ESSA YS CIVIL AND MORAL. 69 



XL1II. OF BEAUTY. 



Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set : and surely virtue is best 

 in a body that is comely, though not of delicate features ; and that 

 hath rather dignity of presence, than beauty of aspect. Neither is it 

 almost seen, that very beautiful persons are otherwise of great virtue. 

 As if nature were rather busy not to err, than in labour to produce 

 excellency. And therefore they prove accomplished, but not of great 

 spirit; and study rather behaviour than virtue. But this holds not 

 always ; for Augustus Caesar, Titus Vespasianus, Philip le Bel of 

 France, Edward the Fourth of England, Alcibiades of Athens, Ismacl 

 the sophi of Persia, were all high and great spirits ; and yet the most 

 beautiful men of their times. In beauty, that of favour is more than 

 that of colour : and that of decent and gracious motion more than that 

 of favour. That is the best part of beauty, which a picture cannot 

 express : no, nor the first sight of the life. There is no excellent beauty, 

 that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. A man cannot 

 tell whether Apelles or Albert Durer were the more triflcr ; whereof 

 the one would make a personage by geometrical proportions ; the 

 other, by taking the best parts out of divers faces, to make one excel 

 lent. Such personages, I think, would please nobody but the painter 

 that made them. Not but I think a painter may make a better face 

 than ever was ; but he must do it by a kind of felicity, as a musician 

 that maketh an excellent air in music, and not by rule. A man shnll 

 see faces, that if you examine them part by part, you shall never find 

 a good ; and yet altogether do well. If it be true, that the principal 

 part of beauty is in decent motion, certainly, it is no marvel, though 

 persons in years seem many times more amiable ; &quot; pulchrorum autum- 

 nus pulchcr :&quot; for no youth can be comely but by pardon, and con 

 sidering the youth, as to make up the comeliness. Beauty is as 

 summer fruits, which are easy to corrupt, and cannot last : and for the 

 most part it makes a dissolute youth, and an age a little out of counte 

 nance ; but yet certainly again, if it light well, it maketh virtues shine, 

 and vices blush. 



XLIV. OF DEFORMITY. 



Deformed persons are commonly even with nature ; for as nature 

 hath done ill by them, so do they by nature ; being for the most part, 

 as the Scripture saith, &quot;void of natural affection :&quot; and so they have 

 their revenge of nature. Certain there is a consent between the body 

 and the mind, and where nature crreth in the one, she venturcth in 

 the other. &quot; Ubi peccat in uno, pcriclitatur in altero. * But because 

 there is in man an election touching the frame of his mind, and n 

 necessity in the frame of his body, the stars of natural inclination are 

 sometimes obscured by the sun of discipline and virtue : therefore it is 

 iflood to consider of deformity, not as a sign which is more dcccivablc, 

 but as a cause which seldom faileth of the effect. Whosoever hath 

 anything fixed in his p- rson that doth induce contempt, hath ;ilso a 



