have certainly an unquiet look, but it is the eager intelligence of enterprise, full of hope; not the sodden, worn, careful face born of discontent with the present, and uncertainty about the future.

Did a handsomer set of fellows ever march to the beat of drum, than our holiday soldiers. Though their service-and may they grow veterans in that and no other-be confined to the corporation programme of a Fourth of July glorification, and their longest march be from the Battery to Union Square, we would pit them against any army in the world in an attack upon a woman's heart.

Our fire-boys and train-bands, recruited in the Bowery, nursed on the blood of the shambles, fired with the spirit of independent youth and the pot-house, and exercised in the rough-and-tumble of rowdyism, could unstrip and show muscle with any Farnese Hercules extant. And has not our country the honor of giving birth to Tom Heyer, the champion of pugilists?

Nature diffuses, art combines; the former has no ready-made Apollos or perfect Venuses on hand; the latter is obliged to get them up to order. The artist, in looking up his material for the manufacture of his ideal, must gouge out an eye here, pull a nose there; pluck a beard in one place, cut off an ear in another; pocket one man's hand, walk off with another man's leg; steal the locks of one pretty girl, embrace the form of another; take his pick out of the beauty of one family, and run away with the female head of another. Well, with all due admiration for beauty, wherever it may be diffused, we believe that the artist would have less of a steeplechase in his hunt after the ideal, in America, than in any other country under the sun. A short walk in Broadway, would supply him with material for a whole Louvre of artistic beauty, for any number of gods, goddesses, and cherubs,-men, women and children. Americans being a race made up of every variety of people, their style is necessarily of the composite order. But whatever their origin, they all have specific American characterestics. The very foreigners are hardly landed, before they are melted up and turned out of the American mould, very passable specimens of Yankees. The fat Englishman is melted down and reduced into working shape; the light Frenchman acquires substance; the heavy German is lightened up; the wild Irishman is made tractable; the slumbering Spaniard opens his eyes and stirs his stumps.

Jonathan may be described as the finished model of the Anglo-Saxon, of which John Bull is the rough-cast. The former is

more cleanly cut; his proportions more regular; his features more sharply chiselled;

and his action more free. The latter is altogether too superfluous and clumsy; his proportions want regulating; his belly is too protuberant; his neck too thick; his feet too spreading; his hands too large and podgy; his lips too spongy and everted; his cheeks too pendulous; his nose too lobular, blunt and bottle-like; his expression altogether too beef-eating; in a word, according to our taste, John Bull won't do, and must be done over again; but tastes, of course, differ, and our taste is only an American taste, after allgeme

The doctors tell us there is less deformity in the United States, than elsewhere. It is easier, say the midwives, to come into this world of America, as it has been easier, before the Ericsson, to go out of it, than in any other world extant. The mothers of America are so rarely deformed, and their " as well as may be expected" means so very well indeed, that the medical ushers of the bed-post, like most other dignitaries on great occasions, have really quite a sinecure of it.

It is true, Tom Thumb is a native, and although we think him no beauty, they evidently thought so abroad; and Victoria kissed and fondled him very much as Gulliver was kissed and fondled by his Brobdingnag nurse, Glumdalclitch. The climate, however, is not favorable to the undergrowth of dwarfs, for we have the word of Barnum's agent for the fact, that he succeeded once in finding an English dwarf, to whom Tom Thumb was a giant, and on bringing him to New-York, he had hardly been here a week, when he grew as tall as a bean-pole; and his early death alone prevented Barnum from exhibiting the former English dwarf, as the great Kentucky giant.

