sought for in man, and the nobler ranks of quadrupeds, chiefly in the face, but considerably also in the attitudes and motions of the body, while, in other animals, we are so little acquainted with these signs, as to be incapable of offering any very satisfactory or extensive opinion upon the subject.

In the ATTRACTIVE AFFECTIONS, the features, limbs, and muscles are uniformly soft and pliant-in the REPULSIVE, as uniformly tense, and for the most part rigid. The characters of the latter, therefore, are necessarily more marked and imposing than those of the former, though both are equally true to their purpose. And in more definitely answering the question, whether the characters in either case be the effect of habit or voluntary exertion to execute the feeling of the mind at the moment, or whether they be the mind's natural and instinctive symbols; it may be still farther observed, that in all instances they are the latter, and in a few instances both; for it by no means follows, that they are not instinctive symbols, because they serve at the same time to ward off our danger, or to inflict retaliation on an assailant. In the attractive feelings or passions, they are perhaps, for the most part, instinctive signs alone for the natural language of dimples, smiles, laughter, a lively, sparkling eye, or that softened outline, and uniform sweep of the whole figure, which every one knows to be indicative of tranquillity and repose, is so clear to every one, that he who runneth may read it, and be assured of finding a contented and happy companion, if not a propitious season for a suit the heart is set upon. And although in a few of the repulsive passions, as rage, terror, and revenge, I have already given examples of their being mixed modes, in the greater number of even this last class they are probably as simple instincts as in the whole of the former. For what other use than that of mere instinctive indications can we possibly assign to tears, sighs, frowns, erection of the hair of the head, or the dead paleness, shivering, and horripilation, the creeping cold, that makes the multitude of the bones to tremble, under the influence of severe terror or dismay?

In all this, there is one fact peculiarly worthy of attention; and that is, the admirable simplicity which runs through the whole; so that the same muscles are not unfrequently made use of to produce different and even opposite effects: and this, too, by variations, and shades of variations, so slight, that it is difficult, and in some cases almost impossible, to seize them with the pencil. When Peter of Cortona was engaged on a picture of the iron age, for the royal palace of Pitti, Ferdinand II., who often visited him, and witnessed the progress of the piece, was particularly struck with the exact representation of a child in the act of crying. "Has your majesty," said the painter, "a mind to see how easy it is to make this very child laugh?" The king assented; and the artist, by merely depressing the corner of the lips, and inner extremity of the eyebrows, which before were elevated, made the little urchin, which at first seemed breaking its heart with weeping, seem equally in danger of bursting its sides with immoderate laughter. After which, with the same ease, he restored the figure to its proper passion of sorrow.

The nerves that influence the expression take their rise almost entirely from one common quarter, the medulla oblongata, or that lower portion of the brain from which the spinal marrow immediately issues;* and as all their chief ramifications associate in the act of respiration, we can readily see why the lungs, the heart, and the chest, in general, should so strikingly participate in all the changes of expression, and work up alternately sighs, crying, laughter, convulsions, and suffocation.†

* See Series 1. Lecture. xv. p. 160.

†This subject has been of late perspicuously and admirably pursued by Mr. Bell, in a series of communications to the Philosophical Transactions, and especially in the volume for 1822, p. 284, who closes his remarks as follows:-"To those I address, it is unnecessary to go farther than to indicate that the nerves treated of in these papers are THE INSTRUMENTS OF EXPRESSION, from the smile upon the infant's cheek to the last agony of life. It is when the strong man is subdued, by this mysterious influence of soul and body, and when the passions may be truly said TO TEAR THE BREAST, that we have the most afflicting picture of human frailty, and the most unequivocal proof that it is the order of functions which we have been considering that is then affected. In the first struggles of the infant to draw breath, in the man recovering from a state of suffocation, and in the agony of passion, when the breast labours from the influence at the heart, the same system of parts is affected, the same nerves, the same muscles; and the

I have said, that under the repulsive passions the muscles and features are for ever on the stretch; though the tension is often irregular, and alternately softens and stiffens. This general remark will apply to grief, pain, and agony; rage, suspicion, and jealousy; horror, despair, and madness; though, as I have formerly observed, this last affection cannot with strict propriety be introduced among the passions, being a mental disease rather than a mental emotion.

