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bandsomeness of a great man is one of the last things about him that fixes my attention. I do not wish, neither, to deny, that, when I first saw Goethe, the sublime simplicity of his Homeric beauty---the awful pile of forehead---the large deep eyes, with their melancholy lightnings---the whole countenance, so radiant with divinity, would have lost much of its power, had it not been, at the same time, the finest specimen of humanity I had ever beheld; neither would I conceal the immeasurable softness of delight which mingled with my reverence, when I detected, as if by intuition, in the midst of the whole artists of St. Luke's, the Hyperion curls, and calm majestic lineaments, which could be nobody's but Canova's. But although beauty never exists in vain, there is nothing more certain than that its absence is scarcely perceived by those who are capable of discovering and enjoying the marks of things more precious than beauty. Could all our countrymen of the present time, of very great reputation for talents or genius, be brought together into a single room, their physiognomies would, I doubt not, form as impressive a group as can well be imagined; but among the whole, there would scarcely be more than one face which any sculptor might be ambitious of imitating on marble. Jeffrey's countenance could not stand such a test. To catch the minutest elements of its eloquent power, would I think be a hard enough task for any painter, and indeed, as I have already told you, it has proved too hard a task for such as have yet attempted it.

It is a face which any man would pass without observation in a crowd, because it is small and swarthy, and entirely devoid of lofty or commanding outlines---and besides, his stature is so low, that he might walk close under your chin or mine without ever catching the eye even for a moment. However, he is scarcely shorter than Campbell; and some inches taller than Tom Moore, or the late Monk Lewis. I remember Lord Clarendon somewhere takes notice, that in his age, (the prime manhood of English intellect, as Coleridge calls it,) a very large proportion of the remarkable men were very short in stature. Such, if my memory serves me, were Hales, and Chillingworth, and Sidney Godolphin, and Lord Falkland bimself, who used, I think, to say, that it was a great ingredient into his friendship for Mr. Godolphin, that he was pleased to be in his company, where he was the properer man. In our own time, we have more than one striking instance of

the "Mens magna in corpore parvo ;"---Buonaparte himself for one; and, by the way, he is the only little man I ever saw, who seemed to be unconscious, or careless, or disdainful of the circumstance. Almost all other persons of that de scription appear to labour under a continual and distressing feeling that nature has done them injustice, and not a few of them strive to make up for her defects, by holding their heads as high as possible, and even giving an uncomfortable elevation or projection to the chin, all which has a very mean effect upon their air and attitude, and is particularly hurtful to the features of the face, moreover,-because it tends to reverse the arrangement of Nature, and to throw all those parts into light which she has meant to be in shade. It is exactly the same sort of thing that we all remark on the stage, where the absurd manner in which the lamps are placed, under the feet of the performers, has such a destructive effect, that few actors, except those of the Kemble blood, appear to have any better than snub noses. Now, Napoleon has not the least of this trick; but, on the contrary, carries his head almost constantly in a stooping posture, and so preserves and even increases the natural effect of his grand formation about the eyebrows, and the beautiful classical cut of his mouth and chin-though, to be sure, his features are so fine that nothing could take much from their power.-But, to come back to our own small men, Jeffrey has a good deal of this unhappy manner, and so loses much of what his features, such as they are, might be made to convey.

I have heard many persons say, that the first sight of Mr. Jeffrey disappointed them, and jarred with all the ideas they had previously formed of his genius and character. Perhaps the very first glance of this celebrated person produced something of the same effect upon my own mind; but a minute or two of contemplation sufficed to restore me to the whole of my faith in physiognomy. People may dispute as much as they please about particular features, and their effect, but I have been all my life a student of "the human face divine," and I have never yet met with any countenance which did not perfectly harmonize, so far as I could have opportunity of ascertaining, with the intellectual conformation and habits of the man that bore it. But I must not allow myself to be seduced into a disquisition-I shall rather try my hand at a portrait.

