the other parts of France (exclusive of the south and west, anciently occupied by the Iberians), M. Edwards found that the Cimbrian type had been overcome by the round heads and straight noses of the Gauls, who were the more numerous because the more ancient race in those parts, and had covered the whole country before the arrival of the Cymbrians.

Passing into Italy, he continues his examinations. "Whatever may have been the anterior state of matters," he says, "it is certain, from Thierry's researches and the unanimous accord of all historians, that the Peuples Gaulois have predominated in the north of Italy, between the Alps and the Apennines. We find them established there at the first dawn of history; and the most anthentic testimony represents them with all the character of a great nation, from this remote period down to a very advanced point of Roman history. This is all I need to trouble myself about. I know the features of their compatriots in Transalpine Gaul-I find them again in Cisalpine Gaul." The old "Gallic" settlers in northern Italy appear to have been Cimbrian. After describing the well-known head of Dante-which is long and narrow, with a high and developed forehead, nose long and curved, with sharp point and elevated wings-M. Edwards says that he was struck by the great frequency of this type in Tuscany (although a mixed Roman type is there the prevailing one) among the peasantry; in the statues and busts of the Medici family; and also amongst the effigies and bas-reliefs of the illustrious men of the republic of Florence. This type is well marked since the time of Dante, as doubtless long before. It extends to Venice; and in the ducal palace, M. Edwards had occasion to observe that it is common among the doges. The type became more predominant as he approached Milan, and thence he traced it as to its fountain into Transalpine Gaul. The physical characteristics of the present population, therefore, correspond with the statements of history, and show that the ancient type of this widespread people, the Cimbri, has survived the

lapse and vicissitudes of two thousand years.

In passing through Florence, M. Edwards took occasion to visit the Ducal Gallery, to study the ancient Roman type, selecting, by preference, the busts of the early Roman emperors, because they were descendants of ancient families. Augustus, Tiberius, Germanicus, Claudius, Nero, Titus, &c., exemplify this type in the Florentine collections; and the family resemblance is so close, and the style of features so remarkable, that they cannot be mistaken. The following is his description :-"The vertical diameter of the head is short, and, consequently, the face broad. As the summit of the cranium is flattened, and the lower margin of the jaw-bone almost horizontal, the contour of the head, when viewed in front, approaches a square. The lateral parts, above the ears, are protuberant; the forehead low; the nose truly aquiline-that is to say, the curve commences near the top and ends before it reaches the point, so that the base is horizontal; the chin is round; and the stature short." This is the characteristic type of a Roman; but we cannot expect now to meet with absolute uniformity in any race, however seemingly pure. Such a type M. Edwards subsequently found to predominate in Rome, and certain parts of Italy, at the present day. It is the original type of the central portions of the peninsula, and, however overlayed at times, has swallowed up all intruders. As a singular corroboration of the French ethnographer's observations, Mr J. C. Nott, an American surgeon and naturalist, says: sailor came to my office, a few months ago, to have a dislocated arm set. When stripped and standing before me, he presented the type described by M. Edwards so perfectly, and moreover combined with such extraordinary development of bone and muscle, that there occurred to my mind at once the beau-ideal of a Roman soldier. Though the man had been an American sailor for twenty years, and spoke English without foreign accent, I could not help asking where he was born. He replied in a deep strong voice, 'In Rome, sir !'"*

"A

He

In Greece the Hellenes and Pelasgi are two races identified with the earliest traditions of the country; but when we appeal to history for their origin, or seek for the part that each has played in the majestic drama of antiquity, there is little more than conjecture to guide us. Greece did not come fairly within the scope of M. Edwards' researches, yet he has ventured a few note-worthy observations in connection with this point. thinks the same principles that governed his examination of Gaul may be applied to Greece; and that the Hellenes and Pelasgi might be followed ethnologically like the Celts and Cimbri. Perhaps the most important remark which he makes is that which refers to the differences between what he calls the heroic and historic-or what is generally termed the ideal and real types of the Greek countenance. The ancient monuments of art in Greece exhibit a wide diversity of types, and this at every period of their history. Of the two great classes into which these may be divided, M. Edwards says:

"Most of the divinities and personages of the heroic times are formed on that

well-known model which constitutes what we term the beau-ideal. The forms and proportions of the head and countenance are so regular that we may describe them with mathematical precision. A perfectly oval contour, forehead and nose straight, without depression between them, would suffice to distinguish this type. The harmony is such that the presence of these traits implies the others. But such is not the character of the personages of truly historic times. The philosophers, orators, warriors, and poets almost all differ from it, and form a group apart. It cannot be confounded with the rest it is sufficient to point it out, for one to recognise at once how far it is separated. It greatly resembles, on the contrary, the type which is seen in other countries of Europe, while the former is scarcely met with there."

