in its native signification, is appropriated to objects of sight. Objects of the other senses may be agreeable, such as the sounds of musical instruments, the smoothness and softness of some surfaces; but the agreeableness called beauty belongs to objects of sight.
Objects of sight are more complex than those of any other sense: in the simplest, we perceive colour, figure, length, breadth, thickness. A tree is composed of a trunk, branches, and leaves; it has colour, figure, size, and sometimes motion: by means of each of these particulars, separately considered, it appears beautiful; but a complex perception of the whole greatly augments the beauty of the object. The human body is a composition of numberless beauties arising from the parts and qualities of the object, various colours, various motions, figures, size, &c. all united in one complex object, and striking the eye with combined force. Hence it is, that beauty, a quality so remarkable in visible objects, lends its name to every thing that is eminently agreeable. Thus, by a figure of speech, we say, a beautiful sound, a beautiful thought, a beautiful discovery, &c.
Considering Considering attentively the beauty of visible objects, two kinds are discovered. The first may be termed intrinsic beauty, because it is discovered in a single object, without relation to any other: the other may be termed relative, being founded on the relation of objects. Intrinsic beauty is a perception of sense merely; for to perceive the beauty of a spreading oak, or of a flowing river, no more is required but singly an act of vision. Relative beauty is accompanied with an act of understanding and reflection: for we perceive not the relative beauty of a fine instrument or engine until we learn its use and destination. In a word, intrinsic beauty is ultimate; and relative beauty is that of means relating to some good end or purpose. These different beauties agree in one capital circumstance, that both are equally perceived as belonging to the object; which will be readily admitted with respect to intrinsic beauty, but is not so obvious with respect to the other. The utility of the plough, for example, may make it an object of admiration or of desire; but why should utility make it beautiful? A natural propensity of the human mind will explain this difficulty: By an easy transition of ideas, the beauty of the effect is transferred to the cause, and is perceived as one of the qualities of the cause. Thus a subject void of intrinsic beauty appears beautiful by its utility; a dwelling-house void of all regularity is however beautiful in the view of convenience; and the want of symmetry in a tree will not prevent its appearing beautiful, if it be known to produce good fruit.
When these two beauties concur in any object, it appears delightful. Every member of the human body possesses both in a high degree.
The beauty of utility, being accurately proportioned to the degree of utility, requires no illustration: But intrinsic beauty, being more complex, cannot be handled distinctly without being analyzed. If a tree be beautiful by means of its colour, figure, motion, size, &c. it is in reality possessed of so many different beauties. The beauty of colour is too familiar to need explanation. The beauty of figure is more: for example, viewing any body as a whole, the beauty of its figure arises from regularity and simplicity; viewing the parts with relation to each other, uniformity, proportion, and order, contribute to its beauty. The beauties of grandeur and motion are considered separately. See Grandeur and Motion.
We shall here make a few observations on simplicity, which may be of use in examining the beauty of single objects. A multitude of objects crowding into the mind at once, disturb the attention, and pass without making any lasting impression: In the same manner, even a single object, consisting of a multiplicity of parts, equals not, in strength of impression, a more simple object comprehended in one view. This justifies simplicity in works of art, as opposed to complicated circumstances and crowded ornaments.
It would be endless to enumerate the effects that are produced by the various combinations of the principles of beauty. A few examples will be sufficient to give the reader some idea of this subject. A circle and a square are each perfectly regular: a square, however, is less beautiful than a circle; and the reason is, that the attention is divided among the sides and angles of a square; whereas the circumference of a circle, being a single object, makes one entire impression: And thus simplicity contributes to beauty. For the same reason a square is more beautiful than a hexagon or octagon. A square is likewise more beautiful than a parallelogram, because it is more regular and uniform. But this holds with respect to intrinsic beauty only: for in many instances, as in the doors and windows of a dwelling-house, utility turns the scales on the side of the parallelogram.
Again, a parallelogram depends, for its beauty, on the proportion of its sides: A great inequality of its sides annihilates its beauty: Approximation toward equality hath the same effect; for proportion there degenerates into perfect uniformity, and the figure appears an unsuccessful attempt toward a square. And hence proportion contributes to beauty.
An equilateral triangle yields not to a square in regularity nor in uniformity of parts, and it is more simple. But an equilateral triangle is less beautiful than a square; which must be owing to inferiority of order in the position of its parts; the order arising from the equal inclination of the sides of such an angle is more obscure than the parallelism of the sides of a square. And hence order contributes to beauty not less than simplicity, regularity, or proportion.
Uniformity is singular in one circumstance, that it is apt to disgust by excess. A number of things defined for the same use, as windows, chairs, &c. cannot be too uniform. But a scrupulous uniformity of parts in a large garden or field is far from being agreeable.
In all the works of nature simplicity makes a capital figure. It also makes a figure in works of art: Profuse ornament in painting, gardening, or architecture, as well as in dress or in language, shows a mean or corrupted taste. Simplicity in behaviour and manners has an enchanting effect, and never fails to gain our affection. Very different are the artificial manners of modern times. A gradual progress from simplicity to complex forms and profuse ornament, seems to be the fate of all the fine arts; resembling behaviour, which from original candour and simplicity has degenerated into duplicity of heart and artificial refinements. At present, literary productions are crowded with words, epithets, figures: In music, sentiment is neglected for the luxury of harmony, and for difficult movement.
