Effai fur la Phyfiognomonie, &c, i. e. An Efay on Phyfiognomony, defigned to promote the Knowlege and Love of Mankind. By JOHN GASPARD LAVATER, &C. Vol. III. 4to. Hague. 1787.

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CONSIDERABLE time has paffed fince we have had occafion to contemplate M. LAVATER, expatiating in the. wide field of phyfiognomonical fcience. But here he comes forth again (as he says himself, in the introduction to this volume), full of hope and joy, but agitated at the fame time with fear and anxiety.' His fear is, that he shall not be able to make the rays of his phyfiognomonical light converge fo accurately in the focus of the reader, as that the latter fhall perceive the objects prefented to him in the fame point of view in which they appear to` himself. How far this apprehenfion may be well founded, we shall not determine. We, ourselves, have some fears about the matter, which are fuggefted by experience. The expreffions of mind conveyed through the medium of body are, indeed, rendered marvellously palpable, by the wife arrangement of Providence, as far as they are neceffary to the purposes of focial life; and thus the peafant, as well as the philofopher, can read the characters which the paffions imprint on the human countenance. Higher and finer expreffions of the calmer affections, of moral character, and intellectual qualities, are also more or less perceivable. Here, however, as the neceffity of fuch expreffions begins to diminifh, ambiguity begins to take place, and the judgment of the mind becomes liable to errors, fimilar to those to which the eye is exposed in optical illufions. But when phyfiognomonical fcience is extended to fuch fubtile details as thofe to which our Author carries it, we do, indeed, think that his apprehenfions of not being always understood, are far from being groundless. The initiated may follow him by APP. Rev. Vol. LXXVIII, PP the

the fuppofed light of evidence, the credulous by the docility of faith or fancy; but fevere inveftigators, whofe organization is not in unifon with his, will be contented with turning to their profit or entertainment the many ingenious and elegant obfervations which he makes in the courfe of his inquiries, and, with respect both to the principles of his fcience and his applications of them, will often fay, non liquet-the matter, Sir, is not 、clear.

Our Readers already know that M. LAVATER divides his work into Fragments, and, if we remember well, the propriety of this term has been illuftrated in our former accounts of this fplendid work. Our General Index will point out the preceding articles on this fubject.

The Ift FRAGMENT of the prefent volume contains paffages, drawn from different authors of note, with the remarks that they have fuggefted to our Author. Among thefe paffages are the ingenious reflections of Lord Bacon, on Deformity and Beauty on which M. LAVATER makes fome good obfervations, both in the way of illuftration and criticism. These are followed by some mifcellaneous obfervations of one of his friends and brethren in phyfiognomony, whose reflexions on the mouth had almost taken us in, when thofe of the Author brought us out again.

The opening of the mouth' (fays this friend) 'cannot be ftudied with too much attention. This fingle feature characterizes the whole man. It expreffes all the affections of the foul, whether they be of the mild, the tender, or energetic kinds. One might write folios on the diverfity of thefe expreffions; but it is better to leave this object to the immediate feeling of the obferver, who has made the study of man his business. I think I can place the feat of the foul no where fo properly as in the muscles that are near the mouth; thefe do not favour the fmaileft difguife. Hence it is that the ugliest face ceases to difpleafe us, when we obferve in it any agreeable lines about the mouth; and hence, alfo, a wry mouth is one of the things that we behold with the greatest reluctance.'

We have a very great regard for the mouth in all its functions, though we do not like to fee it encroaching on the precious privilege of the eye in point of expreffion. As to the article of difguife, M. LAVATER vigorously oppofes his friend, and, applauding in general what he has faid of the mouth, he maintains, nevertheless, that it is the principal feat of diffimulation;

for where,' fays he, can diffimulatión be more expreffively delineated, than in the most moveable part of the face, in that which receives with more facility than all the others the impreffion of our paffions ?'-Poor eyes again!

The celebrated M. de BUFFON, who was Nature's chief painter, and who is known to have given a particular degree of attention to national phyfiognomonics and characters, is a thorn

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in the fide of our Author, more on account of the weight which his reputation gives to his objections againft phyfiognomonical fcience, than of the objections them felves. M. LAVATER an-. fwers these objections with fpirit and dexterity. His obfervations on genius, in a following article, are excellent. In neral, there is a great deal of mifcellaneous good reading in, this firft Fragment, where we find many obfervations on a multitude of different and heterogeneous fubjects, thrown upon paper, without the smallest appearance of order or connexion. The paffages drawn together, by heads and tails, from Maxi-, mus Tyrius, the Abbé Winkelman, the Bookfeller Nicolai, Mr. Burke, King David, the Evangelifts, and the Apoftles, fill above 80 large quarto pages; and what is peculiarly to be noticed is, that a great number of thefe paffages have no relation to the fubject of this work, which is comprehenfive and complicated enough to fill many volumes, without the interference of foreign materials to fwell the mafs. But among the many good things iffuing from our Author's pen, on Grace, Beauty, and particularly on the prolific article of Nofes, fuch effufions of jargon, phyfical and metaphyfical, come pouring down upon us, as make us almost think that

The moon-ftruck prophet feels the maddening hour.

The phyfiognomonical paffages (as he calls them) which he draws from the Holy Scriptures, and his remarks upon them, we shall notice only to express our wonder how they found a place in his book. They are followed by a collection of paffages in the Gofpel, which he illuftrates, and propofes as a fource of con-" folation to those whofe phyfiognomony has been injured by their own fault. This may be confidered as a pathetic fermon, or exhortation to any diffolute young man, who has degraded the beauty of his countenance and his mind, by the irregular purfuit of pleasure at the expence of happiness; and what our Author fays on the fubject is fenfible, liberal, and edifying, but perhaps out of its place. No,' fays M. Lavater, I am a minifter of the Gospel, and I am not more ashamed of being fuch in my Fragments on phyfiognomony than in the pulpit of Zurich.' Be it fo;-but confider that each volume of your work costs three guineas, and that we can purchase fermons cheaper, and good

ones too.

