1882.] 
7 43 
Analyses of Books. 
“ never aspired to the honour of building up a complete system.” 
For such a task, indeed, he was not the man. 
Mr. McDowall seems to some extent to consider that our 
physiognomic insights into character are based more upon 
“ instinct ” than upon reason. He writes : — “ Children, though 
unable to reason upon the subject, are guided by it in their likes 
and dislikes ; and we doubt not the lower domestic animals, un- 
enlightened by Lavater, are yet guided by the science which he 
taught. Burns could not have made his canine friends, Luath 
and Caesar, dogmatise so finely about the lords of the creation 
had they not been able to read the language of the human 
face.” 
Here, however, we are reminded of an error which the author, 
if he does not share, still does not distinctly repudiate. Many 
of those persons whom our contributor Frank Fernseed terms 
“ Cynolaters,” and especially certain lady-novelists of the 
“ Ouida ” school, are given to hint that dogs attach themselves 
to good men, and instinctively avoid bad ones. How this 
opinion can be for a moment upheld in face of the palpable fact 
that poachers, sheep-stealers, roughs, and criminals generally 
are on the best of terms with dogs, is hard to explain. 
But in support of the “ instinctive” view it may be remem- 
bered that our first impressions of the character of a stranger to 
whom we have just been introduced are often more trustworthy 
than the careful estimates which we form on prolonged observa- 
tion. Especially is this the case with dislikes. Many a person 
has bitterly rued overruling such dislikes as uncharitable. 
Mr. McDowall does not set about his task in a perfectly sys- 
tematic manner. He gives the portraits of certain historical 
personages, and indulges in rather rhapsodical descriptions of 
their powers. Thus anent the first Napoleon he introduces from 
Victor Hugo’s “ Les Miserables ” (Chap. XII.) a quotation ex- 
tending to nearly two pages ; this in a work which does not reach 
in all ninety pages. We have, in like manner, long dissertations 
on George Whitfield, on Martin Luther, on Robert Burns, and 
on Shakspeare. Persons of our own day, whose features might 
be more easily compared, if not with their characters, yet at 
least with their actions, are but sparingly introduced. Mrs. 
Fletcher and Mrs. L. N. Fowler are scarcely so well known that 
the public can of their own judgment compare features and cha- 
racter. 
In addition to these ladies we find merely the Queen and Mr. 
Jos. Chamberlain, M.P., for Birmingham (!), neither of whom, 
especially the latter, can be discussed in a non-political journal. 
To us, at least, it is a great disappointment that the author has 
avoided the examination of any scientific character, whether of the 
past or the present. It would, to us at least, have been deeply 
interesting to hear his estimate of Aristoteles, of Galilei, of 
Harvey, Newton, or Darwin, as deduced from their portraits. 
