tiful form, and yet are all referable to a form which is the mean of them all, and is conceived to be the most perfect idea of beauty in the genus.

This attention to the useful, and a fitness for the part which each is intended to act in the plan of their Creator, is strikingly witnessed in the idea which every one entertains of what is beautiful in the form of each of the two sexes of the human race. No one conceives the beautiful in the man to be exactly transferable to the beautiful in the woman, and if the most perfect beauty of the female were found in a male, the eye would be disgusted; that male would be the object of scorn or ridicule, not of approbation.

Perhaps the mere abstract idea of beautiful form, independent of every other consideration, would pronounce the gentler undulations of the masculine outline to be more conformed to its standard, than the richer swell and deeper falls of the female figure. Yet, in despite of this abstract judgment, the

most perfect masculine figure, if contemplated in a female, would not be considered as beautiful.

The same submission to the useful, or to what we presume to be useful, because it is according to the order of nature, is observed in the estimation of beauty, as it is referred to the different periods of human life. There is a different beauty in infancy, in boyhood, in youth, in manhood, and in age. The child in the arms of the Madonna, and John attracting the notice of his infant cousin by his playful admiration, though the difference of their age be but very inconsiderable, yet would each, independent of all regard to the part which each is designed to sustain in riper years, be expected to exhibit a difference of form and aspect. In the full-blown rose of Lucretia, and the opening bud of Virginia, which equally inflamed the passions of Tarquin and the Decemvir, and led them to the perpetration of the most daring and dangerous crimes, though in each we imagine something that answers to our perfect idea

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of female beauty, yet in each we look for a delicate discrimination of exterior, something appropriate of form and feature, expressive of their respective age and situation.

In the domestic group of mother, wife, children and attendants, which issued from Rome to avert the vengeance of Coriolanus from his country; if imagination give beautiful figure to each, it will be a beauty proper to the age of each, and proper also

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to the relation which each bears to the avenging hero, and to the shades of affection and interest with which each must be impressed from all the circumstances of the interview; while in Coriolanus himself, that which we should acknowledge as beautiful and proper in his figure would very materially differ from that of all the preceding.

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There is therefore indubitably, as is rally allowed, a peculiar beauty of form and feature adapted to each of the passions; but here also, in order to the perfect, the mean must be observed; and this perfect form, as expressive

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expressive of the passions, rejects the predominance of any one feature, which usurps over the others, which subdues the whole form and countenance to one characteristic and generally disagreeable expression. This must enter in no small degree into all our judgment of the human figure; the sense both of the beautiful and the proper must associate with our conceptions of the mind, which the configuration of the form in all its parts, and in all the acting of mind thereon, is fitted to express. In every human figure, which on any account attracts our attention, the immediate impulse is to read the mind in the face. Animals read it; it is an universal character, and designed to be read in some degree by all who have an interest in its information; for it is the handwriting of the Almighty; and inasmuch as mind is superior to body, that form is pronounced to be more beautiful, which in every expression presents a beautiful mind, and at the same time is conformed to the interesting affections which are proper to the

varied situation and circumstance of mind. Perfect beauty therefore supposes perfect beauty of mind, and deformity in both is the violation of the mean. Perfect mind admits of no predominant passion but benevolence; but even benevolence itself would be tame and insipid, if it excluded every other passion. It would not be suited to the field of human action and human sympathy, and could not invite our sympathy in return. The only influence of passion that can be delineated with an attention to perfect beauty is that which admits the expression of every passion; but of each according to its worth and dignity, and the power which each in its place and rank ought to have over the form and countenance; and that face which bears the expression of this temperament and proportion will be, so far as respects the influence of mind, the most beautiful.

But even in the expression of the passions, the male and female standard will differ, nor can the temperament required in the one be

expected