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ertions of man could have destroyed; nor is its superiority in beauty over all the numerous imitations that have been made of it, owing to any thing more than to its superior size, strength, and variety of rough angular enrichments. It is founded on a projecting point of rock enlarged into a square area by vast substructions of arches, supporting a basement of solid stone, above forty-five feet in diametre, and nearly eight feet thick; on which was placed a circle of columns, each shaft of one stone, upwards of twenty feet long, and two feet and a half thick, supporting a massive stone roof, and surrounding a tower of rough masonry of about twenty-eight feet in diametre.

The colour is that of the rough Tiburtine stone, which could never have been other than a dingy brown; and though a circular Corinthian portico surrounding a circular tower, and thus appearing, by the laws of perspective, to retreat from the eye, is extremely light and airy, upon a principle, which shall be considered in the proper place, this is a species of lightness no way connected with any of Mr. Burke's characteristics of beauty; nor at all incompatible with the most manifest firmness and stability of construction. The temple of Vesta at Rome appears to have been after the same design, with twenty columns instead of eighteen, of larger size, though slenderer pro

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portions; and probably without the stone roof, as well as massive basement and substructions; defects, which, on the principles in question, should have enhanced rather than diminished its beauty yet this temple having become a dirty church in a city, instead of a beautiful ruin in a romantic situation, has scarcely been noticed a plain indication of the real causes of the celebrity of the other.

The buildings most consonant to the above definitions of beauty are the Hindoo domes, shaped like bee-hives, and composed of a thin shell of half burnt brick, encrusted in a smooth coat of the plaster called chinam, which is white, delicately tinged with red, blue, or yellow. Their undulating flow of outline tapered to a point; their frail and delicate structure; their clear bright colours, neither strong nor glaring; their smooth unbroken surface; their small size, comparative to that of the buildings to which they usually belong, all exactly accord; nor is any thing wanting but a variety in the direction of the parts; and that the buildings themselves always abundantly supply. Yet I do not believe that either Mr. Burke or his commentator ever found such a building beautiful: for, in practice, their natural good taste · triumphed over their theories, and prevented them from applying the characteristics of beauty belonging to a rose, a violet, a bead, or a bon

net, to any object of so different a kind, as a piece of architecture; in which, either Addison's principle of decoration, Montesquieu's of contrast, or Reynolds's of congruity, might afford a much juster criterion, than either frailty of frame, undulation of outline, or delicacy of colour; as I shall endeavour to show in the sequel.

25. I have already stated a position of the latter writer, that if a man born blind were to recover his sight, and the most beautiful woman were brought before him, he could not determine whether she was handsome or not; which is unquestionably true: for till he had verified and ascertained the evidence of his sight by that of touch, he could not discover that she was a being of his own species; or, indeed, any thing more than a fleetingvision-a diminutive picture or impression upon the pupil of his eye. The author, however, grounds it upon a different reason; namely, that no man can judge whether an animal be beautiful or deformed in its kind, who has not seen many of that kind: wherefore, he adds, that if two women, the one the most beautiful, and the other the most deformed, were placed before this blind man restored to sight, he could no better determine to which he should give the preference, having seen only those two. I believe, however,

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that, supposing (as the author evidently does suppose) the man by this time to be so far perOf Sight. fected in the perception of vision as to discover

them to be females of his own species, or even animals of any species, the observation will be found to be extended beyond the truth: for, in all the higher ranks of animals, particularly in the human race, the highest of all, there are certain characters and dispositions of features better adapted than others to express the sentiments of the mind; and the expression and intelligence of those sentiments by the features, particularly by the eyes, is not acquired, but constitutional and inherent in our natures. In this way animals communicate their sentiments to each other; and in this way men communicate their sentiments to animals, and to young children; who all understand, or rather feel the language of the looks, as far as they express anger or approbation, loathing or desire, menace or conciliation, long before they can have formed any determinate ideas, by the association of which they could become acquainted with the respective meanings of these several modes of expression. I am, therefore, persuaded, that, in the case here stated, the preference would, without hesitation, be given to her, whose features were best adapted to express mild and pleasing sentiments; and, if there were no difference between them in this

respect, to her whose colour made the most agreeable impression on the eye: for I readily assent to the great artist that a man, in this predicament, could form no judgment of symmetry, grace, elegance, or any other beauty of form. Grace is, indeed, perceived by mental sympathy; but, nevertheless, the exercise of mental sympathy, in this instance, is as much through the association of ideas, as the operation of the understanding, by which we discover symmetry; as will be hereafter explained.

26. Both colours and forms, however, so far as they exhibit pleasing masses of light and shadow to the eye, are beautiful in animals, as well as in other productions of the creation; and, consequently, may render one animal more beautiful than another, considering its beauty as addressed to the sense of seeing only. We cannot, indeed, determine whether or not a particular animal be beautiful in its kind without having seen many of that kind; for this is a result of comparison: but we can readily decide which is most beautiful of two animals of different kinds; or which is beautiful, and which is ugly, though we have seen but one of each kind. I never saw but one zebra, and one rhinoceros; and yet I found Do difficulty in pronouncing the one to be a very beautiful, and the other a very ugly

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