conversed in a confidential manner, confessed to me, that the great and constantly besetting plague of women, is their suspicion that they are not permitted to see into the true depths of the character of men. And indeed, when one considers what an overbalancing proportion of the allusions made in any conversation between two men of education, must be entirely unintelligible to almost any woman who might chance to overhear them, it is impossible to wonder that the matter should stand as it does. It is not to be expected, that she should be able to understand the exact relation which the intelligible part of their talk may bear to the unintelligible. She sees a line tossed into a depth, which is to her as black as night, and how should she be able to guess, how far down may be the measure of its descent?

Now, what a charming thing must it appear in the eyes of one who is habitually tormented in this way, to hear of a science that professes to furnish a key, not indeed to the actual truth of the whole characters of men, but to that of many important parts in their characters? I can conceive of nothing more ecstatic than the transport of some bitter unsatisfied Blue-Stocking, on the first bearing that there is such a science in the world as Craniology. "Ha!" she will say to herself" we shall now see the bottom of all this mystery. The men will no longer dare to treat us with this condescending sort of concealment. We shall be able to look at their skulls, and tell them a little plain truth, whenever they begin to give themselves airs."

Now, I am for making the science as popular as possible--indeed, I think, if kept to a few, it would be the basest and most cruel kind of monopoly the world ever witnessed—and, therefore, I should like to see my craniological brethren adapt their modes of expression and explanation, as much as possible, to the common prejudices of this great division of disciples. It is well known, what excellent proselyte-makers they are in all respects; and I am decidedly for having all their zeal on our side. One plain and obvious rule, I think, is, that the head should always be talked of and considered in the light of a Form-an object having certain proportions from which certain inferences may be drawn. Besides, in adhering to this rule, we shall only be keeping to the practice of the only great Craniologists the world ever produced-the Greeks. I do not mean to their practice in regard to expressing themselves alone; but to their practice, in gathering

and perfecting those ideas concerning this science, which they have expressed in a far more lasting way than words can ever rival. As dissection of human bodies was entirely unknown among the ancients, it is obvious, that their sculptors and painters must have derived all their knowledge from the exterior of the human form. The external aspect of the head is all that nature exhibits to us, or intends we should see. It is there that expression appears and speaks a natural language to our minds-a language of which our knowledge is vague and imperfect, and almost unconscious; but of which a few simple precepts and remarks are enough to recall to our recollection the great outlines, and to convince me at least, that a very little perseverance might suffice to render us masters of much of the practical detail.

You will smile, perhaps, when you hear me talk in so satisfied a tone about the craniological skill of the Greeks; and yet there is nothing of which I am more thoroughly convinced, than that they did, practically at least, understand infinitely more of the science than any of the disciples of Gall and Spurzheim are likely to rival even a century hence. There is one circumstance-a small one, you will say--which suggested itself to me yesterday, for the first time, when I was sitting after dinner, in a room where several large plaster-ofParis busts were placed on the extremities of a sideboard. What is called Grace, is chiefly to be found in those movenents which result from organs on the top of the head. In women, there is more of it than in men, because their animal faculties are smaller. Now, in all paintings of Madonnas, particularly of the Matres Amabiles, the attitude evidently results from the faculties in the region above the forehead. The chin is drawn in, and the upper fore-part of the bead leans forward. This is not done with a view to represent modesty and humility alone; which, by suspending the action of pride and self-love in the back part of the head, take away what kept it upright. The attitude of humility, therefore, results from a negative cause. But the Madonnas bave often a look quite dignified and assured, of unquestioning adorable divine serenity; and the leaning forward of the brow in them, is accompanied with an air which denotes the activity of a positive cause-namely, the principle of love in the upper parts of the forehead. This was suggested to me, however, not by a picture of the Madonna, but by a Grecian bust-and I think you will scarcely suspect which this was.