The Americans are undoubtedly a thin people; thin-skinned at any rate, some will exclaim, but that is not the question just now. If quantity is to carry the day, and not quality, Jonathan must yield to the forty stone of John Bull. But there is not one of the philosophers who holds, that beauty is to be measured by the expanded size of the girth, and the enlarged circumference of the belly. Africa alone, of all nations, though Turkey has a leaning that way, sets up fatness as a standard of beauty. Cuffey, it is true, expands female loveliness beyond the limits of the embrace of any ordinary mortal; lards it with layers of fat, like a plump partridge prepared for the spit; and feasts his dainty imagination upon the oleaginous charms of female blubber. But Cuffey is not acknowledged by the rest of the world as the arbiter elegantiarum. Americans are

thin; they have too much to do, and too anxious to do it well, to allow of the necessaetry repose for the quiet accumulation of fat. But they have muscles, strong and active, that spring to their work, quick messengers of an energetic will. Our women have not the embonpoint of the English, but they don't imbibe London stout by the imperial measure, nor retire to their nuptial couches, torpid with strong brewed ale and old Stilton. Fashionable ladies dance themselves down below the average size, dissolve themselves by their dissipation into impalpable shadows, and pass away as ghosts in a decline. We have no excuse for such, but thank heaven, there are American women who are not fashiontable ladies. "A true female figure," whispers Leigh Hunt, "is falling, and not too broad in the shoulders; moderate, yet inclining to fulness rather than deficiency, in the bosom; gently tapering, and withrout violence of any sort, in the waist; naturally curving again in those never-to-bewithout-apology-alluded-to hips; and finally, her buoyant lightness should be supported upon natural legs, not at all like a man's; and upon feet, which, though little, ware able to support all the rest." Was it Mrs. Bull, who stood as a model for that picture? No! she would make a dozen of such; it must have been, with all due reverence for our grandmother, be it said, her lightsome daughter, America.

The average height of our men, is about five feet ten, oftener above than below. The Americans are very evenly measured, and would range without picking or choosing, in a level platoon, that would delight the eye of a military martinet. Kentucky is supposed to supply Barnum with his giants, and the supply seems to keep up wondrously. Among other marvels of that State, where the inhabitants are said to be half-horse, half-alligator, and are capable of going the whole hog, which means, we suppose, taking in a full sized animal in a single swallow, there is no doubt the men are tall, and, as they talk, very large. Frederick of Prussia Iwould not have wanted for recruits for his tall grenadier guards, if he had had the run of the West. Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee, would have supplied him with an army of them. Put Lord John Russell and Daniel Webster, the Duke of Wellington and General Scott, back to back, and mark how the Americans overtop their English relatives.

Let us analyze the American, not as the chemist, who tells us that man is 45 lbs. of carbon and nitrogen, diffused through five and a half pailsful of water (the American, we are inclined to believe, has consideraby less water in his composition),

but as the anatomist, into head and neck, body and extremities.

The American head is generally large, which the phrenologists may attribute as they please, to increased development of brain. There are all varieties of face, though the oval predominates; all kinds of eyes, though the black prevail; noses of every shape and size, Grecian, Roman, and the English turn-up, though the bottle and snub are rare; mouths of many kinds, voluptuous and ascetic, firm and relaxed; and diverse chins, double and single, square and pointed. These features are, however, for the most part, more sharply chiselled with us, than in any other people. Our foreheads are higher and wider and we seem to be proud of them, and not content with the generosity of nature in this respect, try to extort from her more than is our due. A high, expanded, arched forehead, may be excellent in man, as indicative of intellectual force, the power of knowledge; but it is a positive blemish in a female, whose most attractive characteristics are delicacy and tenderness. The ancients admired a low forehead in a woman, and their sculptors, always true to beauty, gave their female statues such. Horace says, insignem tenui fronte Lycorida, Lycoris remarkable for her low forehead; which he evidently puts down to the credit of her beauty; and Martial speaks admiringly of the frons brevis, the short forehead. Leigh Hunt says a large, bare forehead, gives a woman a masculine and defiant look. The word effrontery comes from it. Now ever since phrenology began to finger our craniums, our vanity has been very busy in smoothing the way for its titillating advances. Men and women, too, have been so much engaged, with the aid of brushes and depilatories, in brushing up and putting in order the outworks, that they have neglected to fortify the citadel within. As an untrod path may lead to a deserted house, a smooth forehead may point to an empty brain. The prevailing practice of combing back the hair of young girls, and keeping it there with a force that draws the blood from its roots, and skins the eyeballs, is the ugliest possible of practices; when these young girls grow up wiser than their mothers, as they surely will, it is hoped they will not have the effrontery to scold at their mammas for having spoiled their beauty. A good word has, it is true, been spoken in favor of the large forehead; it has been likened, in its relation to the face, to the broad sky in a landscape, lightening up the whole expanse. The Italian women used to pluck out their hair to increase the height of their fore

