 with respect to Melancholy, may be equally affirmed of any other Affection, whose opposite gets an habitual Empire in the Mind. I say habitual, because there are some Persons of such variable and fluctuating Tempers, now furious, now complacent; now churlish, now generous; now mopingly melancholy, now merry to Madness; now pious, now profane; now cruelly hardhearted, now meltingly humane; that a Man can no more judge of what Nature or Disposition such People are, than he can determine what Wind shall predominate next
April;
and yet, when the Wind blows, he can tell by every Cloud and Weather Cock, from what Point it comes; and may as easily decypher the present Temper, by the Aspect.
But, Sir, said
Arabella,
might not Nature impress, as in the Case of
Socrates,
such conspicuous Characters of Vice (in his peculiar Cast of Countenance and strong Turn of muscling) as no internal Virtues should be able to retract?
By no means Madam, answered Mr.
Fenton.
For, if such Characters are impressed by Nature on the Countenance, independent of any such Characters in the Mind, this would, first, overthrow the whole System of the Physiognomists, who judged of the Mind by the Countenance alone. And, secondly, it would owerthrow the Opinion of
Socrates
himself, who allowed that his Countenance had received such Impressions from the natural Bent and Disposition of his Mind. But, again, if the Mind has really a Power to impress her own Character or Likeness on the Countenance; what should take away this Power, why does she not retain it? Why should not a total Change of Character in the Soul, make some suitable Change of Character in the Aspect? It does, Madam, it does make a total Change. And there are thousands of Faces, in yonder sanctified City, that, once, expressed all the Sweetness of bashful Modesty; and yet are, now, as much hardened and bronzed over with Impudence; as the Face of the Statue at
Charing-Cross.
In the soft and pliable Features of Infancy and Youth, the Mind can express itself with much more Force and Perspicuity, than in the Features of People more advanced in Years. The Nerves and Fibres, in our early Age, are all open, active, and animated; They reach to the outward Surface of the Skin; and the Soul looks forth, and is seen through them, as a
Spanish
Beauty is seen through a Veil of Gauze. But Time destroys many of these intelligible Fibres; it also obstructs others; and it renders the Remainder less
