piercing in their glance, even through his spectacles. The forehead is very finely developedsingularly broad across the temples, as, according to Spurzheim, all mathematical foreheads must be; but the beauty in that quarter is rather of an ad clerum character, or, as Pindar hath it, Agos to was I, however, who really, in good earnest, begin to believe a little of the system, could not help remarking this circumstance; and more particularly so, because I found Mr Leslie's skull to possess many of the same features above all, that of the breadth between the temples. This other great mathematician is a much younger man than Playfair; but his hair is already beginning to be grey. He is a very fat heavy figure of a man, with much more appearance of strength than of activity; and yet, although a bad leaper, by no means a slothful looking person neither. He has very large eyes, in shape not unlike Coleridge's, but without the least of the same mysterious depth of expression. Altogether, his face is one which, at first sight, you would pronounce to be merely a coarse one; but in which, once informed to whom it belongs, you are at no loss to discover a thousand marks of vigorous intellect and fancy too. Of this last quality, indeed, his eyes are at all times full to overflowing. In the midst of the sombre gravity of his usual look, there are always little flashes of enthusiasm breaking through the cloud, and, I think, adorning it; and, in this respect, he forms a striking contrast to the calm tranquil uniformity of Mr Playfair's physiognomy and deportment. In thinking of this afterwards, I could not help recollecting a great many passages of richly-coloured writing in his scientific Essays in the Edinburgh Review, which I remember struck me at the time I first read them, as being rather misplaced. But this, perhaps, may be merely the effect of the sterile way of writing employed by almost all the philosophers of these late times, to which we have now become so much accustomed, that we with difficulty approve of any thing in a warmer taste, introduced into such kinds of disquisition. They managed these things better in Greece. By and bye, we were summoned to the drawing-room, where we found several ladies with Mrs Jeffrey. She, you know, is an American, and Jeffrey went across the Atlantic for her a few years ago, while we were at war with her country. She is a very pleasing person; and they have one extremely interesting little girl. Our host made no alteration in his dress, but joined the ladies exactly in his morning costume, the little green jacket aforesaid, grey worsted pantaloons, and Hessian boots, and a black silk handkerchief. How had Grub-street stared to see the prince of reviewers in such a garb! The dinner was excellent-a glorious turbot and oyster-sauce for one thing; and (sitesco referens) there was no want of champaigne -the very wine, by the way, which I should have guessed to be Jeffrey's favourite. It is impossible to conceive of him as being a lover of the genuine old black-strap, or even of the quiet balminess of Burgundy. The true reviewing diet is certainly Champaigne moussu, and devilled biscuit. Had there been any blue stocking lady present, she would have been sadly shocked with the material cast of the conversation during dinner--not a single word about "The sweet new poem!" Most of the company, though all men of literary habits, seemed to be as alive to the delights of |