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ferred. For the fame reason, the oval is preferred before the circle; and painters, in copying buildings or any regular work, give an air of variety, by representing the subject in an angular view: we are pleased with the variety, without lofing fight of the regularity. In a landscape representing animals, thofe efpecially of the fame kind, contraft ought to prevail to draw one fleeping, another awake; one fitting, another in motion; one moving toward the fpectator, another from him, is the life of fuch a performance.

In every fort of writing intended for amufement, variety is neceffary in proportion to the length of the work. Want of variety is fenfibly felt in Davila's hiftory of the civil wars of France: the events are indeed important and various; but the reader languishes by a tiresome monotony of character, every perfon engaged being figured a confummate politician, governed by intereft only. It is hard to fay, whether Ovid difgufts more by too great variety, or too great uniformity his ftories are all of the fame kind, concluding invariably with the transformation of one being into another; and fo far he is tiresome by excess in uniformity: he is not less fatiguing by excefs in variety, hurrying his reader' inceffantly from story to ftory. Ariofto is ftill more fatiguing than Ovid, by exceeding the just bounds of variety: not fatisfied, like Ovid, with a fucceffion in his ftories, he diftracts the reader, by jumbling together a multitude of them with

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out any connection. Nor is the Orlando Furiofo lefs tiresome by its uniformity than the Metamorphofes, though in a different manner: after a ftory is brought to a crifis, the reader, intent on the catastrophe, is fuddenly fnatched away to a new story, which makes no impreffion fo long as the mind is occupied with the former. This tantalizing method, from which the author never once fwerves during the course of a long work, befide its uniformity, had another bad effect it prevents that fympathy, which is raifed by an interefting, event when the reader meets with no interruption.

The emotions produced by our perceptions in a train, have been little confidered, and less understood; the subject therefore required an elaborate difcuffion. It may furprise fome readers to find variety treated as only contributing to make a train of perceptions pleasant, when it is commonly held to be a neceffary ingredient in beauty of whatever kind; according to the definition, "That beauty confifts in uniformity "amid variety." But, after the fubject is explained and illuftrated as above, I prefume it will be evident, that this definition, however applicable to one or other fpecies, is far from being just with respect to beauty in general: variety contributes no share to the beauty of a moral action, nor of a mathematical theorem: and numberless are the beautiful objects of fight that have little or no variety in them; a globe, the

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moft uniform of all figures, is of all the most beautiful; and a square, though more beautiful than a trapezium, hath lefs variety in its conftituent parts. The foregoing definition, which at best is but obfcurely expreffed, is only applicable to a number of objects in a group or in fucceffion, among which indeed a due mixture of uniformity and variety is always agreeable; provided the particular objects, separately confidered, be in any degree beautiful, for uniformity amid variety among ugly objects, affords no pleafure. This circumftance is totally omitted in the definition; and indeed to have mentioned it, would at the very firft glance have shown the definition to be imperfect: for to define beauty as arifing from beautiful objects blended together in a due proportion of uniformity and variety, would be too grofs to pass current as nothing can be more grofs, than to employ in a definition the very term that is to be explained.

APPENDIX TO CHAP. IX,

Concerning the Works of Nature, chiefly with reSpect to Uniformity and Variety.

IN

'N things of Nature's workmanship, whether we regard their internal or external ftructure, beauty and defign are equally confpicuous.

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We shall begin with the outfide of nature, as what first presents itself.

The figure of an organic body is generally regular. The trunk of a tree, its branches, and their ramifications, are nearly round, and form a feries regularly decreafing from the trunk to the smallest fibre: uniformity is no where more remarkable than in the leaves, which, in the fame fpecies, have all the fame colour, fize, and fhape the feeds and fruits are all regular figures, approaching for the most part to the globular form. Hence a plant, especially of the larger kind, with its trunk, branches, foliage, and fruit, is a charming object.

In an animal, the trunk, which is much larger than the other parts, occupies a chief place: its shape, like that of the ftem of plants, is nearly round; a figure which of all is the most agreeable its two fides are precifely fimilar: feveral of the under parts go off in pairs; and the two individuals of each pair are accurately uniform: the fingle parts are placed in the middle the limbs bearing a certain proportion to the trunk, ferve to fupport it, and to give it a proper elevation upon one extremity are difpofed the neck and head, in the direction of the trunk: the head being the chief part, poffeffes with great propriety the chief place. Hence, the beauty of the whole figure, is the refult of many equal and proportional parts orderly difpofed; and the smallest variation in number, equality, pro

portion,

portion, or order, never fails to produce a per

ception of deformity.

Nature in no particular feems more profufe of ornament, than in the beautiful colouring of her works. The flowers of plants, the furs of beafts, and the feathers of birds, vie with each other in the beauty of their colours, which in luftre as well as in harmony are beyond the power of imitation. Of all natural appearances, the colouring of the human face is the most exquifite it is the ftrongest inftance of the ineffable art of nature, in adapting and proportioning its colours to the magnitude, figure, and pofition, of the parts. In a word, colour feems to live in nature only, and to languish under the fineft touches of art.

When we examine the internal ftructure of a plant or animal, a wonderful fubtilty of mechanifm is displayed. Man, in his mechanical operations, is confined to the furface of bodies; but the operations of nature are exerted through the whole fubftance, so as to reach even the elementary parts. Thus the body of an animal, and of a plant, are composed of certain great veffels; these of fmaller; and these again of still smaller, without end, as far as we can difcover. This power of diffufing mechanifm through the most intimate parts, is peculiar to nature, and diftinguishes her operations, most remarkably, from every work of art. Such texture, continued from the groffer parts to the most minute, preferves all along the ftricteft

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