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, J 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 J 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 J, 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 cannot 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 illtemper 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 face-and, 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 reekit 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. |