6.  Looks of contempt, disdain, or malevolence, will be reflected, as from a mirror, by every countenance on which they are turned; and if a wanton aspect excites desire; it is but like that of a savage for his prey, which cannot be gratified without the destruction of its object.

7.  Among particular graces, the dimple has always been allowed the pre-eminence, and the reason is evident; dimples are produced by a smile, and a smile is an expression of complacency; so the contraction of the brows into a frown, as it is an indication of a contrary temper, has always been deemed a capital defect.

8.  The lover is generally at a loss to define the beauty, by which his passion was suddenly and irresistibly determined to a particular object; but this could never happen, if it depended upon any known rule of proportion, upon the shape and disposition of the features, or the colour of the skin:  he tells you that it is something which he cannot fully express, something not fixed in any part, but diffused over the whole; he calls it a sweetness, a softness, a placid sensibility, or gives it some other appellation which connects beauty with sentiment, and expresses a charm which is not peculiar to any set of features, but is perhaps possible to all.

9.  This beauty, however, does not always consist in smiles, but varies as expressions of meekness and kindness vary with their objects:  it is extremely forcible in the silent complaint of patient sufferance, the tender solicitude of friendship, and the glow of filial obedience; and in tears, whether of joy, of pity, or of grief, it is almost irresistible.

10.  This is the charm which captivates without the aid of nature, and without which her utmost bounty is ineffectual.  But it cannot be assumed as a mask to conceal insensibility or malevolence; it must be the genuine effect of corresponding sentiments, or it will impress upon the countenance a new and more disgusting deformity, affectation:  it will produce the grin, the simper, the stare, the languish, the pout, and innumerable other grimaces, that render folly ridiculous, and change pity to contempt.

11.  By some, indeed, this species of hypocrisy has been practised with such skill as to deceive superficial observers, though it can deceive even those but for a moment.—­Looks which do not correspond with the heart, cannot be assumed without labour, nor continued without pain; the motive to relinquish them must, therefore, soon preponderate, and the aspect and apparel of the visit will be laid by together; the smiles and languishments of art will vanish, and the fierceness of rage, or the gloom of discontent, will either obscure or destroy all the elegance of symmetry and complexion.

12.  The artificial aspect is, indeed, as wretched a substitute for the expression of sentiment; as the smear of paint for the blushes of health:  it is not only equally transient, and equally liable to dejection; but as paint leaves the countenance yet more withered and ghastly, the passions burst out with move violence after restraint, the features become more distorted and excite more determined aversion.