with White; and diffused, in its due Proportions, through each Part of the Body. Such are the De scriptions of a most beautiful Skin, in [b] several of the Roman Poets; and such often is the Coloring of Titian, and particularly, in his fleeping Venus, or whatever other Beauty that charming Piece was meant to represent.

The Reason why thefe Colors please so much is not only their natural Livelinefs, nor the much greater Charms they obtain from their being proper ly blended together, but is alfo owing in fome Degree to the Idea they carry with them of good Health [c]; without which, all Beauty grows languid and lefs engaging; and with which it always recovers an additional Life and Luftre.

[b] Thus Virgil, in the Blush of his Lavinia;
Accepit vocem lacrymis Lavinia matris,
Flagrantes perfufa genas; cui plurimus ignem
Subjecit rubor, & calefacta per ora cucurrit :
Indum fanguineo veluti violaverit of ro
Si quis ebur, aut mixta rubent ubi lilia multâ
Alba rosâ ; tales virgo dabat ore colores.
Ovid, in his Narciffus ;

Impubefque genas, et eburnea colla, decufque
Oris ; & in niveo miftum candore ruborem.
And Tibullus, in his Apollo;

Candor erat, qualem præfert Latonia luna ';

Et color in niveo corpore purpureus.

Ut juveni primum virgo deducta marito
Inficitur teneras ore rubente genas :

Ut quum contexunt amaranthis alba puellæ
Lilia; & autumno candida mala rubent.

Æn. xii. 69.

Met. iii. 423.

Lib. ii. El. 3. 11.

[c] Venuftas et pulchritudo corporis fecerni non poteft à valetudine.

Cicero de Officiis, lib. i. § 95.

As

As to the Color of the Face in particular, a great deal of its Beauty is owing (befide the Caufes I have already mentioned) to Variety; that being defigned by Nature for the greatest Concourfe of different Colors, of any Part in the human Body. Colors please by Oppofition; and it is in the Face that they are the most diversified, and the most opposed.

You would laugh out perhaps, if I was to tell you, that the fame Thing, which makes a fine Evening, makes a fine Face (I mean as to the particular Part of Beauty I am now speaking of); and yet this, I believe, is very true.

The Beauty of an Evening Sky, about the Setting of the Sun, is owing to the Variety of Colors that are fcattered along the Face of the Heavens. It is the fine red. Clouds, intermixed with white, and fometimes darker ones, with the azure Bottom appearing here and there between them, which makes all that beautiful Compofition, that delights the Eye fo much, and gives fuch a ferene Pleasure to the Heart. In the fame Manner, if you confider fome beautiful Faces, you may obferve, that it is much the fame Variety of Colors, which gives them that pleasing Look; which is fo apt to attract the Eye, and but too often to engage the Heart. For all this Sort of Beauty is refolvable into a proper Variation of Flesh Color and Red, with the clear Blueness of the Veins pleafingly intermixed about the Temples and the Going off of the Cheeks, and fet off by the

Shades

Shades of full Eyebrows; and of the Hair, when it falls in a proper Manner round the Face.

It is for much the fame Reafon, that the beft Landscape-painters have been generally observed to chufe the autumnal Part of the Year for their Pieces, rather than the Spring. They prefer the Variety of Shades and Colors, though in their Decline, to all their Freshness and Verdure in their Infancy; and think all the Charms and Livelinefs even of the Spring more than compenfated by the Choice, Oppofition, and Richness of Colors, that appear almoft on every Tree in the Autumn.

Though one's Judgment is so apt to be guided by fome particular Attachments (and that more perhaps in this Part of Beauty than any other) yet I am a good deal perfuaded, that a complete brown Beauty is really preferable to a perfect fair one; the bright Brown giving a Luftre to all the other Colors, a Vivacity to the Eyes, and a Richness to the whole Look, which one feeks in vain in the whiteft and moft tranfparent Skins. Raphael's most charming Madonna is a brunette Beauty; and his earlier Madonna's (those I mean of his middle Stile) are generally of a lighter and lefs pleafing Complexion. All the beft Artists in the nobleft Age of Painting, about Leo the Tenth's Time, ufed this deeper and richer Kind of coloring; and I fear one might add, that the glaring Lights introduced by Guido, went a great Way toward the Declenfion of that Art; as the enfeebling of the Colors by Carlo Marat (or, if you please

pleafe, by his Followers) hath fince almoft completed the Fall of it in Italy.

I have but one thing more to mention, before [ quit this Head; that I should chufe to comprehend fome Things under this Article of Color, which are not perhaps commonly meant by that Name. As that appearing Softnefs or Silkinefs of fome Skins ; that [d] Magdalen-look in fome fine Faces, after weeping; that Brightness, as well as Tint, of the Hair; that Luftre of Health, that fhines forth upon the Features; that Luminoufnefs that appears in some Eyes, and that fluid Fire, or Glistening, in others: Some of which are of a Nature so much fuperior to the common Beauties of Color, that they make it doubtful whether they should not have been ranked under a higher Class; and referved for the Expreffion of the Paffions; but I would willingly give every thing it's Due, and therefore mention them here; because I think even the most doubtful of them belong partly to this Head, as well as partly to the other.

FORM takes in the Turn of each Part, as well as the Symmetry of the whole Body, even to the Turn

[d] The Look here meant is most frequently expreft by the best Painters in their Magdalens; in which, if there were no Tears on the Face, you would see, by the humid Redness of the Skin, that she had been weeping extremely. There is a very strong Inftance of this in a Magdalen by Le Brun, in one of the Churches at Paris; and feveral by Titian, in Italy'; the very best of which is at the Barberiga Palace at Venice: In fpeaking of which, Rofalba hardly went too far, when the faid, "It wept all over;" or (in the very Words the ufed) "Elle "pleure jufqu' aux bouts de doigts.”

of

1

of an Eyebrow, or the Falling of the Hair. I should think too, that the Attitude, while fixt, ought to be reckoned under this Article: By which I do not only mean the Pofture of the Perfon, but the Pofition of each Part; as the Turning of the Neck, the extending of the Hand, the Placing of a Foot; and fo on to the most minute Particulars.

The general Caufe of Beauty in the Form or Shape in both Sexes is a Proportion, or an Union and Harmony [e], in all Parts of the Body.

The diftinguishing Character of Beauty in the Female Form, is Delicacy and Softness; and in the Male, either apparent Strength, or Agility.

The finest Exemplars that can be seen for the former, is the Venus of Medici; and for the Two latter, the Hercules Farnefe and the Apollo Belvedere.

There is one thing indeed in the laft of these Figures, which exceed the Bounds of our prefent En. quiry; what I have heard an Italian Artist call Il foura umano; and what we may call the Tranfcendent, or Celestial [f]. 'Tis fomething diftinct from

[] Pulchritudo corporis aptâ compofitione membrorum movet ocules ; & delectat hoc ipfo, quòd inter fe omnes partes quodam lepore confentiunt. Cicero de Off. lib. i. § 91.

[f] This is mentioned, or hinted at, by feveral of the Roman Writers:

Humanam fupra formam.

Phædrus, lib. iv. f. 23.

Forma nifi in veras non cadit illa Deas.

Ovid. Her. Epift. xviii, 68.

all