We now turn from the life of Madame D’Arblay to her writings.  There can, we apprehend, be little difference of opinion as to the nature of her merit, whatever differences may exist as to its degree.  She was emphatically what Johnson called her, a character-monger.  It was in the exhibition of human passions and whims that her strength lay; and in this department of art she had, we think-, very distinguished skill.  But, in order that we may, according to our duty as kings at arms, versed inthe laws of literary precedence, marshal her to the exact seat to which she is entitled, we must carry our examination somewhat further.  Page xlvii

There is, in one respect, a remarkable analogy between the faces and the minds of men.  No two faces are alike ; and yet very few faces deviate very widely from the common standard.  Among the eighteen hundred thousand human beings who inhabit London, there is not one who could be taken by his acquaintance for another; yet we may walk from Paddington to Mile-end without seeing one person in whom any feature is so overcharged that we turn round to stare at it.  An infinite number of varieties lies between limits which are not very far asunder.  The specimens which pass those limits on either side, form a very small minority.

It is the same with the characters of men.  Here, too, the variety passes all enumeration.  But the cases in which the deviation from the common standard is striking and grotesque, are very few.  In one mind avarice predominates ; in another pride ; in a third, love of pleasure-just as in one countenance the nose is the most marked feature, while in others the chief expression lies in the brow, or in the lines of the mouth.  But there are very few countenances in which nose, brow, and mouth do not contri. bute, though in unequal degrees, to the general effect ; and so there are very few characters in which one overgrown propensity makes all others utterly insignificant.

It is evident that a portrait painter, who was able only to represent faces and figures such as those -which we pay money to see at fairs, would not, however spirited his execution might be, take rank among the highest artists.  He must always be placed below those who have skill to seize peculiarities which do not amount to deformity.  The slighter those peculiarities, the greater is the merit of the limner who can catch them and transfer them to his canvas.  To paint Daniel Lambert or the living skeleton, the pig-faced lady or the Siamese twins, so that nobody can mistake them, is an exploit within the reach of a sign painter.  A thirdrate artist might give us the squint of Wilkes, and the depressed nose and protuberant cheeks of Gibbon.  It would require a much higher degree of skill to paint two such men as Mr. Canning and Sir Thomas Lawrence, so that nobody who had ever seen them could for a moment hesitate to assign each picture to its original.  Here the mere caricaturist would be quite at fault.