Let me justify this remark by a few illustrations. "A man in great PAIN," observes Mr. Burke, " has his teeth set; his eyebrows are violently contracted; his forehead is wrinkled; his eyes are dragged inwards, and rolled with great vehemence; his hair stands on end; his voice is forced out in short shrieks and groans; and the whole fabric totters."

In GRIEF, there is still more violence and tension, though the tension is irregular and alternating. Where the grief is of long continuance, and deeply rooted, it gives a pale and melancholy cast to the countenance; an air of reserve to the manner; and an emaciation to the entire form; as though the sad sufferer were fondly nursing the viper passion that devours his bosom. Such is the exquisite description of Viola, as given of herself in the Twelfth Night:

At other times, the passion is characterized by a mingled tumult of agitation, restlessness, and bitter bewailing. Such is the general picture of Constance, in King John; who thus, among other exclamations, weeps over the ill-fated Prince Arthur:

Grief fills the room up of my absent child;
Lies on his bed; walks up and down with me;
Puts on his pretty looks; repeats his words;
Remembers me of all his gracious parts;
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form :---
Then have I reason to be fond of grief.

In RAGE, there is the same tension, but the same irregular agitation of the muscles. "The features," as Mr. Bell justly observes, "are unsteady; the eyeballs are seen largely; they roll, and are inflated. The front is alternately knit and raised in furrows, by the motion of the eyebrows; the nostrils are inflated to the utmost; the lips are swelled, and, being drawn, open the corners of the mouth;† the muscles are strongly marked. The whole visage is sometimes pale, sometimes inflated, dark, and almost livid; the words are delivered strongly through the fixed teeth; the hair is fixed on end, like one distracted; and every joint should seem to curse and ban." Perhaps the finest picture of this mighty passion ever presented to the world is to be found in Tasso's description of the combat between Tancred and Argante but it is too long for quotation, and would lose half its spirit if given in any other language than the original.

It is in the features of rage that the higher kinds of quadrupeds make the nearest approach to this form of expression in man. The bull terribly denotes it, by his inflamed eye, wide and breathing nostrils, and the prone position of his sturdy head, waiting the due moment to strike his antagonist to the ground. But of all quadrupeds, not perhaps excepting the lion, the warhorse exhibits the loftiest and most imposing character. The noblest and truest description of him that has ever been painted is in the book of Job.

symptoms or characters have a strict resemblance. These are not the organs of breathing merely, but of natural and articulate language also, and adapted to the expression of sentiment, in the workings of the countenance and of the breast; that is, by signs as well as by words."

Sublime and Beautiful, part iv. sec. 3. Cause of Pain and Fear.

† Anatomy of Painting, p. 139.

Ee

Allow me to quote it somewhat more correct to the original than the rendering in our common version, which is, nevertheless, in the main, unexceptionable:

Hast THOU bestowed on the horse mettle?

Hast thou clothed his neck with the thunder-flash?
Hast thou given him to launch forth as an arrow ?
Terrible is the pomp of his nostrils:

He paweth in the valley, and exulteth;

Boldly he advanceth against the clashing host;

He mocketh at fear, and trembleth not;
Nor turneth he back from the sword.
Against him rattleth the quiver,

The glittering spear, and the shield:

With rage and fury he devoureth the ground,
And is impatient when the trumpet soundeth.
He exclaimeth among the trumpets, "Aha!"
And scenteth the battle afar off,

The thunder of the chieftains, and the shouting.

