just sense of the word, could not be the con- 

 stant result of it. That quality must be 

 confined to such statues as represent young 

 and graceful persons; and those, indeed, are 

 the most perfect illustrations of Sir Joshua's 

 ideas of the beautiful. 



But, again, as such statues display, in an 

 eminent degree, the qualities which Mr. 

 Burke has assigned to beauty, they are 

 also the most perfect illustrations of his sys- 

 tem :* it therefore appears very plainly, that 

 when the models, to which both these emi- 

 nent judges would certainly have referred 

 their notions of perfect beauty, are analys- 

 ed, those notions are found to coincide : 

 and the only difference between them is, 



* I lately hit upon a passage that I had not remarked 

 before, in which Sir Joshua considers flowing lines as essen- 

 tial to beauty, and as being, in a manner, the characteris- 

 tic marks of it. The passage is in his 56th Note on Du 

 Hresnoi 5 he there says, " a flowing outline is recommended 

 " because beauty (which alone is nature) cannot be pro- 

 a duced without it : old age or leanness produces strait 

 a lines ; corpulency round lines ; but in a state ol health ac- 

 <*: companying youth, the outlines are waving, flowing, and 

 " serpentine." 



