a Steele, a Pope, and an Addison will follow. A great countenance has the credentials of its high original in itself. With calm reverence and simplicity nourish the mind with the presence of a great countenance; its emanations shall attract and exalt thee. A great countenance, in a state of rest, acts more powerfully than a common countenance impassioned; its effects, though unresembling, are general. The fortunate disciples, though they knew him not, yet did their hearts burn within them, while he talked with them by the way, and opened to them the scriptures. The buyers and sellers, whom he drove out of the Temple, durst not oppose him.

It may from hence be conceived how certain persons, by their mere persons, have brought a seditious multitude back to their duty, although the latter had acquired the full power. That natural, unborrowed, indwelling power, which is consequently superior to any which can be assumed, is as evident to all eyes as the thunder of heaven is to all ears.

5.

Great physiognomonical wisdom not only consists in discovering the general character of, and being highly affected by the present countenance, or this or that particular propensity, but in discriminating the individual character of each kind of mind, and its capacity, and being able to define the circle beyond which it cannot

pass; to say what sensations, actions, and judgments, are, or are not, to be expected from the man under consideration, that we may not idly waste power, but dispense just sufficient to actuate, and put him in motion.

No man is more liable to the error of thoughtless haste than I was. Four or five years of physiognomonical observation were requisite to eure me of this too hasty waste of power. It is a part of benevolence to give, entrust, and participate; but physiognomy teaches when, how, and to whom, to give. It therefore teaches true benevolence, to assist where assistance is wanted, and will be accepted. Oh! that I could call at the proper moment, and with proper effect, to the feeling and benevolent heart. Waste not, cast not thy seed upon the waters, or upon a rock. Speak only to the hearer; unbosom thyself but to those who can understand thee; philosophize with none but philosophers; spiritualize only with the spiritual. It requires greater power to bridle strength than to give it the rein. To withhold is often better than to give. What is not enjoyed will be cast back with acrimony, or trodden to waste, and thus will become useless to all.

6.

To the good be good; resist not the irresistible countenance. Give the eye that asks, that comes recommended to thee by Providence, or by God himself, and which to reject is to reject God,

who cannot ask thee more powerfully than when entreating in a cheerful, open, innocent, countenance. Thou canst not more immediately glorify God than by wishing and acting well to countenance replete with the spirit of God, nor more certainly, and abhorrently, offend and wound the majesty of God, than by despising, ridiculing, and turning from such a countenance. God cannot more effectually move man than by

1 man.

Whoever rejects the man of God, rejects God. To discover the radiance of the Creator in the visage of man is the pre-eminent quality of man; it is the summit of wisdom and benevolence to feel how much of this radiance is there, to discern this ray of Divinity through the clouds of the most debased countenances, and dig out this small gem of heaven from amid the ruins and rubbish by which it is encumbered.

7.

Shouldest thou, friend of man, esteem physiog nomy as highly as I do, to whom it daily becomes of greater worth the more I discover its truth; if thou hast an eye to select the few noble, or that which is noble in the ignoble, that which is divine in all men, the immortal in what is mortal, then speak little, but observe much; dispute not, but exercise thy sensation, for thou wilt convince no one to whom this sensation is wanting.

When noble poverty presents to you a face in which humility, patience, faith, and love,

shine conspicuously, how superior will thy joy be in his words who has told thee," inasmuch as thou hast done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, thou hast done it unto me!"

With a sigh of hope you will exclaim, when youth and dissipation present themselves, this forehead was delineated by God for the search and the discovery of truth. In this eye rests unripened wisdom.

CHAP. LIV.

Of the Union between the Knowledge of the Heart and Philanthropy.-Miscellaneous physiognomonical Thoughts from Holy Writ.

MAY the union between the knowledge of the heart and philanthropy be obtained by the same means? Does not a knowledge of the heart destroy or weaken philanthropy? Does not our good opinion of any man diminish when he is perfectly known? And if so, how may philanthropy be increased by this knowledge?

What is here alleged is truth; but it is partial truth. And how fruitful a source of error is partial truth! It is a certain truth, that the majority of men are losers by being accurately known; but it is no less true, that the majority of men gain as much on one side as they lose on the other by being thus accurately known. Who is so wise as never to act foolishly? Where

is the virtue wholly unpolluted by vice; with thoughts, at all moments, simple, direct, and pure? I dare undertake to maintain, that all men, with some very rare exceptions, lose by being known. But it may also be proved, by the most irrefragable arguments, that all men gain by being known; consequently a knowledge of the heart is not detrimental to the love of mankind, but promotes it.

Physiognomy discovers actual and possible perfections, which, without its aid, must ever have remained hidden. The more man is studied, the more power and positive goodness will he be discovered to possess. As the experienced eye of the painter perceives a thousand small shades and colours, which are unremarked by common spectators, so the physiognomist views a multitude of actual or possible perfections, which escape the general eye of the despiser, the slanderer, or even the more benevolent judge of mankind.

The good which I, as a physiognomist, have observed in people round me, has more than compensated that mass of evil, which, though I appeared blind, I could not avoid seeing. The more I have studied man, the more have I been convinced of the general influence of his faculties; the more have I remarked, that the origin of all evil is good, that those very powers which made him evil, those abilities, forces, irritability, elasticity, were all in themselves actual, positive good. The absence of these, indeed,