ON THE

LINES OF ANIMALITY.

389

NATURE has all things formed by one great law,
Harmonious and firm, yet ever-varying
In its proportions; and the wise discern
The object of creation's wond'rous power,
E'en in the smallest link of the great chain
Of beings endless, legibly impress'd.
All things by regular degrees arise
From mere existence unto life, from life
To intellectual power; and each degree,
Has its peculiar necessary stamp,
Cognizable in forms distinct and lines.
MAN only has the face erect, the nose,
The mouth minute, the eye with acute angle,
The oval regular, encircled round

With tender, flowing, and luxuriant hair.

In him alone are wisdom and beneficence:

He is of measure and of fair proportion

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Alone the original. He can enjoy

The great reward of action and enquiry:

The sense refined, the feeling exquisite

Of the high rank and worth of human nature!

LINES OF ANIMALITY.

INNUMERABLE attempts have been made to exhibit the gradations of form in men and animals, and regularly to systematize and define, in a physiognomonically-mathematical manner, the peculiar and absolutely fundamental lines of each degree; delineating the transition from brutal deformity to ideal beauty, from satanical hideousness and malignity to divine exaltation; from the animality of the frog or the monkey, to the beginning humanity of the Samoiede, and thence to that of a Newton and a Kant. These attempts have not been entirely unsuccessful. I shall here add some notices on this subject to the preceding miscellaneous rules.

Many men of eminence-Albert Durer, Winkelmann, Buffon, Sommering, Blumenbach, Gall-some of them rather as designers, others more as naturalists, have me