The old Heathens used to cover the finest Statues. of their Gods all over with long Robes on their greateft Festivals: What a Figure would the Venus of Medici, or the Apollo Belvedere, make, in such a Drefs?

I do not, to this Day, know, whether the famous Lady of Loretto be well or ill fhaped; for, though I have seen her feveral times, I have never feen her without a fort of Hoop-petticoat, very much stiffened with Pearls and Jewels, and reaching all down her Body; quite from her Neck, to her Feet. Queen Elizabeth might have been well-fhaped to as little Purpose, or ill-shaped with as much Security, in the vaft Fardingal and pufft Robes, that we generally fee her fwell'd out with, in her Pictures.

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And we do not only thus, in a great Measure, hide Beauty; but even injure, and kill it, by fome Parts of our Drefs. A Child is no fooner born into the World, than it is bound up, almoft as firmly as an old Egyptian Mummy, in feveral Folds of Linen. It is in vain for him to give all the Signs of Diftrefs that Nature has put in his Power, to fhew how much he suffers whilft they are thus imprisoning his Limbs; or all the Signs of Joy, every Time they are fet at Liberty. In a few Minutes, the old Witch, who prefides over his infirmeft Days, falls to tormenting him afresh, and winds him up again in his destined Confinement. When he comes to be dreft like a Man, he has Ligatures applied to his Arms,

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Arms, Legs, and Middle, in fhort, all over him; to prevent the natural Circulation of his Blood, and make him less active and healthy; and if it be a Child of the tenderer Sex, fhe must be bound yet more ftreightly about the Waist and Stomach; to acquire a Difproportion, that Nature never meant in her Shape. I have heard a very nice Critic in Beauty fay, that he was never well acquainted with any Woman in England, that was not, in fome Degree, crooked; and I have often heard another Gentleman, that has been much in Africa, and in the Indies, affert, that he never faw any black Woman, that was crooked. The Reason, no Doubt, is, that they keep to Nature; whereas our Ladies choose to be shaped by the Staymaker.

THE Two other conftituent Parts of Beauty, are, Expreffion and Grace: The former of which, is common to all Perfons and Faces; and the latter, is to be met with but in very few.

BY Expreffion, I mean the Expreffion of the Paffions; the Turns and Changes of the Mind, fo far as they are made visible to the Eye, by our Looks or Gestures.

Though the Mind appears principally in the Face, and Attitudes of the Head; yet every Part almoft of the human Body, on some Occasion or other, may become expreffive. Thus the languishing Hanging

of

of the Arm, or the vehement Exertion of it; the Pain expreffed by the Fingers of one of the Sons in the famous Group of Laocoon, and in the Toes of the dying Gladiator. But this again is often loft among us by our Drefs; and indeed is of the less Concern, because the Expreffion of the Paffions paffes chiefly in the Face, which we (by good Luck) have not as yet concealed.

The Parts of the Face in which the Paffions moft frequently make their Appearance, are the Eyes, and Mouth; but from the Eyes, they diffuse themfelves (very strongly) about the Eyebrows; as, in the other Cafe, they appear often in the Parts all round the Mouth.

Philofophers may dispute, as much as they please, about the Seat of the Soul; but, where-ever it refides, I am fure that it speaks in the Eyes.

I do not know, whether I have not injured the Eyebrows, in making them only Dependants on the Eye; for they, especially in lively Faces, have, as it were, a Language of their own; and are extremely varied, according to the different Sentiments and Paffions of the Mind.

I have sometimes obferved a Degree of Displeafure in a Lady's Eyebrow, when she had Addrefs enough not to let it appear in her Eyes; and at other Times have discovered fo much of her Thoughts, in the Line just above her Eyebrows; that she has been

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been amazed how any body could tell what paffed in her Mind, and as the thought undiscovered by her Face, fo particularly and distinctly.

Homer makes the Eyebrows the Seat of [i] Majefty, Virgil of [k] Dejection, Horace of [] Modefty, and Juvenal of [m] Pride; and I question whether every one of the Paffions is not affigned, by one or other of the Poets, to the fame Part.

If you would rather have Authorities from the Writers of honeft Profe, Le Brun (who published a very pretty Treatife, to fhew how the Paffions affect the Face and Features) fays, that the principal Seat of them is in the Eyebrows, and old Pliny had said

[1] Η, καὶ κυανέησιν επ' οφρύσι νευσε Κρονίων Αμβροσιαι δ' αρα χαίται επερρώσαντο ανακλα Κρα απ' αθανάτοιο μεγαν δ' ελελιξεν Ολυμπον,

Iλ. a. 528.

It was from this Paffage that Phidias borrowed all the Ideas of that Majefty which he had expressed so strongly in his famous Statue of the Jupiter Olympius; and Horace, probably, his moventis. Lib. iii. Od. 1. 8.

Cuncta fupercilio

[k] Frons læta parum, & dejecto lumina vultu.

Virgil. Æn. vi. 863.

[] Deme fupercilio nubem ; plerumque modestus

Occupat obfcuri fpeciem.

Horat. lib. i. Epift. 18. 95.

[m] Malo Venufinam, quàm te, Cornelia, mater Gracchorum; fi cum magnis virtutibus affers Grande fupercilium, et numeras in dote triumphos.

Juvenal. Sat. vi. 168.

It is hence that the Romans ufed the Word fuperciliofus (as we do from the Word fupercilious) for proud and arrogant Perfons,

much

[n] much the fame Thing, fo many Hundred Years

before him.

Hitherto I have fpoken only of the Paffions in general: We will now confider a little, if you please, which of them add to Beauty; and which of them take from it.

I believe we may fay, in general, that all the tender and kind Paffions add to Beauty; and all the cruel and unkind ones, add to Deformity: And it is on this Account that Good-nature may, very justly, be faid to be "the best Feature even in the fineft Face."

Mr. Pope has included the principal Paffions of each Sort, in Two very pretty Lines:

Love, Hope, and Joy, fair Pleasure's fmiling Train; Hate, Fear, and Grief, the Famile of Pain.

The former of which, naturally give an additional Luftre and Enlivening to Beauty; as the latter are too apt to fling a Gloom and Cloud over it.

Yet in these, and all the other Paffions, I do not know whether Moderation may not be, in a great

[n] Frons triftitiæ, hilaritatis, clementiæ, feveritatis index: in afcenfu ejus fupercilia, & pariter, & alternè mobilia; & in iis, pars animi. [His] negamus; annuimus. Hæc maximè indicant faftum. Superbia alicubi conceptaculum, fed hîc fedem habet: in corde nascitur; hîe fubit, hîc pendet, Plin. Nat. Hift. lib. xi. cap. 37.

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measure,