66 Nolices respecting New Books. 
milion, and other sharp colours, had not any body, and did not 
hold for a long time, observing that those who employed them 
did not work for immortality. 
These lively colours are in reality too pure: to give them body 
and consistence, and at the same time to imitate nature—beau- 
tiful nature—they should be soiled, 
From all these observations I am of opinion, that to paint and 
dye with effect, or, in a word, to colour scientifically and on re- 
gular principles, such as I think are here developed or sketched. 
by me, all the reds, such as lake, carmine, and vermilion, the 
red brown, minium even, should be taken in the mass, and by 
their admixture an universal red produced. 
The just proportions of this mixture would be found by de- 
grees, and indeed very soon.- It would certainly form a very 
fine red—an intermediate red, tempered, primitive, full, em- 
bodied, harmonious, certain, ard durable. I, am led to think 
that the brown red should predominate, and constitute its body 
and principal basis. 
The same may be tried on the blues and yellows: there would 
thus be three good colours, from which all descriptions of pure 
and dingy tints of colouring would be produced, by blending 
them two by two, or all the three. 
A dark colour bordering on black might even be procured by 
this mixture; and who knows but that a white, or whitish gray, 
may not be formed by blending certain colours naturally clear, 
such as are to be found among the yellows, and even in a certain 
degree among the reds? 
From art let us proceed to nature. I have observed that the 
greater part of the colours employed by her wisely sparing 
hand are also dingy colours, into the composition. of which 
many kinds of colours enter. It is very rare to find in flowers, 
in shells, and more particularly in animals, true simple colours, 
or which do not result from the mixture of more than two sim- 
ple cclours, : 
This fact being once ascertained, it was not difficult for me to 
enter into the reasons ofnature. In the first place, the physical 
and practical reason is the same as I have before-assigned, that 
every thing on the earth, and within the earth, is much blended; 
and that all bodies, plants, minerals, and animals, are in reality 
mixed. 
But the causes of design, the final causes of nature, or of her 
all-wise Author, merit at least as much or still greater attention. 
The pure colours are yery limited in their number, the dingy 
colours are much more extensive, and form a much greater va- 
*iety—the only source of our delight. 
It is in this way that the verdure of the plains, which may be 
thought 
