Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 July 1884 — The Heads of Great Men. [ARTICLE]

The Heads of Great Men.

It is usually supposed that men of great intellectual powers have large and massive heads; but this theory, which Dr. Gilbert, physician to Queen Elizabeth, was the first to suggest, is not borne out by facts. An examination of busts, pictures, medallions, intaglios, etc., of the world’s famous celebrities almost tends the other way. In the earlier paintings, it is true, men are distinguished by their large heads, but this is attributable to the painters, who agreed witli the t general opinion and wished to flatter their sitters. A receding forehead is mostly condemned. Nevertheless, this feature is found in Alexander the Great and, to a lesser degree, in Julius Caesar. The head of Frederick the Great, as will be seen from one of the portraits in Carlyle’s works, receded dreadfully. Other great men have had positively small heads. Lord Byron’s was “remarkably small,” as were those of Lord Bacon and Cosmo di Medici. Men of genius of ancient times had only what may be called an ordinary or every day forehead, and Herodotus, Aleflnades, Plato, Aristotle, and Epi-

corns, among many others, are mentioned as instances. Some are even low-browed, as Burton, the author of “The Anatomy of Melancholy;” Sir Thomas Browne, and Albert Durer. The average forehead of the Greek sculptures in the frieze from the Parthenon is, we are told, “lower, if anything, than what is seen in modern foreheads.” The gods themselves are represented with “ordinary, if not low brows." Thus it appears that the popular notion on the matter is erroneous, and that there may be great men without big heads—in other words, a Geneva watch is capable of keeping as good time as an eight-day clock.