JEALOUSY is a fitful, unsteady passion: but still the muscles are constantly more or less on the stretch; "the eyelid is fully lifted, and the eyebrows strongly knit, so that the eyelid almost entirely disappears, and the eyeball glares from under the bushy eyebrow. There is a general tension on the muscles, which concentrate round the mouth; and the lips are drawn so as to show the teeth, as in great pain or fury. Much of the character of the passion, however, consists in rapid vicissitudes from love to hate; now absent, moody, and distracted; now courting love; now ferocious and revengeful. It is hence difficult to represent it in painting. In poetry alone can it be truly represented in the vivid colours of nature; and even of poets, Shakspeare, perhaps, is the only one who has shown himself quite equal to the task."* It is thus he describes the workings of Othello's heart, on his first crediting the slander of the seduction of Desdemona by Cassio :

O that the slave had forty thousand lives!
One is too poor, too weak, for my revenge.
Now do I see, 't is true:-look here, lago,-
All my fond love-thus do I blow to heaven.-
"T is gone.-

Arise, black Vengeance, from the hollow hell!
Yield up, O Love! thy crown and hearted throne
To tyrannous Hate!-swell, bosom, with thy fraught
For 't is of aspics' tongues.

The general expression and features of FEAR, Mr. Burke has compared to those of severe pain. Mr. Charles Bell objects to this; but Mr. Burke does not mean simple fear, but terror; which, as we observed in a former lecture, is FEAR united to an active IMAGINATION; and in this sense of the passion Homer has frequently employed it: witness the emotion of Priam upon the first tidings of the death of Hector :-†

Terror and consternation at the sound

Thrill'd through all Priam's soul: erect his hair,
Bristled his limbs, and with amaze he stood,
Mute and all motionless.

The extreme of this kind of terror is DISTRACTION: the total wreck of hope, the terrible assurance of utter and inextricable ruin. The expression of distraction or despair must vary with the action of the distress. Sometimes it will assume a frantic and bewildered air, as if madness were likely to afford the only relief from mental agony. Sometimes there is at once a wildness in the looks, and a total relaxation and impotency of the muscles, as if the wretch were falling into insensibility; a horrid gloom, and an immoveable eye, while yet he hears nothing, he sees nothing, and is unconscious of every thing around him. Such is the description of despair, as given in the wellknown passage of Spenser :

The darksome cave they enter, wher they find
That cursed man, low sitting on the ground,
Musing full sadly in his sullein mind:

His griesie lockes, long growen and unbound,
Disordred hong about his shoulders round,
And hid his face, through which his hollow eyne
Lookt deadly dull, and stared as astound;

His raw-bone cheekes, through penurie and pine,
Were shronke into his iawes, as he did never dine.*

The best picture of this passion is Hogarth's, whose scene is admirably chosen, and consists of the gaming-house, with its horrible implements and furniture, in which the maddening sufferer had thrown his last stake, and met his utter ruin.

Tension, then, permanent or alternating, is the main character of the violent and repulsive passions; but if the attack be abrupt and intolerably vehe ment, the nervous system becomes instantaneously exhausted, as by a stroke of lightning; and the muscles are instantly relaxed, paralyzed, and powerless. Milton has given us an exquisite exemplification of this in the following picture of Adam, immediately after the first deadly transgression.

On th' other side Adam, soon as he heard
The fatal trespass done by Eve, amazed,
Astonied stood, and blank! while horror chill
Ran through his veins, and all his joints relax'd.
From his slack hand the garland wreath'd for Eve
Down dropp'd, and all the faded roses shed.
Speechless he stood, and pale

But let us turn to a pleasanter subject. I have said, that in the expression of the attractive passions all is flexible and pliant. Their characters are necessarily less powerful, and many of them are common to the entire class. In perfect tranquillity and content of mind, when all the passions are lulled into a calm, and the gentle spirit of imagination alone is stirring on the surface of the mental lake, there is, as I have already observed, a softened outline, a smooth and uniform sweep of the entire figure, every feature of the body uniting in the repose of the soul. Such is often the picture of him who loves Nature for her own sake, and listens with soothing meditation amid the steeps, the woods, or the wilds, that stretch their romantic scenery around him; and calls for no companions, for he feels no solitude.