With regard to the final cause of beauty, one thing is evident, that our relish of regularity, uniformity, proportion, order, and simplicity, contributes greatly to enhance the beauty of the objects that surround us, and of course tends to our happiness. We may be confirmed in this thought, upon reflecting, hat our taste for these particulars is not accidental, but uniform and universal, making a branch of our nature. At the same time, regularity, uniformity, order, and simplicity, contribute each of them to readiness of apprehension, and enable us to form more distinct ideas of objects than can be done where these particulars are wanting. In some instances, as in animals, proportion is evidently connected with utility, and is the more agreeable on that account.
many instances, promotes industry; and as it is frequently connected with utility, it proves an additional incitement to enrich our fields and improve our manufactures. These, however, are but slight Beauty, effects, compared with the connections that are formed among individuals in society by means of beauty. The qualifications of the head and heart are undoubtedly the most solid and most permanent foundations of such connections: But as external beauty lies more in view, and is more obvious to the bulk of mankind, than the qualities now mentioned, the sense of beauty has a more extensive influence in forming these connections. At any rate, it concurs in an eminent degree with mental qualifications, in producing social intercourse, mutual good will, and consequently mutual aid and support, which are the life of society; it must not however be overlooked, that the sense of beauty does not tend to advance the interests of society, but when in a due mean with respect to strength. Love, in particular, arising from a sense of beauty, looses, when excessive, its social character: the appetite for gratification, prevailing over affection for the beloved object, is ungovernable, and tends violently to its end, regardless of the misery that must follow. Love, in this state, is no longer a sweet agreeable passion: it becomes painful, like hunger or thirst; and produceth no happiness but in the instant of fruition. This suggests an important lesson, that moderation in our desires and appetites, which fits us for doing our duty, contributes at the same time the most to happiness; even social passions, when moderate, are more pleasant than when they swell beyond proper bounds.
Human or Personal BEAUTY, only slightly touched upon in the preceding article, merits more particular discussion; and may be considered under these four heads: Colour, Form, Expression, and Grace; the two former being, as it were, the Body, the two latter the Soul, of beauty.
1. Colour: Although this be the lowest of all the constituent parts of beauty, yet it is vulgarly the most striking and the most observed. For which there is a very obvious reason to be given; that "every body can see, and very few can judge;" the beauties of colour requiring much less of judgment than either of the other three.
As to the colour of the body in general, the most beautiful perhaps that ever was imagined, was that which Apelles expressed in his famous Venus; and which, though the picture itself be lost, Cicero has in some degree preserved to us, in his excellent description of it. It was (as we learn from him) a fine red, beautifully intermixed and incorporated with white; and diffused, in its due proportions, through each part of the body. Such are the descriptions of a most beautiful skin, in several of the Roman poets; and such often is the colouring of Titian, and particularly in his sleeping Venus, or whatever other beauty that charming piece was meant to represent.
The reason why these colours please so much, is not only their natural liveliness, nor the much greater charms they obtain from their being properly blended together, but is also owing in some degree to the idea they carry with them of good health; without which all beauty grows languid and less engaging: and with which it always recovers an additional life and lustre.
As to the colour of the face in particular, a great deal of beauty is owing (beside the causes already mentioned) to variety; that being designed by nature for the greatest concourse of different colours, of any part in the human body. Colours please by opposition; and it is in the face that they are the most diversified, and the most opposed.
It is an observation apparently whimsical, but perhaps not unjust, that the same thing which makes a fine evening, makes a fine face; that is, as to the particular part of beauty now under consideration.
The beauty of an evening sky, about the setting of the sun, is owing to the variety of colours that are scattered along the face of the heavens. It is the fine red clouds, intermixed with white, and sometimes darker ones, with the azure bottom appearing here and there between them, which makes all that beautiful composition that delights the eye so much, and gives such a serene pleasure to the heart. In the same manner, if you consider some beautiful faces, you may observe that it is much the same variety of colours which gives them that pleasing look; which is so apt to attract the eye, and but too often to engage the heart. For all this fort of beauty is resolvable into a proper variation of flesh colour and red, with the clear blueness of the veins pleasingly intermixed about the temples and the going off of the cheeks, and set off by the shades of full eyebrows; and of the hair, when it falls in a proper manner round the face.
It is for much the same reason that the best landscape painters have been generally observed to choose the autumnal part of the year for their pieces, rather than the spring. They prefer the variety of shades and colours, though in their decline, to all the freshness and verdure in their infancy; and think all the charms and liveliness even of the spring, more than compensated by the choice, opposition, and richness of colours, that appear almost on every tree in the autumn.