It was one of which the whole character is, I apprehend, mistaken in modern times-one which is looked at by fine ladies with a shudder-and by fine gentlemen with a sneer. Artists alone study and love it--their eyes are too much trained to permit of any thing else. But even they seem to me entirely to overlook the true character of that which, with a view to quite different qualities, they fervently admire. In the Hercules Farnese (for this is the bust) no person who looks on the form and attitude with a truly scientific eye, can possibly believe that he sees only the image of brute strength. There are few heads on the contrary more human in their expression-more eloquent with the manly virtue of a mild and generous hero. And how indeed could a Grecian sculptor have dared to represent the glorious Alcides in any other way?-How do the poets represent him?-As the image of divine strength and confidence, struggling with and vanquishing the evils of humanity--as the emanation of divine benevolence, careless of all, but doing good-purifying the earth from the foulness of polluting monsters-avenging the cause of the just and the unfortunate-plunging into hell in order to restore to an inconsolable husband the pale face of his wife, who had died a sacrifice to save bim-himself at last expiring on the hoary summit of Athos, amidst the blaze of a funeral pile which had been built indeed with his own hands, but which he had been compelled to ascend by the malignant cruelty of a disappointed savage. The being who was hallowed with all these high attributes in the strains of Sophocles, Euripides, and Pindar--would any sculptor have dared to select him for the object in which to embody his ideas of the mere animal power of man-the exuberance of corporeal strength? so far from this, the Hercules has not only one of the most intellectual beads that are to be found among monuments of Greek sculpture, but also one of the most graceful. With the majesty which he inherits from the embrace of Jupiter, there is mingled a mild and tender expression of gentleness, which tells that he has also his share in the blood, and in the miseries of our own lower nature. The stooping reflective attitude may be that of a hero weary with combat, but is one that speaks, as if his combatting had been in a noble cause-as if high thoughts had nerved his arm more than the mere exultations of corporeal vigour. His head is bent from the same quarter as that of the Madonnas; and whoever takes the trouble to examine it, will find, that in this

the

particular point is to be found the chief expansion and prominence of his organization.

In a place where education is so much diffused among the men, it is natural to suppose, that the women also must, in no inconsiderable degree, be imbued with some passion for literature. The kinds of information most in request here, (and, indeed, necessarily so, when we reflect on the means of education which the place affords,) are evidently much more within the reach of the Fair Sex, than in most other cities of the same importance. To be able to talk with fluency about the Politics and Belles Lettres of the day, is all that is required of an accomplished man in Edinburgh, and these are accomplishments which the ladies, modest as they are, would require more modesty than is either natural or proper to suppose themselves incapable of acquiring. That ignorance of the learned languages and ancient literature, which the men have not the assurance to attempt disguising, has broken down effectually the first and most insurmountable barrier which separates the intellectual pretensions of the two sexes in England, and, indeed, in almost all the capitals of Europe. The universal neglect with which the more ancient and massy literature, even of our own island, seems to be treated, has removed another mighty, although not quite so insurmountable barrier; and, in short, between the men and the women, for aught I can see, there is no "gulf fixed." The men, indeed, seem still to be anxious to prolong, in their

own favour, the existence of something of that old prestige, which owes the decay of its vigour entirely to themselves. But the greatest Mysogynists in the world have never accused the sex of being deficient in acuteness of discernment, and the ladies of Edinburgh are quite sufficiently quick-sighted, not to allow the advantages which have been given them, to slip unused through their fingers.

So far as I may judge from my own short experience, bowever, the Scottish ladies, in general, are very far from pushing these advantages to any undue extent. It is not necessary to enter minutely into the causes of their forbearance in this respect; for a much slower person than Mr. David Williams would have no great difficulty in forming a pretty fair guess, as to the most efficient of them. The merit which they do certainly possess and exemplify in this part of their conduct, may perhaps be divided into pretty equal shares between the influences of Nature and those of Art. Those gentler and more delicate feelings of our nature, which all their modes of life-their hopes, fears, pleasures, and sorrows, render them better able to appreciate, are alone, I should think, more than enough to weaken with the best of them the influence of those lighter and more transitory feelings, which derive gratification or uneasiness from the conscious possession or conscious want of such a measure of literary information, as is common among either the men or the women with whom they can be called upon to associate. With those of a less feminine and less just character, in point of mere feeling, there cannot be wanting enough of penetration to teach them, that the confession of inferiority is one of the most cunning treacheries with which to bait the hook of female fascination; and thus it is that the highest and most sacred of inspirations, on the one hand, co-operate with not a few less lofty and generous suggestions on the other, to keep within limits the infection of blue-stockingism-the one set of motives, as might befit their origin, attacking the secret root and essence of the mania for insignificant acquisitionthe other no less appropriately, and no less powerfully, chilling and repressing the mania for insignificant display.

There are, however, abundant exceptions to this rule even here. Innate and incorrigible vanity in some; particular incidents in the early history of others, too minute to be explained in any general terms of description; and in a few