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"Why uncoverest thou my daughter's head?" demanded Mrs. Bertie; "verily, the damsel must not be insulted, neighbour; and, besides, thou hast thrust thy fingers through the muslin."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Mr. Ossaman; " I wish to be convinced if the young lady were likely to do honour to me if I patronized her."

"Why, surely, friend," rejoined Grace, "thou couldst not ascertain that point by the colour of my hair; and surely for that reason thou didst pull off my cap."

"Miss Bertie-I say, miss Bertie-you have mistaken my design in toto. I wish to compare the linear compartments of the os cerebrale:— I intend to measure the extent of the occipital line. I will minutely examine the region of propensities, and observe whether the organ of love of approbation, or of self-esteem is the more developed:-the upper and lateral part of the head, posteriorly, is the situation of the former; consequently, the line A. B. drawn in this direction, extending to the point C. on the posterior exterior angle formed by the points C. D. E., and the line F. G. crossing the line D. E., transversely, forming a second angle of the points E. F. G. the point B. being the central point; and designating the point B. as the the Mr. Cyrus Bertie, you have embarrassed my ideas by incessantly shaking the table. I must begin my analysis again, or miss Bertie will not understand the demonstration."

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"Thou needest not to trouble thyself again, friend," said Grace; "for verily, thy words are incomprehensible."

"So I feared, so I feared. You perceive, Mr. Cyrus Bertie, how your fidgetting motions disturb us."

"Thy geometrical proofs advanced in support of an obscure question, would, perhaps, tend to convince. But, where no position is advanced, and where, consequently, no contradiction can be made, thy geometry is of no use; except, indeed, thou wishest to show thy skill," said Grace, archly. "Ah! my estimate was correct," said Mr. Ossaman decisively; " your os frontis is sufficiently contracted to render further investigation unnecessary. Yes, you are destined to move in the ordinary tract. The attempt to rescue you from such contemptible security would be vain. Mr. Bertie, marry your daughter when you please, and to whom you please. I resign all hopes of her reflecting credit on me; therefore I cannot patronize her."'

In our opinion, if the character of a physiognomist is to be successfully delineated, he must not be painted as a silly dupe, or an offensive madman. The situations to be interesting, must be drawn from the mistakes and eccentricities of a fine mind, warped, but not deranged by intense application to an object of science, whose doubts have vanished before ardour of pursuit; and where plain sense has given up the reins to the extravagancies of a warm imagination. Mr. Ossaman offends us too much, by his constitutional folly, and his disgusting ignorance. We feel no interest in a blockhead born to be a dupe. We cherish no pity for him, and no indignation at the bungling knavery by which he is plundered and deceived. A novel cannot be a good one, where the principal character is without interest, and his conduct beyond the limits of common probability. Such is the physiognomist portrayed before us.

T. C.

417

ART. VI.-Notoria; or Miscellaneous Articles of Philosophy, Literature, &c.

The following remarkable epitaph on the Spanish Constitution, was composed not long since in Madrid by a Spaniard, and lately reached this country enclosed in a private letter.

Aqui yacen,

sin esperanzas de la resurrecion,

los restos

de la Constitucion Politica de la monarquia Espanola,
Nacida entre los movimientos convulsivos de una Revolucion
Que por la uniformidad de sentimientos y de impulso
Rompio las cadenas del Despotismo, y dio Libertad a
un encarcelado
Rey,

Prometio seguridad, ciencia, y prosperidad
à un pueblo

que nunca estuvo ilustrado por el raciocinio,
elevado por la tolerancia, ni exaltado por la libertad:
El primer esfuerzo

Del restaurado Monarca fué aniquilar el
Instrumento

Que derramó el esplendor de gloria sobre la
nacion.

Y el pueblo falso à sus juramentos
al mundo y la posteridad,

Fué el co-operador voluntário de su destruccion,
Y abandonando vilmente esta legitima
prole de la libertad

á las manos de su verdugo
Manifestó al genero humano
Que ninguna Nacion puede ser libre
que no sea merecedora de la
Libertad.

fué

Esta Constitucion

precoz y indigesta,

Pero à pesar de sus faltas

era la piedra angular, sobre que

Un majestuoso edificio

podria haber sido elevado.

