―260―For the Literary Magazine.
personal similitudes.
A MOST remarkable instance of
personal similitude has just ocurred
at New York, in a trial for a double
marriage. A man, by name Hoag,
is charged with marrying one wo-
man, whom he afterwards deserts,
and marries another. He is met,
under the name of Parker, by the
friends and relations of his first wife,
and by the first wife herself, who
all combine in swearing positively,
that this is the very man. Another
equally numerous set of witnesses
unanimously swear, that the man
before them worked for them and
with them, eat with them, and con-
versed with them, in the city of
New York, at the very time when
the first set of witnesses maintained
that he was in their company, at a
distance in the country. The wit-
nesses against him not only affirmed
the exact resemblance of the man
before them to Thomas Hoag, in
stature, shape, gesture, complexion,
looks, voice, and articulation, but
even the accidental mark of a scar
upon the forehead. The scales of
testimony appear to have been
equally balanced, till the prisoner
exhibited the sole of his foot, in
which there was no traces of a scar,
such as the witnesses from the coun-
try had maintained was distinctly
and indelibly imprinted upon Tho-
mas Hoag.
―261―All impartial observers must con-
clude, from this display of evidence,
that both parties are equally sin-
cere, and consequently that there
are two men, exactly alike in their
persons and external sensible con-
stitution, one called Hoag, and the
other Parker. A casual resem-
blance of this nature, between two
persons of different families, is sure-
ly not impossible; this resemblance
between persons sprung from the
same parents is still more probable;
but what is most probable, is this
similitude between twins.
The reporters of this curious trial
ought to have proceeded further,
and to have given some particulars
of the life of Parker, by which some
clue might have been afforded to a
solution of this marvellous enigma.
Ignorant as we are of the real events
of his history, we are obliged to ac-
quiesce in the conjecture that Hoag
and Parker are brothers, or twin
brothers, though neither may be
apprized of the existence of the
other.
This event has suggested to me
some remarks on the subject of per-
sonal similitude, which may not be
wholly unworthy of attention. In
the whole circle of physiology, there
is surely no subject more curious
and surprising.
The mind of man is particularly
struck, in every object that it meets
with, with those lines and features
which are similar to those of objects
previously seen. Such similarities
occur at the first glance; the differ-
ences are only perceptible after re-
peated scrutiny and observation;
the closer scrutiny and longer the
observation, the more differences
appear, the more individualized be-
comes the object, and the more is
the imagination filled with its pecu-
liarities. The consequence of fa-
miliar and repeated observation is
finally to extinguish the sense of
parity and likeness, and leave no
image in the mind but such as are
peculiar to the individual object.
Strictly speaking, no two existen-
ces are wholly or exactly alike. Since
matter is infinitely divisible, and
nature works within ample limits,
the configuration of no two particles
or masses are exactly similar.
The difference between two mass-
es must doubtless be, in some cases,
far beyond the power of the human
senses to distinguish; but though
we know the senses have a sphere,
beyond the bounds of which they
cannot pass, yet it is impossible to
discover or ascertain the actual li-
mits of this sphere. The longer the
senses apply themselves to scruti-
nize one set of objects, the more dis-
parities appear in it, and the num-
ber of these would go on in increas-
ing indefinitely.
Thus a man sees no resemblance
in general between his own figure,
countenance, or voice, and those of
his brothers, parents, or near rela-
tions, or between these persons to
each other. On the contrary, he
usually imagines a striking differ-
ence between them; a much greater
difference than is to be found be-
tween them and the members of a
different family.
Strangers, on the contrary, when
they are imperfectly acquainted,
express their astonishment at the
resemblance between the brother-
hood: they frequently mistake one
brother for another, and confound
their names together. In propor-
tion as this stranger becomes fami-
liar or intimate, their common re-
semblance insensibly fades, and he
is surprised that he should ever
have discovered a resemblance,
where now he sees nothing but di-
versity.
So likewise a man, in surveying
a collection of his countrymen or
neighbours, is always disposed to
remark the diversity among them.
He exclaims, what caprice and va-
riety is there in nature! how totally
unlike are the forms and faces of
these men!
A stranger, from a foreign coun-
try, sees nothing, at first, of this va-
riety. Wherever he turns his eye,
he discovers the national face; in
every breath he hears the national
accent; the gait and manner have
an air of eternal similarity; but all
―262―
this similarity vanishes on a closer
inspection and longer acquaintance.
A native of Denmark, on his first
arrival in this city, took a survey of
it by walking in a busy day up and
down one of its principal streets, and
afterwards mentioned to his friends,
that the American faces were all
alike, and while they strongly re-
sembled each other, were as widely
different from those of Englishmen,
as Englishmen were unlike Spa-
niards, or Germans dissimilar from
French.
Travellers tell us, that a native
African, before he is familiarized to
white faces, conceives them all to be
exactly alike, and confounds the
Frenchman, the Turk, and the Chi-
nese together.
