I am apt to think, that every thing belonging to Beauty (by which I need not repeat to you, at every Turn, that I mean real perfonal Beauty,) would fall: under one or other of these Four Heads; Color, Form, Expreffion, and Grace. The Two former of which I should look upon as the Body, and the Two latter as the Soul, of Beauty.

THO' Color be the lowest of all the conftituent Parts of Beauty, yet it is vulgarly the moft ftriking, and the moft obferved. For which there is a very obvious Reason to be given; that "every body can fee, and very few can judge;" the Beauties of Color requiring much lefs of Judgment, than either of the other Three. I fhall therefore have much less to fay of it, than of each of the others; and fhall only give you Two or Three Observations, relating to it.

As to the Color of the Body in general, the most beautiful perhaps that ever was imagined, was that which Apelles expreffed in his famous Venus; and which, though the Picture itself be loft, Cicero has, in fome Degree preferved to us, in his [a] excellent Description of it. It was (as we learn from him) a fine Red, beautifully intermixed and incorporated

[a] Illud video pugnare te, species ut quædam fit Deorum; quæ nihil concreti habeat, nihil folidi, nihil expreffi, nihil eminentis: fitque pura, levis, perlucida. Dicemus ergo idem, quod in Venere Coâ; corpus non eft, fed fimile corpori: nec ille fufus et candore mixtus rubor fanguis eft, fed quædam fanguinis fimilitudo. Cicero de Natura Deor. lib, i.

with White; and diffufed, in its due Proportions, through each Part of the Body. Such are the Descriptions of a moft beautiful Skin, in [b] feveral of the Roman Poets; and fuch 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 properly 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 oftro

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 nivio 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

En. xii. 69.

Met. iii. 423.

Lilia; & autumno candida mala rubent. 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 Causes I have already mentioned) to Variety; that being defigned by Nature for the greatest Concourse 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 diverfified, 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 scattered 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 pleafing 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 pleasingly intermixed about the Temples and the Going off of the Cheeks, and fet off by the

4.

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 Reason, that the best Landscape-painters have been generally obferved 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 almost on every Tree in the Autumn.

Though one's Judgment is fo 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 transparent Skins. Raphael's most charming Madonna is a brunette Beauty; and his earlier Madonna's (thofe I mean of his middle Stile) are generally of a lighter and lefs pleafing Complexion. All the best Artists in the nobleft Age of Painting, about Leo the Tenth's Time, used 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 almost completed the Fall of it in Italy.

I have but one thing more to mention, before I quit this Head; that I fhould chufe to comprehend fome Things under this Article of Color, which are not perhaps commonly meant by that Name. As that appearing Softness or Silkinefs of fome Skins, that [d] Magdalen-look in fome fine Faces, after weeping; that Brightnefs, as well as Tint, of the Hair; that Luftre of Health, that fhines forth upon the Features; that Luminousness that appears in fome Eyes, and that fluid Fire, or Glistening, in others: Some of which are of a Nature fo 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 reserved 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 Paint. ers in their Magdalens; in which, if there were no Tears on the Face, you would fee, by the humid Redness of the Skin, that she had been weeping extremely. There is a very ftrong 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 Barberigo Palace at Venice: In fpeaking of which, Rofalba hardly went too far, when fhe faid, "It wept all over;" or (in the very Words the used,) Elle pleure jufqu' aux bouts de doigts."

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