mans.

Celtic and Teutonic races, which prevails in some districts of England, and particularly in the lowlands of Scotland, but with rather more Self-Esteem in proportion to Love of Approbation than occurs in the Scots. One easily distinguishes differences in the manifestations between the Bohemians and the GerThe Bohemians walk with an air of self-consciousness and self-sufficiency, which, when combined with moral and intellectual qualities, becomes dignified and graceful, and which is not common among the Germans. They do not smoke so generally, even among the lowest classes, and they do not seek so much pleasure in eating and drinking. The Bohemians are prone to drinking till they are drunk; but it is after the manner of the drinkers among the labouring population in Scotland—they drink ardent spirits to obtain a stimulus. The Germans drink a weak, highly hopped, well fermented beer, for the pleasure which it affords to the palate, and the opportunity of social intercourse. The German eating partakes of the same character. It is not gluttony; but an enjoyment extracted from partaking of a great variety, generally of simple dishes, prolonged over a considerable space of time. The musical instruments of the Bohemians appeared to me to be played less loudly and powerfully, and with more tenderness, than those of the Germans. The self-consciousness and selfesteem of the Bohemians render them less urgent and obstreperous as beggars; and I should say that altogether they are more reserved.

The Valteline may be described as a succession of valleys, extending from the bottom of the steep pass of the Stelvio, at the Baths of Bormio, for sixty or seventy miles, to the Lake of Como. The valleys are rarely more than two or three miles broad, often not above one, in some parts even less; and high mountains rise on each side. Either the physical influence of this situation, long intermarriage within narrow circles, neglect of mental cultivation, or the whole of these and perhaps other causes operating in combination, have produced a miserably developed population. Both men and women have small heads, of very unfavourable forms. I saw at Sondrio a religious procession of several hundreds of both sexes, moving very slowly, and all uncovered; and I do not recollect to have seen in any other country, except among the aboriginal Americans in the United States, so large a proportion of very inferior brains to the good, or rather to the average of other European countries, for I observed scarcely one that was really well developed. There was among them no common type of formation, except that, as a general rule, the moral and intellectual organs were lamentably deficient. In some, the organs of Philoprogeni

tiveness and Adhesiveness seemed as if omitted, and the head rose up, almost in a straight line, from the cerebellum, and towered high in the region of Self-Esteem and Firmness. In others, the intellectual organs appeared extremely deficient ; while in others the coronal region ran up into a narrow eminence at Veneration, as if Benevolence, Conscientiousness, Ideality, and Firmness, had been entirely left out. The expressions of the countenances and the gaits corresponded with the heads. Such a congregation of ungainly, mean, unintellectual, and ill-formed human beings, I have not seen in any country. The valleys are in some districts marshy and unwholesome, which cause has probably operated much in producing these unhappy results; to this we may add, that probably the best part of the population has long been in the practice of emigrating to more favourable districts of Italy. It is obvious, that the first effectual means of improving a people like this, must be such as are addressed to their physical condition; draining the marshes, and introducing cleanliness and well-ventilated houses, in place of the now existing dirt and hovels. At present, a substratum of mind is wanting for moral and intellectual instruction to act upon. In this district, churches are so numerous, that apparently there is one for every 250 souls, or even more than this proportion. Nevertheless, as the natural laws have not been taught to the people, and not enforced on their observance as the ordinances of God, all these churches have failed to arrest this degradation of the organic frame, and the consequent paralysis of the moral and intellectual powers through the medium of which Christianity itself must operate on conduct in this world, if it operate at all. I asked an intelligent German, who had been for some time in service in the district, how he liked the people. His answer was, "Not at all: they live like swine, and cannot be relied on for any thing." The truth of the first part of this description was painfully demonstrated by their persons and dwellings, and that of the second was confirmed by my own experience, so far as it extended.

I cannot yet speak of any development of brain as properly Italian. The varieties of size and form are so great and extensive, that I cannot venture to describe a particular configuration as that of the Italian people. The appearance of the present inhabitants of Italy strongly confirms the records of history, that this country has been overrun by multitudes of invaders of different races. They have left so many traces of their existence, that it is difficult to distinguish a common type, or even a size, which may be described as an average of the Italian brain. I have seen in the churches, theatres, and

markets of Italy, hundreds after hundreds of small, ill-proportioned, inferior heads; while I have seen also, but much more rarely, the large broad head, with fine anterior lobe, full coronal region, and dark bilious and nervous temperament, which I had been accustomed, before visiting the country, to regard as the proper Italian type. I now see that it forms a small proportion only of the aggregate; and I begin to perceive in the heterogeneous combinations of the cerebral organs in this people, obstacles to their conglomerating into one nation, which have not been taken into consideration by the ordinary speculators on their destiny. I repeat, however, that my observations are still too limited to merit implicit reliance.

