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MEMOIR, &c.

THE individual whose physiognomical researches have given birth to the present volume, was born the 20th of March, 1763, at Sheffield, and died at Manchester the 26th of July, 1818, aged 55 years. In publishing the present summary of his opinions, the editor hopes to disarm criticism of its severity, as far as regards his friend, by informing the public, that it was not his intention that his papers should ever appear to the world in their present state; that he had unfortunately no leisure for revising and extending them, and that his views on the science of Physiognomy, partly collected from them, and partly from the singular opportunities which a long intimacy with him afforded to the editor, are now presented principally for the instruction and amusement of a circle to

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whom he was known, and for the benefit of his widow and children. For himself the editor offers no apology. In the execution of a duty, which the call of friendship, uttered from the grave of his friend, imposes upon him for the advantage of his surviving family, he is indifferent to censure or applause. Higher motives, he hopes, than the fear of the one or the desire of the other, have impelled him to the performance of his task, and will insure the execution of it in the best manner he is

able, under the continual pressure of very different and interfering avocations. Moreover, he thinks the opinions of his friend worthy of being recorded; and if he should succeed in preserving from oblivion, even but for a short period, his character and sentiments, he will have endeavoured, in some measure, to discharge a debt which he owes to him for some of the early and best influences he ever felt as a moral and intellectual being. In making this declaration, he may appear to some not the fittest person to undertake the task of biographer in the present instance; but he must

be allowed to observe, that if the feelings of private friendship should be supposed somewhat to interfere with a strictly impartial estimate of a character, the intimate contact with the opinions, habits, and attainments of an individual, which friendship can alone secure, is essential to a true and living representation. The advantages, therefore, are, perhaps, somewhat on the side of the editor; for it is not the object of the present memoir to detail those uninteresting and common-place circumstances which must necessarily make up a large portion of every life, but to exhibit what was peculiar in the attainments, the modes of thinking, and the habits of the individual under consideration; to present a view of him in those respects in which he differed from other men. It is to be regretted that Mr. Cooke's early studies should have had little reference to his future prosecution of physiognomical science: he was engaged in commercial pursuits until the age of about 22 years, and his education had been such only as is usual for persons intended for trade. About this period of his

life, some accidental circumstances awakened

his attention to the science to which he eventually became a devoted enthusiast; and in its prosecution, he attended lectures on Anatomy and Physiology, soon perceiving that these studies were the first and most essential to a scientific physionomist, and aware also that the great defect of a preceding inquirer, whose works have become so celebrated, were to be traced to his ignorance of the structure of the human frame. He had, unfortunately, however, neither time nor opportunity for pursuing anatomy and physiology to the extent which he would otherwise have done from his deep sense of their importance in the investigation of the science of expression; but he was far from being ignorant of them, and very dexterously applied the knowledge he had acquired in his attempts to trace the physiognomical signs of which original structure is the basis. On this account, his opinions are worthy of being recorded; and still more for the amazing aptitude he possessed for observing and decyphering these signs as indicative, in the countenance of man, of intellectual powers, and moral dispositions and

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