144 ^ESTHETICS OF THE UGLY. 



His essay " On the Esthetics of tlie Ugly " — the 

 most remarkable of all his contributions — was read in 

 the spring of 1853, and occupied two evenings. In 

 treating of the ugly, his aesthetic survey embraced 

 various types and forms in nature, also the senses of 

 smell, vision, and taste, as well as the physical ugli- 

 ness to be met with in man and brute. This striking 

 title — ^Esthetics of the Ugly — curiously enough had 

 been adopted the same year by Carl Eosenfranz in 

 his work — Aesthetik Des Hcisslichen— published at 

 Konigsberg in 1853. In many respects the views of 

 the Scot and German agreed, the work of the latter 

 being an amplification, or rather a treatise on the 

 subject, whilst the former had only glanced at the 

 general theory. Goodsir, like all men of true aesthetic 

 feeling, would readily mark any deviation from his 

 aesthetic standard, such as the inconsonant sounds, the 

 anormal lines, and every questionable antagonism to a 

 thing of beauty being a j oy for ever. All living things he 

 held to be more or less beautiful if looked upon in a pro- 

 per light. Thus the " ugly and venomous toad," as the 

 poet called it in respect to the popular dread, was in 

 his eyes, as in those of all men of cultivated taste, the 

 most beautiful of creatures, not as observed on the 

 table of the anatomist or in confined artificial areas, 

 but seen in its natural habitat on the grassy margin of 

 a pond, in close proximity to the grey lichened stones, 

 or under the umbrageous greenwood tree ; there the 

 animal could be viewed in its true aesthetic relations, 

 and specifically marked in high relief, with eyes 



