against an uninterrupted succession of six or seven short noses,' "* This is a curious coincidence; I pretend to call it no more.But it must be added, that Marville's Miscellanies appear to have been much read, about the time when Sterne wrote. I am inclined to doubt whether Sterne had read this author, because I find much philosophy concerning noses in his second volume, which might have been accommodated to Tristram. He observes, that every face, however ugly it may appear, possesses such a degree of symmetry, that the alteration of any feature would render it more deformed. "† For instance, if it *Tris. Shandy, vol. iii. chap. xxxiii. + Par exemple, si l'on prétendoit alonger le nez d'un camus, je dis qu'on ne feroit rien qui vaille; parceque ce nez étant alonge, il ne feroit plus simétrie avec les autres parties du visage, qui étant d'une certaine grandeur, et aiant de certaines elevations, ou de certains enfoncemens, demandent que le nez leur soit proportionné. Ainsi selon des certaines régles très parfaites en elles were attempted to lengthen the nose of a flat-nosed man, I should expect no improve ment of his appearance; because this nose being lengthened, would no longer correspond with the other parts of the face, which mêmes, un camus doit être camus; et selon ces régles c'est un visage regulier qui deviendroit un monstre si on lui faisoit le nez aquilin. Je dis bien plus, qu'l est quelquefois aussi necessaire qu'un homme n'ait point de nez, qu'il est necessaire dans l'ordre Toscan, par exemple, que le chapiteau de sa colon n'ait point de volute. C'est un bel ornement que la volute dans l'ordre Ionique ou dans le Corinthien, mais ce seroit un monstre et un irregularité dans l'ordre Toscan. Un petit nez, des petits yeux, une grande bouche qui nous choquent d'ordinaire, appartiennent à un ordre de beauté, qui peut bien n'être pas de notre goust; mais que nous ne devons pas condamner, parce qu'en effet c'est un ordre qui a ses regles, qu'il ne nous appartient pas de contredire. Que les François méprisent les nez camus et les petits yeux, et que les Chinois les estiment, ces sont des bizarreries et des extravagances de l'esprit humain, &c. Vigneul-Marville Melanges d'Histoire et de Litterature, tom. ii. p. 164, 165. being of a given size, and having their given elevations and depressions, require a nose proportioned to them. Thus, according to certain rules, complete in themselves, a flatnosed man ought to be flat-nosed, and, according to those rules, he has a regular face, which would become monstrous, if an aquiline nose were clapped upon it. I go farther, and I advance, that it is sometimes as necessary that a man should be without nose, as that in the Tuscan order, the capital of the column should have no volute. The volute is a beautiful ornament in the Ionic or Corinthian order, but in the Tuscan it would be a monster, and an irregularity. A short nose, small eyes, and a wide mouth, which commonly disgust us, belong to an order of beauty, which we may not admire, but which we ought not to condemn, because in effect it is an order which has its rules, that we have no business to contradict. "Let the French despise flat noses and little eyes, and the Chinese esteem them; these are the caprices and extravagancies of the imagination. But upon our principles, it appears, that there may be as many different orders of beauty as of architecture," This mode of reasoning would have been very useful to Uncle Toby. He might have proved, that there ought to be flat noses as well as flat bastions. We meet with this peculiar phraseology again, in a passage in the Memoirs of La Porte. In mentioning a conversation with Anne of Austria respecting the views which he suspected Mademoiselle de Montpensier to entertain of a marriage with Louis XIV. he says, "Je dis tout cela à la Reine, qui se mocqua de moi, me disant; ce n'est pour son nez, quoiqu'il soit bien grand."* Sterne's curious dilemma, by which a very large nose must fall off from the man, or the man must fall off from his nose, was anticipated by Tabarin, in whose dialogues more is said on the subject of noses than I care to repeat. "O qu'il le feroit beau voir sur la Montagne de Montmartre, avec un nez * Memoirs de la Porte, p. 275. de dix lieues de long, car on y void de fort Il lui faudroit des fourches pour loing. The French have lampooned long noses almost as much as the Greeks. Granger, in the Pedant Jouè, is said to have a nose which always made its appearance a quarter of an hour before its owner: " cet autentique nez arrive partout un quart d'heure devant son maitre." And even D'Alembert, who united more good sense and good taste in his critical works than any other French writer, has published some curious details by d'Olivet concerning the nose of the Abbé Genest, which was the admiration of the courtiers, and the subject of royal wit. "While the Abbé Genest was at Rome, he often dined with Cardinal d'Estrées, who was fond of poets, and who had himself written well in his youth. One day, when his Eminence had a great deal of company, there was a person at table, who, having a * Questions Tabariniques. |