stical--which appear
in the present paper, will amply repay the closest scrutiny. These hands
are unwontedly realistic, and emphasize their distinctiveness in every
vein and wrinkle. They appear to be themselves endowed with each of
those various qualities which caused their possessor to be regarded as
one of the most puissant figures in the century's literature. The hand
is not one, to use Charles Lamb's expressive phrase, to be looked at
_standing on one leg_. It deserves a keener examination.

[Illustration: THOMAS CARLYLE'S HANDS.]

Mention has been made of the hand of a distinguished prelate, Cardinal
Manning. It will not be out of place to compare it with the hands of
the late Archbishop of Canterbury, which were cast posthumously.
Scarcely anything could be more antagonistic. The nervous personality of
Manning is wanting here. The hands of the Archbishop seem more to belong
to the order of the benevolent Bishop Myriel than to that of the
enthusiast and ascetic.

[Illustration: THE LATE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY'S HANDS.]

[Illustration: LORD PALMERSTON'S HAND.]

Plenty of opportunity to study the hands of statesmen is afforded in
those of Lord Palmerston, Count Cavour, Sir Stratford Canning, and Lord
Melbourne. The fallacy of attaching special qualities to any distinctive
trait in the hand of an eminent person is most readily discernible here.
One should avoid _a posteriori_ reasoning. It would be the same for a
physiognomist to argue a man a statesman from a facial resemblance to
Mr. Gladstone, or that he is fit to write tragedies because he owns the
exact facial proportions of Sardou.

[Illustration: COUNT CAVOUR'S HANDS.]

[Illustration: SIR STRATFORD CANNING'S HANDS.]

Among these the hand of Lord Palmerston will stand forth most
prominently to the reader. Its characteristics are, on the whole,
sufficiently obvious, in the appended cast, to be thought accentuated.
It might not unprofitably be noted in connection with those of Stratford
Canning, Viscount de Redcliffe (for fifty years British Ambassador in
India), whose statue by Boehm, with Tennyson's famous epitaph:

Thou third great Canning, stand among our best
And noblest, now thy long day's work hath ceased,
Here, silent in our Minster of the West,
Who wert the voice of England in the East!

is in a nave of the Abbey. With these should be joined the hand of
Viscount Melbourne, the predecessor of Sir Robert Peel in the
Premi