Si el pueblo huviese sido consequente consigo mismo,
su pays huviera llegado à ser formidable

VOL. XII.'

y sus derechos respetados;
Las ciencias havrian sido cultivados
las artes protegidas

y la Nacion
Libre.

Ahora

Sumergida en tinieblas, supersticion y fanatismo
Presenta al mundo el humillante

Quadro

de una Nacion

Abrazando voluntariamente el Despotismo
y poniendose à si misma
los grillos de la
Tirania.

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418

La instabilidad de todas las instituciones mundanas, y estad seguros

Que los fundamentos de la grandeza nacional

son

Virtud, Libertad, y Independencia,

Here lie

with no hopes of resurrection,
The Remains

of the political Constitution of the Spanish Monarchy.
Born amid the convulsive throes of a Revolution,
which by an unity of sentiment and action
Broke the chains of despotism, and gave liberty to
an enslaved
King,

It promised security, knowledge, and happiness
to a people,

Who had never been enlightened by reason,
elevated by toleration, or vivified by freedom,
The first effort

of the restored monarch, was to crush the
Instrument,

which shed the only ray of glory on the
Nation;

and the People, false to their oaths,
to the world and posterity,

were the willing instruments of its destruction:
And basely surrendering this legitimate
Offspring of liberty

into the hands of its executioner,

have satisfied mankind,

That no Nation can be free,
who are undeserving of
Liberty.

This Constitution

was crude and undigested;
Yet, with all its faults,

It was the foundation upon

a noble structure

which

Could have been raised.

Had the people been true to themselves,
their Country would have been formidable,
and their rights respected;
Science would have been advanced,
the Arts patronized,

and the Nation

Free.

Now

Enshrouded in darkness, superstition and
Bigotry,

They present the humiliating picture to
the world,

of a Nation,

voluntarily embracing Despotism,
And fixing on themselves

the shackles of

Tyranny.

Reader

Learn from this

The insecurity of all earthly institutions, and be assured

That the foundations of National Grandeur

are

Virtue, Liberty, and Independence.

The following letter on Spanish affairs is translated from one of the numbers for July last, of the Minerve Francaise, a periodical work of high authority published at Paris.

Madrid, June 1818.

I write to you without having any news to give you: the most apathetic men of a country, where you find the very sublime in the way of apathy, begin to be sensible of the sterility of our single and unique Gazette. The situation of Spain would furnish rather a chapter for history, than an article for the Minerva. The ensemble of things may be very well worthy of attention; but the details do not deserve to be noticed.

All Europe is at peace, Spain alone excepted. She is condemned, by the usual fatality of her fortunes, to wage war without any real object and almost without hope of success. We are fighting in the provinces of New Grenada and in Peru;-the insurgents of the river Plate persist in proclaiming their independence, and publish ponderous and vehement manifestoes against the mother country, who is idly boasting of the good she has done thein;-Spanish blood, after having flowed in torrents in the peninsula, daily drenches the vast plains of the two Americas;-the United States seem to ask war from us as the only favour we have to bestow on them: the court of Brazil even, with which we had just contracted close family ties, bas taken possession of one of our most important posts, and, as it would appear, covets the neighbouring territories within her reach;-our European coasts are infested and insulted by buccaniers, in whom we can distinguish rebellious children of our own family, by their language and their habits; we are reduced to the wretched necessity of carrying the most desolating hostilities into the countries to which we gave the civilization which they enjoy; we have been obliged to receive from the navy-yards of Cronstadt some few fir-ships to trans

port our forces to the ungrateful colonies; the magnificent fleets of cedar, which, towards the end of the last century, rode so majestically in the harbours of Cadiz and Carthagena, and promised us destinies so splendid, no longer exist.

Our late unhappy divisions have left behind many bitter recollections. Exile has deprived us of a multitude of distinguished citizens, who might still serve their country. Others who had given way to an excessive enthusiasm, which it is difficult to condemn, when the epoch and the motives are considered, are equally cut off from society. Our finances have experienced no amelioration, and the grave personages charged with sounding the depths of their wounds, maintain an ominous silence. Is it, in fact, possible to recal the royal decrees which, in 1814, restored to the religious orders all the property and estates which they had lost?— We are abridging our military establishments; what remains is scarcely sufficient for garrisoning our strong places in time of peace.