As we are less familiar with the
lower animals, and their discrimi-
nating peculiarities, than with those
of our own species, striking exam-
ples of this property occur in our
observation of beasts. A Spanish
shepherd can instantly perceive if
one among forty thousand sheep be
missing. No two of his neighbours
are more clearly distinguished by
their shapes and looks, than every
two of his sheep, and, to a casual
observer, every sheep's face is the
same.
A blind man will discover a score
of different degrees of smoothness,
in pieces of marble, which shall ap-
pear all perfectly alike to the man
with sight, because the blind are
accustomed to attend exclusively to
objects of touch.
The well-known Dr. Moise, while
in this city (Philadelphia), went to a
goldsmith, and directed a certain
number of holes to be made in a
thin plate of brass, which holes
were all to be equidistant from each
other, to be perfectly round, and to
be of the same diameter. The work
was done with all possible nicety;
the operations of the drill being aid-
ed by a microscope. When carried
to the doctor, he passed his finger
over it, and instantly complained of
a great number of defects in the
work; some holes being at unequal
distances from others, some being
larger than others, and some irre-
gular in their shapes. He conclud-
ed to take another plate, and do the
work himself.
With all these considerations, it
is certain that all men differ from a
common standard. It is no less cer-
tain, however, that they vary from
this standard in different degrees,
and that some approach so nearly to
the same model, that they cannot
without difficulty be distinguished
from each other, unless it be by
name, dress, some adventitious mark
(as a halt or a scar, in consequence
of wounds or casualties), or some
acquired habit. This similarity is
never so complete as between twins
of the same sex. I know of more
instances than one of twins above
seven or eight years old, whom the
mother, no dull or inaccurate ob-
server, is enabled to distinguish only
by difference in their dress. There
are several instances in which a
wife has continually confounded her
husband with a twin brother.
A similitude of this kind has given
rise to many events on record, some-
times ludicrous, and sometimes tra-
gical. An old Greek dramatic poet
was the first, within our knowledge,
who built a ludicrous drama upon
this foundation. The comic Plautus
took the hint, and adopted the fable
of the Greek in his Mænechmi…..
From some translation of the plays
of Plautus, Shakespeare borrowed,
with certain variations and enlarge-
ments, the plot of his Comedy of
Errors. In all these pieces, the in-
cidents turn on a similitude between
twin brothers, whose existence is
unknown to each other, and this
certainly is the circumstance calcu-
lated to produce the most surprising
and mysterious events, though many
extraordinary and signal conse-
quences might flow from this simi-
litude, when generally known. I
am indeed somewhat surprised that
so copious a source of the wonderful
has not been drained dry by the
dealers in fiction.
The reality of this likeness can-
not be denied. It is built upon un-
questionable evidence. The late
―263―
trial is certainly a very remarkable
example of it, between two persons
whose existence was totally un-
known to each other, and a multi-
tude of trials originating from the
same unsuspected similitude are to
be found upon the records of Euro-
pean judicature, some of which ex-
ceed, in the mystery and marvel-
lousness of the events, any thing
which the richest invention has pro-
duced. One cannot, therefore, but
be suprised, that the Greek, Ro-
man, and English dramatists are
the only inventors who have made
use of this convenient engine for
awakening the wonder and torment-
ing the curiosity of their readers.
Physiologists, I believe, have ne-
ver determined to what degree of
exactness this resemblance may ex-
tend. There are many notions, cur-
rent in the world, about the conge-
niality and sympathy supposed to
reign between resembling twins. It
has been imagined that the same in-
ternal constitution exists in both;
that their lives are limited by the
same period; and that they are lia-
ble to the same maladies of body
and mind. These, no doubt, are
idle dreams, but have had such
powerful influence, on some occa-
sions, on the imagination of twins,
as to occasion one to die, in a few
hours after intelligence received of
the death of the other.
Twins, by the name of Perreau,
grew up to thirty-five or forty years
of age, in the full enjoyment of
health and vigour, but with the firm
persuasion that they should die, as
they were born, beside each other,
and at the same time. This belief
they gathered, it seems, from the
predictions of an old beldame in
Wales, near whose cottage they
were born. The incredulity of their
friends did not shake this opinion,
and their conduct, in many instances,
was governed by it. Many that
knew this circumstance could not
suppress some emotions of reverence
for this Welsh sybil, when they be-
held the two brothers convicted, at
the Old Bailey, on a charge of for-
gery, and hanged together, hand in
hand, on the same gallows. This
event took place, about thirty years
ago, in London, and is one of these
coincidences that perhaps had not
occurred before for many centuries.
The best solution given of the enig-
ma of the man with the iron mask,
who was imprisoned for many years,
under circumstances of mysterious
and impenetrable secrecy, in the
bastile, is, that the prisoner was a
twin brother of Louis the fourteenth,
bearing a perfect resemblance to the
monarch.
I could augment the list of perso-
nal similitudes to the extent of a vo-
lume, but have already, I fear, taken
up too much of your time. If agree-
able to you, you shall hear from me
hereafter on this subiect.