dant flowers, and rich glossy foliage, is perhaps, the most beautiful of all the hardier ever-green shrubs; but the bark of it is rugged, and the leaves, which like those of the rose, are sawed at the edges, have those edges pointed upwards, and clustering in spikes; and it may possibly be from that circumstance, and from the boughs having the same upright tendency, that Virgil calls it arbutus horrida, or, as it stands in some manuscripts, horrens. Among the foreign oaks, maples, &c. those are particularly esteemed, the leaves of which (according to a common, though perhaps contradictory phrase) are beautifully jagged.

The oriental plane has always been reckoned a tree of the greatest beauty: Xerxes's passion for one of them is well known, as also the high estimation they were held in by the Greeks and Romans. The surface of their leaves is smooth and glossy, and of a bright pleasant green; but they are so deeply indented, and so full of sharp angles, that the tree itself is often distinguished by the name of the true jagged oriental plane.

*

The vine leaf has, in all respects, a strong resemblance to the leaf of the plane; and that extreme richness of effect, which every body must be struck with in them both, is greatly owing to those sharp angles, to those sudden variations, so contrary to the idea of beauty when considered by itself. On the other hand, a cluster of fine grapes, in point of form, tint, and light and shadow, is a specimen of unmixed beauty; and the vine with its fruit, may be cited as one of the most striking instances of the union of the two characters, in which, however, that of beauty infinitely prevails: and who will venture to assert, that the charm of the whole would be greater, by separating them? by taking off all the angles and sharp points, and making the outline of the leaves, as round and flowing as that of the fruit? The effect of these jagged points and angles is more

*The leaf of the Burgundy vine is rough, and its inferiority, in point of beauty, to the smooth-leaved vines, is, I think, very apparent, and clearly owing to that circum

stance.

strongly marked in sculpture, especially in vases of metal; where the vine leaf, if imprudently handled, would at least prove that sharpness is very contrary to the beautiful in feeling; and the analogy between the two senses is surely very just. It may also be remarked, that in all such works sharpness of execution is a term of high praise.

*

I must here observe (and I must beg to

call the reader's attention to what in my idea throws a strong light on the whole of the subject) that almost all ornaments are rough, and most of them sharp, which is a mode of roughness; and, considered analogically, the most contrary to beauty of any mode. But as the ornaments are rough, so the ground is generally smooth; which shews, that though smoothness be the most essential quality of beauty, without which it can scarcely exist-yet that roughness, in its different modes and degrees, is the ornament, the fringe of beauty, that which gives it life and spirit, and preserves it from baldness and insipidity.

A moment's consideration indeed will

shew us, that the obvious, the only process in ornamenting any smooth surface, independently of colour, must be that of making it less smooth, that is, comparatively rough: there must be different degrees of roughness, of sharpness, of projections; and this is the character of those ornaments that have been admired for ages. The column is smooth; the ornamental part, the capital is rough: the facing of a building smooth, the frize and cornice rough and suddenly projecting: it is so in vases, in embroidery, in every thing that admits of ornament; and as ornament is the most prominent and striking part of a beautiful whole, it is frequently taken for the most essential part, and obtains the first place in descriptions. Thus Virgil in speaking of a part of dress highly ornamented says,

Pallam gemmis auroque rigentem.

And Dryden in the same spirit, when describing the cup that contained the heart of Guiscard calls it,

A goblet rich with gems, and rough with gold.

A plain stone building, may not only be very beautiful, but by many persons be thought peculiarly so from its simplicity; but were an architect to decorate the shafts, as well as the capitals of his columns, and all the smooth stone work of his house or temple, there are few people who would not be sensible of the difference between a beautiful building, and one richly ornamented. This, in my mind, is the spirit of that famous reproof of Apelles (among all the painters of antiquity the most renowned for beauty) to one of his scholars who was loading a Helen with ornaments; Young man," said he, "not being able to paint her beautiful, you have made her rich."

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All that has just been said on the effect, which, in objects of sight, a due proportion of roughness and sharpness gives to smoothness, as likewise on the danger of making these two qualities too predominant, may, I think, be very aptly illustrated by means of another sense. Discords in music, which are analagous to