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These often

yet are they Time produces

finite, is there in this passage! According to my conception, I see the clay, the mass, in the youthful countenance; but not the form of the future man. There are passions and powers of youth, and passions and powers of age. are contradictory in the same man, contained one within the other. the expression of latent traits. A man is but a boy seen through a magnifying glass; I always, therefore, perceive more in the countenance of a man than of a boy. Dissimulation may in、 deed conceal the moral materials, but not alter their form. The growth of powers and passions imparts, to the first undefined sketch of what is called a boy's countenance, the firm traits, shading, and colouring of manhood.

These are youthful countenances, which declare whether they ever shall, or shall not, ripen into man. This they declare, but they only declare it to the great physiognomist. I will acknowledge, when, which seldom happens, the form of the head is beautiful, conspicuous, proportionate, greatly featured, well defined, and· not too feebly coloured, it will be difficult that the result should be common or vulgar. I likewise know, that where the form is distorted, especially when it is transverse, extended, undefined, or too harshly defined, much can rarely be expected. But how much do the forms of youthful countenances change, even in the system of the bones!

A great deal has been said of the openness, un

degeneracy, simplicity, and ingenuousness of a childish and youthful countenance. It may be so; but, for my own part, I must own, I am not so fortunate as to be able to read a youthful countenance with the same degree of quickness and precision, however small that degree, as one that is manly. The more I converse with and consider children, the more difficult do I find it to pronounce, with certainty, concerning their character. Not that I do not meet countenances, among children and boys, most strikingly and positively significant; yet seldom is the great outline of the youth so definite as for us to be able to read in it the man. The most remarkably advantageous young countenances may easily, through accident, terror, hurt, or severity in parents or tutors, be internally injured, without any apparent injury to the whole. The beautiful, the eloquent form, the firm forehead, the deep, sharp eye, the cheerful, open, free, quickmoving mouth remain; there will only be a drop of troubled water in what else appears so clear; only an uncommon, scarcely remarkable, perhaps convulsive motion of the mouth. Thus is hope overthrown, and beauty rendered indistinct.

As simplicity is the soil of variety, so is innocence for the products of vice. Simplicity, not of a youth, but of a child, in thee the Omniscient only views the progress of sleeping passion; the gentle wrinkles of youth, the deep of manhood, and the manifold and relaxed of age. Oh! how

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different was my infantine countenance to the present, in form and speech! But, as transgression follows innocence, so doth virtue transgression.

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Doth the vessel say to the potter, "wherefore hast thou made me thus?-I am little, but I am 1." He who created me, did not create me to be a child, but a man. Wherefore should I ruminate on the pleasures of childhood, unburthened with cares? I am what I am. I will forget the past, nor weep that I am no longer a child, when I contemplate children in all their loveliness. To join the powers of man with the simplicity of the child, is the height of all my hopes. God grant they may be accomplished!

CHAP. XXXVI.

Physiogncmonical Extracts from an Essay inserted ̧· in the Deutschen Museum, a German Journal or Review.

FROM this essay I shall extract only select thoughts, and none but such as I suppose inportantly true, false, or ill defined,

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1.

Men with arched and pointed noses are said to be witty, and that the blunt noses are not so.” A more accurate definition is necessary, which, without drawing, is almost impossible. Is it

meant by arched noses arched in length or in breadth? How arched? This is almost as indeterminate as when we speak of arched foreheads. All foreheads are arched. Innumerable noses are arched, the most witty and the most stupid. Where is the highest point of arching? Where does it begin? What is its extent? What is its strength?

It must be allowed, that people with tender, thin, sharply defined, angular noses, pointed be low, and something inclined towards the lip, are witty, when no other features contradict these tokens; but that people with blunt noses are not so, is not entirely true. It can only be said of certain blunt noses, for there are others of this kind extremely witty, though their wit is certainly of a different kind to that of the pointed

nose.

21.

"It is asked, (supposing for a moment, that the arched and the blunt nose denote the presence or absence of wit) is the arched nose the mere sign that a man is witty, which supposes wit to originate in some occult cause, or is the nose itself the cause of wit?"

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I answer, sign, cause, and effect combined. Sign; for it betokens the wit, and is an involuntary expression of wit. Cause; at least cause that the wit is not greater, less, or of a different quality, boundary cause. Effect; produced by the quantity, measure, or activity of the mind,

which suffers not the nose to alter its form, to be greater or less. We are not only to consider the form as form, but the matter of which it is moulded, the conformability of which is determined by the nature and ingredients of this matter, which is probably the origin of the form. True indeed it is, that there are blunt noses, which are incapable of receiving a certain quantity of wit; therefore it may be said, with more subtlety than philosophy, they form an insuperable barrier.

3.

"The correspondence of external figures with internal qualities is not the consequence of external circumstances, but rather of physical, combination. They are related like cause and effect, or, in other words, physiognomy is not the mere image of internal man, but the efficient cause. The form and arrangement of the muscles determine the mode of thought, and sensibility of the man.

I add, these are also determined by the mind of man.

4.

"A broad conspicuous forehead is said to denote penetration. This is natural. The muscle of the forehead is necessary to deep thought. If it be narrow and contracted, it cannot render the same service as if spread out like a sail.”

I shall here, without contradicting the general

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