In the descriptions of persons of the other sex, such questions may be a little varied, and answered as in the following examples:

DESCRIPTION OF PERSONS.

Example 1st.

DESCRIPTION OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTTS.

The turbulence of the times, the rancor of party rage, and the medium of prejudice or partiality, through which every object in those periods was beheld, render it difficult to form a just opinion of the character of Mary Her personal accomplishments and the graces which distinguished her as a woman, are admitted by all parties; respecting these, therefore, there can be no dispute. Her stature rose to the majestic, her form was elegant and her hands and arms distinguished for their delicacy and beauty. Her hair was black, though, in the fashion of the times, she frequently adorned herself in borrowed locks, and of various colors. Her eyes were dark gray, and her complexion remarkably fine. She walked, danced, and rode, with equal grace. She possessed a taste for music; she played upon the lute with skill, and sung melodiously. Towards the conclusion of her life, she began to grow corpulent, while confinement and bad accommodation brought upon her a rheumatic disorder, which deprived her of the use of her limbs. Her manners were affable and insinuating, dignified and sprightly. She spoke eloquently, and wrote with ease and elegance. Her temper was warm, and her heart affectionate. She loved flattery, and beheld the effects of her beauty with pleasure. If she had acquired the power of dissembling her sentiments in the refined and intriguing court of France, her nature was nevertheless frank and indisposed to suspicion. Her piety was fervent and sincere; her talents, if not of the highest, were undoubtedly of a superior order; and the resolution and courage which she manifested at her death, are truly worthy of admiration. A long series of successive sorrows bespeak, with few excep tions, some imprudence in the sufferer; the misfortunes of Mary, both in degree and duration, exceeded the common measure of human calamities, and even render the distresses of fiction comparatively faint. The vicissitudes of her life have afforded a fine and fruitful subject for the tragic muse. No man, says Brantome, ever beheld her without admiration and love; no one will read her history without pity and scrrow. *

* All writers agree in representing Mary of Scotland as distinguished for personal beauty. But on no subject, perhaps, do mankind differ so much as in their ideas of female beauty; and it seems to be wisely ordered by Providence that they should thus differ. Women in the Hottentot country are considered beautiful in proportion to the size of their ears, the flatness of their noses and the projection of their lips. In Otaheite corpulency is the constituent element of loveliness; and in China, small feet, cramped into absolute deformity, are considered an indispensable requisite for beauty. A late physiological writer, speaking of female beauty, says: "A woman of any height, from the petite almost to the gigantic, may be perfectly beau

Example 2d.

BERNARD DE ROHAN.

I will attempt to paint him, to the eye of the reader, as I have myself seen him, represented by the hand of an unknown artist, in one of the

tiful; and of any complexion, from the darkest brunette to the fairest lily. The medium height is generally preferred; but the complexion is a matter that entirely depends on individual taste the same person, too, would be likely to waver in choice between the darkly beautiful maidens of Spain and the seraphically fair daughters of Circassia. Nevertheless, though the shades of complexion, from the Spanish olive to the Circassian white, or the varieties of altitude, from the petite Cleopatra to that of the towering Rox ana, matters but little; there are many things arbitrarily essential to perfect beauty in woman." 'I shall describe," he continues, "a beautiful woman, taking her at the medium altitude, which is generally preferred."

As such a description may be interesting to many who have not access to the original work, and as it cannot be considered wholly out of place in a volume professing to teach the art of description, the author of this volume nas, with some hesitation, ventured here to present it.

"Her height is five feet five inches; her hair is of any color that agrees with her complexion; her forehead is rather low, and as free from freckle or wrinkle as a piece of Paphian marble; her brows are dark, arched, narrow, and strongly defined; her eyes are large, rather languishing than bright, and of either of the usual colors; for the grey eyes of Mary of Scot land were not less captivating than the raven orbs of the Queen of Sheba; her eye lashes are dark and long; her nose is a mitigated aquiline, - that is, an aquiline curtailed of its severity; her lips are short and small, and yet withal full and pouting; her chin is very slightly developed; her ears are small, thin, and with the tip on a line with the eyebrow; her complexion varies with the emotions of her mind, and the blush that tinges her cheek is delicate, and loses itself in her face, so as to indicate no perceptible outline; her features are exactly regular, though made to appear otherwise by the ever-varying expression of her lips and eyes, and the fluctuations of the rosy tide that ebbs and flows beneath the transparent surface of her skin ; her smile indicates sweetness of disposition, blended with a gently-proud expression, dictated probably by the consciousness of her own worth and beauty; her neck is flexible, moderately slender, of medium length, and pure as alabaster; the fall from her neck to her shoulders is gradual (like that of a bird); her bust is a gentle swell, so clear that the blue veins are visible; her shoulders almost verge on broadness, and press backwards; her waist is small, but not too taper; her arms are rounded; her hands delicately small, and fingers rather long and tapered; her instep is high, to secure a good arch to the foot, which adds grace in walking, and her feet are as small as they can possibly be without subjecting them to the character of diminutive."

