A cast of the eye à la Montmorency was much admired at the Court of Louis XIII. where the representative of that illustrious family had rendered it fashionable by his example. Descartes is said to have liked all persons who squinted for his nurse's sake, and the anecdote tells equally in favour of her and of him.
St. Evremond says in writing the Eulogy of Turenne. Je ne m'amuserai point à depeindre tous les traits de son visage. Les caractéres des Grands Hommes n'ont rien de commun avec les portraits des belles femmes. Mais je puis dire en gros qu'il avoit quelque chose d'auguste et d'agréable; quelque chose en sa physionomie qui faisoit concevoir je ne sai quoi de grand en son ame, et en son esprit. On pouvoit juger à le voir, que par un disposition particuliere la Nature l'avoit préparé à faire tout ce qu'il a fait. If Turenne had not been an ill-looking man, the skilful eulogist would not thus have excused himself from giving any description of his countenance; a countenance from which indeed, if portraits belie it not, it might be inferred that nature had prepared him to change his party during the civil wars, as lightly as he would have changed his seat at a card-table,—to renounce the Protestant faith, and to ravage the Palatinate. Ne souvenez-vous pas de la physionomie funeste de ce grand homme, says Bussy Rabutin to Madame de Sevigné. An Italian bravo said che non teneva specchio in camera, perche quando si crucciava diveniva tanto terribile nell' aspetto, che veggendosi haria fatto troppo gran paura a se stesso.1
1 IL CORTEGIANO, 27.
Queen Elizabeth could not endure the sight of deformity; when she went into public her guards it is said removed all misshapen and hideous persons out of her way.
Extreme ugliness has once proved as advantageous to its possessor as extreme beauty, if there be truth in those Triads wherein the Three Men are recorded who escaped from the battle of Camlan. They were Morvran ab Teged, in consequence of being so ugly, that every body thinking him to be a Demon out of Hell fled from him; Sandde Bryd-Angel, or Angel-aspect, in consequence of being so fine of form, so beautiful and fair, that no one raised a hand against him—for he was thought to be an Angel from Heaven: and Glewlwyd Gavaelvawr, or Great-grasp (King Arthur's porter) from his size and strength, so that none stood in his way, and every body ran before him; excepting these three, none escaped, from Camlan,—that fatal field where King Arthur fell with all his chivalry.
That painter of great but insane genius, William Blake, of whom Allan Cunningham has written so interesting a memoir, took this Triad for the subject of a picture, which he called the Ancient Britons. It was one of his worst pictures,—which is saying much; and he has illustrated it with one of the most curious commentaries in his very curious and very rare descriptive Catalogue of his own Pictures.
It begins with a translation from the Welsh, supplied to him no doubt by that good simple-hearted, Welsh-headed man, William Owen, whose memory is the great store-house of all Cymric tradition and lore of every kind.
“In the last battle of King Arthur only Three Britons escaped; these were the Strongest Man, the Beautifullest Man, and the Ugliest Man. These Three marched through the field unsubdued as Gods; and the Sun of Britain set, but shall arise again with tenfold splendour, when Arthur shall awake from sleep, and resume his dominion over earth and ocean.
“The three general classes of men,” says the painter, “who are represented by the most Beautiful, the most Strong, and the most Ugly, could not be represented by any historical facts but those of our own countrymen, the Ancient Britons, without violating costumes. The Britons (say historians) were naked civilised men, learned, studious, abstruse in thought and contemplation; naked, simple, plain in their acts and manners; wiser than after ages. They were overwhelmed by brutal arms, all but a small remnant. Strength, Beauty and Ugliness escaped the wreck, and remain for ever unsubdued, age after age.
“The British Antiquities are now in the Artist's hands; all his visionary contemplations relating to his own country and its ancient glory, when it was, as it again shall be, the source of learning and inspiration. He has in his hands poems of the highest antiquity. Adam was a Druid, and Noah. Also Abraham was called to succeed the Druidical age, which began to turn allegoric and mental signification into corporeal command; whereby human sacrifice would have depopulated the earth. All these things are written in Eden. The artist is an inhabitant of that happy country; and if every thing goes on as it has begun, the work of vegetation and generation may expect to be opened again to Heaven, through Eden, as it was in the beginning.