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certain portion of the quality, which he calls picturesqueness, should be mixt with it, in Of Sight. order to give it the proper relish. Of the word

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Picturesque, I shall have more to say in another chapter; and, therefore, shall only observe, at present, that whosoever thinks beauty insipid, and conceives that the addition of any other quality is requisite to make it pleasing, has only involved himself in a confusion of terms, by attaching to the word beauty those ideas, which the rest of mankind attach to the word insipidity; and those, which the rest of mankind attach to the word beauty, to this nameless amalgamation, which he conceives to be an improvement of it. The difference is merely a difference of words, which three fourths of those, that have arisen in metaphysics and moral philosophy, as well as in religion, have been; and as long as the disputes concerning them are confined to the shedding of ink, and do not extend to the shedding of blood, they afford a very innocent amusement to the several disputants, of which I am now enjoying the benefit.

23. A very remarkable difference of this kind subsisted between the late President of the Royal Academy*, and the author of the Inquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful, which it

* Sir Joshua Reynolds,

is peculiarly pleasant to recall upon the present occasion, because it never cooled the warmth of that friendship, which remained unabated and uninterrupted between those two illustrious persons till death separated them; though both appealed to the public in favour of their respective opinions. The one makes beauty to consist in smooth and undulating surfaces, flowing lines, and colours that are analogous to them; while the other maintains that beauty does not consist in any particular forms, lines, or colours, but is merely the result of habitual association; by which particular forms, proportions, and colours are appropriated to particular kinds and species, the individuals of which appear beautiful, or ugly, accordingly as they are respectively conformable or adverse to our ideas of the perfection of those particular forms; which ideas have arisen in the mind from a general and comparative view of the whole kind, class, or species t. It will readily appear that these two great critics differ so widely merely from attaching different meanings to the word beauty; which, the one confines to the sensible, and the other to the intellectual qualities of things; both equally departing from that general use of the term, which is the only just criterion of propriety in speech.

* Sublime and Beautiful, Part III. t Idler, No. §.

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24. The doctrines of the former concerning beauty have been classed and defined under six distinct heads by the most eminent and distinguished of his disciples; and thus illustrated by a well-known example; which, if it prove nothing else, shows at least to what a degree the most discerning mind may be occasionally deprived even of the ordinary powers of perception by the fascinations of a favourite sys

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" is more

"No building," says Mr. Price, universally admired for its beauty than the temple of the Sibyl at Tivoli. Let us then "consider what are the qualities of beauty "according to Mr. Burke, and how far they

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apply to beautiful buildings in general, and "to that in particular. Those qualities are, "I. to be comparatively small: II. to be smooth: " III. to have a variety in the direction of the

parts: but, IV. to have those parts melted, as "it were, into each other: V. to be of a de"licate frame, without any remarkable appear“ ance of strength: VI. to have the colour "clear and bright, but not very strong and glaring. The temple I have just mentioned, "has, I think, as much of those chief prin

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ciples of general beauty, as the particular principles of architecture will allow of: it is "circular, surrounded by columns detached "from the body of the building; it is light and

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airy; of a delicate frame; in a great measure free from angles; and comparatively "small. I am speaking of it, as it must have "been in its perfect state, when the tint of the

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stone, and the finishing and preservation of "the parts, corresponded with the beauty of its "general form*."

The ruin of the temple of Vesta, vulgarly called the Sibyls' temple, at Tivoli, has unquestionably been very generally admired for its beauty, and perfectly accords with the principles that I am endeavouring to establish; though not at all with those of my antagonist, which can only allow it to be picturesque. What was the effect of the original temple upon the minds of those, who saw it entire, we do not know: but admitting it to have been that of beauty still more perfect, it remains to be seen how far, upon a more accurate inspection, and more detailed examination of its constituent parts, it will answer the purpose for which it is cited.

Compared with the Pantheon or the Parthenon, it was certainly small; but, compared with any edifice of similar plan (the proper object of comparison), it was by no means so: for though smaller in diametre than that of the same goddess at Rome, it appears to have been

* Essays on the Picturesque, Vol. II. p. 273.

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altogether a larger, more massive, and more considerable building, than either that or any other of the kind known.

So far from being smooth, it is all over rough with sculpture, and built of the most rugged, porous, unequal stone, ever employed in a highly wrought edifice.

The parts, instead of having any variety or even difference in their direction, all converge to one centrical point; as they necessarily must in a building completely circular. Even the columns have a horizontal inclination inwards, equal to their perpendicular diminution upwards; which shows a most scrupulous attention to exclude every appearance of such variety.

Instead of being free from angles, every thing is composed of angles: the entablature consists of angles projecting beyond each other; the suffit of angles indented within each other; the capitals are clusters of angles, obtuse in the abacus, and acute in the foliage; while the columns, being fluted, exhibit circles of angles, round every shaft, and stand upon a basement surrounded by a cornice composed chiefly of angular mouldings.

So far from being of a delicate frame, or with little appearance of strength, it is remark-, able for nothing more than the compact firmness. of its construction, which nothing but some convulsion of nature, or the mischievous ex

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