Nevertheless, the old peninsula opposes a compact mass, an impenetrable surface to all these strokes of fate. She resists; she does not succumb. The idea of a new and general contribution has not alarmed us. The nobility, clergy, people, manifest the same resignation. We are so much accustomed to the depreciation, the nullity of the public debt, that no measure of whatever kind with respect to it, would excite complaint or surprise. Is this the effect of a consciousness of real wealth and strength, in Spaniards? or does it spring from a general torpor? It is very difficult to know public opinion, if, indeed, there be any such thing in a country like this. Impounded from village to village, from province to province, isolated in body and mind, we can hold no communication with one another. The inhabitant of Arragon is more stranger to the inhabitant of G. of Andalusia, than a quake ·

sylvania is to the mufti of Constantinople.

Two periodical publications, with the titles of Minerva and Chronicle, appear here at short intervals, and give us meagre extracts from theatrical pieces, and from works of science and literature published abroad: these wretched compilations have about twelve or fifteen hundred subscribers at the most. Our official gazette is issued three times a week; you know what it is: it contains official news of our own court; summary accounts of the official news of other courts, and private advertisements. The Mercury recapitulates weekly the ordinances and circulars of government, and reproduces obsolete political articles selected with all due, and truly admirable discretion.

These slight matters are sufficient for our wants; for, of all the nations of the continent, the Spanish, such as authority would have it, concerns itself the least with its own affairs, or with those of others. Our imagination is fed by recollections. We discourse much of what our ancestors have done. In respect to literature, our authors appear to us incomparable; our theatres suit us; our national histories are truth itself in our estimation. You understand that I speak of the mass;-in general. But here the exceptions are fewer than any where else, and hardly to be counted. We are pitied abroad: this is an error of charity. We do not suffer; we are satisfied with ourselves, and with the condition in which we are. With still less, we should think nothing wanting. Before our last war and according to the last general tables of statistics published officially in 1803, now under my eyes, we were ten millions three hundred and thirty one thousand one hundred and twenty natives; and our territory is as large as that of France; our capital was valued at three hundred and ten millions six hundred and sixteen thousand three hundred and four hard dollars, and two rials. We gathered annually thirty three millions of fanegas, (100 wt.) of grain of every kind, wheat, barley, oats, and corn. Galicia alone produced six millions of arrobas of turnips (the arroba is 25lbs. of 16oz.) The other provinces gave forty nine millions arobas of wine and six millions of oil. We had a million head of cattle, twelve millions of sheep, me

rinos included, one hundred and forty thousand horses; two hundred and fourteen thousand mules, and two hundred and thirty six thousand asses. In the vegetable kingdom, twelve hundred thousand arrobas of hemp or flax; two thousand six hundred arrobas of ŝaffron; four thousand of cotton; more than a million arrobas of Barilla, which nature offers us spontaneously. The animal kingdom was not less abundant: more than two millions arrobas of wool; a million and a half pounds of silk; the mineral kingdom yielded us two hundred and seventy thousand arrobas of iron, thirty thousand quintals of coal, and twelve thousand of mineral salt. The products of our industry were valued at fifty-six millions three hundred and twenty-three thousand ninety-seven hard dollars.—Something of all this remains; and this is enough for us. We are content.

As for our political constitution, it is still the same. The king is the living law; he governs us paternally. Our ministry is neither one nor divisible. The ministers are in fact no more than secretaries, for they do, or ought to do, nothing of themselves. It is always the king who prescribes, and regulates. It would be perhaps dangerous for our secretaries of state to act in concert, or to undertake to pursue a system. Thus, the one is entirely alien to the other. The councils are sometimes consulted, particularly that of Castille, which is administrative and judicial at the same time. But after all, the opinions given are only materials for the supreme judgment of the monarch.Whether M. de Pizarro continues, or M. de San Carlos returns, as the London Times will positively have it, is in the main, of perfect indifference; it touches not the question.-The king is ever active; it is he who bears, interrogates, approves, and condemns in the last resort. In this way, brought back after six years of tempest, to our old habits of three centuries of growth, we jog on quietly, and without noise. This course may appear to you very monotonous; you will say that movement is life: be it is so; our movement is very gentle; it is almost sleep. God grant that the march of events may not disturb our repose! M. de Garay promised us a budget each year. He has forgotten his promise and we also.

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