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engage our hearts, which imprefs us with a fenfe of loveliness, are the fofter virtues; eafinefs of temper, compaffion, kindness, and liberality; though certainly thofe latter are of lefs immediate and momentous concern to fociety, and of lefs dignity. But it is for that reafon that they are so amiable. The great virtues turn principally on dangers, punishments, and troubles, and are exercised rather in preventing the worst mischiefs, than in dispensing favours; and are therefore not lovely, though highly venerable. The fubordinate turn on reliefs, gratifications, and indulgences; and are therefore more lovely, though inferior in dignity. Those perfons who creep into the hearts of most people, who are chofen as the companions of their fofter hours, and their reliefs from care and anxiety, are never persons of shining qualities nor ftrong virtues. It is rather the foft green of the foul on which we reft our eyes, that are fatigued with beholding more glaring objects. It is worth obferving how we feel ourselves affected in reading the characters of Cæfar and Cato, as they are fo finely drawn and contrafted in Salluft. In one the ignofcendo, largiundo; in the other, nil largiundo. In one the miferis perfugium; in the other malis perniciem. In the latter we have much to admire, much to reverence, and perhaps fomething to fear; we refpect him, but we refpect him at a distance. The former makes us familiar with him; we love him, and he leads us whither he pleafes. To draw things clofer to our first and most natural feelings, I will add a remark made upon reading this fection by an ingenious friend. The authority of a father, so useful to our well-being, and

so justly venerable upon all accounts, hinders us from having that entire love for him that we have for our mothers, where the parental authority is almost melted down into the mother's fondness and indulgence. But we generally have a great love for our grandfathers, in whom this authority is removed a degree from us, and where the weaknefs of age mellows it into fomething of a feminine partiality.

SECT. XI.

How far the idea of BEAUTY may be applied to

VIRTUE.

ROM what has been faid in the foregoing fec

FR

tion, we may easily fee, how far the application of beauty to virtue may be made with propriety. The general application of this quality to virtue, has a strong tendency to confound our ideas of things; and it has given rife to an infinite deal of whimsical theory; as the affixing the name of beauty to proportion, congruity, and perfection, as well as to qualities of things yet more remote from our natural ideas of it, and from one another has tended to confound our ideas of beauty, and left us no standard or rule to judge by, that was not even more uncertain and fallacious than our own fancies. This loofe and inaccurate manner of speaking, has therefore mifled us both in the theory of tafte and of morals ; and induced us to remove the fcience of our duties from their proper bafis, (our reafon, our re

lations,

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lations, and our neceffities,) to reft it upon foundations altogether vifionary and unfubftantial.

SECT. XII.

The real caufe of BEAUTY.

AVING endeavoured to fhew what beauty is

HAVE

not, it remains that we fhould examine, at leaft with equal attention, in what it really confifts. Beauty is a thing much too affecting not to depend upon fome positive qualities. And, fince it is no creature of our reafon, fince it strikes us without any reference to use, and even where no use at all can be difcerned, fince the order and method of nature is generally very different from our measures and proportions, we must conclude that beauty is, for the greater part, some quality in bodies acting mechanically upon the human mind by the intervention of the fenfes. We ought therefore to confider attentively in what manner those fenfible qualities are difpofed, in fuch things as by experience we find beautiful, or which excite in us the paffion of love, or fome correfpondent affection.

SECT. XIII.

Beautiful objects fmall.

'HE moft obvious point that prefents itself to us in examining any object, is its extent or quantity. And what degree of extent prevails in bodies that are held beautiful, may be gathered from the ufual manner of expreffion concerning it.

I am told that, in moft languages, the objects of love are fpoken of under diminutive epithets. It is fo in all the languages of which I have any knowledge. In Greek thea and other diminutive terms are almost always the terms of affection and tendernefs. Thefe diminutives were commonly added by the Greeks, to the names of perfons with whom they converfed on the terms of friendship and familiarity. Though the Romans were a people of lefs quick and delicate feelings, yet they naturally flid into the leffening termination upon the fame occafions. Anciently in the English language the diminishing ling was added to the names of perfons and things that were the objects of love. Some we retain ftill, as darling (or little dear), and a few others. But to this day, in ordinary converfation, it is ufual to add the endearing name of little to every thing we love : the French and Italians make use of these affectionate diminutives even more than we. In the animal creation, out of our own fpecies, it is the fmall we are inclined to be fond of; little birds, and fome of the fmaller kinds of beafts. A great beautiful thing is a manner of expreffion fcarcely ever used; but that of a great ugly thing, is very common. There is a wide difference between admiration and love. The fublime, which is the cause of the former, always dwells on great objects, and terrible; the latter on fmall ones, and pleasing; we fubmit to what we admire, but we love what fubmits to us; in one cafe we are forced, in the other we are flattered, into compliance. In fhort, the ideas of the fublime and the beautiful ftand on foundations fo different, that it is hard, I had almost faid impoffible, to think of reconciling

reconciling them in the fame fubject, without confiderably leffening the effect of the one or the other upon the paffions. So that, attending to their quantity, beautiful objects are comparatively small.

T

SECT. XIV.

SMOOTH NE S S.

HE next property constantly obfervable in fuch objects is * Smoothness: A quality so effential to beauty, that I do not now recollect any thing beautiful that is not fmooth, In trees and flowers, smooth leaves are beautiful; fmooth flopes of earth in gerdens; fmooth ftreams in the landscape; fmooth coats of birds and beasts in animal beauties; in fine women, fmooth skins; and in several forts of ornamental furniture, smooth and polished surfaces. A very confiderable part of the effect of beauty is owing to this quality; indeed the most confiderable. For take any beautiful object, and give it a broken and rugged furface; and however well formed it may be in other refpects, it pleases, no longer. Whereas, let it want ever fo many of the other constituents, if it wants not this, it becomes more pleafing than almost all the others without it. This feems to me fo evident, that I am a good deal furprised that none who have handled the fubject have made any mention of the equality of fmoothness, in the enumeration of those that go to the forming of beauty.

*Part IV. fect 21.

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