insipid and unintelligible to the mind's eye, by their want of expression. The forehead is the seat of majesty; the eye and eyebrows those of expression. Without this distinguishing requisite, the most perfect symmetry loses its effect For what are all The forms that brute unconscious matter wears, Akenside. Grace is analogous to elegance; it may be called elegance in grandeur, and consists in that certain fitness of doing things, so seldom acquired, and belongs to attitude and motion. In this, more than in any other, the sublime connects itself with the harmonic, and, by blending the austere graces of Michael Angelo with the more soft and finished colouring of Titian, renders the possessor more agreeable to the delicate taste of the softer sex. The harmonic consists in shape, smoothness and colour. The beauty of shape consists in its symmetry, the proper disposition of every part, and a judicious melting into an entire whole. The figure rather inclining to the diminutive, than height: the head small, the neck straight, flexible, and rather long, increasing in size and whiteness towards the bosom; the bosom well divided, the breasts rising gently, round, and firm, and their natural whiteness heightened by a few blue swelling veins; the shoulders gently spread, with some appearance of strength. Smoothness is particularly requisite in the harmonic, as it gives an air of delicacy to the most ill-made form. The beauty of colour is so imposing, that colour, with some, is synonymous with beauty. The variety of beauty is in the head and the face; the beauty of the rest of the body is in its uniformity of white. To begin with the hair:-the colour of the hair is according to taste; the Romans were particularly partial to red Cui flavam religas comam, So were the Greeks; but Anacreon appears to have preferred black, as appears in his twenty-eighth Ode. The length of the hair, too, is subject to the same ordeal. The ancients were so sensible of the beauty which it gives to the countenance, that they seldom adorned it, unless upon particular political occasions. Although a black-coloured hair is particularly calculated to set off the whiteness of the skin, I do not hesitate to give the preference to a light brown, full, and waving carelessly in unpremeditated ringlets. The forehead, being the largest part of the face, should be small, smooth, and open, with a gently rising eminence, and the eyebrows, formed by nature to protect the eye, well divided, broad, and freely, not stiffly arched. The eyes, speaking a language more delicate than the tongue, should be full of expressive eloquence, and either blue, hazel, or black: the beauty of the eye consists chiefly in its languor or briskness. In the first there is more sweetness and delicacy; in the latter more vivacity and expression. When once the languid eye makes itself understood, its expressions are deep and lasting; the other, surprising by its splendour, and dazzling by its vivacity, Joses its effect by the quickness of the cause. The cheeks require to be soft and plump, with an air of delicate health richly tinted with vermillion colour. The nose placed exactly in the centre of the face, mounting abruptly, with an imperceptible rising upon its top. The beauty of the mouth are the teeth and lips. The teeth should be rather long, narrow, and highly polished; the lips, pouting with a living redness. "Tis in the lips, as Ariosto says, That these soft words are formed, whose power detains Th' obdurate soul in Love's alluring chains. 'Tis here the smiles receive their infant birth, Whose sweets reveal a Paradise on earth.-b. 7. 1. 89. The chin, small, white, soft and decorated with dimples. The po ets generally made the chin the seat of love; as in Drummond of Hauthornden, sonnet twenty-five. Who gazeth on the dimple of that chin, And finds not Venus' son intrench'd therein. And in the "Shepherd's Tales" by Richard Brathwayte: -a dimpled chin, Made for Love to lodge him in. And Matthew Prior: In her forehead's fair half round In private state by friends is seen. J. E H. THE BROKEN HARP; Poems. By H, C. Knight. Philadelphia: John Conrad & Co. 12mo. pp 180. 1815. 75 cents. THE following review of the "Broken Harp" is from the pen of a correspondent. The sentiments it contains are so nearly in unison with our own, and therefore, as we must of course believe, with truth and nature, that we cannot refuse it a place in The Port Folio. ED. THE first piece in this volume is a kind of dramatic poem called "Earl Kandorf and Rosabelle, a Harper's Tale;" and is written in that pace, trot, and canter measure which, however attractive to some, we do not admire. We presume it takes the precedence on account of its greater length; for although it contains some of the best, it also contains some of the worst poetry in the volume. The Tale, which is sung by a harper to a company of youths and maidens, who are assembled on the village green, to dance around the maypole, on the moonlight eve of a mayday, is this:-It opens with a furious thunderstorm, in Autumn, in Scotland-then appears a lonely cottage on a moor, and a crazy female is discerned, standing heedless at the gate, and no one there to take her in; for "a little dark-hair'd boy is there alone, So affrighted, he stands like a burial-stone, To tell that his sire and sisters are gone.” It seems that she was betrothed to Kandorf from a child, and that he had been suddenly called to quell an incursion of marauders on the southern border. During his absence, Osroch, a cousin, who was a libertine, and wished to obtain possession of her person and estate, found means, by forged letters and artifices, to persuade Rosabelle that Kandorf had proved faith. less, and was afterwards defeated, and had shot himself. Hence, brooding grief and mortification gradually broke down her delicate mind, and she wandered away to the heath, where we first find her. Here, amidst the fu ry of the elements, and while singing a tender song, in which her mind alternates from grief to joy, on a sudden bounds a horseman across the heath, guided by the lightning and the gleamings from the cottage-he springs from his steed, and, as rushing to the door for shelter, her eye catches his figure and countenance, and is electrified. She has a momentary conscious. ness-It is Kandorf. It appears that he had received intimation of the treachery practised towards him, and, having quelled the invaders, was on the alert homeward to challenge Osroch, and to wed Bosabelle, but when within a few miles was bewildered by the night and by the tempest, and there met her. The shock was too great. After an agony of perturbation and suspense, he led her in, and begging for her a kind protection, remounts, and rushing toward Death-Peak Crags, which are within hearing, calls on Heaven, imprecates a curse on Osroch, and plunges headlong on horseback into the flood. We after learn that Rosabelle was borne home, where she soon died; and that the "dying ban" fell on Osroch. The story possesses interest, being forcibly conceived and not badly told: but, like most others of the kind, we think it extravagant, and therefore somewhat inclining to the unnatural: it is at least in the highest style of romance. Why Kandorf should leave his Rosabelle without a protector, in the deplorable situation in which she is represented, and precipitately rush to his end, we cannot tell. The act appears to us neither knightly nor rational. Had he compelled himself to live, even in despite of his feelings of desperation, to reconduct Rosabelle to her paternal mansion, and to take vengeance on Osroch, he would then have seemed at least better authorized to consult his inclination as to living or dying. We shall give a few extracts of such parts of the poem as may be best detached. After Kandorf was called to the border war are the following lines: And red levin scorch that wretch's sight, O sweet to die in tented field, When roaring lightning fires the plain, O sweet for native land to die, For those we hold most dear; Our name embalm'd in memory, Be grateful theme for minstrelsy! The next extract is the description of Rosabelle's bower. Lo, the bower, with deep alcove, Fit recess for the queen of love. The entrance is arched with the clust❜ring vine, Curl'd tendrils entwining, Wicker'd and checker'd with sweet woodbine. Festoon'd aloof, The sides and roof, And here and there inwoven fair, Fringing and flouncing, every climbing flower, To grace the lady of the bower. And, round the skirts, there scatter'd blow, Snow-drops white, blue wood-hare-bells, Cowslips pale, gold asphodels, Green amaranth, and jessamine, Dark hyacinths, and eglantine, And, like coquets, of charms profuse, The holly, and the fleur-de-luce. Roses with tinge like maiden's cheek, Like bashful virgins in their teen. |