This observation is just. The head of Alexander the Great is nearly allied to the pure classical or heroic type; but this case is an exceptionand the lineaments of Lycurgus, Eratosthenes, and most other specimens of old Greek portrait-sculpture, are, with the exception of the beard (if indeed such an exception is now re

quisite), very much like those which one meets with daily in our streets. "Were we to judge solely by the monuments of Greece," continues M. Edwards, "on account of this contrast, we should be tempted to regard the type of the fabulous or heroic personages as ideal. But imagination more readily creates monsters than models of beauty; and this principle alone will suffice to convince us that such a type has existed in Greece, and the countries where its population has spread, if it does not still exist there."

In corroboration of this conjecture, it may be stated that the learned travellers, MM. de Stackelberg and de Bronsted, who have journeyed through the Morea and closely examined the population, assert that the heroic type is still extant in certain localities. M. Poqueville likewise assures us that the models which inspired Phidias and Apelles are still to be found among the inhabitants of the Morea. "They are generally tall, and finely formed; their eyes are full of fire, and they have a beautiful mouth, ornamented with the finest teeth. There are, however, degrees in their beauty, though all may be generally termed handsome. The Spartan woman is fair, of a slender make, but with a noble air. The women of Taygetus have the carriage of a Pallas when she wielded her formidable ægis in the midst of a battle. The Messenian woman is low of stature, and distinguished for her embonpoint," (this may be owing to a mixture with the primitive race of the Morea, who, as Helots, long existed as a distinct caste in Messenia); "she has regular features, large blue eyes, and long black hair. The Arcadian, in her coarse woollen garments, scarcely suffers the symmetry of her form to appear; but her countenance is expressive of innocence and purity of mind." In the time of Poqueville the Greek women were extremely ignorant and uneducated; but, he says, "music and dancing seem to have been taught them by nature." He speaks of the long flaxen hair of the women of Sparta, their majestic air and carriage, their elegant forms, the symmetry of their features, lighted up by large blue eyes, fringed and shaded with

long eye-lashes. "The men," he says, 66 among whom some are 'blonds,' or fair, have noble countenances; are of tall stature, with masculine and regular features." They have preserved something of the Dorians of ancient Sparta.

It would be erroneous, however, to conclude from this that Greek art owed everything to the actual. The type existed more or less imperfectly in the population, but Phidias and the Greek artists took and developed it, by the aid of the imagination, into that perfect phase of physical beauty which we justly term the beau-ideal. A nation's beau-ideal is always the perfectionment of its own type. It is easy to see how this happens. In nations, as in individuals, the soul moulds the body, so far as extrinsic circumstances permit, into a form in accordance with its own ideas and desire; and accordingly, whenever a marked difference exists in the physical aspect of two nations, there, also, we may expect to find a variance in their beau-ideals. Not, as is generally supposed, from the eye of each race becoming accustomed to the national features, but because these features, are themselves an incarnation and embodiment of the national mind. It is the soul which shapes the national features, not the national features that mould the aesthetic judgment of the soul. It is not association, therefore, that is the cause of the different beauideals we behold in the world, but a psychical difference in the nations which produce them,-a circumstance no more remarkable than those moral and intellectual diversities in virtue of which we see one race excelling in the exact sciences, another in the fine arts, a third in military renown, and a fourth in pacific industry. We may adduce, in curious illustration of this point, the well-known fact that Raphael and many other eminent artists have repeatedly given their own likeness to the imaginary offspring of their art,-not real, but idealised likenesses. How was this? From vanity? No, certainly; but because the ideal most congenial to them, which they could most easily hold in their mind, and which it gave them most pleasure to linger over and beautify, was the ideal constituted by the perfectionment

of their own features. There is something more than mere vanity in the pleasure usually derived from looking into a mirror; for when the features are in exact or nearly exact accordance with the desires of the framing Spirit within, there must always be a pleasure in the soul looking upon its own likeness: even as it experiences a similar delight when meeting with a being of perfectly congenial nature-in other words, its spiritual (as the other is its physical) likeness. It is to be expected, cæteris paribus, that this pleasure will be most felt by those who are gifted with much personal beauty, and whose features are most perfect of their kind; for in their case there is more than ordinary harmony between the soul and its fleshly envelope. Accordingly, no artist ever painted himself more than the beautiful Raphael. And we could name an eminent individual, now no more, as rarely gifted with physical beauty as with mental powers, to whom the contemplation of his portrait was almost a passion. Some of our readers may recognise the distinguished man of whom we speak. No one less vain or more noble-hearted than he, yet his painted likeness had always a fascination for him. "It is a curious thing," he used to say, "how I like to look at my own portrait." Was it not because, in that beautifully developed form and countenance, the spirit within had most successfully embodied its ideal, with little or no hindrance from extrinsic circumstances, and accordingly rejoiced, though it knew not why, in the presence of its own likeness?

