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he, "not being able to paint her beautiful, have made her fine."

you Harsh and violent motions are always unbecoming. Milton attributes the same kind of motion to his angels that the Heathens did to their deities, soft, sliding, without step. It is impossible to preserve the attractions in a country dance that attend on a minuet; as the step quickens, the most delicate of the graces retire. The rule holds universally through all action, whether quick or slow: it should always partake of the same polished and softened motion, particularly in the transitions of the countenance, where the genius of the person seems to hover and reside.

The degrees run very high upon the scale of elegance, and probably few have arrived near the highest pitch; but it is certain, that the idea of surprising beauty, that was familiar in Greece, has been hardly conceived by the moderns: many of their statues remain the objects of our admiration, but wholly superior to imitation; their pictures that have sunk in the wreck of time, appear in the descriptions made of them to have equal imagination with the statues and their poetry abounds with the same celestial imagery. But what puts this matter out of doubt is, that their celebrated beauties were the models of their artists, and it is known that the elegancies of Thais and Phryne were copied by the famous painters of Greece, and consigned to canvas and marble to astonish and charm distant ages.

Personal elegance, in which taste assumes the most conspicuous and noble appearance, confuses us in our enquiries after it, by the quickness and variety of its changes, as well as by a complication that is not easily unravelled. I defined it to be the image and reflection of a great and beautiful soul; let us separate the distinct parts of this variety; when they appear asunder you will find them perfectly familiar and intelligible.

The first, and most respectable part, that enters into the composition of elegance, is the lofty consciousness of worth or virtue, which sustains an habitual decency, and becoming pride.

The second, and most pleasing part, is a display of good-nature approaching to affection, of gentle affability, and in general, of the pleasing passions. It seems difficult to reconcile these two parts, and in fact it is so; but when they unite, then they appear like a reserved, and virgin

kindness, that is at once noble and soft, that may be won, but must be courted with delicacy.

The third part of elegance is the appearance of a polished and tranquil habit of mind, that softens the actions and emotions, and gives a covert prospect of innocence and undisturbed repose. I will treat of these separate, and first of dignity of soul.

I observed, near the beginning of this. discourse, in answer to an objection you made, that the mind has always a taste for truth, for gratitude, for generosity, and greatness of soul: these, which are peculiarly called sentiments, stamp upon the human spirit a dignity and worth not to be found in any other animated being. However great and surprising the most glorious objects in nature be, the heaving ocean, the moon that guides it, and casts a softened lustre over the night, the starry firmament, or the sun itself; yet their beauty and grandeur instantly appear of an inferior kind, beyond all comparison, to this of the soul of man. These sentiments are united under the general name of virtue; and such are the embellishments they diffuse over the mind, that Plato, a very polite philosopher, says finely, "If Virtue was to appear in a visible shape, all men would be enamoured of her."

Virtue and truth are inseparable, and take their flight together. A mind devoid of truth is a frightful wreck; it is like a great city in ruins, whose mouldering towers, just bring to the imagination the mirth and life that once were there, and is now no more. Truth is the genius of taste, and enters into the essence of simple beauty, in wit, in writing, and throughout the fine arts.

Generosity covers almost all other defects, and raises a blaze around them in which they disappear and are lost; like sovereign beauty, it makes a short cut to our affections; it wins our hearts without resistance or delay, and unites all the world to favour and support its designs.

Grandeur of soul, fortitude, and a resolution that haughtily struggles with despair and will neither yield to, nor make terms with misfortunes; which, through every situation, reposes a noble confidence in itself, and has an immoveable view to future glory and honour, astonishes the world with admiration and delight. We, as it were, lean forward with surprise and trembling joy to behold the human soul collecting its

strength

strength, and asserting a right to superior fates. When you leave man out of your account, and view the whole visible creation beside, you indeed see several traces of grandeur and unspeakable power, and the intermixture of a rich scenery of beauty; yet still the whole appears to be but a solemn absurdity, and to have a littleness and insignificancy. But when you restore man to prospect, and put him at the head of it, endued with genius and an immortal soul; when you give him a passion for truth, boundless views that spread along through eternity, and a fortitude that struggles with fate, and yields not to misfortunes, then the skies, the ocean, and the earth, take the stamp of worth and dignity from the noble inhabitant whose purposes they serve.

A mind fraught with the virtues is the natural soil of elegance. Unaffected truth, generosity, and grandeur of soul, for ever please and charm: even when they break from the common forms, and appear wild and unmethodized by education, they are still beautiful. On the contrary, as soon as we discover that outward elegance, which is formed by the mode, to want truth, generosity, or grandeur of soul, it instantly sinks in our esteem like counterfeit coin, and we are sensible of a reluctant disappointment, like that of the lover in the epigram, who became enamoured with the lady's voice, and the softness of her hand in the dark, but was cured of his passion as soon as he had light to view her.

