ELOQUENCE OF THE EYES. 289 



quertce is less expressive, when, in the Odyssey, he speaks of the 

 furious Antinoiis in language like this : 



" Toiaiv 5' 'Avrivoog fitrtyt Ev7Tt00 uio 

 ' A%vvfji.tvoQ' MeVeog Se fjieya 0p6i> 



, ooai oe 6t Trvpi Xa/iTrerowvn 



Ovid, ever the faithful painter of the human passions, could not 

 better characterize the effects of wrath than in that passage of his 

 first book, de Arnoribus : 



" Oculis quoque pupula duplex 

 Fulminat, et geminum lumen, ab orbe redit." 



Phineas Fletcher, in his Purple Island, has an elaborate descrip- 

 tion of the eyes, and their power of expression, part of which may 

 be transcribed : 



" First stands an arch, pale Cynthia's brightness shaming, 

 The city's fore-front, cast in silver bright : 



At whose proud base are built two watching tow'rs, 

 Whence hate and love skirmish with equal pow'rs, 

 Where smiling gladness shines, and sudden sorrow show'rs. 



' Here sits retir'd the silent reverence; 



And when the prince, incens'd with anger's fire, 

 Thunders aloud, he darts his lightning hence ; 

 Here dusky reddish clouds fortel his ire ; 

 Of nothing can this isle more boast aright 

 A twin-born sun, a double-seeing light ; 

 With much delight they see, are seen with much delight." 



The passion of love, which a beneficent Creator has enclosed in 

 the depths of the heart to excite whatever enjoys life to reproduce 

 itself, at the epoch when it arrives at perfection, is manifested still 

 more evidently by the language of the eyes, than by that which the 

 organs of speech articulate. When Antiochus, consumed by the 

 fire which the beauty of Stratonice had kindled in him, was about 

 to descend into the night of the tomb, the physician, Erasistratus, 

 determined the nature of his malady by the motion of his pulse, but 

 unquestionably was first directed to the source of the disorder by 

 the eyes of his patient. The epithets, oculi pleni, putres, adulterii, 

 oculi columbarum, and others similar, are utterly insignificant, if 

 they do not refer to the passion of love : 



" Omnes in Damallim putres 



Deponent oculos." Hon. CARM. I. 36. 



Anacreon, in commending the portrait of his mistress, does not 

 forget this interesting feature. As to her eyes, he says they are full 



