The “British Solomon” was unquestionably a witty man, without being a wise one. In a subsequent chapter, we take occasion to observe, that the exhibitions of character in women are, from different causes, diverse from those in men; and that as to the Celestial Nose, a woman so endowed appears more witty than a similarly nosed man, because she can dare to say what his fear of corporeal chastisement would restrain. But kings, by their position, are placed above such fear, and assume by their rank what is granted to a woman for her sex. Hence the impudence of the Celestial may develop itself in a king; and James I was enabled to utter witticisms which he would have prudently kept within his breast had he occupied an inferior station.
There are few individuals of whom more smart things are recorded than of James I; but they are nearly all of a character which none but a chartered libertine—a king, a fool, or a woman—dare utter.
Peculiar circumstances won Kosciusko somewhat of a name, for it was rather from sympathy with his cause than from admiration of his abilities, that it was ever bruited in men’s mouths, or is yet remembered. Had he been gifted with a Roman Nose, that is, had his soul been Roman, energetic, dignified and self-reliant, Poland might have risen again into the rank of nations. But he submitted to crouch beneath the rod of Napoleon, temporizing and treating for benefits for which it was his duty to have fought; and the nation, which looked to him for assistance, was compelled to share his degraded fate, and become the despised tool of an all-grasping despot. He had, however, a share of the Cogitative with the Celestial; and thus affords an instance of an union so rare, that it is only to be regarded as an exception to the rule laid down, that Class III is never associated with V and VI.
KOSCIUSKO.
Boswell, who has attained that sort of eminence which a monkey might secure by mounting itself on the head of an elephant, affords a striking corroboration of all the characteristics attributed to the Snubbo-Celestial Nose. What a contrast between his short, retroussé nose and the profoundly Cogitative and well-developed proboscis of the literary giant on whose broad shoulders he elevated himself, to display his mountebankism, and the self-degradation of which his silly vanity made him unconscious. It was the very excess of his self-esteem which made him unconscious of the kicks and blows which his self-esteem was continually doomed to receive at the hands of his “illustrious friend.” His impudent vanity and blind obtuseness rendered him insensible to the taunts and jeers, the ridicule and contempt, which were lavished upon his imperturbable imbecility. The great moralist tolerated his presence for the sake of his flattery, and the utility of his companionship when no one else would familiarize themselves with the “literary bear.” Habit made his presence essential; and Boswell—rather from natural weakness than studied servility—was too useful a target for the arrows of the cross satirist, to be lightly laid aside by one to whom disputation and contradiction were necessary stimulants.
Every page in Boswell’s biography of Johnson demonstrates the meanness of his disposition and the weakness of his mind, redeemed only by a certain small shrewdness and fox-like common sense, very useful to draw out the aphorisms of his patron. His inherent impudence prompted him to thrust himself into the society of the great literary characters of the day, Johnson, Voltaire, Rousseau, &c., where his vanity and self-esteem, coupled with his obtuseness of intellect, sustained him, by rendering him as impervious to their sarcasms and rebuffs, as the hide of the rhinoceros is to the darts which would speedily annihilate a more highly organized and sensitive animal.
Nevertheless, the world owes much to Boswell’s imbecility. His mind was a tabula rasa, on which were written down for our edification the sayings of a great sage, pure and unalloyed, but which, if transmitted through a mind of greater capacity, would have lost much of their truthfulness and fidelity.
Murat presents an instance of an illustrious Snub. But it is notorious that Murat was never anything but a tool in the hands of Napoleon. He was quite incompetent to stand alone. He was a peacock’s feather in the hands of a juggler—veering with the directive motion and breath of the skilful balancer. Where he was laid, there he lay; where he was set up, there he stood. Such men were very needful to Napoleon. They were his best puppet-kings, by which he hoped to govern Europe. Sometimes he made a mistake, as in Bernadotte and his brother Louis; but Murat and Joseph were most skilfully selected to obey his ambitious impulses. Perhaps—as he is said to have chosen able men for their long noses—he selected these for their Snubs. Murat especially rejoiced in a most egregious Snub, and certainly exhibited no mental qualifications to belie the inference to be drawn from that form of Nose.
It is an important and very obvious corroboration of the truth of Nasology, that the noses of children are generally Snub or Celestial. This arises from their minds being unformed, and their characters undeveloped. As they grow up, their minds gradually expand, their characters assume individuality; and, coincident therewith, their Noses acquire the formation expressive of their mental tendencies.