family. Carlos foon after followed her, and left Jacintha the richeft widow in the neighbourhood. She would never hear of marrying, but devoted herfelf to the memory of her Carlos, whofe lofs was made up, as much as poffible, by the affection, obedience, and profperity of her children.

For the BOSTON MAGAZINE.

Obfervations on the Story of Brutus and Lucretia, in Page 382.

WH

THENEVER we paint the frightful confequence of folly we fhould take the greatest care not to let our zeal for virtue run to that height which reprefents every miftake as attended with ruin. This would be to drive the flighteft offender to defpair; and to allow no retreat from the threshold of error. For this reafon, I look upon the ftory above mentioned (with great deference to the pen which prefaced it) to be very ill calculated "to promote the caufe of innocence and virtue." I do not believe the fact ever exifted in real life; bu if it did, Brutus either killed himself from other caufes than thofe mentioned in his letter, or he muft have been a very bad reafoner indeed. That the predilection fhewn for him in a ftate of independence fhould be conftrued as an evidence of Lucretia's preferring another to him in a ftate of obligation, to prefer him to all others, and that too where the means of perfuafion to vice must be leffened, argues nothing but a jealous brain, that would invert the order of things to torment itself. He certainly appears a very unfuitable reprefentative of mankind, a whimsical chara&er, ignorant of the true principles of human nature, and fo the dupe of his own fufpicion: And had he not been furnished with. this lucky excufe for killing himself, it is more than probable that he would have found a thoufand others equally trifling. In fhort, the ftory rather affords a new apology for fuicides

than any neceffary confequence of relapfed virtue, and a refinement that would juftify or excufe Brutus's crime upon his profeffed principles, or (taking Lucretius's cafe) make her accountable for it in any degree would, from one pretence or other, extend to the murdering of all the good husbands, and the diftreffing of all the innocent wives in the world. I hope therefore to be excufed in obferving that this ftory (if believed) muft ferve to prevent the return of feeing that a woman under Lucre. falling virtue to her forfaken ftation:

tia's earliest misfortune would fooner embrace the coarfe pleasures of the world, than honourably_ally herself, to a paffion, which, in Brutus's own words," innocence will not remove nor reafon filence."

T

Spes re cuperandi.

An Efay on Beauty.

(Continued from Page 366.)

HE two other conftituent parts of beauty, are expreffion, and grace. The former of which is common to all perfons and faces, and the latter is to be met with but in very few. By expreffion, I mean the expreffion of the paffions, the turns and changes of the mind fo far as they are made visible to the eye, by our looks or geftures. Though the mind ap. pears principally in the face and attitudes of the head; yet every part almoft of the human body, on some occafion or other, may become expreffive. Thus the languishing hanging of the arm, or the vehement exertions of it; the pain expreffed by the fingers of one of the fons in the famous group of Laocoon, and in the toes of the dying Gladiator. But

this again is often loft among us by our drefs; and indeed is of the lefs concern, because the expreffion of the paffions paffes chiefly in the face, which we (by good luck) have not as yet concealed.

The parts of the face in which the paffions moft frequently make their appearance, are the eyes and mouth. But from the eyes they diffuse them

felves

felves (very frongly) about the eyebrows; as, in the other cafe, they appear often in the parts all round the mouth. Philofophers may difpute as much as they please about the feat of the foul, but wherever it refides, I am fure that it fpeaks in the eyes. I do not know whether I have not injured the eyebrows, in making them only dependent on the eye; for they, especially in lively faces, have as it were a language of their own, and are extremely varied according to the different fentiments and paffions of the mind. I have fometimes obferved a degree of difpleafure in a lady's eyebrows, when he had addrefs enough not to let it appear in her eyes: And at other times have difcovered fo much of her thoughts in the line just above her eye brows; that he has been amazed how any body could tell what paffed in her mind, and as he thought undifcovered by her face, fo particularly and diftin&ly.

Homer makes the eyebrows the feat of majesty, Virgil of dejection, Horace of modefty, and Juvenal of pride. And I queftion whether every one of the paffions is not affigned by one or other of the poets, to the fame part. If you would rather have the authorities from the writers of honeft profe, Le' Brun (who published a very pretty treatife to fhew how the paffions affect the face and features) fays, that the principal feat of them is in the eyebrows, and old Pliny had faid much the fame thing fo many hundred years before him. Hitherto I have fpoken only of the paffions in general: we will now conAder a little, if you pleafe, which of them add to beauty, and which of them take from it. I believe we may fay in general that all the tender and kind paffions add to beauty, and all the cruel and unkind ones, add to deformity. And it is on this account that good nature may, very juftly, be faid to be "the beft feature even in the finest face." Mr. Pope has included the principal paffions of each fort, in two very pretty lines,

"Love, Hope, and Joy, fair Pleafure's fmiling Train;

Hate, Fear, and Grief, the Family of Pain."-

The former of thefe naturally give an additional luftre and enlivening to beauty, as the latter are too apt to fling a gloom and cloud over it. Yet in these and all the other paffions I do not know whether moderation may not be in a great measure the rule of their beauty almoft as far as moderation in actions is the rule of virtue.

