ses with equal certainty shame, modesty, and vivid,
uncontrollable affection. It spreads, as it were in so many stages, over
the cheeks, the brow, and the neck, of him or her in whom the sentiment
that gives birth to it is working.

Thus far I have not mentioned speech, not perhaps the most inestimable
of human gifts, but, if it is not that, it is at least the endowment,
which makes man social, by which principally we impart our sentiments to
each other, and which changes us from solitary individuals, and
bestows on us a duplicate and multipliable existence. Beside which
it incalculably increases the perfection of one. The man who does not
speak, is an unfledged thinker; and the man that does not write, is but
half an investigator.

Not to enter into all the mysteries of articulate speech and the
irresistible power of eloquence, whether addressed to a single hearer,
or instilled into the ears of many,--a topic that belongs perhaps less
to the chapter of body than mind,--let us for a moment fix our thoughts
steadily upon that little implement, the human voice. Of what unnumbered
modulations is it susceptible! What terror may it inspire! How may it
electrify the soul, and suspend all its functions! How infinite is its
melody! How instantly it subdues the hearer to pity or to love! How does
the listener hang upon every note praying that it may last for ever,

----that even silence
Was took ere she was ware, and wished she might
Deny her nature, and be never more,
Still to be so displaced.

It is here especially that we are presented with the triumphs of
civilisation. How immeasurable is the distance between the voice of the
clown, who never thought of the power that dwells in this faculty, who
delivers himself in a rude, discordant and unmodulated accent, and is
accustomed to confer with his fellow at the distance of two fields, and
the man who understands his instrument as Handel understood the organ,
and who, whether he thinks of it or no, sways those that hear him as
implicitly as Orpheus is said to have subdued the brute creation!

From the countenance of man let us proceed to his figure. Every limb
is capable of speaking, and telling its own tale. What can equal the
magnificence of the neck, the column upon which the head reposes! The
ample chest may denote an almost infinite strength and power. Let us
call to mind the Apollo Belvidere, and the Venus de Medicis, whose very
"bends