animal creation, out of our own fpecies, it is the small 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 ufed; 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 small 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 them in the fame fubject, without confiderably lef fening the effect of the one or the other upon the paffions. So that, attending to their quantity, beautiful objects are comparatively finall.

THE next property conftantly obfervable in fuch objects is *Smoothness: A quality fo effential to beauty, that I do not now recollect any thing beautiful that is not fmooth. In trees and flowers, fmooth leaves are beautiful; smooth slopes of earth

* Part IV. fect. 21.

in

in gardens; smooth streams in the landscape fmooth coats of birds and beasts in animal beauties; in fine women, smooth skins; and in feveral forts of ornamental furniture, fmooth and polished furfaces. A very confiderable part of the effect of beauty is owing to this quality; indeed the moft confiderable. For take any beautiful object, and give it a broken and rugged surface; and however well formed it may be in other respects, it pleases no longer. Whereas, let it want ever fo many of the other conftituents, if it wants not this, it becomes more pleafing than almoft all the others without it. This feems to me fo evident, that I am a good deal furprised, that none who have handled the subject have made any mention of the quality of fmoothnefs, in the enumeration of thofe that go to the forming of beauty. For indeed any ruggedness, any fudden projection, any fharp angle, is in the highest degree contrary to that idea.

SECT. XV.

GRADUAL VARIATION.

BUT as perfectly beautiful bodies are not com pofed of angular parts, fo their parts never continue long in the fame right line. *They vary their direction every moment, and they change

* Part V. felt. 23.

under

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 description I have before me the idea of a dove; it agrees very well with moft of the conditions of beauty. It is fmooth and downy; its parts are (to ufe that expreffion) melted into one another; you are prefented with no fudden protuberance through the whole, and yet the whole is continually changing. Obferve that part of a beautiful woman where fhe is per haps the most beautiful, about the neck and breafts; the fmoothnefs; the foftnefs; the eafy and infenfible fwell; the variety of the furface, which is never for the fmalleft 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 con

ftituents

stituents of beauty? It gives me no small pleasure to find that I can ftrengthen 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: thefe 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 those which approach the moft 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 moft completely beautiful, and which is therefore beautiful in preference to all other lines. At least At least I never could obferve it.

1

AN air of robuftnefs and ftrength is very pre judicial 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 majestick; they inspire 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 mastiff; and the delicacy of a gennet, a barb, or an Arabian horse, is much more amiable than the ftrength and stability of fome 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 weaknefs 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 beauty; the parts in such a cafe collapfe; the bright colour, the lumen purpureum juventa, is gone; and the fine variation is loft in wrinkles, fudden breaks, and right lines.

VOL. I.

R

SECT.