To this description the same author adds, that there are "three species of female beauty, of which all the rest are varieties."

No. 1. Face round, eyes soft azure; neck rather short; shoulders moderately broad and gently rounded; limbs and arms tapering and delicate; hands and feet small; complexion, rose struggling with lily; hair luxuriant, flaxen or auburn; eyes blue, and whole figure soft and easy.

No. 2. Oblong face; neck long and tapering; shoulders broad and deli cate, without being angular; limbs and arms rather long and tapering; feet

palaces on the banks of the Brenta. He was in person about the middle height, rather above it than below, and at this period was not more than twenty-three years of age. His forehead was broad and fine, with short dark hair curling around it; his features were small, excepting the eye and brow, the former of which was large and full, and the latter strongly marked. The mouth was very handsome, showing, when half open in speaking, the brilliant white teeth, and giving to the whole countenance a look of playful gaiety; but, when shut, there was an expression of much thoughtfulness, approaching perhaps to sternness, about it, which the rounded and somewhat prominent chin confirmed. The upper lip was very short; but on either side, divided in the middle, was a short black mustache, not overhanging the mouth, but raised above it; and the beard, which was short and black, like the hair, was only suffered to grow in such a manner as to ornament, but not to encumber the chin.

In form the cavalier was muscular, and powerfully made; his breadth of chest and shoulders giving the appearance of a more advanced period of life than that to which he had yet arrived. *-Corse De Leon, by G. P. R. James.

and hands rather small; complexion mostly dark; hair abundant, dark and strong; and the whole figure precise, striking, and brilliant.

No. 3. Oval face; high, pale, intellectual forehead; eye, expressive and full of sensibility, also indicating modesty and dignity; movements charac terized by grace and elegance.

* In a note on page 172 is presented, in a quotation from a late physiological writer, the description of a beautiful woman. The same author thus describes a specimen of masculine beauty:

"A fine looking man, (the word handsome detracts from the idea of beauty in the male sex), is above the medium height, but considerably under the colossal; (about five feet ten inches is the perfection of altitude); his forehead is high and rather square; his back head is well rounded, but not too full; his eyes are dark, bright, and fairly set in their socketsneither tending to recede nor to protrude; his hair inclines to a curl; his eyebrows are rather square than bushy, and leave a space of about three quarters of an inch between their inward extremities; his nose is a medium between Roman and aquiline; his cheek bones are not prominent, but still well defined; his cheeks neither lank nor so rounded as to indicate fatness or inflation; his mouth moderately small; his lips firm, compact, but not thin; his whiskers are well back on his cheek; his complexion is uniform, between brown and fair, with a slight tendency to a blush, but not sufficient to warrant him in being called rosy cheeked; and the whole countenance, well or even strongly marked; for a smooth, round face, where the features are all regular, and without any characteristic for a limner to fasten on, is incompatible with manly beauty. Then his neck is of moderate length and inclines to thickness; his throat is free from all protuber ance commonly called 'the apple of Eve; his breast is fairly full; his shoulders square, but not abruptly so, and sufficiently broad to just overhang his hips; his arms are of a length to leave about eight inches between the tips of his middle fingers and his knees; there is a gradual decrease in wards from the hips and shoulder to the waist; his back is free from the least tendency to roundness, but is not thrown very much to the rear; his limbs are full, but not clumsy; his joints small; the calves of the legs so that they just touch, without pressing against each other; his shin rather slender, his ankle small; his instep high; and his foot slightly hollowed, and of a size corresponding with his height; for, too small a foot interferes with

Example 3d.

THE ELEPHANT.

The elephant, a native of Asia and Africa, is the largest, the strongest, the most sagacious, and the most docile of all wild beasts. The usual height of this unsightly creature is from eight to twelve or fourteen feet. The color is nearly black; the eyes, which are very small, are lively, bright, and expressive; the ears are broad, and much longer, in proportion to the body, than those of the ass.

