Physiognomy are irascible". The principal promoter of physiognomy in modern times was the Swiss pastor Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) who was briefly a friend of Goethe. Lavater's essays on physiognomy were first published in German in 1772 and gained great popularity. These influential essays were translated into French and English. Lavater found 'confirmation' of his ideas from the English physician-philosopher Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682), and the Italian Giambattista Della Porta (1535–1615). Browne in his "Religio Medici" (1643) discusses the possibility of the discernment of inner qualities from the outer appearance of the face, thus: He reaffirmed his physiognomic beliefs in "Christian
Physiognomy the romantic novelist Amelia Opie, and the travelogue author George Borrow. Physiognomy is a central, implicit assumption underlying the plot of Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray". In 19th-century American literature, physiognomy figures prominently in the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe. Phrenology, also considered a form of physiognomy, was created around 1800 by German physician Franz Joseph Gall and Johann Spurzheim, and was widely popular in the 19th century in Europe and the United States. In the U.S., physician James W. Redfield published his "Comparative Physiognomy" in 1852, illustrating with 330 engravings the "Resemblances between Men and Animals".