aspect between dark and golden, a good deal like what we conceive to be the colour he alludes to. Anacreon describes hair of a similar beauty. His touch, as usual, is brief and exquisite : Deepening inwardly, a dun; Sparkling golden, next the sun. * Which Ben Jonson has rendered in a line, "Gold upon a ground of black.” Perhaps, the true auburn is something more lustrous throughout, and more metallic than this. The cedar with the bark stripped looks more like it. At all events, that it is not the golden hair of the ancients has been proved in our opinion beyond a doubt by a memorandum in our possession, worth a thousand treatises of the learned. This is a solitary hair of the famous Lucretia Borgia, whom Ariosto has so praised for her virtues, and whom the rest of the world is so contented to think a wretch. It was given us by a lamented friend who obtained it from a lock of her hair preserved in the Ambrosian * Τα μεν ενδοθεν, μελαινας, Τα δ' ες ακρον, ἡλιωσας. + Mr. Roscoe must be excepted, who has come into the field to run a tilt for her. We wish his lance may turn out to be the Golden Lance of the poet, and overthrow all his opponents. The greatest scandal in the world, is the readiness of the world to believe scandal. + Lord Byron. library at Milan. On the envelope he put a happy motto "And Beauty draws us with a single hair." If ever hair was golden, it is this. It is not red, it is not yellow, it is not auburn: it is golden, and nothing else; and, though natural-looking too, must have had a surprising appearance in the mass. Lucretia, beautiful in every respect, must have looked like a vision in a picture, an angel from the sun. Everybody who sees it, cries out, and pronounces it the real thing. We must confess, after all, we prefer the auburn, as we construe it. It forms, we think, a finer shade for the skin; a richer warmth; a darker lustre. But Lucretia's hair must have been still divine. Mr. Landor, whom we had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with over it, as other acquaintances commence over a bottle, was inspired on the occasion with the following verses :"Borgia, thou once wert almost too august, And high for adoration;-now thou 'rt dust! The sentiment implied in the last line will be echoed by every bosom that has hair next it, or longed to do so. worn a lock of Hair is at once the most delicate and lasting of our materials; and survives us, like love. It is so light, so gentle, so escaping from the idea of death, that with a lock of hair belonging to a child or a friend, we may almost VOL. I. R look up to heaven, and compare notes with the angelic nature; may almost say, "I have a piece of thee here, not unworthy of thy being now." FOREHEAD. There are fashions in beauty as well as dress. In some parts of Africa, no lady can be charming under twenty stone. 66 King Chihu put nine queens to death; In Shakspere's time, it was the fashion to have high foreheads, probably out of compliment to Queen Elizabeth. They were thought equally beau̟tiful and indicative of wisdom: and if the portraits of the great men of that day are to be trusted, wisdom and high foreheads were certainly often found together. Of late years, physiognomists have declared for the wisdom of strait and compact foreheads, rather than high ones. We must own we have seen very silly persons with both. It must be allowed, at the same time, that a very retreating forehead is apt to be no accompaniment of wit. With regard to high ones, they are often confounded with foreheads merely bald; and baldness, whether natural or otherwise, is never handsome; though in men it sometimes takes a character of simplicity and firmness. According to the Greeks, who are reckoned to have been the greatest judges of beauty, the high forehead never bore the palm. A certain conciseness carried it. "A forehead," says Junius, in his Treatise on Ancient Art, "should be smooth and even, white, delicate, short, and of an open and cheerful character." The Latin is briefer. Ariosto has expressed it in two words, perhaps in one. "Di terso avorio era la fronte lieta." ORLAN. FUR. Canto VII. "Terse ivory was her forehead glad." A large bare forehead gives a woman a masculine and defying look. The word effrontery comes from it. The hair should be brought over such a forehead, as vines are trailed over a wall. * "Frons debet esse plana, candida, tenuis, breuis, pura."Junius De Pictura Veterum, Lib. iii. cap. 9. The whole chapter is very curious and abundant on the subject of ancient beauty. Yet it might be rendered a good deal more so. A treatise on Hair alone might be collected out of Ovid. CRITICISM ON FEMALE BEAUTY. II.-EYES, EYEBROWS, NOSE. Eyes.-Eyebrows.- Frowning without frowning. - Eyebrows meeting-Shape of head, face, ears, cheeks, and ear-rings.— Nose.-A perplexity to the critics.-Question of aquiline noses.-Angels never painted with them. EYES.-The finest eyes are those that unite sense and sweetness. They should be able to say much and all charmingly. The look of sense is proportioned to the depth from which the thought seems to issue; the look of sweetness to an habitual readiness of sympathy, an unaffected willingness to please and be pleased. We need not be jealous of "Eyes affectionate and glad, That seem to love whate'er they look upon." Gertrude of Wyoming. They have always a good stock in reserve for their favourites; especially if, like those mentioned by the poet, they are conversant with books and nature. Voluptuaries know not what they talk about, when they profess not to care for sense in a woman. Pedantry is one thing: sense, taste, and apprehen |