Let us now pass on to the most pleasing part of elegance, an habitual display of the kind and gentle passions.

We are naturally inclined to love those who bear an affection to us; and we are charmed with the homage that is paid to our merit by these weaknesses politeness attacks us. The well-bred gentleman always in his behaviour insinuates a regard to others, tempered with respect. His attention to please confesses plainly his kindness to you, and the high esteem he holds you in. The assiduous prevention of our wishes, and that yielding sweetness complaisance puts on for our sake, are irresistible; and although we know this kind of flattery to be prostitute and habitual, yet it is not indifferent to us: we receive it in a manner that shows how much it gratifies

us.

The desire of being agreeable finds out the art of being so without study or labour. Rustics who fall in love, grow unusually polite and engaging. This new charm, that

has altered their natures, and suddenly endued them with the powers of pleasing, is nothing more than an enlivened attention to please, that has taken possession of their minds, and tinctured their actions. We ought not to wonder that love is thus enchanting: its tender assiduity is but the natural address of the passion; politeness borrows the flattering form of affection, and becomes agreeable by the appearance of kindness.

What pleases us generally appears beautiful. Complaisance, that is so engaging, gives an agreeableness to the whole person, and creates a beauty that nature gave not to the features; it submits, it promises, it applauds in the countenance; the heart lays itself in smiles at your feet, and a voice that is indulgent and tender, is always heard with pleasure.

The last constituent part of elegance is the picture of a tranquil soul, that appears in softening the actions and emotions, and exhibits a retired prospect of happiness and innocence.

A calm of mind that is seen in graceful easy action, and in the enfeeblement of our passions, gives us an idea of the golden age, when human nature, adorned with innocence, and the peace that attends it, reposed in the arms of content. This serene prospect of human nature always pleases us; and although the content, whose image it is, be visionary in this world, and we can. not arrive at it, yet it is the point in imagination we have finally in view, in all the pursuits of life, and the native home for which we do not cease to languish.

The sentiment of tranquillity particularly beautifies pastoral poetry. The images of calm and happy quiet that appear in shaded groves, in silent vales, and slumbers by falling streams, invite the poet to indulge his genius in rural scenes. The music that lulls and composes the mind, at the same time enchants it. The hue of this beauteous ease, cast over the human actions and emotions, forms a very delightful part of elegance, and gives the other constituent parts an appearance of nature and truth: for in a tranquil state of mind, undisturbed by wants or fears, the views of men are generous and elevated. From the combination of these fine parts, grandeur of soul, complacency, and ease, arise the enchantments of elegance: but the ap pearance of the two last are oftener found together, and then they form politeness. When we take a view of the separate

parts

parts that constitute personal elegance, we immediately know the seeds that are proper to be cherished in the infant mind, to bring forth the beauteous production. The virtues should be cultivated early with sacred care Good-nature, modesty, affability, and a kind concern for others, should be carefully inculcated; and an easy unconstrained dominion acquired by habit over the passions. A mind thus finally prepared, is capable of the highest lustre of elegance; which is afterwards attained with as little labour as our first language, by only associating with graceful people of different characters, from whom an habitual gracefulness will be acquired, that will bear the natural unaffected stamp of our own minds; in short, it will be our own character and genius stripped of its native rudeness, and enriched with beauty and attraction.

Nature, that bestows her favours with out respect of persons, often denies to the great the capacity of distinguished elegance, and flings it away in obscure villages. You sometimes see it at a country fair spread an amiableness over a sun-burnt girl, like the light of the moon through a mist; but such, madam, is the necessity of habitual elegance acquired by education and converse, that if even you were born in that low class, you could be no more than the fairest damsel at the may-pole, and the object of the hope and jealousy of a few rustics.

People are rendered totally incapable of elegance by the want of good-nature, and the other gentle passions; by the want of modesty and sensibility; and by a want of that noble pride, which arises from a consciousness of lofty and generous sentiments. The absence of these native charms is generally supplied by a brisk stupidity, an impudence unconscious of defect, a cast of malice, and an uncommon tendency to ridicule; as if nature had given these her step-children an instinctive intelligence, that they can rise out of contempt only by the depression of others. For the same reason it is, that persons of true and finished taste seldom affect ridicule, because they are conscious of their own superior merit. Pride is the cause of ridicule in the one, as it is of candour in the other; but the effects differ as the studied parade of poverty does from the negligent grandeur of riches. You will see nothing more common in the world, than for people, who by stupidity and insensibility are incapable of the graces, to commence wits on the

strength of the petite talents of mimicry, and the brisk tartness that ill-nature never fails to supply.

