Noses arched near the forehead be long to those who possess the energy to command, are capable of ruling, acting, overcoming, and destroying ; others, rec tilinear, are the medium between the ex tremes above noticed, and are appropri ated by nature to persons who act and suf fer with equal power and patience. Socra. tes, Lairasse, and Boerhaave, were great men, and had ill-shaped noses, and were distinguished for meekness and gentle ness. Were it possible to attribute a ge neral prevalence of disposition to a gene ral form of the nose, individuals of every nation would be found to resemble the Tartars, who have flat indented noses, the Negroes, who have broad, and the Jews, who have high arched noses, in their pro pensities, and it must _follow that what ever qualities the physiognomist may ap ply to those individuals, must also belong to the whole people whose noses bear a resemblance to them ; were this particu lar accurately examined into„, it would tend, in a great measure, to confirm the correctness or incorrectness of the sci ence, as it has hitherto been practised.
The admirers of this study attribute great powers to the mouth, in expressing the emotions of the mind ; and Lavater expatiates on it with enthusiastic fervour indeed : "Whoever," he exclaims, "in ternally feels the worth of this. member, so different from every other member, so inseparable, so not to be defined, so simple, yet so various ; whoever, I say, knows and feels this worth, will speak and act with divine wisdom." Ho then pro ceeds to call it " the chief seat of wisdom and folly, power and debility, virtue and vice, beauty and deformity, of the human mind ; the seat of all love, all hatred, all sincerity, all falsehood, all humility, all pride, all dissimulation, and all truth." Granting the benevolent pastor full as sent to these observations on the mouth, it becomes the indispensable duty of all men to notice the physiognomy, or indications of that organ ; in making those observations it will be necessary to exa mine the lips separately, and to ascertain when they are closed, during the mo ments of perfect tranquility, whether that operation is performed without a forcible exertion of the muscles, particularly the middle of the upper and under lips, the bottom of the middle line at each end ; and finally, the extending of the middle line on both sides.
The character of the man is proclaim ed in the lips ; the more firm the latter, the more fixed the former ; the weak and irresolute man has weak lips, with rapi dity in their motion. The vicious, cring ing, mean, and bad countenance is never formed with lips well defined, large, and justly proportioned to the other parts of the face, and the line of which is equally serpentine on each side ; such, though they may denote a tendency to sensuali ty, belong exclusively to a character de serving of admiration in most relations of life.
A mouth, the lips of which are so thin as to present, at first view, little more than a line, is said to indicate apathy and quiet, but industrious when roused. When
this description of mouth is raised at the extremities, vanity or vain pretensions, affectation, and probably deliberate ma lice, distinguish those so formed. The opposite of this kind of lips, swelled into considerable size, is a mark of indolence and sensuality. The " cut through, sharp drawn lip," as Lavater terms some, has to contend with avarice and anxiety. Lips closed accurately, without exertion, and handsome in their outline, belong to the exercise of discretion and firmness. Lips with the latter advantage, and the upper projecting, are generally appro priated to the virtuous and benevolent, though there are, without doubt, num. berless persons of excellent characters whose under lips project, but in Lava ter's opinion, the last peculiarity implies a well meaning man, whose goodness consists rather of cold fidelity than ardent friendship. The under lip, hollowed in the middle, denotes a fanciful character. Let the moment be remarked, when the conceit of the jocular man descends to the lip, and it will he seen to be a little hollow in the middle.
The mouth remaining naturally closed, invariably signifies fortitude and courage. When the latter quality is in operation, the mouth closes insensibly ; the natu rally open mouth makes a disposition to complain ; the closed, on the contrary, designates endurance. "Though phy siognomists," adds Lavater, "have as yet but little noticed, yet much might be said concerning the lips improper, or the fleshy covering of the upper teeth, on which anatomists have not, to my know ledge, yet bestowed any name, and which may be called the curtain, or pallium, extending from the beginning of the nose to the red upper lip proper. if the upper lip improper be song, the proper is always short ; if it be short and hollow, the proper will be large and curved ; another certain demonstration of the conformity of the human countenance. Hollow upper lips are much less com mon than flat and perpendicular ; the character they denote is equally uncom mon." The ancients who studied the phy siognomy of man, supposed that diminu tive short teeth betrayed the weakness of those who possessed them ; more mo dern observers contradict this supposi tion, and declare that men of uncommon strength have such, but they are rarely of that pure white so necessary to pre serve the general beauty of the counte nance. Teeth of unusual length, and narrow, are sins of weakness and cow ardice ; those justly proportioned to each other, white and transparent, which ap pear immediately upon opening of the mouth, though not projecting, and in tirely exposed to view from the insertion in the gums to the opposite extremities, are seldom to be met with in the jaws of persons who possess unamiable propen sities; when teeth of a different descrip tion are discovered belonging to amiable and worthy characters, enquiry will ge nerally satisfy the physiognomist that his conclusions on this head were just, and that the blackness and derangement were occasioned by disease.