On Beauty. MUCH has been written upon the principle of beautiful forms, but nothing feems to have been determined, unless for European Beauty. If the Afiatic artists have treated this fubject, their principle, as we may judge from their taste and practice must be very different from ours; whence we may conclude that there is no principal of general Beauty, but as Prior fays, "'Tis rested in the Lover's fancy." This confideration fhould not prevent us from studying our own principle of beautiful forms, as it is the foundation of the ornamental part of sculpture, painting, and architecture, and of the tion and features of the human figure. propor We We seem to have implicitly adopted Grecian ideas, from whence we may account for the prevalence of the antique profile in modern pictures; by which, if the fubjects are from our own hiftory, we have the incoherent mixture of ancient faces expreffing modern characters, and Greeks performing the parts of Englishmen. But from whence did the Greeks take their ftraight profile? Not from nature, for it has every appearance of artifice, although it exifts in a few faces which muft poffefs other qualifications to be thought beautiful. Profeffor Camper, in his Book upon the different Forms of the Human Cranium, feems to have traced this style of face to its fource.* The projection of the mouth and flat nofe marks that kind of face which is nearest allied to brutality. There is but one *In what follows, his ideas and mine are fo blended, that I cannot pretend to separate them. one degree between a dog-monkeyape--ouran-outang-kalmuc and negro. From the last to the European face are many degrees, which might be fup plied by a general acquaintance with the human * The time seems approaching when the European and African face will be more nearly of the fame character; and the European and Indian features are alfo blending apace. There is fcarce a school for either fex in the kingdom, in which are not to be found many children of the mixed race belonging to opulent fathers-fome of thefe are born to great fortunes, or may naturally expect them: they marry with persons of this country, and communicate their shape and colour to their future families; by degrees, perfectly destroying the English form, feature, and complexion, which have been the envy and admiration of the European world. Perhaps the Spanish phrase of "Old Chriftian," to distinguish a perfon not fprung from Moorish connections, may have in this country fome equivalent to express a family untainted with African or Indian mixture. I mean no difrefpect to my fable brethren, but as we were intended by nature to be feparate, I am forry that commerce has been the means of uniting us to our mutual disadvantage. human fpecies-between the best modern faces and the antique are ftill many gradations. It is highly probable that the Greeks obferved the near refemblance between the lowest class of human faces and monkeys, and, in confequence, conceived Beauty to be far removed from it. As the lower part of the brutal face projected, the human face fublime fhould be depreffed in that part; and, as in the former there was a defcent from the forehead to the nofe, in the latter it should be perpendicular. As a small space between the eyes resembles an ape, therefore, to look like a man, they made the diftance wide. As a great breadth of cranium at the eyes ending above in a narrow forehead, and below in a peaked chin, marked the face of a favage, the Greeks Nor was this always thought fufficient, for to remove as far as poffible from the projecting mouth, the head (as in the Antinous) is made to recline. |