BEAUTY. 



fefiltiry. bear them arc most engagingly attired, notwithstand- 

 ...i- r v ,, jyg this disproportion: Wliat, by general consent, 

 is allowed to be a more beautiful object than an 

 orange tree, flourishing at once with its leaves, its 

 blossoms, and its Fruit ? but it is in vain that we 

 Search for any proportion between the height, the 

 breadth, or any thing else concerning the dimensions 

 of the whole, or concerning the relation of the par- 

 ticular parts to each other. 



That proportion has but a small share in the for- 

 mation of beauty, is fully as evident among animals. 

 Here the greatest variety of shapes, and dispropor- 

 tions of parts, are well fitted to excite this idea. 

 " The swan," remarks Mr" Burke, " confessedly a 

 beautiful bird, lias a neck longer than the rest of his 

 body, and but a very short tail : is this a beautiful 

 proportion ? We must allow that it is. But then what 

 shall we say to the peacock, who has comparatively 

 but a short neck, and a tail longer than the neck and 

 the rest of the body taken together ? Turn next to 

 beasts ; examine the head of a beautiful horse ; find 

 What proportion that bears to the rest of his body, 

 afad to his limbs ; and what relations these have to 

 each other ; and when you have settled these propor- 

 tions as a standard of beauty, then take a dog or 

 tat, or any other animal, and examine how far the 

 same proportions between the heads and their neck, 

 between those and the body, and so on, are found to 

 hold. I think we may safely say, that they differ in 

 every species ; yet that there are individuals found in 

 a great many species so differing, that have a very 

 striking beauty. Now, if it is to be allowed," adds 

 our author, " that very different, and even contrary, 

 forms and dispositions are consistent with beauty, it 

 amounts, I believe, to a concession, that no certain 

 measures operating from a natural principle, are ne- 

 cessary to produce it, at least so far as the brute 

 species are concerned." Sublime and Beautiful, 

 Part iii. Sect. 3. 



The idea that the beauty of the human species de- 

 pends upon certain determinate proportions has been 

 carried so far, that artists will tell us how many 

 heads go to the length of the body, how many wrists 

 to the neck, or how many noses to the face. But 

 the diversity that takes place in their various esti- 

 mates, sufficiently shews the fallacy of their doctrine. 

 Some hold a well proportioned body to be seven 

 heads ; some make it eight, while others extend it 

 even to ten. If we examine the master pieces of an- 

 cient and modern statuary, we shall find them for the 

 most part differing from these established rules, and 

 also from one another in the proportions of their 

 parts ; while they differ no less from the propor- 

 tions that we find in living men, of forms extremely 

 Striking and agreeable. '< The Hercules, by Glicon," 

 says Mr Hogarth, " hath all its parts finely fitted for 

 the purposes of the utmost strength the texture of the 

 human figure will bear ; the back, breast, and shoul- 

 ders, have huge bones, and muscles adequate to the 

 Supposed active strength of its upper parts; but as 

 rengtli was required for the lower parts, the 

 judicious sculptor, contrary to all modern rule of en- 

 larging every part in proportion, lessened the size of 

 the muscles gradually down towards the feet ; and, 

 for the same reason, made the neck larger in circum 



VOL. Hi. PAHT II. 



377 



ference than any part of the head; otherwise the 

 figure would have been burdened with an unnecessary 

 weight, which would have been a drawback from his 

 strength, and, in consequence of that, from its cha- 

 racteristic beauty. These seeming faults, which shew 

 the superior anatomical knowledge as well as judgment 

 of the ancients, are not to be found in the leaden imi- 

 tations of it near Hyde Park. These saturnine geniuses 

 imagined they knew how to correct such apparent 

 disproportions." Analysis of Beauty, chap. ii. 



The doctrine that beauty consists in determi- 

 nate proportions, seems to have been derived from 

 architecture; it being found that dwellings are most 

 commodious and firm, when thrown into regular fi- 

 gures, with parts answerable to each other. This idea 

 was transferred to our old-fashioned gardens, where 

 trees were turned into pillars, pyramids, and obelisks ; 

 hedges were formed into so many green walls, and 

 walks fashioned into squares, triangles, and other 

 mathematical figures, with the utmost exactness and 

 symmetry. And thus it was thought, that if we 

 were not imitating, we were at least improving na- 

 ture, and teaching her to know her business. But 

 nature has at last escaped from these fetters ; and 

 our gardens, if nothing else, declare our conviction, 

 that mathematical ideas are not the true measures of 

 beauty. Even in architecture it is not any determi- 

 nate principles of proportion, so much as the notion 

 of stability and commodiousness, and of the adaptation 

 of the means to the proposed end, that fixes the form 

 and measures of any particular building. Thus there 

 is one proportion of a tower, another of a house, one 

 proportion of a gallery, another of a hall, another 

 of a chamber; and to judge of the proportions of 

 each, we must first be acquainted with the purposes 

 for which they were designed. 



This leads us to notice that theory of the beauti- 

 ful, which resolves it into the perception of utility, 

 or of an object being well adapted to answer the par- 

 ticular end for which it was intended; a doctrine 

 which has had no less general an extent than the 

 theory of proportion. Utility, or fitness for some im- 

 portant purpose, is doubtless a quality in tilings 

 which we always contemplate with complacency and 

 approbation ; but it is a quality which may very 

 readily be discriminated from beauty. On this prin- 

 ciple, as Mr Burke remarks, " the wedge-like snout 

 of a swine, with its tough cartilage at the end, the 

 little sunk eyes, and the whole make of the head, so well 

 adapted to its offices of digging and rooting, would 

 be extremely beautiful. The great bag hanging to the 

 bill of a pelican, a thing highly useful to tins animal, 

 would be likewise as beautiful in>our eyes. The 

 hedgehog, so well secured against all assaults by his 

 prickly hide, and the porcupine with his missile 

 quills, would be then considered as creatures of no 

 small elegance. There are few animals,'' adds he, 

 " whose parts are better contrived than those of a 

 monkey; he has the hands of a man, joined to the 

 springy limbs of a beast ; he is admirably calculated 

 for running, leaping, grappling, and climbing ; and ' 

 yet there are few animals which seem to have less 

 beauty in the eyes of all mankind. I need say little 

 of the trunk of t"ae elephant, of such various useful- 

 ness, and which is so far from contributing to his 

 3jb 



Beauty. 