heads; and Montaigne reports that the women are reputed more beautiful, not only in Biscay, but elsewhere, for having their heads shaved. We recommend, however, our beauties to cultivate the low forehead, and advise our mannish women of the Woman's Rights Convention, to transplant the hair from their heads to their chins, and with bold fronts and strong beards, make good their claims to man's privileges and his wardrobe, to his boots and his walks in life.

The prevailing fashion of wearing the hair is not at all to our taste. Our women have naturally a very luxuriant growth, but they do not make good use of it. The hair should be flowing, and not too much restrained. The ladies should eschew the bandoline of the hairdresser, and overturn their macassar oil and kalydors into the fire, as the Vicar of Wakefield did his daughters' washes and cosmetics. There is no greater beauty than the natural waving hair, but such is the power of fashion, that we know a pretty girl who spends the better part of the morning in trying to turn nature's curved lines of beauty into the straight ones of art. She plasters and presses, and glues, and posts, like a bill-sticker, her front hair on either side of her forehead, until it looks like two great daubs of black paint, or pieces of black plaster, or blinkers on the eyes of a shying horse, or like any thing that is ugly or unbecoming. Fashion is a cunning, short-tailed fox, and pretty women should beware of its arts. Fashion is a device of ugliness to entrap beauty. Fanny! we beseech you, in spite of that ugly Frenchwoman, Madame La Mode, let your dark waving hair flow on in its natural course of beauty, free and graceful as your own girl's life; let it shade with its tendrils the sunny light of your eyes, and the youthful bloom of your sweet face, and let it fall in clusters and full foliage about that rising but fast ripening into the fulness of womanhood. Our men are magnificent on the score of whiskers. We prefer the American to the English mode of wearing the beard; the former, in its free growth, gives length to the face, in character with its natural oval form; the latter, which has been styled the cotellette de mouton style of whisker, which shows the chin and lower lip, and leaves the hair upon the cheek to grow in a triangular form, gives an unnatural breadth to the countenance, and a blank, spread-out look.

In spite of the supposed largeness of grasp, and the length of stride of the Americans, they have extremely small hands and feet. Glove-sellers and shoemakers who have come hither from the

Rue de la Paix or Bond-street, will tell you that the size and fit of Young America are a smaller pair of kids, and a shorter pair of varnished leathers or satin slippers, than those of either Young France or England.

Our walk and attitudes are not by any means the most graceful and becoming in the world. An American has ease enough certainly, a little too much, we think; it is the ease which makes him lie down when he should stand up; it is the ease which elevates his heels in the air when he should plant his feet upon the ground; it is the ease which sprawls on four chairs when it should sit upon one; it is the case which rests its elbow upon a neighbor's knees, instead of its own; in fine, it is the ease of republican gregariousness, which would merge the reserve of the individual into the free and easy whole. Our men would be better looking; they would not stoop in the shoulders, as many do, or bend in the legs; and they would be infinitely more agreeable, if they would improve their ways and manners in this repect.

Our women are too stiff in their walk and attitude. In walking, an American woman only bends her knees, and hardly that; she should yield a little in the upper joints. Her gait gives a movement to her body, like the squirming motion of a wounded insect, with a naturalist's pin through its midriff. American women hold their arms badly in walking; they almost universally bring them forward, crossing their hands in front; they have, in consequence, the look of a trussed fowl, and have about as much freedom of motion. If the arms were allowed to fall freely by the side, our women would move more gracefully, walk better, and look better. The prevailing mode of carrying the arms hoops the shoulders, contracts the breast, prevents all proper development of the bust, ruins health, and what our ladies will be more likely to attend to, destroys beauty of form and all grace of movement. In complexion we must yield to the English; their moist climate is favorable to the fresh, clear, wholesome and pellucid rose tint, that distinguishes the faces of the young and beautiful in England. An English beauty has, however, to watch her complexion closely; an additional degree to the thermometer, a glass of beer more than the daily allowance, or an unusual emotion, is apt to spoil all, and flush, in a moment, the delicately shaded rose tint, into the full-blown peony. There is, however, a style of complexion in America which is never seen in England, and which we admire highly; it is a mix ture of the brune and blonde, a compro