From what I have said it appears, that a sense of elegance is a sense of dignity, of virtue, and innocence, united. Is it not natural then to expect, that in the course of a liberal education, men should cultivate the generous qualities they approve and assume? But instead of them, men only aim at the appearances, which require no selfdenial; and thus, without acquiring the virtues, they sacrifice their honesty and sin cerity: whence it comes to pass, that there is often the least virtue, where there is the greatest appearance of it; and that the polished part of mankind only arrive at the subtile corruption, of uniting vice with the dress and complexion of virtue.

I have dwelt on personal elegance, because the ideas and principles in this part of good taste are more familiar to you. We may then take them for a foundation, in our future observations, since the same principles of easy grace and simple gran deur will animate our ideas with an unstudied propriety, and enlighten our judg ments in beauty, in literature, in sculpture, painting, and the other departments of fine

taste.

$ 219.

Usher.

On Personal Beauty.

I shall but slightly touch on our taste of personal beauty, because it requires no directions to be known. To ask what is beauty, says a philosopher, is the question of a blind man. I shall therefore only make a few reflections on this head, that lie out of the common track. But, prior to what I have to say, it is necessary to make some observations on physiognomy.

There is an obvious relation between the mind and the turn of the features, so well known by instinct, that every one is more or less expert at reading the countenance. We look as well as speak our minds; and amongst people of little experience, the look is generally most sincere. This is so well understood, that it becomes a part of education to learn to disguise the countenance, which yet requires a habit from early youth, and the continual practice of hypocrisy, to deceive an intelligent eye. The natural virtues and vices not only have their places in the aspect, even acquired habits that much affect the mind settle there; contemplation, in length of time, gives a cast of thought on the countenance.

Now to come back to our subject. The

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assemblage called beauty, is the image of noble sentiments and amiable passions in the face; but so blended and confused that we are not able to separate and distinguish them. The mind has a sensibility, and clear knowledge, in many instances without reflection, or even the power of reasoning upon its own perceptions. We can no more account for the relation between the passions of the mind and a set of features, than we can account for the relation between the sounds of music and the passions; the eye is judge of the one without principles or rules, as the ear is of the other. It is impossible you should not take notice of the remarkable difference of beauty in the same face, in a good and in ill humour: and if the gentle passions, in an indifferent face, do not change it to perfect beauty, it is because nature did not originally model the features to the just and familiar expression of those passions, and the genuine expressions of nature can never be wholly obliterated. But it is necessary to observe, that the engaging import that forms beauty, is often the symbol of passions that, although pleasing, are dangerous to virtue; and that a firmness of mind, whose cast of feature is much less pleasing, is more favourable to virtue. From the affinity between beauty and the passions it must follow, that beauty is relative, that is, a sense of human beauty is confined to our specics; and also, as far as we have power over the passions, we are able to improve the face, and transplant charms into it; both of which observations have been often made. From the various principles of beauty, and the agreeable combinations, of which the face gives intelligence, springs that variety found in the style of beauty.

Complexion is a kind of beauty that is only pleasing by association. The brown, the fair, the black, are not any of them original beauty; but when the complexion is united in one picture on the imagination, with the assemblage that forms the image of the tender passions, with gentle smiles, and kind endearments, it is then inseparable from our idea of beauty, and forms a part of it. From the same cause, a national set of features appear amiable to the inhabitants, who have been accustomed to see the amiable dispositions through them. This observation resolves a difficulty, that often occurs in the reflections of men on our present subject. We all speak of beauty as if it were acknowledged and settled by a public standard; yet we find, in fact, that people, in placing their affections, often have little

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regard to the common notions of beauty. The truth is, complexion and form being the charms that are visible and conspicuous, the common standard of beauty is generally restrained to those general attractions; but since personal grace and the engaging passions, although they cannot be delineated, have a more universal and uniform power, it is no wonder people, in resigning their hearts, so often contradict the common received standard. Accordingly, as the engaging passions and the address are discovered in conversation, the tender attachments of people are generally fixed by an intercourse of sentiment, and seldom by a transient view, except in romances and novels. It is further to be observed, that when once the affections are fixed, a new face with a higher degree of beauty will not always have a higher degree of power to remove them, because our affections arise from a source within ourselves, as well as from external beauty; and when the tender passion is attached by a particular object, the imagination surrounds that object with a thousand ideal embellishments that exist only in the mind of the lover.

