“She, as a veil, down to the slender waist Her unadorned golden tresses wore Dishevelled, but in wanton ringlets waved As the vine curls her tendrils,----” and to Adam he gives “Hyacinthine locks Round from his parted forelock manly hung.” Even his angels are conspicuous for their beautiful hair--for instance “Of charming sunny rays a golden tiar Circled his head, nor less his locks behind Illustrious on his shoulders, fledge with wings, Lay waving round”---- The vivid descriptions of Homer, full of local colouring, afford many instances of the picturesque effect produced by duly noting so apparently a trivial matter, as the colour or crispness of the hair. Shakspere makes frequent allusions to its beauty: at the touch of his master hand a gleam of light seems to play about the silken tresses: “Here in her hairs The painter plays the spider, and hath woven A golden mesh to entrap the hearts of men!” The Italian poets also show the same love of the beautiful, and fondness for “Le crespe chiome d’or puro lucente.” How much the form and variety of the hair help to distinguish the style and character of a composition was well understood by the ancient sculptors and painters. “The hair of the Phidian Jove, in the Vatican, rises in spouts, as it were, from the forehead, and then falls in waving curls, like the mane of the lion, most majestic and imperial in appearance. The crisp curls of Hercules again remind us of the short locks between the horns of the indomitable bull; whilst the hair of Neptune falls down wet and dank, like his own sea-weed. The beautiful flowing locks of Apollo, full and free, represent perpetual youth; and the gentle, vagrant, bewitching tresses of Venus, denote most clearly her peculiar characters and claims as a divinity of Olympus.” We remark the same peculiarity in the portraits by Sir Peter Lely of the court beauties of the time of Charles II. “Loves walks the pleasant mazes of the hair.”