mise between the oriental olive and the English red; it may be compared to a rose blooming through the misty vapor of early morn; it is like a ripe peach, with its golden tint spread over the roseate hue beneath; it is the dark Spanish beauty, brightened up by the wholesome blood of England. The pale, olive complexion of America is supposed by the English to be evidence of ill health. English travellers used to affect to believe, that every second American was a dyspeptic, and the rest far gone into a decline. But this peculiarly American complexion not seldom lasts from childhood to threescore and ten, and shows itself everywhere where enterprise and labor are busy in doing their manful part.

There is a want of abandon, of course we are speaking of manners, not of morals, about the American women; they are too formal and statuesque; they carry themselves with a hauteur, as if they were entitled to homage without owing any thing in exchange. They will turn out a full omnibus of men, or a score of male worshippers from their church seats without designing to give in return the cheap courtesy of a smile or a bow, or the small change of a "thank you.", Like the images and painted saints in a church, they receive the worship of their adorers without even the consciousness of a wink, as if they were quite insensible to the piety of the faithful. Our fashionable women are said to be good dancers; if so, their skill is confined to the turning of a pretty ankle or the tripping of a fantastic toe.

Our voice is not so soft as that of the English, for example, although there is a difference in favor of the Southern women; but our deficiency in this respect may be attributed, like our pale complexions, to the effects of the atmosphere. Voice depends upon hearing, and as sound is distinct and shrill in our clear air, so the voice naturally assumes a high, sharp key.

In expression, that illuminated book of the soul and the intellect, where every thought and emotion may be read by him who runs, the Americans surpass every other people. In most countries, you may observe the doltishness of insensibility, the stupidity of ignorance, the obsequiousness of servility, or the superciliousness of command. In America, you find expanded over the whole face of the people, an expression of lively intelligence and common respect. This is the natural result of equality before the law. It is true we are an anxious people, too anxious.

It would appear at times as if our destiny was not to enjoy life, but to prepare it for the enjoyment of those who

are to come after us. We are always pioneers, not only in new lands, but in fresh fields of new enterprise; we are ever pushing on to the unknown regions of undiscovered thought. We work on ceaselessly, stirred by the spirit that is within us of our own intelligence and energy, and not because forced to fly from the sling and arrows of outrageous fortune. The Americans may possibly have a worn look, and may not laugh as heartily as they might, and as they are fully entitled to, according to the proverb, "let him laugh who wins." However this may be; as far as the question of beauty is concerned, the expression of the common face of America, is, without doubt, the finest in the world.

We have been talking of beauty for the most part; but we would not despise homeliness. Ugliness has a claim to our sympathy. Lord Bacon says, "virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set: and moreover, that "beauty is as summer fruits, which are easy to corrupt and cannot last." Madam de Pompadour, it is true, used to say that a handsome woman was the noblest work of God; but she was an interested party. Mere regularity of feature, and what is termed good looks, are often deceptive. Coleridge tells us of the impression, full of respect and admiration, a calm, grave, silent, intellectual, and handsome-looking man once made upon him at a dinner-table, and how he watched his lips till they might open to a sentiment or thought worthy of Bacon, until some appledumplings came in, when the Magnus Apollo exclaimed, "Them's the jockeys for me!"

Coleridge also reports that once upon a time a lady was descanting admiringly upon the personal charms of John Wilkes, when he put in, "but he squints, mad am." "Squints? sir," replied the lady, "he only squints as such a man should squint." Mirabeau was by no means handsome; Wilkes was positively ugly; and Burr no Apollo; and yet these three men were all famous for their gallantries, and must necessarily have been greatly admired by the gentle sex. Wilkes used to say he only wanted a half hour's talk with a woman to get the better of the handsomest man in the company. And Burr confessed that touch was the secret of his success; and asserted that he never failed by that simple means to feel his way into the good graces of the handsomest woman living. These acts we commend to the consideration of the ugly men, and if they are not satisfied let them join the ugly club in the Spectator.