Though one's judgment is apt to be guided by particular attachments (and that more perhaps in this part of beauty than any other), yet the general persuasion seems well founded, that a complete brown beauty is really preferable to a perfect fair one; the bright brown giving a lustre to all the other colours, a vivacity to the eyes, and a richness to the whole look, which one seeks in vain in the whitest and most transparent skins. Raphael's most charming Madonna is a brunette beauty; and his earlier Madonnas (or those of his middle style) are generally of a lighter and less pleasing complexion. All the best artists in the noblest age of painting, about Leo the tenth's time, used this deeper and richer kind of colouring; and perhaps one might add, that the glaring lights introduced by Guido, went a great way towards the declension of that art; as the enfeebling of the colours by Carlo Marat (or his followers) hath since also completed the fall of it in Italy.
Under this article colour, it seems doubtful whether some things ought not to be comprehended which are not perhaps commonly meant by that name. As that appearing softness or silkiness of some skins: that (A)
(A) The look here meant is most frequently expressed by the best painters in their Magdalens; in which, if there were no tears on the face, you would see, by the humid redness of the skin, that she had been weeping extremely. Magdalen-look in some fine faces, after weeping; that brightness, as well as tint, of the hair; that lustre of health that shines forth upon the features; that lumi- nousness that appears in some eyes, and that fluid fire, or glinting, in others: Some of which are of a nature so much superior to the common beauties of colour, that they make it doubtful whether they should not have been ranked under a higher class, and referred for the expressions of the passions. They are, however, mentioned here; because even the most doubtful of them appear to belong partly to this head, as well as partly to the others.
2. Form. This takes in the turn of each part, as well as the symmetry, of the whole body, even to the turn of an eye-brow, or the falling of the hair. Perhaps, too, the attitude, while fixed, ought to be reckoned under this article: By which is not only meant the posture of the person, but the position of each part; as the turning of the neck, the extending of the hand, the placing of a foot, and so on to the most minute particulars.
The general cause of beauty in the form or shape in both sexes is a proportion, or a union and harmony, in all parts of the body.
The distinguishing character of beauty in the female form, is delicacy and softness; and in the male, either apparent strength or agility. The finest exemplars that can be seen for the former, is the Venus of Medici; and for the two latter, the Hercules Farnese and the Apollo Belvedere.
There is one thing indeed in the last of these figures which exceeds the bounds of our present inquiry; what an Italian artist called Il savor umano; and what we may call the transcendent, or celestial. It is some- thing distinct from all human beauty, and of a nature greatly superior to it; something that seems like an air of divinity: Which is expressed, or at least is to be traced out, in but very few works of the artists; and of which scarcely any of the poets have caught any ray in their descriptions (or perhaps even in their imagination), except Homer and Virgil, among the ancients; and our Shakepeare and Milton among the moderns.
The beauty of the mere human form is much superior to that of colour; and it may be partly for this reason, that when one is observing the finest works of the artists at Rome (where there is still the noblest collection of any in the world), one feels the mind more struck and more charmed with the capital statues, than with the pictures of the greatest masters.
One of the old Roman poets, in speaking of a very handsome man, who was candidate for the prize in some of the public games, says, that he was much expected and much admired by all the spectators at his first appearance; but that, when he flung off his robes, and discovered the whole beauty of his shape altogether, it was so superior, that it quite extinguished the beauties they had before so much admired in his face. Much the same effect may be felt in viewing the Venus of Medici. If you observe the face only, it appears extremely beautiful; but if you consider all the other elegancies of her make, the beauty of her face becomes less striking, and is almost lost in such a multiplicity of charms.
Whoever would learn what makes the beauty of each part of the human body, may find it laid down pretty much at large, by (B) Felhien; or may study it with more pleasure to himself, in the finest pictures and statues;
extremely. There is a very strong instance of this in a Magdalen by Le Brun, in one of the churches at Paris; and several by Titian, in Italy; the very best of which is at the Barberino palace at Venice. In speaking of which, Rofalba hardly went too far, when she said, "It wept all over;" or (in the very words she used) "Elle pleure jusqu'aux bouts de doigts."
(B) In his Entretiens, vol. ii. p. 14—45. The chief of what he says there, on the beauty of the different parts of the female form, is as follows: That the head should be well rounded; and look rather inclining to small than large. The forehead, white, smooth, and open (not with the hair growing down too deep upon it); neither flat nor prominent, but like the head, well rounded; and rather small in proportion than large. The hair either bright black or brown; not thin, but full and waving; and if it falls in moderate curls the better. The black is particularly useful for setting off the whiteness of the neck and skin. The eyes black, chestnut, or blue; clear, bright, and lively; and rather large in proportion than small. The eye-brows, well divided, rather full than thin; semicircular, and broader in the middle than at the ends; of a neat turn, but not formal. The cheeks should not be wide; should have a degree of plumpness, with the red and white finely blended together; and should look firm and soft. The ear should be rather small than large; well folded, and with an agreeable tinge of red. The nose should be placed so as to divide the face into two equal parts; should be of a moderate size, straight, and well-squared; though sometimes a little rising in the nose, which is but just perceivable, may give a very graceful look to it. The mouth should be small; and the lips not of equal thickness. They should be well turned, small rather than gross; soft, even to the eye; and with a living red in them. A truly pretty mouth is like a rose-bud that is beginning to blow. The teeth should be middle-sized, white, well ranged, and even. The chin of a moderate size; white, soft, and agreeably rounded. The neck should be white, straight, and of a soft, easy, and flexible make, rather long than short; lest above, and increasing gently toward the shoulders: The whiteness and delicacy of its skin should be continued, or rather go on improving to the bosom. The skin in general should be white, properly tinged with red; with an apparent softness, and a look of thriving health in it. The shoulders should be white, gently spread, and with a much softer appearance of strength than in those of men. The arm should be white, round, firm, and soft; and more particularly so from the elbow to the hand. The hand should unite insensibly with the arm; just as it does in the statue of the Venus of Medici. They should be long and delicate, and even the joints and nervous part of them should be without either any hard- ness or dryness. The fingers should be fine, long, round, and soft; small, and lessening towards the tips of Beauty. statues; for in life we commonly see but a small part of the human body, most of it being either disguised or altered by what we call dress.