But to return to ethnography, and trace out the successive changes which have taken place in the population of Europe. As we have already observed, the great ebb and flow of nations was over by the Christian era. The population had become comparatively dense, so that room could no more be made for tribes of new-comers-and settled in their habits and occupations, so as no longer to admit of their shifting or being driven to and fro like waves over the land, as was the case while they were in the nomadic state. And as the nations became consolidated, they began, however feebly at first, to live a national existence, and

to put forth national efforts of selfdefence against those who assailed them. On these various accounts, the system of conquest by displacement, which marked the pre-historic and in a faint degree the early historic times, was brought to an end,-the conquests of the Northmen being the last examples of the kind; and these being hardly worthy of the name, as they were marked rather by the political predominance of the new-comers, and by an overlaying rather than by any displacement of the native population. For all useful purposes, therefore, we may conceive that at the Christian era the various nations of Europe were arranged on the map very much as they are now,-the only exceptions worth mentioning being the influx of the Magyars and Turks, and the southward progress of several of the Slavonian tribes through the old Byzantine provinces into Greece.

"Had a Roman geographer of the days of the Empire," it has been well observed, "advanced in a straight line from the Atlantic to the Pacific, he would have traversed the exact succession of races that is to be met in the same route now. First, he would have found the Celts occupying as far as the Rhine; thence, eastward to the Vistula and Carpathian mountains, he would have found Germans; beyond them, and stretching away into Central Asia, he would have found the so-called Scythians, a race which, had he possessed our information, he would have divided into the two great branches of the Slavonians or European Scythians, and the Tartars and Turks, or Asiatic Seythians; and finally, beyond these, he would have found Mongolian hordes overspreading Eastern Asia to the shores of the Pacific. These successive races or populations he would have found shading off into each other at their points of junction. He would have remarked, also, a general westward pressure of the whole mass, tending toward mutual rupture and invasion,-the Mongolian pressing against the Tartars, the Tartars against the Slavonians, the Slavonians against the Germans, and the Germans against the Celts."

Although the early history and migrations of the Slavonians are involved in greater obscurity than that of either of the other two great branches of the European population, it is erroneous to suppose that they are a recent accession out of the depths of Asia. It

was evidently a branch of them that Herodotus describes as peaceful, pastoral, and agricultural tribes located near the shores of the Black Sea. Instead of entering Europe via Asia Minor and the southern borders of the Euxine, as many of the Celtic and Teutonic tribes did, they appear to have taken the route by the north of the Caspian and Black Seas, and probably advanced southwards into Europe on the gradual and ultimately sudden subsidence of the waters of the inland sea which primevally stretched from the Baltic eastwards to the Sea of Aral.

This race, which now constitutes the largest ethnographical unit of population in Europe, numbering nearly eighty millions, has never yet been examined in rigorous detail. The earliest and best developed of its tribes is the Polish, which, though it has in recent times been subjected by the RussoSlavons aided by the German powers, has not yet lost its nationality; and it is probable that, in the course of the future, the mighty Slavonic race will yet give rise to several distinct states. Both in features and complexion there is much diversity to be found in the various tribes which it comprises; but, if we consider the imdifferent climes and temperatures unmense numbers of the race, and the der which they are located, it must be allowed that they are more homogeneous in character than any other people in Europe. The general type of the Slavonians is thus described by M. Edwards :

The

"The contour of the head, viewed in front, approaches nearly to a square; the height surpasses a little the breadth; the summit is sensibly flattened; and the direction of the jaw is horizontal. length of the nose is less than the distance from its base to the chin; it is almost straight from the depression at its rootthat is to say, without any decided curvature; but, if appreciable, it is slightly concave, so that the end has a tendency to turn up; the lower part is rather large, and the extremity rounded. The eyes, which are rather deep-set, are [unlike those of the Tartars] perfectly on the same character, they are smaller than the proline; and when they have any particular portion of the head ought to indicate. The eyebrows are thin, and very near the eyes, particularly at the internal angle ; and from this point are often [like those