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seems to me that, according to the spirit of 

 both these writers, beauty, as a distinct cha- 

 racter, may be said more generally to arise 

 from soft insensible transitions than from 

 any other cause; and that this circumstance 

 of insensible transition, (which cannot be 

 expressed by any one word) is the most 

 comprehensive principle of visible beauty 

 in its strictest acceptation : as not being 

 confined to lines or curves of any kind , and 

 as extending, not only to form, but to co- 

 lour, to light and shadow, and to every com- 

 bination of them ; that is, to all visible na- 

 ture. Smoothness and flowing lines do 

 most commonly produce insensible transi- 

 tions; and it is chiefly on that account that 

 they are principles of beauty: but if partial 

 and comparative roughness and aliruptness, 

 as is frequently the case in the wooded banks 

 ofrivers ; should more effectually promote that 

 end, whoever destroys them, and makes th$ 

 whole smooth and flowing, will destroy the 

 component parts of beauty. For instance, 

 a f bank of mowed, or of closely-bitten grass, 

 is clearly much smoother than one, on 



