The great aim of this art being to mar effectually whatever beauty either of person or countenance nature has bestowed on us, the task would seem to be one of very easy accomplishment for most men. A simple disfigurement therefore, would be no indication of genius, since the visages upon which the laudable experiment is most frequently tried, require very little aggravation to effect the object. But an entire metamorphosis in the appearance of the whole animal, or at least such a change as to render both its genus and species doubtful, being the grand desideratum; it is _here_ that the modern Dandies have betrayed a most woful and egregious poverty of invention, compared to those of former times. Of this I shall presently offer indisputable testimony. The Dandies of our day however, may justly claim the palm of superiority, at least in _one_ particular; I mean, quo ad, _the head_, both inside and out: for, what with internal emptiness and external whiskers and mustaches, many have contrived to render not only the features of the face "perfectly unintelligible," (if I may borrow a phrase from the Pugilists,) but to disprove the long admitted dictum of philosophy, that there is no such thing in all nature as a vacuum. An instance of this most successful _face-marring_ has lately fallen under my own observation, which I will endeavor to describe, although in utter despair of doing justice to the original. Many months ago, being in a much crowded public room, I was not a little startled by the sudden appearance of a most fantastic, grim looking biped moving among the crowd, which I first took for one of those strange animals then showing about the country, that perhaps had escaped from his keepers. A more deliberate view, however, from a corner into which I had taken care to ensconce myself to keep out of harm's way, soon satisfied me that it was nothing more formidable than one of those harmless burlesques of manhood called Dandies, that so much resemble the Simia genus, as hardly to be distinguished from them. It had two large ropes (as they appeared to be) of tawny colored hair, hanging out from between the collar and the cheek bones, and reaching down some seven or eight inches over the breast. These I at first supposed might be the skins of a water dog's fore legs, forming the ends of some new fashioned comforter to keep the neck and cheeks warm in cold weather, to which these bipeds are particularly sensitive. But upon diligent inquiry among several, who seemed to be as much struck as myself with so uncommon and apparently formidable a looking animal moving upon two legs, instead of four, as might more reasonably have been expected, we were informed that these tawny appendages, in regard to which I had made such an egregious mistake, actually consisted of the united hairs of the throat and cheeks, so elongated by indefatigable culture, as to produce the grotesque appearance that had so strongly excited the wonderment of us all.