Thus an exceffive joy may be toc boifterous in the face, to be pleafing, and a degree of grief in fome faces and on fome occafions may be extremely beautiful.

Some degrees of anger, fhame, furprize, fear, and concern, are beauti ful, but all excefs is hurtful, and all exceís ugly. Dulinefs, aufterity, impudence, pride, affectation, malice and envy, are I believe always ugly. The finest union of paffions that I have ever obferved in any face, confifted of a jnft mixture of modelty, fenfibility, and fweetnefs: Each of which, when taken fingly, is very pleasing but when they are all blended together, in fuch a manner as either to enliven or correct each other, they give almost as much attraction as the paffions are capable of adding to a very pretty face. The prevailing paffion in the Venus of Medici, is modefty: It is expreffed by each of her hands, in her looks, and in the turn of her head. And by the way, I queftion whether one of the chief reafons, why fide faces pleafe one more than full ones, may not be from the former having more of the air of modefty than the latter, however that be this is certain, that the best artifts ufually chufe to give a fide face rather than a full one, in which attitude the turn of the neck too has more beauty, and the paffions more activity and force. Thus as to hatred, and affec tion in particular, the look that was formerly fuppofed to carry an infecion with it from malignant eyes was a flanting regard like that which Milton gives to Satan when he is viewing the happiness of our first parents in paradife and the fafcination, or firoke

*Afide the devil turn'd

For envy, yet with jealous Leer malign, ---Eye'd them afkance.--

froke of love is moft ufually (I believe) conveyed at firft in a fide glance. It is owing to the great force of pleafingness which attends all the tender paffions, "That lovers do not "only feem but are really more "beautiful to each other, than they "are to the reft of the world," becaufe when they are together the moft pleafing paffions are more frequently exerted in each of their faces, than they are in either, before the reft of the world. There is then (as a certain French writer very well exprefles it)" a foul upon their countenances” which does not appear when they are abfent from each other, or even when they are together converfing with other perfons who are indifferent to them, or rather lay a refraint upon ther features. I dare fay you begin to fee the preference, that the beauty of the paffions has over the two parts of beauty before mentioned; and if any one was not thoroughly convinced of it, I fhould beg him to confider a little the following particu lars, of which every body inuft have met with feveral inftances in their life time. That there is a great deal of difference in the fame face according as the perfon is in a better or worfe humour, or in a greater or less degree of liveliness. That the best complexion, the fineft features, and the exacteft fhape, without any thing of the mind expreft on the face is as infipid and unmoving as the waxen figure of the fine Dutchefs of Richmond, in Weftminster Abbey.

That a face without any one good feature in it, and with a very indifferent complexion, fhall have a very taking air, from the fenfibility of the eyes, the general good humoured turn of the look, and perhaps a little agreable (mile about the mouth. And these three things, I believe, would go a great way towards accounting for the je ne fcai quoi, or that inexplicable pleafingnefs of the face (as they call it) which is fo often talked of, and fo little understood, as the greater part, and perhaps all the reft of it would fall under the laft article, that of grace. I once knew a fine woman who was admired by every body that faw her, and fcarce

I li

loved by any body. This ineffe&ualnefs of all her beauties was occafioned by a want of the pleafing paffions in her face, and an appearance of the difpleafing ones, particularly those of pride and ill nature. Nero, of old, feems to have had this unpleafing fort of handsomeness, and probably from much the fame caufe, the goodnefs of his features being overlaid by the ugliness of the paffions that appeared in his face. The fineft eyes in the world with an excefs of malice or rage in them, will grow as shocking as they are in that fine face of Medufa on the famous feal in the Strozzi family at Rome. Thus you fee that the paflions can give beauty, without the affiftance of colour or form, and take it away where they have united the most ftrongly to give it. And it was this that made me affert, at firft, that this part of beauty was fo extremely fuperior to the other two! This,by the way, may help us to account for the juftness of what Pliny fays in fpeaking of the famous ftatue of Laocoon and his two fous: He fays, it was the fineft piece of art in Rome and to be prefered to all the other ftatues and pi&ures of which they had fo fine a collection at that time; it had no beauties of colour to vie with the paintings, and other flatues there (as the Apollo Belvedere, and the Venus de Medici in particular) were as finely proportioned as his Laocoon. But this bad a much greater variety of expreffion, even than thofe fine ones, and it muft be on that account alone, that it could have been preferable to them and all the reft.

Before I quit this head, I would juft remind you of two things that I have mentioned before: that the chief rule of the beauty of the paffions, is moderation. And that the part in which they appear most strongly is the eyes. It is there that love holds all his tendereft language: it is there that virtue commands, modefty charms, joy enlivens, forrow engages, and inclination fires the hearts of the beholders; it is there that even fear, anger and contufion can be charming. But all thefe, to be charming muft be kept withus their due bounds and lim.ts; for too fullen an appearance

of