The public are here presented with a translation from the French of the
“Pocket Lavater,” a work which has become highly popular in France, and
which has run through successive and repeated editions.
The attention which the French have, of late, paid to Physiognomy, may
be ascribed not only to the infatuating nature, and intrinsic excellence
of that science, but, also, to adventitious circumstances. France, or,
more properly, its metropolis, has, within a few years, become, as it
were, the immense stage on which all the varieties of human aspect and
action have been exhibited. Their painters, at present, employ the
pencil, not on pieces of ancient history or mythological fiction, but in
designating the various national physiognomies, costumes, and
conformation of body, which Paris now presents, assembled from all
Europe, and from some parts of Asia. The Physiognomist has there an
ample scope for the study and enlargement of his Science: the Briton
melancholy amidst success--the Frenchman happy amidst adversity--the
phlegmatic German, the choleric Russian, the proud Spaniard, the vain
Pole, and the grave and jealous Turk; these parading her streets and
gardens, or thronging her Caffées, must present a group, whose motley
and various character mocks both narrative and description. All of these
are distinguished from each other by a difference of countenance,
language, dress, habits, customs, and manners; yet the philosopher
observes in all these but one being under different modifications.
This edition is enriched by an ingenious inquiry into the existing
analogy between brute and human physiognomy, from the Italian of Porta,
whose observations on national character, although written three
centuries ago, are found correct at the present day.
The plates which accompany this work, are designed, and faithfully
executed, after those which accompany the Paris edition.
The Publishers, in submitting this work to the public, will be
influenced by its success to the publication of the “Female Lavater,” a
work of established merit, and which forms a counterpart to the present
volume.