429 



powers which this temperament implies, distinguished strength of the 

 intellectual faculties. For excelling in the fine arts, and in the sciences, 

 there is need of exquisite sensibility, a condition absolutely at variance 

 with much developement of the muscular masses. 



CCXXXIII. If sensibility, which is vivid and easily excited, can dwell 

 long- upon one object: if the pulse is strong, hard, and frequent, the sub- 

 cutaneous veins prominent, the skin of a brown* inclining towards yel- 

 low, the hair black, moderate fulness of flesh, but firm, the muscles mark- 

 ed, the forms harshly expressed ; the passions will be violent, the move- 

 ments of the soul ofteri abrupt and impetuous, the character firm and 

 inflexible. Bold in the conception of a project, constant and indefatig- 

 able in its execution, it is among men of this temperament we find those 

 who in different ages have governed the destinies of the world : full of 

 courage, of boldness, and activity, all have signalized themselves by great 

 virtues, or great crimes, have been the terror or admiration of the 

 universe. Such were Alexander and Julius Caesar, Brutus, Mahomet, 

 Charles XII. the Czar Peter, Cromwell, Sixtus V. Cardinal Richelieu, 

 and Napoleon the Great. 



As love in the sanguine, ambition is in the bilious the governing pas- 

 sion. Observe a man, who, born of an obscure family, long vegetates in 

 the lower ranks : great shocks agitate and overthrow empires : at first a 

 secondary actor in these great revolutions which are to change his des- 

 tiny, the ambitious man hides his designs from all, and by degrees, raises 

 himself to the sovereign power, employing, to preserve it, the same ad- 

 dress with which he possessed himself of it. This is, in two words, the 

 history of Cromwell and of all usurpers*. 



To attain to results of such importance, the profoundest dissimulation 

 and the most obstinate constancy, are equally necesssary ; these are, 

 further, the most eminent qualities of the bilious. No one ever combin- 

 ed them in higher perfection than that famous Pope, who slowly travel- 

 ling on towards the pontificate, went for twenty years, stooping and talk- 

 ing, for ever, of his approaching death, and who, at once, proudly rear- 

 ing himself, cries out, " I am Popef !" petrifying with astonishment and 

 mortification, those \vhom this artifice had deceived into his party. 



Such too was Cardinal Richelieu, who raised himself to a rank so near 

 to the highest, and was able to maintain himself in it: feared by a King 

 whose authority he established, hated by the great, whose power he de- 

 stroyed, haughty and implacable towards his enemies, ambitious of every 

 sort of glory, &cj . 



The historians of the time inform us, that this celebrated minister 

 showed all the customary signs of the bilious temperament. Gourvillc 

 tells us that he was, all his life subject to a very troublesome haemorrhoi- 

 dal discharge. 



This temperament is further characterized by the premature develope- 

 ment of the moral faculties. Scarcely past their youth, the men I have 

 named projected and carried into execution enterprizes which would have 

 been sufficient for their fame. An excessive developement of the liver, a 



Vie d'OHvicr CiY>m\vcIl, par Jeuoy Dugour, 2 vols. 18mo. 

 y Vie tie Sixte Q-uint t 2 vols. in 12mo. 



See his character drawn, with as much truth as eloquence, by Thomas, in the last 

 edition of his Esai sur les Eloges. 

 Memoirs de Gourvjlle- 



