bloodthirsty expression which Cooke could throw into his face.
In the latter the Eingentes prevailed: and what determined hate
he could express, when, combined with the oblique cast of his
eyes, he drew up the outer part of the upper lip, and disclosed a
sharp angular tooth! And is it not this lateral drawing of the lips,
and stretching them upon the closed teeth, that makes the blood
start from them in remorseless hate and rancour ? But in the cast
of Mrs. Siddons’s countenance there is a capacity of noble sentiment—
it blazed in expression on the discovery of fraud and villany.
There, as in her brother John, the animation is in the mobility of
the nostril and the swelling of the upper lip, and a mouth capable
of expressing whatever is most exalted in human sentiment.
But besides the muscles analogous to those of brytes, there is an
intertexture of muscles in the human countenance, which evinces a
provision for expression quite independent of the original destination
of those muscles that are common to man and animals. There
are muscles not only peculiar to the human countenance, but which
act where it is impossible to conceive any other object for their
exertion than that of expressing feeling and sentiment. These
muscles indicate emotions, and sympathies, of which the lower
animals are not susceptible; and as they are peculiar to the human
face, they may be considered as the index of mental energy in
opposition to mere animal expression.
The parts of the human face the most moveable and the most
expressive are the inner extremity of the eyebrow, and the angle
of the mouth, and these are precisely the parts of the face which
in brutes have least expression; for the brutes have no eyebrows,
and no power of elevating or depressing the angle of the mouth.
It is in these features therefore that we should expect to find the
muscles of expression peculiar to man.
1. The most remarkable muscle of the human face is the
corrugator supercilii. It arises from the frontal bone, near the
union with the nasal bones, and is inserted into the skin of the
eyebrow. It knits the eyebrows with a peculiar and energetic
meaning, which unaccountably, but irresistibly, conveys the idea of
mind and sentiment.
The anterior portion of the occipito-frontalis muscle is the antagonist
of the orbicular muscle of the eyelid. It is wanting in the
animals we have already examined, and in its stead, fibres more or
less strong are found to be directly inserted into the eyelids*.
The motion of the features, which, next to that produced
by the corrugator supercilii, is the most expressive of human
sensibility and passion, is at the angle of the mouth; and at one
time I had conceived, that the muscle which is called the superbus,
* The expanded muscle of the skull in brutes is reflected off to the ear..