people to drowsiness; and this relaxing effect is further apparent from the prejudice which people of weak nerves receive from their ufe. It were worth while to examine, whether taftes of this kind, fweet ones, tastes that are caufed by fmooth oils and a relaxing falt, are not the originally pleafant taftes. For many, which ufe has rendered fuch, were not at all agreeable at first. The way to examine this is, to try what nature has originally provided for us, which she has undoubtedly made originally pleasant; and to analyfe this provifion. Milk is the firft fupport of our childhood. The component parts of this are water, oil, and a fort of a very sweet falt, called the fugar of milk. All these when blended have a great Smoothnefs to the tafte, and a relaxing quality to the skin. The next thing children covet is fruit, and of fruits thofe principally which are sweet; and every one knows that the fweetness of fruit is caused by a fubtile oil, and fuch falt as that mentioned in the laft fection. Afterwards, custom, habit, the defire of novelty, and a thousand other caufes, confound, adulterate, and change our palates, fo that we can no longer reafon with any fatisfaction about them. Before we quit this article, we must observe, that as fmooth things are, as fuch, agreeable to the tafte, and are found of a relaxing quality; fo, on the other hand, things which are found by experience to be of a strength

ening quality, and fit to brace the fibres, are almoft univerfally rough and pungent to the taste, and in many cafes rough even to the touch. We often apply the quality of fweetness, metaphorically, to visual objects. For the better carrying on this remarkable analogy of the fenfes, we may here call sweetness the beautiful of the taste.

SECT. XXIII.

VARIATION, WHY BEAUTIFUL,

ANOTHER principal property of beautiful objects is, that the line of their parts is continually varying its direction; but it varies it by a very infenfible deviation; it never varies it fo quickly as to surprise, or by the sharpness of its angle to cause any twitching or convulfion of the optick nerve. Nothing long continued in the fame manner, nothing very fuddenly varied, can be beautiful; because both are oppofite to that agreeable relaxation which is the characteristick effect of beauty. It is thus in all the fenfes. A motion in a right line, is that manner of moving next to a very gentle defcent, in which we meet the leaft refiftance; yet it is not that manner of moving, which, next to a descent, wearies us the leaft. Reft certainly tends to relax: yet there is a fpecies of motion which relaxes more than reft; a gentle of cillatory motion, a rifing and falling.

U 3

Rocking

fets

fets children to fleep better than abfolute reft; there is indeed fcarce any thing at that age, which gives more pleasure than to be gently lifted up and down; the manner of playing which their nurses use with children, and the weighing and fwinging ufed afterwards by themselves as a favourite amusement, evince this very sufficiently. Most people must have obferved the fort of fense they have had on being swiftly drawn in an eafy coach on a smooth turf, with gradual ascents and declivities. This will give a better idea of the beautiful, and point out its probable cause better, than almost any thing else. On the contrary when one is hurried over a rough, rocky, broken road, the pain felt by these fudden inequalities fhews why fimilar fights, feelings, and founds, are fo contrary to beauty: and with regard to the feeling, it is exactly the fame in its effect, or very nearly the fame, whether, for instance, I move my hand along the furface of a body of a certain fhape, or whether fuch a body is moved along my hand. But to bring this analogy of the fenfes home to the eye: if a body prefented to that fenfe has fuch a waving furface, that the rays of light reflected from it are in a continual infenfible deviation from the strongest to the weakest (which is always the cafe in a furface gradually unequal), it must be exactly fimilar in its effects on the eye and touch; upon the one of which it operates directly, on the other indi

rectly.

rectly. And this body will be beautiful if the lines which compofe its furface are not continued, even fo varied, in a manner that may weary or diffipate the attention. The variation itself muft be continually varied.

SECT. XXIV.

CONCERNING SMALLNESS,

1

To avoid a fameness which may arise from the too frequent repetition of the fame reasonings, and of illustrations of the same nature, I will not enter very minutely into every particular that regards beauty, as it is founded on the difpofition of its quantity, or its quantity itself. In fpeaking of the magnitude of bodies there is great uncertainty, because the ideas of great and small are terms almost entirely relative to the fpecies of the objects, which are infinite. It is true, that having once fixed the species of any object, and the dimenfions common in the individuals of that fpecies, we may observe fome that exceed, and fome that fall fhort of, the ordinary standard: those which greatly exceed, are by that excefs, provided the fpecies itself be not very fmall, rather great and terrible than beautiful; but as in the animal world, and in a good measure in the vegetable world likewife, the qualities that conftitute beauty may poffibly be united to things of U 4

greater dimen

fions;

fions; when they are fo united, they conftitute a fpecies fomething different both from the fublime and beautiful, which I have before called Fine; but this kind, I imagine, has not fuch a power on the paffions, either as vaft bodies have which are endued with the correfpondent qualities of the fublime; or as the qualities of beauty have when united in a small object. The affection produced by large bodies adorned with the spoils of beauty, is a tenfion continually relieved; which approaches to the nature of mediocrity. But if I were to fay how I find myself affected upon fuch occafions, I fhould fay, that the fublime fuffers lefs by being united to fome of the qualities of beauty, than beauty does by being joined to greatness of quantity, or any other properties of the fublime. There is fomething fo over-ruling in whatever infpires us with awe, in all things which belong ever fo remotely to terrour, that nothing else can stand in their prefence. There lie the qualities of beauty either dead or unoperative; or at moft exerted to mollify the rigour and sternnefs of the terrour, which is the natural concomitant of greatnefs. Befides the extraordinary great in every fpecies, the oppofite to this, the dwarfish and diminutive ought to be confidered. Littlenefs, merely as fuch, has nothing contrary to the idea of beauty. The humming-bird, both in shape and colouring, yields to none of the winged fpecies, of which he is the

leaft;