410 HISTORY OF 







CHAPTER XXVII. l 



OF THE AGE OP MANHOOD. * 



THE human body attains to its full height dur* 

 ing the age of puberty, or at least a short time 

 after. Some young people are found to cease 

 growing at fourteen or fifteen, others continue 

 their growth till two or three-and-twenty. Dur- 

 ing this period they are all of a slender make ; 

 their thighs and legs small, and the muscular 

 parts are yet unfilled. But by degrees the fleshy 

 fibres augment ; the muscles swell, and assume 

 their figure ; the limbs become proportioned, and 

 rounder ; and before the age of thirty, the body, 

 in men, has acquired the most perfect symmetry. 

 In women, the body arrives at perfection much 

 sooner, as they arrive at the age of maturity more 

 early ; the muscles, and all the other parts being 

 weaker, less compact and solid, than those of 

 man, they require less time in coming to perfec- 

 tion; and, as they are less in size, that size is 

 sooner completed. Hence the persons of women 

 are found to be as complete at twenty, as those 

 of men are found to be at thirty. 



The body of a well-shaped man ought to be 

 square; the muscles should be expressed with 

 boldness, and the lines of the face strongly mark- 



* This chapter is translated from M. Bufibn, whose description is very 

 excellent. Whatever I have added, is marked by inverted commas, " thus." 

 And in whatever trifling points I have differed, the notes will serve to show. 



