"and sometimes gathered the fruits of the mountain, " and sometimes sported in canoes along the coast.

"Many years and ages are supposed to have been "thus passed in plenty and security; when at last, a new "race of men entered our country from the great ocean. "They inclosed themselves in habitations of stone, "which our ancestors could neither enter by violence 66 nor destroy by fire. They issued from those fastness"( es, sometimes covered like the armadillo with shells, "from which the lance rebounded on the striker, and "sometimes carried by mighty beasts which had never "been seen in our vales or forests, of such strength "and swiftness, that flight and opposition were vain "alike. Those invaders ranged over the continent, "slaughtering in their rage those that resisted, and "those that submitted, in their mirth. Of those that "remained, some were buried in caverns, and con"demned to dig metals for their masters; some were "employed in tilling the ground, of which foreign ty"rants devour the produce; and when the sword and "the mines have destroyed the natives, they supply "their place by human beings of another colour, "brought from some distant country to perish here "under toil and torture.

"Some there are who boast their humanity, and " content themselves to seize our chaces and fishe"ries, who drive us from every track of ground where "fertility and pleasantness invite them to settle, and "make no war upon us except when we intrude upon "our own lands.

"Others pretend to have purchased a right of re"sidence and tyranny; but surely the insolence of "such bargains is more offensive than the avowed "and open dominion of force. What reward can in"duce the possessor of a country to admit a stranger "more powerful than himself? Fraud or terror must "operate in such contracts; either they promised

"protection which they never have afforded, or in"struction which they never imparted. We hoped "to be secured by their favour from some other evil,

or to learn the arts of Europe, by which we might "be able to secure ourselves. Their power they have never exerted in our defence, and their arts they “have studiously concealed from us. Their treaties << are only to deceive, and their traffic only to defraud 66 us. They have a written law among them, of which "they boast as derived from Him who made the earth ❝ and sea, and by which they profess to believe that "man will be made happy when life shall forsake him. "Why is not this law communicated to us? It is con"cealed because it is violated. For how can they "preach it to an Indian nation, when I am told that " one of its first precepts forbids them to do to others " what they would not that others should do to "them.

"But the time perhaps is now approaching when "the pride of usurpation shall be crushed, and the "cruelties of invasion shall be revenged. The sons "of rapacity have now drawn their swords upon each "other, and referred their claims to the decision of 66 war; let us look unconcerned upon the slaughter, "and remember that the death of every European "delivers the country from a tyrant and a robber; "for what is the claim of either nation, but the claim "of the vulture to the leveret, of the tiger to the "faun? Let them then continue to dispute their title "to regions which they cannot people, to purchase "by danger and blood the empty dignity of dominion "over mountains which they will never climb, and "rivers which they will never pass. Let us endea" vour, in the mean time, to learn their discipline, "and to forge their weapons, and when they shall be "weakened with mutual slaughter, let us rush down VOL. II. K

"upon them, force their remains to take shelter in "their ships, and reign once more in our native "country."

No. LXXXII. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1759.

Sir,

To the Idler.

DISCOURSING in my last letter on the different practice of the Italian and Dutch painters, I observed that "the Italian painter attends only to the invaria"ble, the great and general ideas which are fixed and "inherent in universal nature."

I was led into the subject of this letter by endeavouring to fix the original cause of this conduct of the Italian masters. If it can be proved that by this choice they selected the most beautiful part of the creation, it will shew how much their principles are founded on reason, and, at the same time, discover the origin of our ideas of beauty.

I suppose it will be easily granted that no man can judge whether any animal be beautiful in its kind, or deformed, who has seen only one of that species; this is as conclusive in regard to the human figure; so that if a man, born blind, was to recover his sight, and the most beautiful woman was brought before him, he could not determine whether she was handsome or not; nor if the most beautiful and most deformed were produced, could he any better determine to which he should give the preference, having seen only those two. To distinguish beauty, then, implies the having seen many individuals of that species. If it is asked how is more skill acquired by the observation of great

er numbers? I answer that, in consequence of having seen many, the power is acquired, even without seeking after it, of distinguishing between accidental blemishes and excrescences which are continually varying the surface of nature's works, and the invariable general form which nature most frequently produces and always seems to intend in her productions.

Thus amongst the blades of grass or leaves of the same tree, though no two can be found exactly alike, yet the general form is invariable: a naturalist, before he chose one as a sample, would examine many, since if he took the first that occurred it might have, by accident or otherwise, such a form as that it would scarce be known to belong to that species; he selects as the painter does, the most beautiful, that is, the most general form of nature.

Every species of the animal as well as the vegetable creation may be said to have a fixed or determi nate form towards which nature is continually inclining, like various lines terminating in the centre; or it may be compared to pendulums vibrating in different directions over one central point; and as they all cross the centre, though only one passes through any other point, so it will be found that perfect beauty is oftener produced by nature than deformity; I do not mean than deformity in general, but than any one kind of deformity. To instance in a particular part of a feature; the line that forms the ridge of the nose is beautiful when it is straight; this, then, is the central form, which is oftener found than either concave, convex, or any other irregular form that shall be proposed. As we are then more accustomed to beauty than deformity, we may conclude that to be the reason why we approve and admire it, as we approve and admire customs and fashions of dress for no other reason than that we are used to them; so that though habit and custom cannot be said to be the cause of beauty, it is certainly the cause of

our liking it: and I have no doubt but that if we were more used to deformity than beauty, deformity would then lose the idea now annexed to it, and take that of beauty; as if the whole world agree, that yes and no should change their meanings; yes would then deny, and no would affirm.

Whoever undertakes to proceed further in this argument, and endeavours to fix a general criterion of beauty respecting different species, or to shew why one species is more beautiful than another, it will be required from him first to prove that one species is really more beautiful than another. That we prefer one to the other, and with very good reason, will be readily granted; but it does not follow from thence that we think it a more beautiful form; for we have no criterion of form by which to determine our judgment. He who says a swan is more beautiful than a dove, means little more than that he has more pleasure in seeing a swan than a dove, either from the stateliness of its motions or its being a more rare bird; and he who gives the preference to the dove, does it from some association of ideas of innocence that he always annexes to the dove; but if he pretends to defend the preference he gives to one or the other by endeavouring to prove that this more beautiful form proceeds from a particular gradation of magnitude, undulation of a curve, or direction of a line, or whatever other conceit of his imagination he shall fix on, as a criterion of form, he will be continually contradicting himself, and find at last that the great mother of nature will not be subjected to such narrow rules. Among the various reasons why we prefer one part of her works to another, the most general, I believe, is habit and custom; custom makes, in a certain sense, white black, and black white; it is custom alone determines our preference of the colour of the Europeans to the Ethiopians, and they, for the same reason, pre