Buffon-that is, the space between the 40th and the 65th degrees of north latitude. It is here that nature appears most beautiful and most majestic in every thing that regards the conformation of man; it is in this climate that one must seek for that model to which all the minor shades and degrees of beauty should be referred.

The countries comprised in this space are Persia, the countries bordering upon Caucasus, and more especially Circassia and Georgia, Turkey in Europe, Italy, the North of Spain, France, Britain, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, and a part of Norway and Russia.

Yet the human form has not the same degree of perfection in the whole of these immense districts; there are some privileged regions to which the name and possession of beauty are more peculiarly appropriate: Such, above all, are Circassia, Georgia, Mingrelia, and all the districts about Cau

casus.

The beauty of the Georgian women is every where acknowledged. The females in that country, unite with the most regular features, and the purest blood, the most complete developement of general form; and nature appears to have lavished on them, with profusion, all those graces and charms which she bestows only, in separation and in scantiness, in other parts of the world. According to Chardin and all travellers, they are tall, beautifully shaped, and extremely delicate in the waist. The women of Circassia are no less beautiful; their foreheads are large; a line of the most exquisite black marks the eyebrow; the eyes are large, soft, and yet full of fire; the nose sharply, and definitely formed; the mouth small, and full of smiles; the lips vermilion; and the chin such as to give a perfect oval to the lower termination of the counte

nance.

The most beautiful complexion lends additional power to all these fine forms. It is commonly so pure and natural, that no temptation exists for the use of the vile and destructive cosmetics almost universally employed in other parts of the world; and

the merchants who bring Circassian slaves to the market of Caffa in the Crimea, are said to invite all manner scrutinizing into the want of any artful colouring on those lovely cheeks. There is no doubt, that the practice of inoculating for the small pox, which has subsisted for a very long time in Circassia and Georgia, has contributed powerfully to maintain this character for great beauty. In Mingrelia the beauty of the women is scarcely less remarkable.-"Oh," exclaims Chardin, forgetting the usual dryness of his style, "Oh! what marvellous beauty is in the women of Mingrelia! how their air is majestic! how their faces and forms are admirable! Such is their look, that it seems to caress all who regard them." Old Belon, who travelled at the beginning of the sixteenth century, is scarcely less enthusiastic. There is not a labourer or peasant in all Asia, says he, (he means the part of Asia about Caucasus) "who has not a wife with a complexion fair as rose-buds; and a skin as white as the lily, so polished and smooth, that when one touches it it is like velvet."* In Persia, one sees many women of the most exquisite beauty, and the Persian blood has been much purified and improved by the mixture of the Georgian. Perpetual alliances with the same beautiful race have almost entirely effaced the marks of their Tartar origin among the Turks.

In the

When considered in relation to the beauty of its inhabitants, Europe presents to us two great divisions: the south-east part, and the northern and western part. In these two divisions, of which the extent is very unequal, the form of man appears with most important differences. north, and towards the west, he assumes great bulk, and approaches often to the athletic; but his form has less of the noble in it, and the shape of his features is more remote from the ideal: the forms, even of the women, are two large and full of relief; they want the finish, the elegance of the classical antique: almost always the extremities are defective; and a fine foot, a perfect leg, a faultless hand and wrist, these are beauties which,

above all the rest, it is extremely rare to meet with in the northern and western parts of Europe.

Favoured by a more gentle atmosphere, the region of the south-east is more fertile in beauty, and the nearer nature comes to the sky of Greece and Italy, which is comprehended in this division, the more beautiful, majestic, and active, is her human workmanship found to be.

In regard both to physical and moral beauty, the modern Greeks must be admitted to have greatly degenerated. Their slavery, the pollution of their blood, by mixture with that of their Barbarian conquerors and neighbours, their education ;-in short, the whole circumstances of that life to which they have been reduced, have changed the marks of the race, and deteriorated the original beauty it possessed. But nevertheless, in spite of all these unfavourable circumstances, the Greek race is still a fine one; and the women of that nation hold a distinguished rank in the seraglios, where they are very often preferred even to the beauties of Circassia and Georgia.

Of old the most beautiful of the Greek race were in lonia, and the orator Dion Chrysostome makes use of the expression of an Ionian figure, as synominous with that of a beautiful figure. The same country is still celebrated for the beauty of its inhabitants, witness all travellers, from Belon to Lord Byron. In many of the districts of Asia Minor, above all, in Natolia, and in the islands, the women are of singular beauty. Those of the island of Chios are remarked by every one on account of their graceful motions, their fine complexion, and the delicate perfection of their forms. The traveller, in admiring their charms, cannot but be conducted by delightful recollections back to those remote epochs, when the individual beauties of that island furnished with their most favourite models the painters and the sculptors of Greece. Everywhere throughout Greece, changed, and cruelly changed, as it has been by the tyranny of the Turks, the shape of man has preserved a certain measure of its perfection. Nothing is more uncommon among its inhabitants than those flat ill formed noses, which are so frequently met with in the north and in the west; and it is remarked by every

artist who has travelled in these countries, that we have nothing in our parts of Europe which can be compared with the faultless oval of the Greek heads even of the present day.