As for women that are not beautiful, and none need be positively ugly, let them

console themselves with the fact that the fascination of a woman does not depend upon the color of her eyes, or the shape of her nose, or upon her mere personal form at all. Merely beautiful women are apt to put up their charms at too high a price, and consequently find no bidders.

A natural desire and power of pleasing, that come from good nature, are more fascinating and more lasting than all surface charms. With such attractions, a woman may reasonably hope, like Ninon De l'Enclos, to inspire an affection at fourscore.

66 AND a teacher, madame," said I, to the English-speaking Frenchwoman with whom I had just concluded an arrangement for a room and breakfast.

"I will speak to an old friend on the subject, can I be of further service?" "Many thanks, no."

I sent for my baggage from the Hotel des Etrangers, and wandered about Paris, extremely amused and charmed with novelty, but bitterly and continually conscious of the inferiority of ignorance. On that day, for the only time in my life, I envied, not magnificence, nor genius, but the volubility of two ragged urchins.

At nine, next morning, I heard a tap at the door, and upon my "Come in," followed a man of seventy.

"Madame G. informs me that you need lessons in my language. I can devote to you two hours in the morning. Do you think three francs too much?"

"By no means; shall we begin?"

We did, and in the eagerness of acquisition, at first, I scarcely looked at my teacher; but it is impossible to consort long with a fellow-being, without some curiosity; and I soon remarked his thin long white hair. his threadbare dress of faded brown, and his expression, not of satiety, disappointment, or bitterness, but of utter weariness; that of a slave staggering under a burden of which he dare not complain. I frequently pressed to finish my task, in order to converse with him; but, though he always answered intelligently, he never passed the limits of a mere answer. veral times I was late at our appointment, but even to my excuses he merely bowed. A month had thus passed. One morning he did not come, nor the second; on the third he entered. His usual look of fatigue was deepened into that of utter exhaustion. I noticed that a black cravat had taken the place of the usual check.

Se

Contrary to his habit, he spoke in French, and rapidly, regretting his unavoidable absence.

"Let us make up for lost time," said I, gayly. He was sorry he could no longer be of service to me.

This was strange; but his age and poverty forbade me to ask a reason, and I repaired to my landlady for the explanation.

He had been a professor in a college, easy in his circumstances, and happy in a family; had been deprived of his place, had lost his fortune, and had seen his family drop one by one, dwindled to a single grandson. That boy he educated and supported by the precarious chance of English lessons, and two days ago, his grandson died.

"Did you observe a black cravat? C'était son mieux: he probably has only the sum you paid him to bury his boy."

A thousand times since I have reproached myself for not relieving, by some little ingenuity, that worst of human woes, the destitution of pride; but, in the thought lessness of youth, the story of the poor gentleman was soon stamped out of my mind by some other impression. Two weeks after I was strolling in the Tuileries on a sunny noon. The gardens at that hour are merely tenanted by nurses, children, and stragglers. Upon one of the benches (chairs are a sou) I saw an old man with an open book. He had not turned a leaf for five minutes. I drew near from some feeling of curiosity, and recognized my teacher. I addressed him in English; he neither replied nor looked up; his mind was too far away to be recalled by a sound unconnected with his recollections. I then ventured upon a "Bonjour, monsieur;" he rose, bowed, and sank again into his seat. I wanted to speak but could not; my heart sickened and my throat swelled at the sight of grief, impatient of sympathy, and, like Rachel, refusing to be comforted. The hopes of existence were not merely dead in the old man, but buried, and a stone rolled over the mouth of the sepulchre In presence of such a grief who could

babble condolence? Not I.

Day after day, during a week, I returned at the same hour to the Tuileries, with the vague hope of doing something I knew not what-for the old man; but I never saw him again.