In fact we do not only thus, in a great measure, hide beauty; but even injure, and kill it, by some parts of dress. A child is no sooner born into the world, than it is bound up, almost as firmly as an old Egyptian mummy, in several folds of linen. It is in vain for him to give all the signs of distress that nature has put in his power, to show how much he suffers whilst they are thus imprisoning his limbs; or all the signs of joy, every time they are set at liberty. In a few minutes, the old witch who presides over his infantile days falls to tormenting him afresh, and winds him up again in his defined confinement. When he comes to be dressed like a man, he has ligatures applied to his arms, legs, and middle, in short all over him, to prevent the natural circulation of his blood, and make him less active and healthy: and if it be a child of the tenderer sex, she must be bound yet more straitly about the waist and stomach, to acquire a disproportion that nature never meant in her shape.
The two other constituent parts of beauty, are expression and grace; the former of which is common to all persons and faces; but the latter is to be met with in very few.
3. Expression. By this is meant the expression of the passions; the turns and changes of the mind, so far as they are made visible to the eye by our looks or gestures.
Though the mind appears principally in the face and attitudes of the head; yet every part almost of the human body, on some occasion or other, may become expressive. Thus the languishing hanging of the arm, or the vehement exertion of it; the pain expressed by the fingers of one of the sons in the famous group of Laocoon, and in the toes of the dying gladiator. But this again is often lost among us by our dress; and indeed is of the least concern, because the expression of the passions passes chiefly in the face, which we (by good luck) have not as yet concealed.
The parts of the face in which the passions most frequently make their appearance, are the eyes and mouth; but from the eyes they diffuse themselves very strongly about the eye-brows: as, in the other case, they appear often in the parts all round the mouth.
Philosophers may dispute as much as they please about the seat of the soul; but wherever it resides, we are sure that it speaks in the eyes. Perhaps it is injuring the eye-brows, to make them only dependents on the eye; for they, especially in lively faces, have, as it were, a language of their own; and are extremely varied, according to the different sentiments and passions of the mind.
Degree of pleasure may be often discerned in a lady's eye-brow, though she have address enough not to let it appear in her eyes; and at other times may be discovered so much of her thoughts, in the line just above her eye-brows, that the would probably be amazed how any body could tell what passed in her mind, and (as the thought) undiscovered by her face, so particularly and distinctly.
Homer makes the eye-brows the seat of (c) majesty, Virgil of (d) dejection, Horace of (e) modesty, and Juvenal of (f) pride; and it is not certain whether every one of the passions be not assigned, by one or other of the poets, to the same part.
Having hitherto spoken only of the passions in general, we will now consider a little which of them add to beauty, and which of them take from it.
We may say, in general, that all the tender and kind passions add to beauty; and all the cruel and unkind ones add to deformity: And it is on this account that good nature may very justly be said to be "the best feature even in the finest face."
Mr Pope has included the principal passion of each sort in two very pretty lines:
Love, hope, and joy, fair pleasure's smiling train; Hate, fear, and grief, the family of pain.
The former of which naturally give an additional lustre and
them: and the nails long, rounded at the ends, and pellucid. The bosom should be white and charming; and the breasts equal in roundness, whiteness, and firmness; neither too much elevated nor too much depressed; rising gently, and very distinctly separated; in one word, just like those of the Venus of Medici. The sides should be long, and the hips wider than the shoulders; and turn off as they do in the fame Venus; and go down rounding and lessening gradually to the knee. The knee should be even, and well rounded; the legs straight, but varied by a proper rounding of the more fleshy part of them, and the feet finely turned, white, and little.
(c) Η, και κυανητικη επιφανεια Κρονιου. Αριστεραι δ' αυται χαλαι επιφανειας αναλος Κεφαλαι απ' αυτωνειο μεγαλα δ' ειδικης Οινυχιου. Iliad. i. 528.
It was from this passage that Phidias borrowed all the ideas of that majesty which he had expressed so strongly in his famous statues of the Jupiter Olympius; and Horace, probably, his—Cuncta supercilii moventis. Lib. iii. Od. i. 8.
