“Ipse inter primos praestanti corpore Turnus
          Vertitur arma, tenens, et toto vertice supra est.”

["In the first rank marches Turnus, brandishing his weapon,
taller by a head than all the rest.”—­Virgil, AEneid, vii. 783.]

Our holy and heavenly king, of whom every circumstance is most carefully and with the greatest religion and reverence to be observed, has not himself rejected bodily recommendation,

“Speciosus forma prae filiis hominum.”

          ["He is fairer than the children of men.”—­Psalm xiv. 3.]

And Plato, together with temperance and fortitude, requires beauty in the conservators of his republic.  It would vex you that a man should apply himself to you amongst your servants to inquire where Monsieur is, and that you should only have the remainder of the compliment of the hat that is made to your barber or your secretary; as it happened to poor Philopoemen, who arriving the first of all his company at an inn where he was expected, the hostess, who knew him not, and saw him an unsightly fellow, employed him to go help her maids a little to draw water, and make a fire against Philopoemen’s coming; the gentlemen of his train arriving presently after, and surprised to see him busy in this fine employment, for he failed not to obey his landlady’s command, asked him what he was doing there:  “I am,” said he, “paying the penalty of my ugliness.”  The other beauties belong to women; the beauty of stature is the only beauty of men.  Where there is a contemptible stature, neither the largeness and roundness of the forehead, nor the whiteness and sweetness of the eyes, nor the moderate proportion of the nose, nor the littleness of the ears and mouth, nor the evenness and whiteness of the teeth, nor the thickness of a well-set brown beard, shining like the husk of a chestnut, nor curled hair, nor the just proportion of the head, nor a fresh complexion, nor a pleasing air of a face, nor a body without any offensive scent, nor the just proportion of limbs, can make a handsome man.  I am, as to the rest, strong and well knit; my face is not puffed, but full, and my complexion betwixt jovial and melancholic, moderately sanguine and hot,

“Unde rigent setis mihi crura, et pectora villis;”

["Whence ’tis my legs and breast bristle with hair.” 
—­Martial, ii. 36, 5.]

my health vigorous and sprightly, even to a well advanced age, and rarely troubled with sickness.  Such I was, for I do not now make any account of myself, now that I am engaged in the avenues of old age, being already past forty: 

              “Minutatim vires et robur adultum
               Frangit, et in partem pejorem liquitur aetas:” 

["Time by degrees breaks our strength and makes us grow feeble. 
—­“Lucretius, ii. 1131.]

what shall be from this time forward, will be but a half-being, and no more me:  I every day escape and steal away from myself: