I asked him once if there was not a degree of ugliness which might be deemed unfortunate, because a consciousness of it affected the ill-favoured individual so as to excite in him discontent and envy, and other evil feelings. He admitted that in an evil disposition it might have this tendency; but he said a disposition which was injuriously affected by such a cause, would have had other propensities quite as injurious in themselves and in their direction, evolved and brought into full action by an opposite cause. To exemplify this he instanced the two brothers Edward IV. and Richard III. Fidus Cornelius burst into tears in the Roman Senate, because Corbulo called him a plucked ostrich: _adversus alia maledicta mores et vitam convulnerantia, frontis illi firmitas constitit; adversus hoc tam absurdum lacrimæ prociderunt; tanta animorum imbecillitas est ubi ratio discessit._ But instances of such weakness, the Doctor said, are as rare as they are ridiculous. Most people see themselves in the most favourable light. “Ugly!” a very ugly, but a very conceited fellow exclaimed one day when he contemplated himself in a looking-glass; “ugly! and yet there's something genteel in the face!” There are more coxcombs in the world than there are vain women; in the one sex there is a weakness for which time soon brings a certain cure, in the other it deserves a harsher appellation. As to ugliness, not only in this respect do we make large allowances for ourselves, but our friends make large allowances for us also. Some one praised Palisson to Madame de Sevigné for the elegance of his manners, the magnanimity, the rectitude and other virtues which he ought to have possessed; _hé bien_ she replied, _pour moi je ne connois que sa laideur; qu'on me le dedouble donc._ Wilkes, who pretended as little to beauty, as he did to public virtue, when he was off the stage used to say, that in winning the good graces of a lady there was not more than three days difference between himself and the handsomest man in England. One of his female partizans praised him for his agreeable person, and being reminded of his squinting, she replied indignantly, that it was not more than a gentleman ought to squint. So rightly has Madame de Villedieu observed that _En mille occasions l'amour a sçeu prouver Que tout devient pour luy, matiere à sympathie, Quand il fait tant que d'en vouloir trouver._