Puslapio vaizdai
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family, and it had been bought for its name's sake. The other print which ornamented the room had been purchased from a like feeling, though the cause was not so immediately apparent. It represented a Ship in full sail, with Joseph and the Virgin Mary, and the Infant on board, and a Dove flying behind as if to fill the sails with the motion of its wings. Six black chairs were ranged along the wall, where they were seldom disturbed from their array. They had been purchased by Daniel the Grandfather upon his marriage, and were the most costly purchase that had ever been made in the family; for the goblet was a legacy. The backs were higher than the head of the tallest man when seated; the seats flat and shallow, set in a round frame, unaccommodating in their material, more unaccommodating in shape; the backs also were of wood rising straight up, and ornamented with balls and lozenges and embossments; and the legs and cross bars. were adorned in the same taste. Over the chimney were two Peacocks' feathers, some of the dry silky pods of the honesty flower, and

one of those large " sinuous shells "

thus described by Landor;

so finely

Of pearly hue

Within, and they that lustre have imbibed

In the sun's palace porch; where, when unyoked,
His chariot wheel stands midway in the wave,

Shake one, and it awakens; then apply

Its polished lips to your attentive ear,

And it remembers its august abodes,

And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there.

There was also a head of Indian corn there, and a back scratcher, of which the hand was ivory and the handle black. This had been a present of Daniel the grandfather to his wife. The three apartments above served equally for store-rooms and bed-chambers. William Dove the brother slept in one, and Agatha the maid, or Haggy as she was called, in another.

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Hanc ergo scientiam blande excipiamus, hilariterque amplectamur, ut vere nostram et de nobismet ipsis tractantem; quam qui non amat, quam qui non amplectitur, nec philosophiam amat, neque suæ vitæ discrimina curat. BAPTISTA PORTA.

age

THEY Who know that the word physiognomy is not derived from phiz,and infer from that knowledge that the science is not confined to the visage alone,have extended it to handwritings also, and hence it has become fashionable in this of collectors to collect the autographs of remarkable persons. But now that Mr. Rapier has arisen," the Reformer of illegible hands," he and his rival Mr. Carstairs teach all their pupils to write alike. The countenance however has fairer play in our days than it had in old times,

for the long heads of the sixteenth century were made by the nurses, not by nature. Elongating the nose, flattening the temples, and raising the forehead are no longer performed by manual force, and the face undergoes now no other artificial modelling than such as may be impressed upon it by the aid of the looking-glass. So far physiognomy becomes less difficult, the data upon which it has to proceed, not having been falsified ab initio; but there arises a question in what state ought they to be examined? Dr. Gall is for shaving the head, and overhauling it as a Turk does a Circassian upon sale, that he may discover upon the outside of the skull the organs of fighting, murder, cunning, and thieving (near neighbours in his mappa cerebri,) of comparing colours, of music, of sexual instinct, of philosophical judgement, &c. &c. all which, with all other qualities, have their latitudes and longitudes in the brain, and are conspicuous upon the outward skull, according to the degree in which they influence the character of the individual.

It must be admitted that if this learned Ger

man's theory of craniology be well founded, the Gods have devised a much surer, safer and more convenient means for discovering the real characters of the Lords and Ladies of the creation, than what Momus proposed, when he advised that a window should be placed in the breast. For if his advice had been followed, and there had actually been a window in the sternum,—it is I think beyond all doubt that a window-shutter would soon have been found indispensably necessary in cold climates, more especially in England where pulmonary complaints are so frequent; and, secondly, the wind would not be more injurious to the lungs in high latitudes, than the sun would be to the liver in torrid regions; indeed every where during summer it would be impossible to exist without a green curtain, or Venetian blinds to the window; and after all, take what precautions we might, the world would be ten times more bilious than it is. Another great physical inconvenience would also have arisen; for if men could peep into their insides at any time, and see the motions and the fermentations which are continually going on,

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