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cold journey before they reach Edinburgh, and I think they do not regain the same easy air which they have before they begin their travels. They are apt to overdo every thing, particularly that vilest and most unnatural of all fashions, the saddle or I know not what you call it-which is at present permitted to destroy so much of the back, and indeed, to give so much meanness to the whole air. They say the scrophula brought in the high shirt collars of the men and the Spectator gives some equally intelligible account of the fardingale. Pray, what hunch-backed countess was she that had wit enough to bring the saddle into vogue? I think all the three fashions are equally abominable, and the two of them that still remain should be voted out by the clean-skinned and straight-backed, who, I hope, are still the major part of the community. But, ne sutor ultra crepidam ****

P. M.

LETTER VI.

TO THE REV. DAVID WILLIAMS.

DEAR DAVID,

ALTHOUGH MY sole purpose, or nearly so, in coming te Scotland, was to see and converse with the illustrious men who live here, I have been in Edinburgh for a fortnight, and can scarcely say that I have as yet seen even the faces of most of them. What with lounging about in the mornings with W, and claret in the evening, and routs and balls at night, I fear I am fast getting into a very unprofitable life. The only very great man here to whom I had letters of introduction, was Scott, and he happened to go out of town for a few weeks, I believe the very day after my arrival. I forwarded my letter to him in the country, however, and he has invited me to pay him a visit there, at the castle he has just built upon the banks of the Tweed. He has been so attentive, moreover, as to send me letters for Mr. McKenzie the Man of Feeling, Mr. Jeffrey, Mr. Playfair, and several other men of note, on both sides of the question; so that I shall now see as much as I please of all the Dons. I shall take the opportunity of W's absence, to call upon all these gentle

men; for, excepting Mr. Scott and Mr. McKenzie, he has no acquaintance with any of them. I believe, indeed, there is little love lost between him and them-and I wish to see things with my own eyes.

Of all the celebrated characters of this place, I rather understand that Jeffrey is the one whom travellers are commonly most in a hurry to see-not surely, that the world, in general, has any such deep and abiding feeling of admiration for him, or any such longing to satisfy their eyes with gazing on his features, as they have with regard to such a man as Scott, or even St-t; but I think the interest felt with respect to him is of a more vivacious and eager kind, and they rush with all speed to gratify it-exactly as men give immediate vent to their petty passions, who have no difficulty, or rather, indeed, who have a sort of pleasure in nursing silently, and concealing long, those of a more serious and grave importance. A few years ago, I should, perhaps, have been more inclined to be a sharer in this violent sort of impatience; but even now I approached the residence of Jeffrey with any feelings assuredly rather than those of indifference.

He was within when I called, and in a second I found myself in the presence of this bugbear of authors. He received me so kindly, (although, from the appearance of his room, be seemed to be immersed in occupation,) and asked so many questions, and said and looked so much, in so short a time, that I had some difficulty in collecting my inquisitorial powers to examine the person of the man. I know not how, there is a kind of atmosphere of activity about him; and my eyes caught so much of the prevailing spirit, that they darted for some minutes from object to object, and refused, for the first time, to settle themselves even upon the features of a man of genius---to them, of all human things, the most potent attractions.

I find that the common prints give a very inadequate notion of his appearance. The artists of this day are such a set of cowardly fellows, that they never dare to give the truth as it is in nature; and the consequence is, after all, that they rather take from, than add to, the impressiveness of the faces they would flatter. What a small matter is smoothness of skin, or even regularity of feature, in the countenance that Nature has formed to be the index of a powerful intellect? Perhaps I am too much of a connoisseur to be a fair judge of such matters; but I am very sure, that the mere

handsomeness 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 himself, 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 description 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.

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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 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 ef fect 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;

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