Throughout southern Italy, which formed the Magna Grecia of antiquity, the form of man, during many ages, presented an appearance of perfection, not less remarkable than in Greece Proper, and this beauty still exists in many parts of that country. Riedesel, in his travels through Sicily and Magna Grecia, mentions, that the loveliest women he ever had seen were at Trapani, and thinks that their beauty might have given origin to the peculiar worship of mount Eryx. Alliances with the Moors, and other causes of degradation, have altered not a little the forms of the inhabitants of Magna Grecia; yet an exception must be made in favour of those of Sicily, where the women, although less perfectly formed, are more graceful in their motions, and more charming altogether, than even the Roman ladies themselves. These observations apply particularly to the Sicilian ladies of Palermo, whose beauty is the favourite theme of all that have ever seen them. "Their stature," says a modern German author, "is moderate; the young girls have their hair black, or dark nut-brown; the eyes richly black, and beaming with flame; their walk is easy; their grace perfect; they remind one of the noblest models of Grecian sculpture." Such are the words of Hager, and I myself can witness that his encomiums are nothing but just. "Their dress," he continues, "is suitable to their climate. The head is never covered; they weave only a ribbon or a veil of gauze among their long tresses, and sometimes stick a rose among their luxurious folds. The stiff whalebone stays of the Northern fair are unknown in Palermo. A light corset, which preserves all the native grace of the bosom and waist; a necklace of amber or coral, a black veil, á l'Espagnole, and a short robe, form the whole of their dress. These beautiful Palermese are skilful in the highest degree in the art of making the best of their figures. Every accident of drapery is converted with them into a new advantage. Their walk, their dance, their attitudes

every thing about them has a charm that is irresistible. Now it is a soft and delicious languor, now a sparkling radiant gayety; now come flashes of sensibility or imagination, which have so much the more power, because the sound of their voices is for the most part tender to excess-almost as potent in its music as are their visages in their perfection of outline and hue.” At Naples, it strikes me, the women are far inferior in beauty to the Sicilians; but the men are perhaps finer. I may be mistaken; but I rather think those artists who have travelled in that quarter of the world, will agree with me in thinking, that among the common Lazzaroni lounging under the portals of the churches, or leaping about among the clear glassy waves of the Bay of Naples-where indeed they are quite as much at home as on terra firma-one may find in a single day more complete specimens of beautiful limbs-above all, legs and feet, than could be detected in a search of years, at Paris, or London, or Vienna.

At Rome, in the Roman territory, and generally speaking, under the influence of what Winkelmann calls the fine provinces of Italy, transcendant beauty-that beauty which results principally for the regularity of forms, and the gracefulness of the tout-ensemble, seems to be in some sort an indigenous production-the gift inalienable of the climate. "In most all the districts, of which I have been speaking," says Winkelmann, "it is a most rare thing to meet with any of those indecided and equivocal, or vulgar features, which are so common beyond the Alps. The features which characterize the Italians are all full of nobleness and beauty. The form of the countenance is grandly, boldly, and distinctly traced; and all its parts are harmonious in their juxta-position. The characters of highest beauty are found even among the lowest classes of the people; and nothing is more common, than to see on the shoulders of a common labourer, a head and face which might be introduced with perfect propriety into the most dignified historical picture. Nothing, above all, can be more exquisitely picturesque

than the heads of their old men." "Nature," says Dupaty, "could not plan any thing more admirablynor frame any more perfect harmony, than exists between the forehead, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the chin, the ears and the neck-of most of these Italian heads. She could not possibly employ forms, either more fine, or more delicate, or more correct; and my detail is finished-the whole is perfect

A fine Roman head is always viewed with a species of wonder, and subdues rather than charms. The first glance comprehends the whole of it, and the least recollection recalls it no less powerfully."

The perfection of the hands, which is a thing so rarely to be met with in the western parts of Europe, is, among the Roman fair, nothing less admirable than the perfection of the countenance. The form of the shoulders is another of their peculiar excellencies-these, after the charms of extreme youth have vanished, acquire a fulness and firmness on which the Roman matrons pique themselves very much, as may be gathered from the style of their dress, which, in that quarter, is no less ostentatious than coquettish.

As we advance from the south to the north, from the east to the west, we find the character of the Roman beauty altering by degrees, and becoming more rare. In Tuscany, however, and particularly at Florence and Sienna, one meets with most lovely women. In the higher districts also, which form part of the chain of the Appenines, the race is very fine; and among the women one finds no common fault except somewhat of an excessive respect to embonpoint-which, after all, is a defect which artists regard with little severity. Lombardy, shut in by mountains, and watered by a great number of fertilizing rivers, presents, in its inhabitants, very little of the Italian characteristics. The immense volume of form among the women there, goes so far as almost to destroy beauty. In Milan, notwithstanding, and in some other towns, one finds charming creatures. And were one to judge from the perfection of a few scattered stars, one might