(d) Frons lata parum, et dejecto lumina vultu. Virgil Aen. vi. 863. (e) Deme supercilii nubem ; plerumque modestus Occupat obscuri speciem. Horat. lib. i. epist. 18. 95. (f) Malo Venusinam, quam te, Cornelia, mater Gracchorum ; si cum magnus virtutibus affers Grande supercilium, et numeras in dote triumphos. Juvenal, Sat. vi. 168.
It is here that the Romans used the word superciliosus (as we do from it the word supercilious) for proud and arrogant persons. and enlivening to beauty; as the latter are too apt to fling a gloom and cloud over it.
Yet in these, and all the other passions, moderation ought perhaps to be considered in a great measure the rule of their beauty, almost as far as moderation in actions is the rule of virtue. Thus an excessive joy may be too boisterous in the face to be pleasing; and a degree of grief in some faces, and on some occasions, may be extremely beautiful. Some degrees of anger, shame, surprise, fear, and concern, are beautiful; but all excess is hurtful; and all excessively ugly. Dulness, austerity, impudence, pride, affectation, malice, and envy, are always ugly.
The finest union of passions that can perhaps be observed in any face, consists of a just mixture of modesty, sensibility, and sweetness; each of which when taken singly is very pleasing: but when they are all blended together, in such a manner as either to enliven or correct each other, they give almost as much attraction as the passions are capable of adding to a very pretty face.
The prevailing passion in the Venus of Medici is modesty; it is exprest by each of her hands, in her looks, and in the turn of her head. And by the way it may be questioned, whether one of the chief reasons why side-faces please one more than full ones, be not from the former having more of the air of modesty than the latter. This at least is certain, that the best artists usually choose to give a side-face rather than a full one; in which attitude, the turn of the neck too has more beauty, and the passions more activity and force. Thus, as to hatred and affection in particular, the look that was formerly supposed to carry an infection with it from malignant eyes, was a flanting regard; like that which Milton gives to Satan, when he is viewing the happiness of our first parents in paradise; and the fascination, or stroke of love, is most usually conveyed, at first, in a side-glance.
It is owing to the great force of pleasings which attends all the kinder passions, "that lovers do not only seem, but are really, more beautiful to each other than they are to the rest of the world;" because when they are together, the most pleasing passions are more frequently exerted in each of their faces than they are in either before the rest of the world. There is then (as a certain French writer very well expresses it) "A foul upon their countenances," which does not appear when they are absent from each other; or even when they are together conversing with other persons, that are indifferent to them, or rather lay a restraint upon their features.
The superiority which the beauty of the passions has over the two parts of beauty first mentioned, will probably be now pretty evident: or if this should appear still problematical to any one, let him consider a little the following particulars, of which every body must have met with several instances in their lifetime: That there is a great deal of difference in the same face, according as a person is in a better or worse humour, or in a greater or less degree of liveliness: That the best complexion, the finest features, and the exactest shape, without any thing of the mind expressed on the face, are as infipid and unmoving as the waxen figure of the fine duchess of Richmond in Westminster Abbey: That the finest eyes in the world, with an excess of malice or rage in them, will grow as shocking as they are in that fine face of Medusa; on the famous feil in the Strozzi family at Rome: That a face without any good features in it, and with a very indifferent complexion, shall have a very taking air; from the sensibility of the eyes, the general good-humoured turn of the look, and perhaps a little agreeable smile about the mouth. And these three things perhaps would go a great way toward accounting for the Je ne sais quoi, or that inexplicable pleasingness of the face (as they choose to call it), which is so often talked of and so little understood; as the greater part, and perhaps all the rest of it, would fall under the last article, that of grace.
Thus it appears that the passions can give beauty without the affluence of colour or form; and take it away where they have united the most strongly to give it. And hence the superiority of this part of beauty to the other two.
This, by the way, may help us to account for the juftness of what Pliny afferts in speaking of the famous statue of Laocoon and his two sons: He says, it was the finest piece of art in Rome; and to be preferred to all the other statues and pictures, of which they had so noble a collection in his time. It had no beauties of colour to vie with the paintings and other statues there; and the Apollo Belvedere and the Venus of Medici, in particular, were as finely proportioned as the Laocoon: But this had much greater variety of expression even than those fine ones; and it must be on that account alone that it could have been preferable to them and all the rest.
Before quitting this head, two things before mentioned deserve to be repeated: That the chief rule of the beauty of the passions is moderation; and that the part in which they appear most strongly is the eyes. It is there that love holds all his tenderest language: It is there that virtue commands, modesty charms, joy enlivens, sorrow engages, and inclination fires the hearts of the beholders: It is there that even fear, and anger, and confusion, can be charming. But all these, to be charming, must be kept within their due bounds and limits; for too fullen an appearance of virtue, a violent and profuse swell of passion, a rustic and overwhelming modesty, a deep sadness, or too wild and impetuous a joy, become all either oppreffeive or disagreeable.
