THE ANATOMY AND PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION AS CONNECTED WITH THE FINE ARTS. BY SIR CHARLES BELL, K.H. SEVENTH EDITION, REVISED. LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 1885. NC 760 .B5 1890 cop.3 PREFACE ΤΟ THE THIRD EDITION. THESE Essays formed the earliest and the latest occupation of the lamented author's leisure hours;—and they now appear under the disadvantages which must attend a posthumous publication. It was the habit of the author, in his literary compositions, to sketch his first ideas as they arose; and parts of this work were found evidently intended to be revised and corrected. They are faithfully added to the text of the last edition, where they bear upon the subject. The following prefatory remarks are from the pen of the late Professor Bell,* to whom, in the warmth of brotherly affection, the second edition of the work had been inscribed. The Essays which are now presented to the public in their enlarged form, were originally composed, as the * George Joseph Bell, Professor of the Law of Scotland in the University of Edinburgh. He died September 23, 1843. author fondly said in his dedication, "when we studied together before the serious pursuits of life began;" but were not published till the year 1806, after the author nad left Edinburgh and fixed his residence in London. A second edition appeared in 1824; but he resisted every call for a new impression until he should have had an opportunity of verifying in Italy the principles of criticism in art, by the study of the works of the great masters in painting and sculpture. With this view he visited the Continent in 1840; and on his return he recomposed the whole for a new edition, introducing occasional extracts from his journal, sometimes to enforce the texts and sometimes to shew from what authority he drew his conclusions. In a declining state of health he had taken advantage of a recess in his professorial duties in the University of Edinburgh to revisit his friends in England. He hoped in the leisure of the country to give this work a final revisal for the press; but before he had fulfilled his wishes in this respect, his life was terminated by an access of his illness at Hallow Park, in Worcestershire, on the 29th of April, 1842. In the speculations of which this work is the result, and in the interesting inquiries to which they led, Sir Charles Bell was accustomed to seek relief from the wearing anxiety which, from his exquisite sensibility to human suffering, had ever attended the practice of his profession: but a still greater effect was to follow. It was from these investigations that he was first led to make those discoveries in the system of the nerves, |