gh by no means remarkably, handsome; the nose is
aquiline,--the upper lip short and chiselled,--the eyes gray, and the
forehead, which is by far the finest feature in the countenance, is
peculiarly high, broad, and massive. The mouth has but little beauty; it
is severe, caustic, and rather displeasing, from the extreme compression
of the lips. The great and prevalent expression of the face is energy.
The eye, the brow, the turn of the head, the erect, penetrating
aspect,--are all strikingly bold, animated, and even daring. And this
expression makes a singular contrast to that in another likeness to
the Count, which was taken at a much later period of life. The latter
portrait represents him in a foreign uniform, decorated with orders. The
peculiar sarcasm of the month is hidden beneath a very long and thick
mustachio, of a much darker colour than the hair (for in both portraits,
as in Jervas's picture of Lord Bolingbroke, the hair is left undisguised
by the odious fashion of the day). Across one cheek there is a slight
scar, as of a sabre cut. The whole character of this portrait is widely
different from that in the earlier one. Not a trace of the fire, the
animation, which were so striking in the physiognomy of the youth of
twenty, is discoverable in the calm, sedate, stately, yet somewhat stern
expression, which seems immovably spread over the paler hue and the more
prominent features of the man of about four or five and thirty. Yet,
upon the whole, the face in the latter portrait is handsomer; and, from
its air of dignity and reflection, even more impressive than that in the
one I have first described.--ED.

CHAPTER IX.

A DEVELOPMENT OF CHARACTER, AND A LONG LETTER; A CHAPTER, ON THE WHOLE,
MORE IMPORTANT THAN IT SEEMS.

THE scenes through which, of late, I have conducted my reader are by
no means episodical: they illustrate far more than mere narration the
career to which I was so honourably devoted.

Dissipation,--women,--wine,--Tarleton for a friend, Lady Hasselton for a
mistress. Let me now throw aside the mask.

To people who have naturally very intense and very acute feelings,
nothing is so fretting, so wearing to the heart, as the commonplace
affections, which are the properties and offspring of the world. We have
seen the birds which, with wings unclipt, children fasten to a stake.
The birds seek to fly, and are pulled back before their wings are well
spread; till, at last, they either perpetually s