4. The last finishing and noblest part of beauty is Grace; which every body is accustomed to speak of as a thing inexplicable; and in a great measure perhaps it is so. We know that the foul is, but we scarce know what it is: every judge of beauty can point out grace; but no one seems even yet to have fixed upon a definition for it.
Grace often depends on some very little incidents in a fine face; and in actions it consists more in the manner of doing things than in the things themselves. It is perpetually varying its appearance, and is therefore much more difficult to be considered than in any thing fixed and steady. While you look upon one, it steals from under the eye of the observer; and is succeeded perhaps by another that fits away as soon and as imperceptibly. It is on this account that grace is better to be studied in Corregio's, Guido's, and Raphael's pictures, than in real life. But though one cannot punctually say what grace is, we may point out the parts and things in which it is most apt to appear.
The chief dwelling-place of grace is about the mouth; though at times it may visit every limb or part of the body. But the mouth is the chief seat of grace, as much as the chief seat for the beauty of the passions is in the eyes. Thus, when the French use the expression of une bouche fort gracieuse, they mean it properly of grace: but when they say, des yeux tres gracieux, it then falls to the share of the passions; and it means kind or favourable.
In a very graceful face, by which we do not so much mean a majestic as a soft and pleasing one, there is now and then (for no part of beauty is either so engaging or so uncommon) a certain deliciousness that almost always lives about the mouth, in something not quite enough to be called a smile, but rather an approach towards one, which varies gently about the different lines there like a little fluttering Cupid, and perhaps sometimes discovers a little dimple, that after just lightening upon you disappears and appears again by fits.
The grace of attitudes may belong to the position of each part as well as to the carriage or disposition of the whole body: but how much more it belongs to the head than to any other part may be seen in the pieces of the most celebrated painters; and particularly in those of Guido, who has been rather too lavish in bestowing this beauty on almost all his fine women; whereas nature has given it in so high a degree but to very few.
The turns of the neck are extremely capable of grace, and are very easy to be observed, though very difficult to be accounted for.
How much of this grace may belong to the arms and feet, as well as to the neck and head, may be seen in dancing. But it is not only in genteel motions that a very pretty woman will be graceful; and Ovid (who was so great a master in all the parts of beauty) had very good reason for saying, That, when Venus, to please her gallant, imitated the hobbling gait of her husband, her very lameness had a great deal of prettiness and grace in it.
"Every motion of a graceful woman (says another writer of the same age) is full of grace." She designs nothing by it perhaps, and may even not be sensible of it herself; and indeed she should not be so too much; for the moment that any gesture or action appears to be affected, it ceases to be graceful.
Horace and Virgil seem to extend grace so far as to the flowing of the hair, and Tibullus even to the dress of his mistress; but then he affixes it more to her manner of putting on and appearing in whatever she wears than to the dress itself. It is true, there is another wicked poet (Ovid) who has said (with much less decency) "that dress is the better half of the woman:"
— Pars minima est ipsa puella sui. OVID.
There are two very distinct (and, as it were, opposite) sorts of grace; the majestic and the familiar. The former belongs chiefly to the very fine women, and the latter to the very pretty ones: That is more commanding, and this the more delightful and engaging. The Grecian painters and sculptors used to express the former most strongly in the looks and attitudes of their Minervas, and the latter in those of Venus.
Xenophon, in his Choice of Hercules (or at least the excellent translator of that piece), has made just the same distinction in the personages of Wisdom and Pleasure; the former of which he describes as moving on to that young hero with the majestic fort of grace; and the latter with the familiar:
Graceful, yet each with different grace they move; This striking sacred awe, that softer winning love.
No poet seems to have understood this part of beauty so well as our own Milton. He speaks of these two sorts of grace very distinctly; and gives the majestic to his Adam, and both the familiar and majestic to Eve, but the latter in a less degree than the former:
Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall, Godlike erect, with native honour clad, In naked majesty, seem'd lords of all; And worthy seem'd. For in their looks divine The image of their glorious Maker shone: Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure; Severe, but in true filial freedom plac'd: Whence true authority in men: Though both Not equal, as their sex not equal, seem'd. For contemplation he, and valour, form'd; For softness she, and sweet attractive grace.
MILTON'S Par. Lost, book iv. 298.
—— I espy'd thee, fair indeed and tall, Under a plantain; yet methought less fair, Less winning soft, less amiable mild, Than that smooth wat'ry image—— (Eve, of Adam and herself) Ib. ver. 480.
—— Her heav'nly form Angelic, but more soft and feminine; Her graceful innocence; her ev'ry air Of gesture, or least action.—— B. ix. 461. Grace was in all her steps; Heav'n in her eye; In every gesture, dignity and love. B. viii. 489.
Speaking or mute, all comeliness and grace Attends thee; and each word, each motion, forms. Ib. 223.
Though grace is so difficult to be accounted for in general, yet there are two particular things which seem to hold universally in relation to it.
The first is, "That there is no grace without motion; that is, without some genteel or pleasing motion, either of the whole body or of some limb, or at least of some feature. And it may be hence that Lord Bacon calls grace by the name of decent motion; just as if they were equivalent terms: "In beauty, that of favour is more than that of colour; and that of gracious and decent motion, more than that of favour." p. 362.
