It is in consequence of this imitative propensity that children learn insensibly to model their habits on the appearance and manners of those with whom they are familiarly conversant. It is thus too that, with little or no aid on the part of their instructors, they acquire the use of speech, and form their pliable organs to the articulation of whatever sounds they are accustomed to hear.

As we advance to maturity, the propensity to imitation grows weaker, our improving faculties gradually diverting our attention from the models around us to ideal standards more conformable to our own taste; whilst at the same time, in consequence of some physical change in the body, that flexibility of the muscular system, by which this propensity is enabled to accomplish its end, is impaired or lost. The same combination of letters which a child of three or four years of age utters without any apparent effort would twenty years afterwards present to him a difficulty not to be surmounted by the most persevering industry. A similar inflexibility, it may be reasonably presumed from analogy, is acquired by those muscles, on which depend the imitative powers of the face and of all the other parts of our material frame.

If this observation be well founded, it is by no means a fair experiment to attempt the education of a savage child of seven or eight years old, with the view of ascertaining how far it is possible to assimilate his air and manner to those of a polished European or Anglo-American. Long before this age many of his most important habits are fixed, and much is lost of that mobility of his system by which the principle of imitation operates. Such an individual, therefore, will retain through life that characteristical expression of the savage state, which is so apt to shock our feelings at the supposition of his common origin with ourselves. Nor is this all. Such an individual will, through life, find himself out of his element in a society of which he can so imperfectly acquire the manners; and if, by accident, in maturer years, he should visit the scenes to which he was accustomed in early infancy, it is not improbable that he may willingly reassume habits of which he has lost the recollection, but which are to him a second nature, by being coëval with his existence.

In speculations concerning the varieties of the human race, too little attention has been, in general, bestowed on the influence exercised by the mind over the external expression. In consequence of this influence, it will be found that no inconsiderable diversities,

in the form and aspect of man, arise from the different degrees of cultivation which his intellectual and moral powers receive in the different stages of society.

The savage, having neither occasion nor inclination to exert his intellectual faculties, excepting to remove the present inconveniences of his situation or to procure the objects which minister to his necessities, spends the greater part of his time in a state of stupid and thoughtless repose. It is impossible, therefore, that his features should acquire that spirit, and that mobility, which indicate an informed and an active mind. Supposing two individuals to possess originally the same physical form-to be cast, if I may use the expression, in the same mould—and the one to be educated from infancy in the habits of savage life, while the other has been trained to the manners of cultivated society. I have no doubt but that, abstracting entirely from the influence of climate and of other physical circumstances, their countenances would, in time, exhibit a very striking contrast. Nothing, indeed, can place this in a stronger light than the rapid change which a few months' education produces on the physiognomy of those dumb children to whom the ingenuity of the present age furnishes the means of mental culture-a change from listlessness, vacancy, and seeming fatuity, to the expressive and animated look of self-enjoyment and conscious intelligence. It is true that, in such a state of society as ours, a great proportion of the community are as incapable of reflection as savages; but the principle of imitation, which, in some measure, assimilates to each other all the members of the same group or circle, communicates the external aspect of intelligence and of refinement to those who are the least entitled to assume it: and it is thus we frequently see the most complete mental imbecility accompanied with what is called a plausible or imposing appearance, or, in other words, a countenance which has caught, from imitation, the expression of sagacity.

I have already said that, in the case of most persons, the power of imitation decays as the period of childhood draws to a close. To this cause it is probably owing that the strong resemblance, which often renders twins scarcely distinguishable from each other in infancy, in most cases disappears gradually, in proportion as their countenances are rendered more expressive by the development of their respective characters. Like other powers, however, exercised by the

infant mind, this faculty may be easily continued through the whole of life by a perseverance in the habits of our early years. By a course of systematical culture, it may even be strengthened to a degree far exceeding what is ever attained by the unassisted capacities of our natures. It is thus that the powers of the mimic are formed -powers which almost all children have a disposition to indulge, and of which it is sometimes difficult to restrain the exercise. The strength of the propensity seems to vary a good deal, according to the physical temperament of the individual; but, wherever it meets with any encouragement, it is well known that no faculty whatever is more susceptible of improvement: and accordingly, when at any time the possession of it happens to be at all fashionable in the higher circles, it very soon ceases to be a rare accomplishment. In the other sex the power of imitation is, I think, in general, greater than in ours.

A frequent reiteration of any act, it has been often remarked, communicates to the mind, not only a facility in performing it, but an increased proneness or disposition to repeat it. This observation is remarkably verified in those who accustom themselves to the exercise of mimicry. Their propensity to imitation gains new strength from its habitual indulgence, and sometimes becomes so powerful as to be hardly subject to the control of the will. Instances of this have, more than once, fallen under my own observation; and, in a few well-authenticated cases, the propensity is said to have become so irresistible as to constitute a species of disease.

As we have a faculty of imitating the peculiarities of our acquaintances, so we are able to fashion, in some degree, our own exterior, according to the ideal forms which imagination creates. The same powers of embellishing nature, which are exercised by the poet and the painter may, in this manner, be rendered subservient to the personal improvement of the individual. By a careful study of the best models which the circle of his acquaintance presents to him, an outline may be conceived of their common excellencies, excluding every peculiarity of feature which might designate the particular objects of his imitation; and this imaginary original he may strive to copy and to realize in himself. It is by a process analogous to this (as Sir Joshua Reynolds has very ingeniously shown) that the masters in painting rise to eminence; and such, too, is the process which

Quintilian recommends to the young orator who aspires to the graces of elocution and of action: Imitate," says he, "the best speakers you can find; but imitate only the perfections they possess in common.” It is remarked by the same admirable critic, that although a disposition to imitate be, in young men, one of the most favourable symptoms of future success, yet little is to be expected from those who, in order to raise a laugh, delight in mimicking the peculiarities of individuals. An exclusive attention indeed to the best models which human life supplies indicates some defect in those powers of imagination and taste, which might have supplied the student with an ideal pattern still more faultless; and therefore, how great soever his powers of execution may be, they can never produce any thing but a copy (and probably a very inferior copy) of the original he has in view.

These observations may throw some light on the distinction between the powers of the mimic and of the actor. The former attaches himself to individual imitation; the latter, equally faithful to the study of nature, strives, in the course of a more extensive observation, to seize on the genuine expressions of passion and of character, stripped of the singularities with which they are always blended when exhibited to our senses. It has been often remarked

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that these powers are seldom united in the same person; and I believe the remark is just, when stated with proper limitations. is certainly true that talent for mimickry may exist in the greatest perfection where there is no talent for acting, because the former talent implies merely the power of execution, which is not necessarily connected either with taste or with imagination. On the other hand, when these indisputable qualities in a great actor are to be found, there will probably be little disposition to cultivate those habits of minute and vigilant attention to singularities on which mimickry depends. But the powers of the actor evidently presuppose and comprehend the powers of the mimic, if he had thought the cultivation of them worthy of his attention; for the same reason that the genius or the historical painter might, if he had chosen, have succeeded in the humbler walk of painting portraits. If I am not much mistaken, the conclusion might be confirmed by an appeal to facts. Foote, it is well known, was but an indifferent actor; and many other mimics of acknowledged excellence in their own line have succeeded