meet the leaft refiftance; yet it is not that manner of moving, which next to a descent, wearies us the least. Reft certainly tends to relax; yet there is a fpecies of motion which relaxes more than reft; a gentle ofcillatory motion, a rifing and falling. Rocking fets children to fleep better than abfolute rest; there is indeed scarce any thing at that age, which gives more pleasure than to be gently lifted up and down; the manner of playing which their nurses use with children, and the weighing and fwinging used afterwards by themselves as a favourite amusement, evince this very fufficiently. Moft people must have observed the fort of fense they have had, on being swiftly drawn in an eafy coach on a smooth turf, with gradual ascents and declivities. This will give a better idea of the beautiful, and point out its probable cause better than almost any thing else. On the contrary; when one is hurried over a rough, rocky, broken road,

road, the pain felt by these fudden inequalities shews why fimilar fights, feelings and founds are so contrary to beauty; and with regard to the feeling, it is exactly the fame in its effect, or very nearly the fame, whether, for instance, I move my hand along the furface of a body of a certain shape, or whether such a body is moved along my hand. But to bring this analogy of the fenfes home to the eye; if a body presented to that fenfe has fuch a waving surface that the rays of light reflected from it are in a continual infenfible deviation from the ftrongest to the weakest, (which is always the cafe in a furface gradually unequal,) it must be exactly fimilar in its effect on the eye touch; upon the one of which it of which it operates directly, on the other indirectly. And this body will be beautiful if the lines which compofe its furface are not continued, even fo varied, in a manner that may weary or diffipate the attention. The variation itself must be continually varied. SECT.

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SECT. XXIV.

Concerning SMALLNESS.

avoid a fameness which may arife from the too frequent repetition of the fame reasonings, and of illuftrations of the fame nature, I will not enter very minutely into every particular that regards beauty, as it is founded on the difpofition of its quantity, or its quantity itself. In fpeaking of the magnitude of bodies there is great uncertainty, because the ideas of great and small, are terms almost entirely relative to the species of the objects, which are infinite. It is true, that having once fixed the fpecies of any object, and the dimenfions common in the individuals of that fpecies, we may obferve fome that exceed, and fome that fall short of the ordinary standard: these which greatly exceed, are by that excefs, provided

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the

the fpecies itself be not very fmall, rather great and terrible than beautiful; but as in the animal world, and in a good measure in the vegetable world likewife, the qualities that constitute beauty may poffibly be united to things of greater dimenfions; when they are fo united they constitute a species fomething different both from the fublime and beautiful, which I have before called Fine; but this kind I imagine has not fuch a power on the paffions, either as vaft bodies have which are endued with the correspondent qualities of the fublime; or as the qualities of beauty have when united in a fmall object. The affection produced by large bodies adorned with the spoils of beauty, is a tenfion continually relieved; which approaches to the nature of mediocrity. But if I were to say how I find myself affected upon fuch occafions, I fhould fay, that the fublime fuffers lefs by being, united to fome of the qualities of beauty,

beauty, than beauty does by being joined to greatness of quantity, or any other properties of the fublime. There is something fo over-ruling in whatever inspires us with awe, in all things which belong ever so remotely to terror, that nothing else can ftand in their prefence. There lie the qualities of beauty either dead and unoperative; or at most exerted to mollify the rigour and fternness of the terror, which is the natural concomitant of greatness. Befides the extraordinary great in every fpecies, the oppofite to this, the dwarfish and diminutive ought to be confidered. Littleness, merely as fuch, has nothing contrary to the idea of beauty. The humming bird both in shape and colouring yields to none of the winged fpecies, of which it is the leaft; and perhaps his beauty is enhanced by his fmallness. But there are animals, which when they are extremely small are rarely (if ever) beautiful. There is a dwarfish fize of men

and