On "Painting. 313 



the duty of the artift to fafhion beautiful forms ; as of a man, 

 not any particular one is to be taken as a model, but he is 

 bound to enter into the reafons of art, and produce a perfect 

 affemblage of beauty. 



Something further than manual labour is necevTary, other- 

 wife we may miflake feeing and hearing for underftanding. 



Some ignorantlv miftake magnitude for greatnefs ; but if 

 bulk is beautiful as bulk, it mult follow that active reafon, 

 which is not bulk, is not beautiful. But the contrary is the 

 fact, and fine works of art derive their excellence from reafon 

 infufed and exiting in matter. 



It is from initiating the true end of art that many fall into 

 painting large pictures, fuppofing what is big muft alfo be 

 great in art; whilft others, from an excefs of vanity, give 

 their figures a gigantic proportion — highly improper in what 

 may be termed chamber pictures. Wrong or bad taftes de- 

 light in things monitrous. The excefs of Nero was fhown 

 in his ordering a picture of himfelf to be painted on cloth 

 120 feet high, which was fet up in the gardens of Marius; 

 in his golden palaces; and in his gilding fome fine {tames*. 



The love and admiration of beauty is implanted in our na- 

 tures by the great Firft Caufe, and we are carried to it by 

 an impulfe irreiittible; its influence is powerful; it tranfports 

 the fenfes beyond what is ufual, and, if its continuance be 

 long, is accompanied with melancholy, and a filent fadnefs. 



i She never told her ! ove, 



But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, 



Feed on her darnaik check : fhe pi n'd in thought, 



And, with a green and yellow melancholy, 



She fat like Patience on a monument 



Smiling at Grief ShaKSPEARE. 



Though the above is one of the effects caufed by beauty, 

 vet we wifli to be underftood as diftinguifhing between the 

 Satisfaction we feel upon contemplating any thing beautiful, 

 of whatever kind it may be, and that paflion of the mind 

 arifing from defire or luft. 



Many definitions of beauty have been attempted. Johnfon 

 calls it " that ailemblage of graces or proportion of 'parts 

 which pleafes the eye." Locke, " a certain compofition of 

 colour and figure, caufing delight to the beholder." A third, 

 <c perfection. . The two former appear to come much nearer 

 truth than the latter; for, if beauty was perfection, the toad 

 muft be beautiful, it being equally perfect with the reft of 

 creation. 



'•' f think it was Caligula that detefted the works of Virgil, and lamented 

 he did not live in his time, that he might have had the pleafure of putting, 

 him to death. 



P Z Fancy 