To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
Slowly to trace the forest's shady scene,

Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,

And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been;

To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,

With the wild flock that never needs a fold;

Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean;

This is not solitude: 't is but to hold

Converse with Nature's charins, and see her stores unfoll'd.†

But let this tranquillity be broken in upon by any of the agreeable passions, and still something of the same softness and pliancy of feature will remain; and the changes will be neither numerous nor powerful. This remark may be strikingly verified by turning to Le Brun; and still more so by turning to other French pathematists, who have still farther subdivided the passions. In ADMIRATION and agreeble SURPRISE, there is a slight muscular agitation and a gentle advance to stretching or tenseness in simple ATTENTION, VENERA TION, and elevated REVERY; but there is no constraint. The whole is calm, placid, and void of exertion. RAPTURE and LAUGHTER make a somewhat nearer approach to the former qualities, and especially the low broad grin of the Dutch painters; but the muscles, though stretched, are still flexible and at ease. In eager DESIRE we approximate more closely the tension of the violent and repulsive passions: but eager desire is a compound emotion; it is desire with uneasiness, and, consequently, borders on pain, if it do not enter its boundary.

* Faerie Queene, b. 1. cantos ix. xxxv.

↑ Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, canto il.

Hence the attractive affections are far more easy to be expressed by the painter than by the poet, and fall immediately within the range of classical sculpture, which limits itself to the calm and the dignified, and has rarely been known to wander into the regions of intensity, distortion, or violence.

The poet, incapable of catching those transient lights and shades, that unutterable play of feature into feature, by which the passions of this class are chiefly distinguished from each other, is compelled to have recourse to collateral imagery, complex personification, or allegorical accompaniments. To this remark it will be difficult to find an exception in any writer. Let us take Collins as an example, who is one of the best and boldest of our lyric bards. His description of Hope, in his celebrated Ode to the Passions, is exquisitely fine, but, after all, somewhat indefinite; the whole of its figure being that of a beautiful nymph, with fair eyes, an enchanting smile, and wavy golden hair, accompanied with a lyre or some other instrument, for we are not told what, which she strikes to a song of future or prospective pleasure, amid the echo of surrounding and responsive rocks, and woods, and valleys.

But thou, O Hope, with eyes so fair,
What was thy delighted measure?
Still it whisper'd promised pleasure,
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail.
Still would her touch the strain prolong,

And from the rocks, the woods, the vale,

She call'd on Echo still through all the song.

And where her sweetest theme she chose,

A soft responsive voice was heard at every close,
And HOPE enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair.

The portrait is graceful, elegant, and animated; but I may venture to say, that the only real expression of the character of Hope, is derived, not from the features of her person, but from the subject of her song, the whisper of promised pleasure, the hail of distant scenes. I say not this, however, as a proof of the imperfection of the artists, but of the art itself.

Let us try another description from the same captivating production. The mellow horn having just been sounded and laid down by MELANCHOLY, the poet proceeds as follows:

But O how alter'd was its sprightlier fone

When CHEERFULNESS, a nymph of healthiest hue,

Her bow across her shoulders slung,

Her buskins gemm'd with morning dew,

Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung,

The hunter's call, to Faun and Dryad known.

The oak-crown'd sisters and their chaste-eyed queen,

Satyrs and sylvan boys were seen

Peeping from forth their alleys green;

Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear,

And Sport leap'd up, and seized his beechen spear.

The remark I have just made will apply to the whole of this admirable group, than which a finer or more correct and accordant was never offered to the world. The passion of CHEERFULNESS gives, indeed, a specific expression and character to the countenance that sufficiently identifies it to the beholder, and is sufficiently capable of being seized and fixed by the painter; but it is not calculated for poetry, and the only feature Mr. Collins has copied into his description is that of a healthy hue. But he has admirably atoned for this poverty of his art by the picturesque scenery and associates with which he has surrounded her, and in which the province of poetry has an inexhaustible mine of wealth: and as much exceeds that of painting as painting exceeds poetry in the delineation of specific features and attitudes. Cheerfulness, though not distinguishable by the features of her person, is sufficiently made known to us by the company she keeps, by her attire, her manner, and her accoutrements. One of the finest pictures and sweetest groupings of this allegorical kind to be met with in our own language, is contained in the following verses of Dr. Darwin's Ode to May in his Botanic Garden. They are worthy of Anacreon or Pindar.