Mr. Jeffrey, then, as I have said, is a very short, and very active-looking man, with an appearance of extraordinary vivacity in all his motions and gestures. His face is one which eannot be understood at a single look-perhaps it requires, as it certainly invites, a long and anxious scrutiny before it lays itself open to the gazer. The features are neither handsome, nor even very defined in their outlines; and yet the effect of the whole is as striking as any arrangement either of more noble or more marked features, which ever came under my view. The forehead is very singularly shaped, describing in its bend from side to side a larger segment of a circle than is at all common; compressed below the temples almost as much as Sterne's; and throwing out sinuses above the eyes, of an extremely bold and compact structure. The hair is very black and wiry, standing in ragged bristly clumps out from the upper part of his head, but lying close and firm lower down, especially about the ears. Altogether it is picturesque, and adds to the effect of the visage. The mouth is the most expressive part of his face, as I believe it is of every face. The lips are very firm, but they tremble and vibrate, even when brought close together, in such a way as to give the idea of an intense, never-ceasing play of mind. There is a delicate kind of sneer almost always upon them, which has not the least appearance of ill-temper about it, but seems to belong entirely to the speculative understanding of the man. I have said, that the mouth is the most expressive part of his faceand, in one sense, this is the truth, for it is certainly the seat of all its rapid and transitory expression. But what speaking things are his eyes! They disdain to be agitated with those lesser emotions which pass over the lips; they reserve their fierce and dark energies for matters of more moment; once kindled with the heat of any passion, how they beam, flash upon flash! The scintillation of a star is not more fervid. Perhaps, notwithstanding of this, their repose is even more worthy of attention. With the capacity of emitting such a flood of radiance, they seem to take a pleasure in banishing every ray from their black, inscrutable, glazed, tarn-like circles. I think their prevailing language is, after all, rather a melancholy than a merry one-it is, at least, very full of reflection. Such is a faint outline of this countenance, the features of which (to say nothing at all of their expression,) have, as yet, baffled every attempt of the portrait-painters;

and which, indeed, bids very fair, in my opinion, to leave no image behind it either on canvass or on copper. A sharp, and, at the same time, very deep-toned voice---a very bad pronunciation, but accompanied with very little of the Scotch accent---a light and careless manner, exchanged now and then for an infinite variety of more earnest expression and address---this is as much as I could carry away from my first visit to "the wee rekit deil," as the Inferno of Altesidora has happily called him. I have since seen a great deal more of him, and have a great deal more to tell you, but my paper is done.

P. M.

P. S. I am to dine with Jeffrey to-morrow at his country house, about three miles from Edinburgh, and shall give you a full account of the party in my next.

LETTER VII.

TO THE SAME.

DEAR DAVID,

SINCE I came to this town the weather has in general been of a very unpleasant kind. When you look out from the windows of your apartment, nothing can be finer than the appearance every thing presents. The air is as clear as amber overhead, and the sun shines with so much power, that in these splendid streets, the division of the bright from the shadowy part, reminds one of the richest effects of a Cuyp, or a Sachtleeven. But when you come out, in the full trust inspired by this brilliant serenity of aspect, you find yourself wofully disappointed. The action of the sun and air upon the nerves, is indeed delightfully stimulant; but the whole charm is destroyed before you have time to enjoy it, by some odious squall of wind which cuts you to the teeth---and what is worse, comes loaded with a whole cloud of flying dust and gravel, which is sure to leave its traces behind it, on still more delicate parts of your physiognomy. As for myself, I am often obliged to walk with a handkerchief held before my eyes-and in spite of all my precautions, I have been several times in such a state, that I have absolutely rubbed myself

blind. The whole of this arises from the want of watering the streets--a thing which might surely be accomplished without the least difficulty, by a subscription among the inhabitants. If this evil be so severe at present, what must it be in the dog-days?-and yet the people submit to it all quietly, in streets, below every one of which they know water is flowing in pipes, ready to be scattered ad libitum, and at an expense not worthy of being mentioned." O! cæcas hominum mentes !"

Yesterday, however, there was an unusual degree of quietness in the state of the atmosphere. A slight shower, which fell in the morning, had laid the most offensive part of the dust, without giving the least appearance of damp to the roads and I drove to C-k, Mr. Jeffrey's villa, molto gustosamente the expectation of the manifold luxuries I hoped to enjoy there the prospective delights both of palate and intellect being heightened and improved by the preliminary gratification I tasted, while the shandrydan rolled along between the refreshed green of the meadows and corn-fields. His house is an old turretted mansion, much patched in the whole mass of its structure, and, I believe, much increased in its accommodations since he entered upon possession of it. The situation is extremely beautiful. There are very few trees immediately about the house; but the windows open upon the side of a charming bill, which, in all its extent, as far as the eye can reach, is wooded most luxuriantly to the very summit. There cannot be a more delicious rest for the eyes, than such an Arcadian height in this bright and budding time of the year; but, indeed, where, or at what time, can a fine wood be looked upon without delight?. Between the wood and the house, there is a good garden, and some fields, in the cultivation of which Mr. Jeffrey seems to take much pleasure; for I had no sooner arrived, than he insisted upon carrying me over his ditches and hedges to show me his me thod of farming; and, indeed, talked of Swedish turnip, and Fiorin grass, and red blossomed potatoes, in a style that would have done no dishonour to your friend Curwen himself. I had come, thanks to my rustic ignorance, exactly at the hour appointed for dinner, (five o'clock,) so that I had three parts of an hour of the great man entirely to myself during the whole of which space he continued to talk about rural affairs, and to trot me up one field and down another, till I was weary,

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