differ very widely from the proportions of others, in parts very confpicuous, and of great confideration; and that they differ no lefs from the proportions we find in living men, of forms extremely striking and agreeable. And after all, how are the partizans of proportional beauty agreed amongst themselves about the proportions of the human body fome hold it to be feven heads; fome make it eight; whilft others extend it even to ten; a vaft difference in fuch a fmall number of divifions! Others take other methods of eftimating the proportions, and all with equal fuccefs. But are these proportions exactly the fame in all handsome men? or are they at all the proportions found in beautiful women? nobody will fay that they are; yet both fexes are undoubtedly capable of beauty, and the female of the greatest; which advantage I believe will hardly be attributed to the fuperior exactness of proportion in the fair sex. Let us rest a moment on this point; and confider how much difference there is between the measures that prevail in many fimilar parts of the body, in the two fexes of this fingle species only. If you affign any determinate proportions to the limbs of a man, and if you limit human beauty to these proportions, when you find a woman who differs in the make and meafures of almost every part, you must conclude her not to be beautiful, in spite of the fuggeftions of your imagination; or, in obedience to your imagination, you must renounce your rules; you must lay by the fcale and compafs, and look out for some other cause of beauty. For if beauty be attached to certain measures which operate from a principle in nature, why should fimilar parts with different measures of proportion be found to have beauty, and this too in the very fame fpecies? but to open our view a little, it is worth obferving, that almost all animals have parts of very much the same nature, and destined nearly to the fame purposes; an head, neck, body,

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body, feet, eyes, ears, nofe, and mouth; yet Providence, to provide in the best manner for their several wants, and to difplay the riches of his wisdom and goodness in his creation, has worked out of these few and fimilar organs, and members, a diversity hardly short of infinite in their disposition, measures, and relation. But, as we have before observed, amidst this infinite diversity, one particular is common to many fpecies; feveral of the individuals which compofe them are capable of affecting us with a sense of loveliness; and whilst they agree in producing this effect, they differ extremely in the relative measures of thofe parts which have produced it. These confiderations were fufficient to induce me to reject the notion of any particular proportions that operated by nature to produce a pleasing effect; but those who will agree with me with regard to a particular proportion, are strongly prepoffeffed in favour of one more indefinite. They imagine, that although beauty in general is annexed to no certain measures common to the feveral kinds of pleafing plants and animals; yet that there is a certain proportion in each species abfolutely effential to the beauty of that particular kind. If we confider the animal world in general, we find beauty confined to no certain measures; but as fome peculiar measure and relation of parts is what distinguishes each peculiar clafs of animals, it must of neceffity be, that the beautiful in each kind will be found in the measuresand proportions of that kind; for otherwife it would de-. viate from its proper fpecies, and become in some fort monftrous: however, no fpecies is fo ftrictly confined to any. certain proportions, that there is not a confiderable variation amongst the individuals; and as it has been shewn of the human, fo it may be fhewn of the brute kinds, that beauty is found indifferently in all the proportions which each kind can admit, without quitting its common form; and it is this.

idea of a common form that makes the proportion of parts at all regarded, and not the operation of any natural cause: indeed a little confideration will make it appear, that it is not measure but manner that creates all the beauty which belongs to shape. What light do we borrow from these boafted proportions, when we ftudy ornamental design? It feems amazing to me, that artifts, if they were as well convinced as they pretend to be, that proportion is a principal cause of beauty, have not by them at all times accurate meafurements of all forts of beautiful animals to help them to proper proportions, when they would contrive any thing elegant, especially as they frequently affert, that it is from an observation of the beautiful in nature they direct their practice. I know that it has been faid long fince, and echoed backward and forward from one writer to another a thoufand times, that the proportions of building have been taken from thofe of the human body. To make this forced analogy complete, they represent a man with his arms raifed and extended at full length, and then describe a fort of fquare, as it is formed by paffing lines along the extremities of this ftrange figure. But it appears very clearly to me, that the human figure never fupplied the architect with any of his ideas. For in the first place, men are very rarely feen in this ftrained pofture; it is not natural to them; neither is it at all becoming. Secondly, the view of the human figure fo difpofed, does not naturally fuggeft the idea of a fquare, but rather of a crofs; as that large space between the arms and the ground, must be filled with fomething before it can make any body think of a fquare. Thirdly, feveral buildings are by no means of the form of that particular square, which are notwithstanding planned by the best architects, and produce an effect altogether as good, and perhaps a better. And certainly nothing could be more unaccountably

countably whimfical, than for an architect to model his performance by the human figure, fince no two things can have lefs refemblance or analogy, than a man, and an house or temple: do we need to obferve, that their purposes are entirely different? What I am apt to fufpect is this: that thefe analogies were devifed to give a credit to the works of art, by shewing a conformity between them and the nobleft works in nature; not that the latter ferved at all to fupply hints for the perfection of the former. And I am the more fully convinced, that the patrons of proportion have transferred their artificial ideas to nature, and not borrowed from thence the proportions they use in works of art; because in any difcuffion of this fubject they always quit as foon as poffible the open field of natural beauties, the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and fortify themfelves within the artificial lines and angles of architecture. For there is in mankind an unfortunate propensity to make themselves, their views, and their works, the measure of excellence in every thing whatsoever. Therefore having obferved that their dwellings were most commodious and firm when they were thrown into regular figures, with parts answerable to each other; they transferred thefe ideas to their gardens; they turned their trees into pillars, pyramids, and obelisks; they formed their hedges into fo many green walls, and fashioned the walks into fquares, triangles, and other mathematical figures, with exactness and fymmetry; and they thought, if they were not imitating, they were at least improving nature, and teaching her to know her bufinefs. But nature has at last escaped from their difcipline and their fetters; and our gardens, if nothing else, declare, we begin to feel that mathematical ideas are not the true measures of beauty. And furely they are full as little fo in the animal, as the vegetable world. For is it not extraordinary, that in these

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fine descriptive pieces, these innumerable odes and elegies which are in the mouths of all the world, and many of which have been the entertainment of ages, that in these pieces which defcribe love with fuch a paffionate energy, and reprefent its object in fuch an infinite variety of lights, not one word is faid of proportion, if it be, what some insist it is, the principal component of beauty; whilft at the fame time, feveral other qualities are very frequently and warmly mentioned? But if proportion has not this power, it may appear odd how men came originally to be so prepoffeffed in its favour. It arofe, I imagine, from the fondness I have just mentioned, which men bear so remarkably to their own works and notions; it arofe from false reasonings on the effects of the customary figure of animals; it arose from the Platonic theory of fitness and aptitude. For which reason, in the next fection, I fhall confider the effects of cuftom in the figure of animals; and afterwards the idea of fitnefs: fince if proportion does not operate by a natural power attending some measures, it must be either by custom, or the idea of utility; there is no other way.

SE C T. V. ·

PROPORTION FURTHER CONSIDERED..

F I am not mistaken, a great deal of the prejudice in IF favour of proportion has arifen, not fo much from the obfervation of any certain measures found in beautiful bodies, as from a wrong idea of the relation which deformity bears to beauty, to which it has been confidered as the oppofite; on this principle it was concluded, that where the caufes of deformity were removed, beauty muft naturally and neceffarily.

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