The 2d FRAGMENT, which bears the general title of Phyfiological Mifcellanies, is divided into four chapters. The first treats of temperaments or conftitutions. There is, fays our Author, in the great magazine of God, a particular mould or form for every individual, which determines the duration of life, and fixes the degree of fenfibility and activity; hence it is that every body has its proper individual conftitution, its peculiar measure of irritability and elafticity. The qualities of bodies,

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that

that form what we call conflitutions, are moisture, dryness, heats and cold, proceeding from the four elements. From these our Author derives the four principal conftitutions, the choleric, the phlegmatic, the fanguine, and the melancholic: in the firft of thefe, heat predominates, in the fecond, moisture, in the third, air, in the fourth, earth, i. e. according to his explication of the matter, the predominant element is that of which the moft ingredients enter into the mass of the blood and the nervous fluid, where they are converted into fubftances infinitely fubtile, and, as it were, volatile. M. LAVATER then proceeds to point out the contours and characteristic lines, whence may be deduced the general temperature of each individual, and the higheft and loweft degree of his irritability. A great number of heads, delineated in 24 plates, are exhibited here, to render more intelligible his obfervations, not only on the four principal temperaments, but also on their mixtures and modifications in different perfons. He concludes the article by propofing some questions relative to this object, that may be of use in the conduct of life, to which he folicits the answers of men of wisdom and experience, and in the mean time gives his own, in which we find fentences that feem to mean fomething, and even something philofophical; but they will not ftand a tranflation. In English, both their meaning and philofophy evaporate, which fhews that they are very thin and volatile. We shall only obferve, that he confiders the phlegmatico-fanguine as the propereft constitution for the conjugal bond, and the cholerico-melanholic as the moft adapted to friendship.

In the fecond chapter of this Fragment, he treats on the ftrength and weakness of conftitutions, the refpective marks of which are here enumerated, and illuftrated by feveral figures. The third chapter relates to the state of health, and of fickness, and is called an Effay on Semeiotics, or the fcience of medical figns and symptoms. But this effay really is no more than an expreffion of our Author's wish, that we had a good effay on the fubject, accompanied with fome paffages from Zimmerman's excellent Treatise on Experience, in which the nature and symptoms of the different diseases produced by the paffions are accurately defcribed. The next article on youth and old age is more interefting, though it abounds in thofe vague and arbitrary notions and decifions, that, by their uncertainty or obfcurity, dazzle and perplex much more than they enlighten and inftruct. The phyfiognomony of youth fhews what the perfon will be, and that of age what he has been. As the bones, whofe fyftem is M. LAVATER'S principal guide in his scientific indications of fentiments and characters, are not fully formed nor confolidated in youth, this circumftance renders it much more difficult for him to interpret the countenance of a young person, than of

one.

the who is advanced in years. He gets over this difficulty as well as he can. He prefents to the reader a feries of heads, which reprefent man in all the ftages of his exiftence, from infancy to old age, and draws from them a multitude of remarks and conclufions, more or lefs perfpicuous and interefting. But the greatest part of the heads and profiles, that are defigned to exprefs infancy, are very inaccurate reprefentations of that period, and are evidently more expreffive of youth or adolefcence; and this has an inaufpicious influence on our Author's interpretations. His adolefcents' heads are much more conformable to the period they reprefent; but they are too fmall. They would have been fingularly pleafing on a larger fcale; but whether, on any fcale, an attentive and intelligent, but un-initiated fpectator, would guefs at the peculiar and diftinctive lines of character attributed to each, is another queftion.

There are' (fays our Author) three claffes of children, and three claffes of men, in one of which every individual must be ranged. The human body is either fiff and tenfe, or lax and foft, or it holds the middle line between thefe two extremes, and, in this cafe, it exhibits the joint characters of eafe and precision. In our fpecies, the extremes are but half-men or monfters. On the contrary, the more that Nature is in her centre,, the more are her forms accurate and easy; they have precifion without stiffness, and ease without laxity. The fame diftinction takes place in moral character. A tenfe character is oppreffive to others, while a lax one is easily crushed and overwhelmed; but the eafy and accurate is burthenfome to none, and has a spring that can refift the weight of oppofition. The affemblage of a great number of right lines, or of lines that are nearly fuch, neceffarily fuppofes a pofitive and obftinate humour, and a turn of mind which is difficult to manage. the other hand, a complete roundness of contours or outlines is the certain indication of fenfuality, lazinefs, and, in one word, of a conftitution that facrifices to the flesh at the expence of the fpirit. But there will be neither undue tenfion nor relaxation of character in a form where right lines are gently blended with curves.'

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So far the Author: but there is a grofs error, we think, in the plate, where this doctrine is illuftrated by three figures; for the figure which expreffes ftiffness, or tenfion, is reprefented in a kind of action which requires effort, and here tenfion is proper, because it is the neceffary effect of the exertion that is employed. Such a figure as that of the prim gentleman who says "Indeed!" in Mr. BUNBURY's admirable print *, would have been a much properer illuftration of M. LAVATER's doctrine; and the little thick, fat, oily man, who says " Heigh ho !” in the

*The Propagation of a Lie, one of the excellent productions of that admirable drawer of characters and caricaturas.