Bcdiitics and Principles of the Ail 



29 



turesque: or, lo speak more definitely, the beauty Hiarac- 

 terized by simple and flowing forms, and that expressed by 

 striking, irregular, spirited forms. 



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FIG. 5. THE BEAUTIFUL AS ILLUSTRATED BY MR. DOWNING 



The admirer of nature, as well as the lover of pictures and 

 engravings, will at once call to mind examples of scenery 

 distinctly expressive of each of these kinds of beauty. In 

 nature, perhaps some gently undulating plain, covered with 

 emerald turf, partially or entirely encompassed by rich, 

 rolling outlines of forest canopy, - - its wildest expanse here 

 broken occasionally, by noble groups of round-headed trees, 

 or there interspersed with single specimens whose trunks 

 support heads of foliage flowing in outline, or drooping in 

 masses to the very turf beneath them. In such a scene we 

 often behold the azure of heaven, and its silvery clouds, as 

 well as the deep verdure of the luxuriant and shadowy 

 branches, reflected in the placid bosom of a sylvan lake; the 

 shores of the latter swelling out, and receding, in 



