PHYSIOGNOMY. 
Spaniard, a German, or a Frenchman, and 
which impels even the very vulgar to ex- 
claim, “ He is a foreigner,” though they 
cannot appropriate him to his country ; but 
tire mind of Lavater, being almost exclu- 
sively turned to this pursuit, we must pro- 
fit and be informed by his relation -of the 
distinguishing traits which point out the 
natives of difterent regions. This great 
physiognomist observes, that the placing of 
several persons together, selected from na- 
tions remotely situated from each other, 
gives at one glance their surprising varieties 
of visage ; and yet he acknowledges, that 
to point out those Variations is a task of 
considerable difficulty, and his assertion, 
that this may be done with inoie facility 
from an individual than the mass of popula- 
tion, seems extieraely probable. The 
French, he thinks, do not possess equally 
commanding traits with the English, nor 
are they so minute as those of the Germans, 
and it is to the peculiarities of their teeth, 
and manner of laughing, that he attributed 
his power of deciding on their origin. The 
Italians he appropriated by the form of 
their noses, their diminutive eyes, and pro- 
jecting chins. The eye-brows and fore- 
heads are the criterion by which to judge 
of the natives of England. The Dutch pos- 
sess a particular rotundity of the head, and 
have weak, thin hair : the Germans, nume- 
rous angles and wrinkles about the eyes 
and in the cheeks ; and the Russians are 
remarkable for black and light-coloured 
hair, and flat noses. 
It must be extremely grateful to the na- 
tives of England to reflect, that Lavater 
considers them, in the aggregate, the most 
favoured upon the earth with respect to 
personal beauty; he says, they have the 
shortest and best-arched foreheads, and 
that only upwards, and towards the eye- 
brows, sometimes gradually declining, and 
in other cases are rectilinear, with full, me- 
dullary noses, frequently round, but very 
seldom pointed, and lips equally large, well 
defined, curved, and beautiful, with the ad- 
dition of full, round chins. Still greater 
perfections are attributed to the eyes of 
Englishmen, which are said to possess the 
expression of manly steadiness, generosity, 
liberality, and frankness, to which the eye- 
brows greatly contribute. With complex- 
ions infinitely fairer than those of the Ger- 
mans, they have the advantage of escaping 
the numerous wrinkles found in the faces of 
the latter, and their general contour is noble 
and commanding. 
Judging from the ladies he had seen of 
our country, and from numerous portraits 
of others, Lavater was led to say, they ap- 
peared to him wholly composed of nerve 
and marrow, tall and slender in their forms, 
gentle, and as distant from coarseness and 
harshness as earth from heaven. His own 
countrymen he found to have many charac- 
teristic varieties ; those of Zurich are gene- 
rally meagre, and of the middle size, and 
either corpulent or very thin. 
To pursue this subject something further, 
it will be found, that the people of Lap- 
land, and parts of Tartary, are of very di- 
minutive stature, and of extremely savage 
countenances, formed by flat faces, broad 
noses, high clieek bones, large mouths, thick 
lips, peaked chins, and their eyes are of a 
yellow brown, almost black, with the lids 
retiring towards the temples j nor are the 
females of this disagreeable race more fa- 
voured by nature ; and each sex is distin- 
guished by the grossest manners, and minds 
stupid beyond credibility ; but of all the 
varieties of the human species, the inhabi- 
tants of the coast of New Holland seem the 
most debased and miserable ; those are tall 
and slender, and to add to the deformity of 
thick lips, large noses, and wide mouths, 
they are taught from their infancy to keep 
their eyes nearly closed, to avoid the in- 
sects which swarm around them. 
Turning to the more favourable side of 
this picture of national physiognomy, we 
shall find tlie people of Cachemire, the 
Georgians, the Circassians, and Mingre- 
lians, erect, noble, and formed for admira- 
tion, particularly the females, whose charms 
of face and person are proverbial. 
There are too many local and physical 
causes for this difference in the external 
appearance of the inhabitants of the differ- 
ent parts of the world, for enumeration and 
explanation in so confined a space as that to 
which we are limited. Professor Kant, of 
Konigsberg, in an essay on this subject, di- 
vides the human race into four principal 
classes, into which the intermediate grada- 
tions may readily be resolved : those are 
the AVhites, the Negroes, the Huns, (Mon- 
gols, or Calmucs), and the Hindoos, or peo- 
ple of Hindostan. Circumstances purely 
external may be the accidental, but cannot 
be the original causes of what is assimilated 
or inherited ; as well could chance produce 
a body completely organized. “ Man,” 
says the Professor, “ was undoubtedly in- 
tended to be the inhabitant of all climates 
and 611 soils. Hence the seeds of many in- 
