ornaments. When Charles Kean acted as Mephistopheles, in Faust, he proved the importance of the member by wearing an artificial nose, cleverly formed of gutta-percha, or other coloured material, which entirely altered the character of his countenance. We have only to fancy our snub-nosed friends with Roman noses, to see at once, with our mind's eye, what an immense difference this would make. The chief character in everybody's face lies in the nose; and so important is it, that a great wit wrote a dissertation upon noses, not without an arrière-pensée, which it will not do for us to follow out. "Learned men, brother Toby," says he, "do not write dialogues upon long noses for nothing." Indeed, besides being "a breathing apparatus, an ornament to the face, and a convenient handle by which to grasp an impudent fellow," it is, no doubt, an important index to a man's character. It recalls temper, the passions, power, taste, energy, discrimination, and idea. It has had a volume, nay, more than one, written upon it. It has excited the envy of those who possess it not. It especially distinguishes the man from the brute; for, as an old song says, "the prejudice goes very far in the favour of wearing a nose, and a nose should not look like a snout."

Now a man has a nose, but a brute has but a snout. The most advanced ape in all creation, the last link, if we believe Monboddo and Darwin, between the beast and man, cannot boast of so divine an appendage as a nose; a beak or a snout is all that he can lay claim to. When prizefighters break and batter and utterly deface "the human face

divine," they go far to render a man like a brute by breaking down the bridge of his nose.

Noses have been classified as the Roman or aquiline, the eagle-beaked nose, the straight or Greek nose, the cogitative wide-nostrilled nose, the Jewish, the snub, and the celestial or turned-up nose. Of these the first indicates decision, firmness of character, great energy, and with these a considerable disregard for the softnesses, littlenesses, and paltry ways of society and life. Many of our first-rate men have had Roman noses. It was a Roman nose which determined first upon subjugating this island; which nose, if legends tell truth, was broken in the attempt; for Cæsar fell from his boat as he landed, and damaged his face upon the hard shingles of the shore of Deal. How important the parts which have been played by this kind of facial organ, as may be seen by a glance into history. Beginning with Sesostris, we have Cato the Censor, Julius Cæsar, Henry IV. of France, Canute, Sir William Wallace, Robert Bruce, Edward I., Henry VII., Queen Elizabeth, Loyola the founder of the Jesuits, Sir Francis Drake, Gonzalve of Cordova, who beat the Moors, the great Condé, Cortez, Pizarro, the great Pitt, Washington, chief of the New World, and Wellington, the greatest captain of his age, all with Roman noses. Of course, also, we must add Columbus, who discovered America. Without the testimony of portraits, we could declare that it must have been a Roman-nosed man who, beaten from court to court, laughed at and neglected, still by perseverance got together his little navy, and, setting his back resolutely to the Old World, steered

over the waste of waters to the New. Of half Roman and half Greek noses, which class combines physical energy with refinement, many great men have boasted: such were Alexander the Great, Constantine, King Alfred, Wolsey, Richelieu, Lorenzo de' Medici, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Philip Sidney, and last, and greatest in energy and effect, Napoleon Buonaparte. His nephew has also an aquiline nose, rugose, coarse, large, but expressive, and cogitative as to the termination and nostrils.

Mr. Dickens makes one of his characters, little Miss La Creevy, the portrait-painter, always looking out of window to catch a good-looking nose which she may transfer to ivory. Her favourite was a Grecian. The sketch is conceived in that spirit of humorous falsification which distinguishes the author; but it is so far true that it enables us to guess which kind of nose is most liked by ladies, which we humbly presume is the Grecian; and it must be owned that the most beauteous of mankind have possessed this nose. It is impossible to conceive more beautiful faces than those which have the Greek nose; but the owners are men of too much refinement to be always energetic and bustling. Hence, when Napoleon, who was a nasologist, or nose philosopher, wanted any work well done, he asked for a man with plenty of nose. Strange as it may appear,” he says, "I generally chose a man with a good allowance of nose.” Now the Grecian nation never had a superabundance of that organ. Their noses were small, but well-chiselled, straight from the forehead, without much individuality or

66

locality above them in the forehead, and accompanied by the well-known Greek character-a preference for a diagonal action, craft, sharpness, good bargaining, and refinement. They loved the arts rather than war. They admired eloquence because it indirectly persuaded. They were fickle, and were for ever seeking something new. The Romans would have battered down the walls of Troy in half the time in which the Grecians did, or they would have died under them. The Grecians loved to talk rather than fight. They remain in history, and occupy so large a space, because of the genius of their authors, not of that of their people.

The possessors of the Greek nose who have become celebrated in history will very fairly indicate the general character which it seems to point out. Addison, Byron, Shelley, Petrarch, Spenser, and Milton (in his youth), are those amongst poets who were distinguished by this feature. Of painters there are many 'who, as their portraits show, possessed it: Raffaelle the divine, one of the most beautiful of men, Canova the sculptor, Claude, Titian, Murillo, and (when young) Rubens. Under this class naturally falls a very excellent kind of nose, called the Græco-cogitative. In youth many noses are almost purely Grecian; but these afterwards develop into the rugose, widely nostrilled, cogitative nose, which the majority of great thinkers appear to have possessed. This is the last class of which we can at present treat. It should not turn up, nor be bluntly snubbed, but gradually widen below the bridge. The nostrils should be fine and wide, not close and thin. The tip should, as we

have said, have a character of its own, and should certainly not be thin, which would indicate weakness and curiosity. Men of war or of theology, inventors, agriculturists, or strict men of business, possess this nose; and to enumerate the number of first-rate men who have possessed it would occupy more space than we can afford. Wycliffe, Luther, Knox, Tyndale, and Fuller; Bunyan, Paley, Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, Chalmers, Priestly, and Wesley-all possessed it, with many other great theologians. Amongst poets are Homer, Chaucer, Tasso, Ben Jonson, Shakspeare, and Milton in manhood and age; amongst men of discovery and science, Galileo, Caxton, Bacon, Newton, Smeaton, Cuvier, Des Cartes, Whiston, and Alexander von Humboldt; amongst artists, Michael Angelo and Hogarth; amongst statesmen, Oliver Cromwell, Burke, Franklin, Edward III., Colbert, Talleyrand, Fox, Walpole, and De Witt; amongst historians, Hume, Robertson, Burnet, Archbishop Usher, and Macaulay; amongst lawyers, Erskine, Blackstone, Hall, Coke, Somers, Mansfield, and Lord Brougham.

The last-mentioned eminent nose is perhaps the best known of any in this generation. Innumerable caricatures have made it celebrated everywhere. It is slightly bent upwards, and has a defiant and combative expression; but its end is decidedly cogitative, its nostrils wide and fuli of character. To its partly turned-up style no doubt his lordship owes that insatiable industry and curiosity which has made him explore all science, and has rendered him eminent in law, politics, and literature; to its cogitative