Virgil in one place points out the majesty of Juno, and in another the graceful air of Apollo, by only, v. 47. saying that they move; and possibly he means no more when he makes the motion of Venus the principal thing by which Æneas discovers her under all her disguise; disguise: though the commentators, as usual, would fain find out a more dark and mysterious meaning for it.
All the best statues are represented as in some action or motion; and the most graceful statue in the world (the Apollo Belvedere) is so much so, that when one faces it at a little distance, one is almost apt to imagine that he is actually going to move on toward you.
All graceful heads, even in the portraits of the best painters, are in motion; and very strongly on those of Guido in particular; which are all either casting their looks up toward heaven, or down toward the ground, or side-way, as regarding some object. A head that is quite inactive, and flung flat upon the canvas (like the faces on medals after the fall of the Roman empire, or the Gothic heads before the revival of the arts), will be far from having any grace, that it will not even have any life in it.
The second observation is, "That there can be no grace with impropriety;" or, in other words, that nothing can be graceful that is not adapted to the characters of the person.
The graces of a little lively beauty would become ungraceful in a character of majesty: as the majestic airs of an empress would quite destroy the prettiness of the former. The vivacity that adds a grace to beauty in youth would give an additional deformity to old age; and the very same airs which would be charming on some occasions may be quite shocking when extremely mislimed or extremely misplaced.
The inseparable union of propriety and grace seems to have been the general sense of mankind, as we may guess from the languages of several nations; in which some words that answer to our proper or becoming, are used indifferently for beautiful or graceful. Thus, among the Greeks the words Νέαρος and Καλός, and among the Romans pulchrum and decens, or decorum, are used indifferently for one another.
It appears wrong, however, to think (as some have done) that grace consists entirely in propriety; because propriety is a thing easy enough to be understood, and grace (after all we can say about it) very difficult. Propriety, therefore, and grace are no more one and the same thing than grace and motion are. It is true, it cannot subsist without either; but then there seems to be something else, which cannot be explained, that goes to the composition, and which possibly may give it its greatest force and pleasingness.
Whatever are the causes of it, this is certain, that grace is the chief of all the constituent parts of beauty: and so much so, that it seems to be the only one which is absolutely and universally admired: All the rest are only relative. One likes a brunette beauty better than a fair one; I may love a little woman, and you a large one, best; a person of a mild temper will be fond of the gentler passions in the face, and one of a bolder cast may choose to have more vivacity and more vigorous passions expressed there: But grace is found in few, and is pleasing to all. Grace, like poetry, must be born with a person, and is never wholly to be acquired by art. The most celebrated of all the ancient painters was Apelles; and the most celebrated of all the modern Raphael: And it is remarkable, that the distinguishing character of each of them was grace. Indeed, that alone could have given them so high a pre-eminence over all their other competitors.
Grace has nothing to do with the lowest part of beauty or colour; very little with shape, and very much with the passions; for it is the who gives their highest zest, and the most delicious part of their pleasingness to the expressions of each of them.
All the other parts of beauty are pleasing in some degree, but grace is pleasingness itself. And the old Romans in general seem to have had this notion of it, as may be inferred from the original import of the names which they used for this part of beauty: Gra-tia from gratus, or "pleasing;" and decor from decens, or "becoming."
The Greeks as well as the Romans must have been of this opinion; when in settling their mythology, they made the Graces the constant attendants of Venus, or the cause of love. In fact, there is nothing causes love so generally and so irresistibly as grace. It is like the cestus of the same goddess, which was supposed to comprehend every thing that was winning and engaging in it; and beside all, to oblige the heart to love by a secret and inexplicable force like that of some magic charm.
She said; with awe divine, the queen of love Obey'd the sister and the wife of Jove: And from her fragrant breast the zone unbrac'd, With various skill and high embroidery grac'd. In this was every art, and every charm, To win the wifet, and the coldest warm: Fond love, the gentle vow, the gay desire, The kind deceit, the fill reviving fire. Persuasive speech, and more persuasive sighs, Silence that spoke, and eloquence of eyes. This on her hand the Cyprian goddess laid; Take this, and with it all thy wish, she said: With smiles she took the charm; and smiling prest The powerful Cestus to her snowy breast.
POPE, II. xiv. 256.
Although people in general are more capable of judging right of beauty, at least in some parts of it, than they are of most other things; yet there are a great many causes apt to mislead the generality in their judgments of beauty. Thus if the affection is entirely engaged by any one object, a man is apt to allow all perfections to that person, and very little in comparison to any body else; or if they ever commend others highly, it is for some circumstance in which they bear some resemblance to their favourite object.
Again, people are very often misled in their judgements, by a similitude either of their own temper or personage in other. It is hence that a person of a mild temper is more apt to be pleased with the gentler passions in the face of his mistress: and one of a very lively turn would choose more of spirit and vivacity in his; that little people are inclined to prefer pretty women, and larger people majestic ones; and so on in a great variety of instances. This may be called falling in love with ourselves at second hand; and fell-love (whatever other love may be) is sometimes so false-fighted, that it may make the most plain, and even the most disagreeable things, seem beautiful and pleasing.
