e bills of the duck and the
eagle,) and thence we reach the finely developed lips of the carnivora,
which nevertheless lose that beauty they have, in the actions of
snarling and biting, and from these we pass to the nobler because
gentler and more sensible, of the horse, camel, and fawn, and so again
up to man, only there is less traceableness of the principle in the
mouths of the lower animals, because they are in slight measure only
capable of expression, and chiefly used as instruments, and that of low
function, whereas in man the mouth is given most definitely as a means
of expression, beyond and above its lower functions. Compare the remarks
of Sir Charles Bell on this subject in his Essay on Expression, and
compare the mouth of the negro head given by him (p. 28, third edition)
with that of Raffaelle's St. Catherine. I shall illustrate the subject
farther hereafter by giving the mouth of one of the demons of Orcagna's
Inferno, with projecting incisors, and that of a fish and a swine, in
opposition to pure graminivorous and human forms; but at present it is
sufficient for my purpose to insist on the single great principle, that,
wherever expression is possible, and uninterfered with by characters of
typical beauty, which confuse the subject exceedingly as regards the
mouth, (for the typical beauty of the carnivorous lips is on a grand
scale, while it exists in very low degree in the beaks of birds,)
wherever, I say, these considerations do not interfere, the beauty of
the animal form is in exact proportion to the amount of moral or
intellectual virtue expressed by it; and wherever beauty exists at all,
there is some kind of virtue to which it is owing, as the majesty of the
lion's eye is owing not to its ferocity, but to its seriousness and
seeming intellect, and of the lion's mouth to its strength and
sensibility, and not its gnashing of teeth, nor wrinkling in its wrath;
and farther be it noted, that of the intellectual or moral virtues, the
moral are those which are attended with most beauty, so that the gentle
eye of the gazelle is fairer to look upon than the more keen glance of
men, if it be unkind.

Sec. 11. As also in plants.

Of the parallel effects of expression upon plants there is little to be
noted, as the mere naming of the subject cannot but bring countless
illustrations to the mind of every reader: only this, that, as we saw
they were less susceptible of our sympathetic love, owing to the absence