tude, and various other causes, give them distinct characters, as those of gaiety, simplicity, solemnity, grandeur, magnificence, &c. No room is ever beautiful which has not some such pleasing character; the terms by which we express this beauty are significant of these characters; and however regular the proportions of an apartment may be, if they do not correspond to the general expression, we consider the form as defective or imperfect. Thus, the same proportion of height which is beautiful in a room of gaiety, or cheerfulness, would be felt as a defect in an apartment of which the character was severity or melancholy. The same proportion of length which is pleasing in an elegant or convenient room, would be a defect in an apartment of magnificence or splendour. The great proportion of breadth which suits a temple or a senatehouse, as according with the severe and solemn character of the apartment, would be positively unpleasing in any room which was expressive of cheerfulness or lightness. In proportion also as apartments differ in size, different proportions become necessary in this respect, to accord with the characters which the difference of magnitude produces. The same proportion of height which is pleasing in a cheerful room, would be too little for the hall of a great castle, where vastness is necessary to agree with the sublimity of its character; and the same relation of breadth and height which is so wonderfully affecting in the Gothic cathedral, although at variance with all the classic rules of proportion, would be both absurd and painful, in the forms of any common apartment. In general, I believe it will be found, that the great and positive beauty of apartments arises from their character; that where no

character is discovered, the generality of men express little admiration even at the most regular proportions; 'that every difference of character requires a correspondent difference in the composition of the dimensions; and that this demand is satisfied, or a beautiful form produced, only, when the composition of the different proportions is such as to produce one pure and unmingled expression.

3. The third cause of the difference of our opinion of the beauty of proportion arises from the destination of the apartment. All apartments are intended for some use or purpose of human life. We demand, therefore, that the form of them should be accommodated to these ends; and wherever the form is at variance with the end, however regular, or generally beautiful its proportions may be, we are conscious of an emotion of dissatisfaction and discontent. The most obvious illustration of the dependence of the beauty of proportion on this species of utility, may be taken from the common system that natural taste has dictated in the proportion of different apartments in great houses. The hall, the saloon, the anti-chamber, the drawing-room, the dining-room, the bed-chamber, the dressing room, the library, the chapel, &c. have all different forms and different proportions. Change these proportions; give to the dining-room the proportions of the saloon, to the dressing-room those of the library, to the chapel the proportions of the anti-chamber, or to the drawingroom those of the hall, &c. and every one will consider them as unpleasing and defective forms, because they are unfitted to the ends they are destined to serve.

The observations which I have now offered on the beauty of the internal proportions of architecture, seem

to afford sufficient evidence for concluding in general, That the beauty of these proportions is not original and independent, but that it arises in all cases from the expression of some species of FITNESS.

The fitness, however, which such proportions may express, is of different kinds; and the reader who will pursue the slight hints that I have suggested upon the subject, may perhaps agree with me in the following conclusions:

1. That one beauty of these proportions arises from their expression of fitness for the support of the weight imposed.

2. That a second source of their beauty consists in their expression of fitness for the preservation of the character of the apartment.

3. That a third source of their beauty consists in their expression of fitness, in the general form, for its peculiar purpose or end.

The two first expressions constitute the PERMANENT beauty, and the third the ACCIDENTAL beauty of an apartment.

In every beautiful apartment, the two first expressions must be united. An apartment, of which the proportions express the most perfect fitness for the support of the roof, but which is itself expressive of no character, is beheld rather with satisfaction than delight, and is never remarked as beautiful. The beauty of character on the other hand, is neglected, if the proportions of the apartment are such as to indicate insufficiency or insecurity. The first constitutes what may be called the negative, and the second the positive, beauty of an apartment; and every apartment (considered only in relation to its proportions, and without

any respect to its end) will be beautiful in the same degree in which these expressions are united, or in which the same proportions that produce the appearance of perfect sufficiency, agree also in maintaining the general character of the apartment.

When, however, the apartment is considered in relation to its end, the beauty of its proportions is determined in a great measure by their expression of fitness for this end. To this, as to every other species of apartment, the expression of security is necessary, and such an apartment will accordingly be beautiful, when these expressions coincide.

The most perfect beauty that the proportions of an apartment can exhibit, will be when all these expressions unite; or when the same relations of dimension which are productive of the expression of sufficiency, agree also in the preservation of character, and in the indication of use.

PART III.

Of the Influence of Utility upon the Beauty of Forms. THE third source of the RELATIVE beauty of forms, is UTILITY. That the expression of this quality is sufficient to give beauty to forms, and that forms of the most different and opposite kinds become beautiful from this expression, are facts which have often been observed, and which are within the reach of every person's observation. I shall not therefore presume to add any illustrations on a subject, which has already been so beautifully illustrated by Mr. Smith, in the most eloquent work* on the subject of MORALS, that modern Europe has produced.

* Theory of Moral Sentiments.

SECTION III.

Of the Accidental Beauty of Forms.

BESIDE the expressions that have now been enumerated, and which constitute the two great and permanent sources of the beauty of forms, there are others of a casual or accidental kind, which have a very observable effect in producing the same emotion in our minds, and which constitute what may be called the ACCIDENTAL beauty of forms. Such associations, instead of being common to all mankind, are peculiar to the individual. They take their rise from education, from peculiar habits of thought, from situation, from profession; and the beauty they produce is felt only by those whom similar causes have led to the formation of similar associations. There are few men who have not associations of this kind, with particular forms, from their being familiar to them from their infancy, and thus connected with the gay and pleasing imagery of that period of life; from their connexion with scenes to which they look back with pleasure; or people whose memories they love: and such forms, from this accidental connexion, are never seen, without being in some measure the signs of all those affecting and endearing recollections. When such associations are of a more general kind, and are common to many individuals, they sometimes acquire a superiority over the more permanent principles of beauty, and determine even for a time the taste of nations. The admi

ration which is paid to the forms of architecture, of furniture, of ornament, which we derive from antiquity, though undoubtedly very justly due to these forms themselves, originates, in the greater part of mankind,