Sometimes an idea of usefulness may give a turn to our ideas of beauty; as the very same things are rec- Beauty, koned beauties in a coach horse which would be so many blemishes in a race horse.
But the greatest and most general misleader of our judgments, in relation to beauty, is custom, or the different national tastes for beauty, which turn chiefly on the two lower parts of it, colour and form.
It was from the most common shape of his country-women, that Rubens, in his pictures, delights so much in plumpness; not to give it a worse name. Whenever he was to represent the most beautiful women, he is sure to give them a good share of corpulence. It seems as if nobody could be a beauty with him under two hundred weight. His very Graces are all fat.
But this may go much farther than mere bulk; it will reach even to very great deformities; which sometimes grow into beauties, where they are habitual and general. One of our own countrymen (who was a particularly handsome man) in his travelling over the Alps, was detained by a fever in one of those villages, where every grown person has that sort of swellings in the neck which they call goitres; and of which some are very near as big as their heads. The first Sunday that he was able, he went to their church (for he was a Roman catholic) to return thanks to heaven for his recovery. A man of so good a figure, and so well drest, had probably never before been within the walls of that chapel. Every body's eyes were fixed upon him: and as they went out, they cried out loud enough for him to hear them, "O how completely handsome would that man be, if he had but a goitre!"
In some of the most military nations of Africa, no man is reckoned handsome that has not five or fix scars in his face. This custom might possibly at first be introduced among them to make them less afraid of wounds in that part in battle; but however that was, it grew at last to have so great a share in their idea of beauty, that they now cut and slash the faces of their poor little infants, in order to give them those graces, when they are grown up, which are so necessary to win the hearts of their mistresses; and which, with the assistance of some jewels or ingots of gold in their noses, ears, and lips, must certainly be irresistible to the ladies of that country.
The covering each cheek all over with a burning sort of red colour, has long been looked upon in a neighbouring country to be as necessary to render a fine lady's face completely beautiful, as these scars are for the beaux in Africa.
The natural complexion of the Italian ladies is of a higher glow than ours usually are; and yet Mr Addison is very just, in making a Numidian call the ladies of the same country pale unripened beauties.
The glowing dames of Zama's royal court Have faces flush'd with more exalted charms: The sun, that rolls his chariot o'er their heads, Works up more fire and colour in their cheeks: Were you with thee, my prince, you'd soon forget The pale unripen'd beauties of the north!
Syphax to Juba: in Cato, act i. scene 4.
The prince of Anamaboo, who had been so long and latterly so much used to the European complexion, yet said of a certain lady a little before he left London, "That she would be the most charming woman in the world if she was but a negro."
In an account of some of the farthest travels that any of our people have made up the river Gambia, we are informed, that when they came to some villages where probably no Europeans had ever been before, the women ran frightened and screaming from them, on taking them to be devils, merely on account of the whiteness of their complexion.
We cannot avoid observing, however, that heaven is very good and merciful to mankind, even in making us capable of all this variety of mistakes. If every person judged exactly right of beauty, every man that was in love in such a district, would be in love with the same woman. The superior beauty of each hamlet would be the object of the hate and malice of all the rest of her own sex in it, and the cause of diffusion and murders among all of the other. If this would hold in one town, it would hold for the same reasons in every other town or district; and of course there would be nothing more wanting than this universal right judgment of beauty, to render the whole world one continued scene of blood and misery.
But now that fancy has perhaps more to do with beauty than judgment, there is an infinity of tales, and consequently an infinity of beauty; for to the mind of the lover, supposed beauty is full as good as real. Every body may now choose out what happens to hit his own turn and cast. This increases the extent of beauty vastly, and makes it in a manner universal: for there are but few people in comparison that are truly beautiful; but every body may be beautiful in the imagination of some one or other. Some may delight themselves in a black skin, and others in a white; some in a gentle natural refine of complexion, others in a high exalted artificial red; some nations in waists disproportionably large, and others in waists as disproportionably small. In short, the most opposite things imaginable may each be looked upon as beautiful in whole different countries, or by different people in the same country.
We should perhaps make a distinction here again, as to the two former parts of beauty and the two latter. Fancy has much more to do in the articles of form and colour than in those of the passions and grace. The good passions, as they are visible on the face, are apparent goodnes; and that must be generally amiable: and true grace, wherever it appears to any degree, one should think must be pleasing to every human creature; or perhaps this may never appear in the women of any nation, where the men are grown so savage and brutal as to have lost all taste of it.
Yet even as to grace itself, under the notion of pleasingnes, it may become almost universal, and be as subject to the dominion of fancy as any of the less significant parts of beauty. A parent can see gentleness in the most awkward child perhaps that ever was born; and a person who is truly in love, will be pleased with every motion and air of the person beloved; which is the most distinguishing character that belongs to grace. It is true, this is all a mistaken grace; but as to that particular perfon, it has all the effects of the true.
Architecture, Painting, and other arts, is the harmony and justness of the whole composition taken together.