In Milan I had the pleasure of forming personally the acquaintance of Dr Pietro Molossi, known to the readers of your Journal through his writings on the science.* He is still in middle life and in good health, and is in the employment of the Austrian Government in his medical capacity at Milan. He is preparing for the press the second part of his work on Phrenology. He reads the Edinburgh and Heidelberg Phrenological Journals, is convinced of the foundation of animal magnetism in nature, has tried magnetism, but has never obtained manifestations of the cerebral organs during the magnetic sleep. He hopes to visit Edinburgh within a few years. In Milan I became acquainted also with Count Neipperg, a warm and able friend of Phrenology, whose name is known to you through Dr Castle's "Corso di Lezioni sulla Frenologia," printed at Milan in 1841, and dedicated to Dr Molossi. Count Neipperg is still young, but he is an influential man. He is in the military employment of the Austrian Government in Milan; his father is the second husband of Maria Louisa, Napoleon's widow, now Grand Duchess of Parma; and his brother is married to a daughter of the King of Würtemberg. I mention these particulars (according to the information given to me by a friend of the Count), because they indicate that Phrenology is no longer regarded with distrust by the Austrian Government. In point of fact, Dr Castle's lectures were delivered in the salon of Count Neipperg, and were attended by many of the most distinguished persons in Milan. Their subsequent publication and dedication to Dr Molossi, and the employment of this gentleman himself, after he had published on Phrenology, by the Government, all shew that in the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, advocacy of this science forms no obstacle to the advancement of its disciples to situations of confidence and honour. Count Neipperg informed me that Dr Castle (who is an American, and holds a degree of M.D. from the

* See Phrenological Journal, vol. xiv. p. 237,

University of New York), during his residence in Milan, had examined the heads, and written descriptions of the natural characters, of a considerable number of individuals of both sexes, some of them of distinguished talents, and others in high rank; and with extraordinary success. He read to me several of these written descriptions; and in point of deep analysis and comprehensive unfolding of the most delicate and remote effects of the combinations of the different organs, they possess the highest merit. Dr Castle had left Milan, and was in Stuttgardt at the time of my interview with Count Neipperg, so that I had not the pleasure of seeing him, nor did I see any of the individuals whom he had described. I had no means, therefore, of judging of the accuracy of his observations; but I urged on the Count the advantage of publishing several of the manuscripts as examples of profound analysis, and close deduction; and as he certified that the characters were equally true to nature (of which he could judge from intimate knowledge of the individuals), as they were ably and scientifically deduced from phrenological principles, I trust that this will be done, either in your pages or in those of the German Phrenological Journal.

The statuary and paintings of Italy present a field of study of the highest interest to the phrenologist, and my next letter will be devoted to this subject. At present I limit myself to remarking, that I have examined with attention the collection of ancient busts of the Roman emperors, and of other distinguished Romans, now preserved in the galleries of Florence and Rome, with a view to form an estimate of their value as records of the talents and dispositions of the men; but have been grievously disappointed. Mr Charles Maclaren, in his "Notes on France and Italy," had previously remarked that, "of some of the great Greek and Roman sages and heroes, there are four or five editions here in marble, and I was mortified to find that the effect of this multiplicity of portraits was to unsettle my ideas of physiognomies which I was anxious to remember, and to shake my faith in the fidelity of likenesses taken by the ancient sculptors. There (in the Museum in the Capitol) or elsewhere in Rome, I have seen heads of Cicero which had very little resemblance to each other. It is the same with certain busts, bearing the names of Julius Cæsar, Brutus, Plato, &c. There is much more uniformity in the case of some of the emperors, such as Nero and Caligula, whose faces nobody cares to know." My own observations coincide pretty closely with those of Mr Maclaren; only it appears to me, that, in most of the busts, the features of the face, and such portions of the forehead as were not covered by the hair, had been modelled from nature; but few of the busts are of the

size of life, the greater number being colossal. The other parts of the head seem to have been formed without due attention to individual characteristics. They cannot be said to have been all modelled from the same lay-figure; for there are great differences in the forms of the heads, but these differences are not natural, and are not characteristic of any individual qualities. The heads seem to have been modelled at hap-hazard, according to the artist's fancy, with this exception, that a common type may be recognised in many of them. They are almost all very broad above the ears, and the coronal region is shallow and defective. This is so prevalent, that it must have been the general form, and it corresponds with the general characters of the men; but that it is not copied faithfully from each individual is obvious, because the same breadth in the lower, and occasionally the same deficiency in the coronal region, appear in the best as in the worst of the Roman emperors. Among the exceptions to this general type are two busts in the Royal Gallery at Florence, said to be of Julius Cæsar. One is in bronze, of which the Phrenological Society in Edinburgh has a cast, presented by the late Lord Douglas Hallyburton; the other is in marble. Both seem to have been carefully modelled, but unfortunately the two differ so widely in the forms of the head and of the features, that I cannot believe them to be likenesses of the same man. There are three busts of Trajan in the same gallery, each differing so much from the others in the form of the head, although the features bear some resemblance, that all confidence in them as historical records is destroyed. All the busts of Nero represent him with an enormous breadth over the ears, and deficient forehead, but they differ in the other regions of the head. I ascribe these defects to the Roman sculptors not having advanced far enough to discover the importance of following Nature even in her minutest differences of form. Canova was equally blind to this rule. His heads are not faithful portraits beyond the face and forehead, and, in consequence of this defect, have little historical value. Our countryman Lawrence Macdonald estimates highly the value of Phrenology in this particular, and follows nature in his busts with a just fidelity. The Greek sculptors also were far more attentive to individual character than the Roman, as I shall take occasion to notice in my next letter. In the Gallery at Florence there is a collection of busts of the most distinguished men of the Medici family; but here also, between wigs, and caps, and bushy locks, colossal dimensions, and careless modelling, almost all historical evidence of dispositions is destroyed. I am, &c.

GEORGE COMBE.