The history of the short life of beauty may be collected from what I have said. In youth that borders on infancy, the passions are in a state of vegetation, they only ap pear in full bloom in maturity for which reason the beauty of youth is no more than the dawn and promise of future beauty. The features, as we grow into years, gra dually form along with the mind: different sensibilities gather into the countenance, and become beauty there, as colours mount in a tulip, and enrich it. When the cloquent force and delicacy of sentiment has continued some little time, age begins to stiffen the features, and destroy the enga ging variety and vivacity of the counte nance, the eye gradually loses its fire, and is no longer the mirror of the agreeable passions. Finally, old age furrows the face with wrinkles, as a barbarous, conqueror overturns a city from the foundation, and transitory beauty is extinguished.

Beauty and elegance are nearly related, their difference consists in this, that ele gance is the image of the mind displayed in motion and deportment; beauty is an image of the mind in the countenance and form; consequently beauty is of a more fixed nature, and owes less to art and habit.

When I speak of beauty, it is not wholly out of my way to make a singular observation on the tender passion in our species.

Innocent

Innocent and virtuous love casts a beauteous hue over human nature: it quickens and strengthens our admiration of virtue, and our detestation of vice; it opens our eyes to our imperfections, and gives us a pride in excelling; it inspires us with heroic sentiments, generosity, a contempt of life, a boldness for enterprise, chastity, and purity of sentiment. It takes a similitude to devotion, and almost deifies the object of passion. People whose breasts are dulled with vice, or stupefied by nature, call this passion romantic love; but when it was the mode, it was the diagnostic of a virtuous age. These symptoms of heroism spring from an obscure principle, that in a noble mind unites itself with every passionate view in life; this nameless principle is distinguished by endowing people with extraordinary powers and enthusiasm in the pursuit of their favourite wishes, and by disgust and disappointment when we arrive at the point where our wishes seem to be completed. It has made great conquerors despise dangers and death in their way to victory, and sigh afterwards when they had no more to conquer.

Usher.

$220. On Conversation.

From external beauty we come to the charms of conversation and writing. Words, by representing ideas, become the picture our thoughts, and communicate them with the greatest fidelity. But they are not only the signs of sensible ideas, they exhibit the very image and distinguishing likeness of the mind that uses them.

Conversation does not require the same merit to please that writing does. The human soul is endued with a kind of natural expression, which it does not acquire. The expression I speak of consists in the significant modulations and tones of voice, accompanied, in unaffected people, by a propriety of gesture. This native language was not intended by nature to represent the transitory ideas that come by the senses to the imagination, but the passions of the mind and its emotions only; therefore modulation and gesture give life and passion to words; their mighty force in oratory is very conspicuous: but although their effects be milder in conversation, yet they are very sensibles they agitate the soul by a variety of gentle sensations, and help to form that sweet charm that makes the most trifling subjects engaging. This fine expression, which is

not learned, is not so much taken notice of as it deserves, because it is much superseded by the use of artificial and acquired language. The modern system of philosophy has also concurred to shut it out from our reflections.

It is in conversation people put on all their graces, and appear in the lustre of good-breeding. It is certain, good-breeding, that sets so great a distinction between individuals of the same species, creates nothing new, (I mean a good education) but only draws forth into prospect, with skill and address, the 'agreeable dispositions and sentiments that lay latent in the mind You may call good-breeding artificial; but it is like the art of a gar dener, under whose hand a barren tree puts forth its own bloom, and is enriched with its specific fruit. It is scarce possible to conceive any scene so truly agreeable, as an assembly of people elaborately educated, who assume a character superior to ordinary life, and support it with ease and familiarity.

The heart is won in conversation by its own passions. Its pride, its grandeur, its affections, lay it open to the enchantment of an insinuating address. Flattery is a gross charm, but who is proof against a gentle and yielding disposition, that infers your superiority with a delicacy so fine, that you cannot see the lines of which it is composed? Generosity, disinterestedness, a noble love of truth that will not deceive, a feeling of the distresses of others, and greatness of soul, inspires us with admiration along with love, and takes our affections as it were by storm; but, above all, we are seduced by a view of the tender and affectionate passions; they carry a soft infection, and the heart is betrayed to them by its own forces. If we are to judge from symptoms, the soul that engages us so powerfully by its reflected glances, is an object of infinite beauty. I observed before, that the modulations of the human voice that express the soul, move us powerfully; and indeed we are affected by the natural emotions of the mind expressed in the simplest language: in short, the happy art, that, in conversation and the intercourse of life, lays hold upon our affections, is but a just address to the engaging passions in the human breast. But this syren power, like beauty, is the gift of nature.

Soft pleasing speech and graceful outward show, No arts can gain them, but the gods bestow.

POPE'S HOM. From

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