sea to each other. By study he will

to know the physionomy of the parts wch are solid and quiescent, by those which are soit, pliable, and in motion. In this discovery, as he perceives the pliancy and power of motion in these latter, in the solid parts he assigns to every line of the forehead the space to which the sportings of passion are limited; he will determine for every passion the seat of its residence, the original source from which it flows, its root, the fountain which supplies it; and the result, if properly derived, will certainly develop the moral and intellectual character of man."

It has been said that Physiognomy contemplates the character of man from parts of his physionomy while in a state of rest.

By this is meant, that the fixed, or native appearance of the human face furnishes, in most cases, an

accurate index of the reigning, fixed, absolute character of the soul or mind; and that Pathognomy is that portion of this science which determines the truth of the former by a contemplation of those parts of the human face which are moveable and moving.

Let us carry these investigations still more into detail, and prove, before we enter upon the subject, that Physiognomy is indeed a science, that there is throughout universal nature such a determined physionomy as cannot be controverted.

The moralist Dodsley has remarked, that “a lie's a lie, though all the world believe it;" but I think it would be difficult to point out any one palpable error in which all the world has uniformly acquiesced. Individuals may fall into the greatest mistakes, and believe the most manifest falsehoods. Communities of individuals, all moving under the same kind of influence, may also fall into great and obvious misunderstandings ;-nay, whole nations may be de

the wandering vivacity of a monkey for no man who reads at all, reads after that manner. Whether I am understood or not, it will be impossible to read my reasonings and statements without some emotion being raised in the mind; and every emotion so raised, will have its correspondent expression in the physionomy. No book, or even ordinary epistle, can be read without it. For if the thing written should be one of impenetrable mystery and darkness, an enigma as dark as the Egyptian plague which might be said to be felt, then will an indication of wonder manifest itself; and the eye will silently say, 'How can these things be?" If the matter written be some plain matter of fact already known to the reader, he may perhaps lay down the book, and with a smile of self-complacency exclaim, "Aye! aye! I knew all this before!" In every case the physionomy shall be engaged; and were it possible that a man's looks could be as immediately transferred to paper as his thoughts can, they would speak a truer language than any thing which he could or would write.