It has two long ivory tusks, thicker toward the head than a stout man's arm, and a trunk which it can contract or lengthen, as need requires. The latter is as useful to the animal as our hands are to us. With this singular organ it can take up the smallest object; it serves tself with it; and, in case of an attack, fights with it. It can also untie knots of ropes, and open and shut gates.

The legs of this stupendous quadruped are like columns of from twelve to eighteen inches in diameter, and from four to six feet high. The feet are short, and divided into five toes each, and are armed with nails of a horny substance, but which are so covered with skin, that they are scarcely visible.

The elephant, in a state of nature, is neither fierce nor mischievous. It is peaceable, mild, and brave; and exerts its powers only in its own defence, or in defence of those of its own kind, with which it is social and friendly.

Example 4th.

NATURAL SCENERY.

Long projecting reefs of rocks, extending under water, and only evincing their existence by here and there a peak entirely bare, or by the breakers which foamed over those that were partially covered, rendered Knockwinnock bay dreaded by pilots and ship-masters. The crags which rose between the beach and the main land to the height of two or three hundred feet, afforded in their crevices shelter for unnumbered sea fowl, in situations seemingly secured by their dizzy height from the rapacity of

that elasticity of step, and firmness of carriage, so essential in making up the perfect 'tout ensemble' of a well-proportioned man."

In descriptions of persons the student will do well to refer to what is said on the subject of epithets in another page of this volume. Thus, for example, the manners of an individual may be insinuating, sprightly, dignified, or reserved, &c.; speech, elegant, eloquent, &c.; person, thin or spare, fleshy or corpulent; temper, warm and affectionate; nature, frank and indisposed to suspicion, &c. Notice may also be taken, as occasion requires, of such particulars as the following: resolution, courage, effects of air and exercise, or confinement and exclusion from the air, on personal appearance, series of sorrows as causing imprudence, constant success as producing temerity,- misfortunes in degree and duration exceeding the com mon measure of human calamity, rendering the distresses of fiction faint, &c., &c., &c.

man. Many of these wild tribes, with the instinct which sends them to seek the land before a storm arises, were now winging towards their nests with the shrill and dissonant clang which announces fear and disquietude. The disk of the sun became almost totally obscured ere he had altogether sunk below the horizon, and an early and lurid shade of darkness blotted the serene twilight of a summer evening. The wind began next to arise, but its wild and moaning sound was heard for some time, and its effects became more visible on the bosom of the sea, before the gale was felt on the shore. The mass of waters, now dark and threatening, began to lift itself in larger ridges, and sink in deeper furrows, forming waves that rose high in foam upon the breakers, or burst upon the beach with a sound resembling distant thunder.—Antiquary, Vol. I. p. 72.

Example 5th.

NATURAL SCENERY.

Cities and villages were scattered over hill and valley, with cultivated environs blooming around them, all giving token of a dense and industrious population. In the centre of this brilliant circumference stood the Indian metropolis, with its gorgeous tiara of pyramids and temples, attracting the eye of the soldier from every other object, as he wound round the borders of the lake. Every inch of ground which the soldiers trod was familiar to them; familiar as the scenes of childhood, though with very different associations, for it had been written on their memories in characters of blood. On the right rose the hill of Montezuma, crowned by the teocalli, under the roof of which the shattered relics of the ariny had been gathered on the day following the flight from the capitol. In front lay the city of Tacuba, through whose inhospitable streets they had hurried in fear and consternation; and away to the east of it stretched the melancholy causeway.-Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, Vol. III. p. 31.

Example 6th.

NATURAL SCENERY.

They moved cautiously forward, straining their vision to pierce the think gloom of the forests where their wily foe might be lurking. But they saw no living thing, except only the wild inhabitants of the woods and flocks of the zopolite, the voracious vulture of the country, which, in anticipation of a bloody banquet, hung like a troop of evil spirits, on the march of the army.

As they descended, the Spaniards felt a sensible and most welcome change in the atmosphere. The character of the vegetation changed with it; and the funereal pine, their only companion of late, gave way to the sturdy oak, to the sycamore, and lower down, to the graceful pepper tree, mingling its red berries with the dark foliage of the forest; while in still lower depths, the gaudy-colored creepers might be seen flinging their gay blossoms over the branches, and telling of a softer and more luxurious climate.

At length, the army emerged on an open level, where the eye, unob