motions of these features when awake or animated? Thus, we speak of an expressive face before we have seen a movement grave or cheerful, or any indication in the features of what prevails in the heart.” This capacity for expression certainly enhances our admiration of the human countenance; but it is more a concomitant of the primary cause of its beauty than the cause itself. This cause rests on that simple and secure basis—the harmonic law of nature; for the nearer the countenance approximates to an harmonious combination of the most perfect figures in geometry, or rather the more its general form and the relation of its individual parts are arranged in obedience to that law, the higher its degree of beauty, and the greater its capacity for the expression of the passions. Various attempts have been made to define geometrically the difference between the ordinary and the ideal beauty of the human head and countenance, the most prominent of which is that of Camper. He traced, upon a profile of the skull, a line in a horizontal direction, passing through the foramen of the ear and the exterior margin of the sockets of the front teeth of the upper jaw, upon which he raised an oblique line, tangential to the margin of these sockets, and to the most prominent part of the forehead. Agreeably to the obliquity of this line, he determined the relative proportion of the areas occupied by the brain and by the face, and hence inferred the degree of intellect. When he applied this measurement to the heads of the antique statues, he found the angle much greater than in ordinary nature; but that this simple fact afforded no rule for the reproduction of the ideal beauty of ancient Greek art, is very evident from the heads and countenances by which his treatise is illustrated. Sir Charles Bell justly remarks, that although, by Camper’s method, the forehead may be thrown forward, yet, while the features of common nature are preserved, we refuse to acknowledge a similarity to the beautiful forms of the antique marbles. “It is true,” he says, “that, by advancing the forehead, it is raised, the face is shortened, and the eye brought to the centre of the head. But with all this, there is much wanting—that which measurement, or a mere line, will not shew us.”—“The truth is, that we are more moved by the features than by the form of the whole head. Unless there be a conformity in every feature to the general shape of the head, throwing the forehead forward on the face produces deformity; and the question returns with full force—How is it that we are led to concede that the antique head of the Apollo, or of the Jupiter, is beautiful when the facial line makes a hundred degrees with the horizontal line? In other words—How do we admit that to be beautiful which is not natural? Simply for the same reason that, if we discover a broken portion of an antique, a nose, or a chin of marble, we can say, without deliberation—This must have belonged to a work of antiquity;