They gave

tion, though in a different manner. it is pretended, to a style which, though in the gree concise, elegant, expressive, and even poe ed, however, ease, simplicity, and nature, and wa the production of the most laboured and studied How many great qualities must that writer poss thus render his very faults agreeable? After t refining the taste of a nation, the highest eulog which can be bestowed upon any author, is to corrupted it. In our own language, Mr Pope a have each of them introduced a manner differen was practised before into all works that are rhyme, the one in long verses, the other in quaintness of Butler has given place to the Swift. The rambling freedom of Dryden, and but often tedious and prosaic languor of Addi longer the objects of imitation, but all long ver written after the manner of the nervous prec Pope.

Neither is it only over the productions of th custom and fashion exert their dominion. Th our judgments in the same manner with re beauty of natural objects. What various a forms are deemed beautiful in different species The proportions which are admired in one anin gether different from those which are esteemed Every class of things has its own peculiar co which is approved of, and has a beauty of its o from that of every other species. It is upon that a learned Jesuit, Father Buffier, has dete the beauty of every object consists in that form which is most usual among things of that pa to which it belongs. Thus in the human form of each feature lies in a certain middle, equal from a variety of other forms that are ugly.

nose, for example, is one that is neither very long nor very short, neither very straight nor very crooked, but a sort of middle among all those extremes, and less different from any one of them than all of them are from one another. It is the form which Nature seems to have aimed at in them all, which, however, she deviates from in a great variety of ways, and very seldom hits exactly; but to which all those deviations still bear a very strong resemblance. When a number of drawings are made after one pattern, though they may all miss it in some respects, yet they will all resemble it more than they resemble one another; the general character of the pattern will run through them all; the most singular and odd will be those which are most wide of it; and though very few will copy it exactly, yet the most accurate delineations will bear a greater resemblance to the most careless, than the careless ones will bear to one another. In the same manner, in each species of creatures, what is most beautiful bears the strongest characters of the general fabric of the species, and has the strongest resemblance to the greater part of the individuals with which it is classed. Monsters, on the contrary, or what is perfectly deformed, are always most singular and odd, and have the least resemblance to the generality of that species to which they belong. And thus the beauty of each species, though in one sense the rarest of all things, because few individuals hit this middle form exactly, yet in another is the most common, because all the deviations from it resemble it more than they resemble one another. The most customary form therefore is, in each species of things, according to him, the most beautiful. And hence it is that a certain practice and experience in contemplating each species of objects is requisite, before we can judge of its beauty, or know wherein the middle and most usual form consists. The nicest judgment concerning the beauty of the human species will not help us to judge of that of flowers or horses, or any other species of things. It is for the same

reason that in different climates, and where different customs and ways of living take place, as the generality of any species receives a different conformation from those circumstances, so different ideas of its beauty prevail. The beauty of a Moorish is not exactly the same with that of an English horse. What different ideas are formed in different nations concerning the beauty of the human shape and countenance! A fair complexion is a shocking deformity upon the coast of Guinea. Thick lips and a flat nose are a beauty. In some nations long ears that hang down upon the shoulders are the objects of universal admiration. In China, if a lady's foot is so large as to be fit to walk upon, she is regarded as a monster of ugliness. Some of the savage nations in North America tie four boards round the heads of their children, and thus squeeze them, while the bones are tender and gristly, into a form that is almost perfectly square. Europeans are astonished at the absurd barbarity of this practice, to which some missionaries have imputed the singular stupidity of those nations among whom it prevails. But when they condemn those savages, they do not reflect that the ladies in Europe had, till within these very few years, been endeavouring for near a century past to squeeze the beautiful roundness of their natural shape into a square form of the same kind. And that, notwithstanding the many distortions and diseases which this practice was known to occasion, custom had rendered it agreeable among some of the most civilized nations which perhaps the world ever beheld.

Such is the system of this learned and ingenious father, concerning the nature of beauty; of which the whole charm, according to him, would thus seem to arise from its falling in with the habits which custom had impressed upon the imagination, with regard to things of each particular kind. I cannot, however, be induced to believe that our sense even of external beauty is founded altogether on custom.

The utility of any form, its fitness for the useful purposes for which it was intended, evidently recommends it, and renders it agreeable to us, independent of custom. Certain colours are more agreeable than others, and give more delight to the eye the first time it ever beholds them. A smooth surface is more agreeable than a rough one. Variety is more pleasing than a tedious undiversified uniformity. Connected variety, in which each new appearance seems to be introduced by what went before it, and in which all the adjoining parts seem to have some natural relation to one another, is more agreeable than a disjointed and disorderly assemblage of unconnected objects. But though I cannot admit that custom is the sole principle of beauty, yet I can so far allow the truth of this ingenious system, as to grant that there is scarce any one external form so beautiful as to please, if quite contrary to custom, and unlike whatever we have been used to in that particular species of things; or so deformed as not to be agreeable, if custom uniformly supports it, and habituates us to see it in every single individual of the kind.

CHAPTER II.

Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon

ments.

SINCE our sentiments concerning beauty o are so much influenced by custom and fashion expected that those concerning the beauty should be entirely exempted from the domin principles. Their influence here, however, much less than it is everywhere else. There no form of external objects, how absurd and f ever, to which custom will not reconcile us, or will not render even agreeable. But the cl conduct of a Nero, or a Claudius, are what no ever reconcile us to, what no fashion will agreeable; but the one will always be the ob and hatred—the other of scorn and derision. 7 of the imagination, upon which our sense of be are of a very nice and delicate nature, and m altered by habit and education; but the sentim approbation and disapprobation are founded on and most vigorous passions of human nature; they may be somewhat warpt, cannot be entire

But though the influence of custom and moral sentiments is not altogether so great, it perfectly similar to what it is everywhere else tom and fashion coincide with the natural prin and wrong, they heighten the delicacy of our se increase our abhorrence for everything whic to evil. Those who have been educated in w