For indeed any rugged, any fudden, projection, any sharp angle, is in the highest degree contrary to that idea.

SECT. XV.

Gradual VARIATION.

UT as perfectly beautiful bodies are not com

BUT

pofed of angular parts, fo their parts never continue long in the fame right line. * They vary their direction every moment, and they change under the eye by a deviation continually carrying on, but for whofe beginning or end you will find it difficult to ascertain a point. The view of a beautiful bird will illuftrate this obfervation. Here we fee the head increafing infenfibly to the middle, from whence it leffens gradually until it mixes with the neck; the neck lofes itself in a larger fwell, which continues to the middle of the body, when the whole decreases again to the tail; the tail takes a new direction; but it foon varies its new courfe: it blends again with the other parts; and the line is perpetually changing, above, below, upon every fide. In this defcription I have before me the idea of a dove; it agrees very well with most of the conditions of beauty. It is fmooth and downy; its parts are (to use that expreffion) melted into one another; you are prefented with no fudden protuberance through the whole, and yet the whole is continually changing.

Part V. fe&. 23.

Obferve

Obferve that part of a beautiful woman where she is perhaps the most beautiful, about the neck and breafts; the smoothnefs; the foftnefs; the eafy and insensible swell; the variety of the surface, which is never for the smallest fpace the fame; the deceitful maze, through which the unfteady eye flides giddily, without knowing where to fix, or whither it is carried. Is not this a demonftration of that change of furface, continual, and yet hardly perceptible at any point, which forms one of the great conftituents of beauty? It gives me no small pleasure to find that I can strengthen my theory in this point, by the opinion of the very ingenious Mr. Hogarth; whofe idea of the line of beauty I take in general to be extremely juft. But the idea of variation, without attending fo accurately to the manner of the variation, has led him to confider angular figures as beautiful; these figures, it is true, vary greatly; yet they vary in a fudden and broken manner; and I do not find any natural object which is angular, and at the fame time beautiful. Indeed few natural objects are entirely angular. But I think thofe which approach the most nearly to it are the uglieft. I must add too, that, fo far as I could obferve of nature, though the varied line is that alone in which complete beauty is found, yet there is no particular line which is always found in the most completely beautiful, and which is therefore beautiful in preference to all other lines. At least I never could obferve it.

SECT. XVI.

DELICACY.

N air of robustness and strength is very prejudicial to beauty. An appearance of delicacy, and even of fragility, is almost effential to it. Whoever examines the vegetable or animal creation, will find this obfervation to be founded in nature. It is not the oak, the afh, or the elm, or any of the robust trees of the foreft, which we confider as beautiful; they are awful and majeftic; they infpire a fort of reverence. It is the delicate myrtle, it is the orange, it is the almond, it is the jasmine, it is the vine, which we look on as vegetable beauties. It is the flowery fpecies, fo remarkable for its weakness and momentary duration, that gives us the livelieft idea of beauty and elegance. Among animals, the greyhound is more beautiful than the maftiff; and the delicacy of a gennet, a barb, or an Arabian horfe, is much more amiable than the ftrength and stability of some horses of war or carriage. I need here fay little of the fair fex, where I believe the point will be easily allowed me. The beauty of women is confiderably owing to their weakness or delicacy, and is even enhanced by their timidity; a quality of mind analogous to it. I would not here be understood to fay that weakness betraying very bad health has any fhare in beauty; but the ill effect of this is not because it is weakness, but because the ill ftate of health which produces fuch weakness, alters the other conditions

of

4

of beauty; the parts in fuch a cafe collapfe; the bright colour, the lumen purpureum juventæ, is gone; and the fine variation is loft in wrinkles, fudden breaks, and right lines.

As

SECT. XVII.

Beauty in COLOUR.

S to the colours ufually found in beautiful bodies it may be fomewhat difficult to ascertain them, because, in the several parts of nature, there is an infinite variety. However, even in this variety, we may mark out fomething on which to fettle. First, the colours of beautiful bodies must not be dusky or muddy, but clean and fair. Secondly, they must Those which feem

not be of the strongest kind. most appropriated to beauty, are the milder of every fort; light greens; foft blues; weak whites; pink reds; and violets. Thirdly, if the colours be strong and vivid, they are always diversified, and the object is never of one ftrong colour; there are almost always fuch a number of them (as in variegated flowers,) that the strength and glare of each is confiderably abated. In a fine complexion, there is not only fome variety in the colouring, but the colours: neither the red nor the white are strong and glaring, Besides, they are mixed in fuch a manner, and with fuch gradations, that it is impoffible to fix the bounds. On the fame principle it is, that the dubious colour in the necks and tails of peacocks, and about the heads of drakes, is fo very agreeable. In reality,

R 2

reality, the beauty both of fhape and colouring are as nearly related, as we can well fuppofe it poffible for things of fuch different natures to be.

O

SECT. XVIII.

RECAPITULATION.

N the whole, the qualities of beauty, as they are merely fenfible qualities, are the following. First, to be comparatively small. Secondly, to be fmooth. Thirdly, to have a variety in the direction of the parts; but, fourthly, to have those parts not angular, but melted as it were into each other. Fifthly, to be of a delicate frame, without any remarkable appearance of ftrength. Sixthly, to have its colours clear and bright, but not very strong and glaring. Seventhly, or if it fhould have any glaring colour, to have it diverfified with others. These are I believe, the properties on which beauty depends; properties that operate by nature, and are lefs liable to be altered by caprice, or confounded by a diverfity of tastes, than any other.

THE

SECT. XIX.

The PHYSIOGNOMY.

HE Phyfiognomy has a confiderable share in beauty, efpecially in that of our own species. The manners give a certain determination to the countenance; which being obferved to correfpond pretty regularly with them, is capable of joining the

effects