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painter, and we feel our minds unsatisfied if we do not discover it in real life.

No colours can be more different than those of the eyes and of the hair. The dark and blue eye; the fair and the black hair, are not only different but almost opposite; yet who will pretend that they have not felt beauty in all of them? and to what principle are we to ascribe the effect, if we maintain that there are only certain colours in this respect which nature has made beautiful?

It is still farther observable, that even in the same countenance the most different colours are beautiful, when they are expressive of pleasing or interesting qualities. The blush of modesty is very different from the paleness of sensibility. The glow of indignation is equally different from the pallid hue of concentrated affliction: the bloom of health and joy, from the langour of sickness and sorrow. Yet in the same person we may often witness these striking contrasts; and perhaps it would be difficult for us to say when the same countenance was most beautiful. In the colour of the eyes, the same differences are observable; the dark and brilliant eye may sometimes be veiled in dimness and distress. The softness of the blue eye may be exalted to temporary vigour and brilliancy.. The manly eye of the soldier may be suffused with pity; and the timed eye of woman burn with just resentment or with dignified scorn. In all such differences of colour, we may still feel the emotion of beau ty; an effect which could not possibly happen if there were any law of our nature, by which certain colours only in the human countenance were productive of this

emotion.

III.

In pursuing these observations, it is still more impor tant to observe, that our feelings of beauty in the colours

of the human countenance, are so far from being precise and definite, as they would necessarily be, if they arose from any original law of our nature, that, in reality, they are altogether dependent on our moral opinions, and that, not only in respect to the dispositions they signify, but even in respect to the degree of these dispositions. Of this very important fact, I shall offer only a few illustrations, because every one of my readers is able to verify it to himself.

The difference of the permanent colours of the countenance is obvious to every one. Every one, however, has not observed, that the same colours have affected him with very different emotions, in different circumstances. There is a paleness of complexion which arises from grief, from sensibility, from study. There is a similar paleness which arises from envy, from guilty fear, from deep revenge. If the colour alone were beautiful, its beauty would remain in every case; but no one will say that this is true. The beauty of the colour to us, is always dependent upon the disposition it signifies; the same colour varies in its effect with the expression, of which it is the sign; and the painter, while he spreads it upon his pallet, knows that by the same mechanical means, he can either create beauty or disgust, and make us, according to the expression which it signifies, glow with moral admiration, or thrill with moral terror.

The opposite colour of the countenance, the blooming or florid complexion, is subject to the same moral criticism. It is the sign to us in many cases, of joy, of hope, of enthusiasm, of virtuous indignation, of kind and benevolent affections. In all such cases, it is to a certain degree beautiful. In other cases it may be the sign to us of pride, of anger, of intemperate passion, of selfish arrogance. In such cases it is not only not beautiful,

but positively painful. How often are we deceived in this respect, in our first speculation upon any human countenance! and how permanently do we return to interpret the sign by the qualities we find it to signify, and to feel it either beautiful or otherwise by the nature of these qualities! The aversion which mankind have ever shewn to the painting of the countenance, has thus a real foundation in nature. It is a sign, which deceives, and, what is worse, which is intended to deceive. It never can harmonize with the genuine character of the coun tenance; it never can vary with those unexpected inci dents which give us our best insight into human charac ter; and it never can be practised but by those who have no character but that which fashion lends them, or those who wish to affect a character different from their own. The same observation may be extended to the colours of the eye. If we had no other principles of judgment than some original law of our nature, certain colours, or degrees of colouring, would alone be perma nently beautiful. How little this is the case; how much we appreciate the language of the eye, on the contrary, and how strikingly its beauty is determined by the emotions or passions it signifies, I leave very securely to my readers to verify by their own experience.

In the variable colours of the countenance, or those which arise from present or transitory feelings, the same fact is easily discernible. No things, in point of colouring, are so analogous as the blush of modesty, and that of conscious guilt; yet, when we know the emotions they signify, is their effect the same? The paleness of fear is beautiful, because it is ever interesting, in the fe male countenance. Tell us, that it arises from some trivial or absurd cause, and it becomes immediately ridiculous. There is a colour of indignation or of scorn,

which may accord with the most heroic beauty; say to us, that it arises from some childish source of etiquette or precedence, and our sentiment of beauty is instantly converted into disgust. There is a softness and langour both in the light and in the motion of the eye, which we never see without deep interest, when we consider it as expressive of general sensibility, or of occasional sorrow. Tell us, that it is affectation, that it is the manner of the ill-judging fair one who has adopted it, and instead of interest, we feel nothing but contempt. Illustrations of this kind might be easily extended to every emotion or passion of the human mind. I leave them to the prosecution of my readers; and I flatter myself, they will see that such varieties in our sense of beauty could never exist, if there were any certain and definite colours in the human countenance, which alone were originally and per. manently beautiful.

PART II,

Of the Features of the Human Countenance.

THERE is a similar division of the features of the countenance of men, as of its colours, into what may be called (though with some restriction) the permanent and the variable. The permanent features are such as give the individual distinction, or form the peculiar character of the countenance in moments of tranquillity and repose. Such are the peculiar form of the head, the proportion of the face, the forms of the forehead, eyebrows, nose, cheeks, mouth, and chin, with their relation to the forms of the neck, shoulders, &c. The variable features are such forms of the permanent features, as are assumed under the influence of occasional or temporary passions, as the contracted brow of anger, the elevated eye-brow

of surprise, the closed eyelids of mirth, the open eye of astonishment, the raised lip of cheerfulness, the depressed lip of sorrow, &c. &c.

With both of these appearances, I apprehend that we have distinct and powerful associations; or in other words, that they are expressive to us, either directly or indirectly, of qualities of mind capable of producing emotion.

1. Such forms in the countenance, have expression to us simply as forms, and are beautiful upon the same principles, as I have endeavoured to illustrate. Independent of all direct expression, small, smooth, and welloutlined features, are expressive of delicacy or fineness. Harsh and prominent features, with a coarse and imperfect outline, of imperfection, roughness, and coarseness. The union of the features (perhaps the most important of all physical observations,) admits, in the same manner, either of a flowing and undulating outline, or of harsh and angular conjunction. The first is ever expressive to us of ease, freedom, and of fineness, the second of stillness, of constraint, and of imperfection. These indi rect expressions prevail, not indeed over the more direct expressions which intimacy or knowledge gives: but that they govern us in some degree with regard to those who are strangers to us; that we are disposed to attribute to the character of those who are unknown to us, the character which their physical features exhibit; and that even with regard to those we love most, we are sometimes apt to lament that the form of their features is so little expressive of their character, are facts which every one knows, and which need not be illustrated.

2. Such forms of features are, in general, directly expressive to us of particular characters or dispositions of mind. That certain appearances or conformations of the

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