363 



spite of its smoothness; or, to use his own 

 expression,would supply the room of rough- 

 ness. 



Speaking of the plumage of birds *, 

 " nothing," he says, '* can be softer, 

 nothing smoother to the touch; yet it cer- 

 tainly is picturesque/' He then observes, 

 " it is not the smoothness of the surface 

 which produces the effect ; it is not this we 

 admire ; it is the breaking of the colours ; 

 it is the bright green or purple, changing 

 perhaps into a rich azure or velvet black ; 

 from thence taking a semitint, and so on 

 through all the varieties of colours : or if 

 the colour be not changeable, it is the har- 

 mony we admire in these elegant little, 

 touches of nature's pencil." 



It is singular that the colours of birds, 

 and particularly those of a changeable kind* 

 from which Mr. Burke has taken some of 

 his happiest illustrations of the beautiful, 

 should, by Mr. Gilpin, not only be cited as 

 sources of the picturesque, but as so 



* Essay on Picturesque Beauty, page 2S. 

 B B 2 



