means little more than that he has more pleafure in seeing a swan than a dove, either from the statelinefs of its motions or its being a more rare bird; and he who gives the preference to the dove, does it from fome affociation of ideas of innocence that he always annexes to the dove; but if he pretends to defend the preference he gives to one or the other by endeavouring to prove that this more beautiful form proceeds from a particular gradation of magnitude, undulation of a curve, or direction of a line, or whatever other conceit of his imagination he fhall fix on, as a criterion of form, he will be continually contradicting himself, and find at last that the great Mother of Nature will not be fubjected to fuch narrow rules. Among the various reasons why we prefer one part of her works to another, the moft general, I believe, is habit and cuftom; custom makes, in a certain fenfe, white black, and black white; it is cuftom alone determines our preference of the colour of the Europeans to the Ethiopians, and they, for the fame reafon, prefer their own colour to ours. I suppose no body will doubt, if one of their painters was to paint the Goddess of

VOL. II.

I

Beauty,

Beauty, but that he would represent her black, with thick lips, flat nofe, and woolly hair; and it seems to me, he would act very unnaturally if he did not: For by what critetion will any one difpute the propriety of his idea? We, indeed, fay, that the form and colour of the European is preferable to that of the Ethiopian; but I know of no other reafon we have for it, but that we are more ac→ customed to it. It is abfurd to fay, that beauty is poffeffed of attractive powers, which irrefiftibly feize the correfponding mind with love and admiration, fince that argument is equally conclufive in favour of the white and the black Philofopher.

THE black and white nations muft, in refpect of beauty, be confidered as of different kinds, at least a different fpecies of the fame kind; from one of which to the other, as I obferved, no inference can be drawn.

NOVELTY is faid to be one of the causes of beauty: That novelty is a very fufficient reafon why we should admire, is not denied; but because it is uncommon, is it therefore beau

tiful? The beauty that is produced by colour, as when we prefer one bird to another, tho' of the fame form, on account of its colour, has nothing to do with this argument, which reaches only to form. I have here confidered. the word Beauty as being properly applied to form alone. There is a néceffity of fixing this confined sense; for there can be no argument, if the sense of the word is extended to every thing that is approved. A rofe may as well be faid to be beautiful, becaufe it has a fine fmell, as a bird because of its colour. When we apply the word Beauty, we do not mean always by it a more beautiful form, but something valuable on account of its rarity, ufefulness, colour, or any other property. A horfe is faid to be a beautiful animal; but had a horfe as few good qualities as a tortoife, I do not imagine that he would be then efteemed beautiful.

A FITNESS to the end propofed, is faid to be another cause of beauty; but supposing we were proper judges of what form is the most proper in an animal to constitute ftrength or fwiftnefs, we always determine concerning

its beauty, before we exert our understanding to judge of its fitness.

FROM what has been faid, it may be inferred, that the works of Nature, if we compare one species with another, are all equally beautiful; and that preference is given from cuftom, or fome affociation of ideas: And that in creatures of the fame fpecies, beauty, is the medium or centre of all its various forms.

To conclude, then, by way of corollary, if it has been proved, that the Painter, by attending to the invariable and general ideas of Nature, produces beauty, he must, by regarding minute particularities and accidental difcriminations, deviate from the univerfal rule, and pollute his canvas with deformity.

N° 83.

C

No 83. Saturday, November

17.

I

SIR,

To the IDLER.

SUPPOSE you have forgotten that many weeks ago I promifed to fend you an account of my companions at the Wells. You would not deny me a place among the most faithful votaries of Idleness, if you knew how often I have recollected my engagement, and contented myself to delay the performance for fome reafon which I durft not examine because I knew it to be falfe; how often I have fat down to write and rejoiced at interruption; and how often I have praised the dignity of resolution, determined at night to write in the morning, and referred it in the morning to the quiet hours of night.

I HAVE at last begun what I have long wifhed at an end, and find it more easy than I expected to continue my narration.