accord with beauty, and especially with female beauty, there is the clearest proof in one of his admirable Notes on Du Fresnoy. Sir Joshua is there speaking of the Venetian style of colouring, and that of Titian in particular, as the most excellent, and as eclipsing with its splendour whatever is brought into competition with it; yet, he adds, if female delicacy and beauty be the principal object of the painter's aim, the purity and clearness of the tint of Guido will correspond better, and more contribute to produce it, than even the glowing tint of Titian. Now, if he judged that the hue of Titian's naked figures, whether women or children, which that great colourist had studied with more attention than any other painter, and from models, not of a southern climate, but of the north of Italyif he judged that hue to be too rich and glowing to correspond with the idea of delicate beauty, what would he have thought, if Titian, as a companion to his Florentine Venus, had painted an Ethiopian goddess of beauty, with Cupids of the same dusky complexion. From the whole of the Note, it appears clearly to have been the opinion of Sir Joshua, at a time too when his judgment was perfectly matured, that Guido's colouring, the style of which he characterizes by the expression of silver tint, as opposed to the golden hue of Titian, is a standard for the colouring of flesh, where beauty is the object. That silver tint, represents the colour of the most delicate European skins, in which white predominates; and the golden hue, those on which a richer, but a browner tint has been impressed. Every gradation downwards from that golden, to a deeper, and more dusky hue, is, according to this doctrine, a departure from beauty; and consequently, the complexion of the negro, is at the extremity of the scale, as being the direct opposite to a clear and silvery tint. * White, in its greatest purity, being the union of all other colours, ranks as high, and in some instances higher, than any one of them separately, or than any other union of them: and, for the opposite reason, black, being the absence, or extinction of all colours, ranks below them all. In pearls and diamonds, which are chiefly valuable for the pleasure they give to the sight, pure colourless transparency constitutes the highest excellence: and though it might be presumed, that the rich and the tender colours of rubies, emeralds, &c. would be more attractive, yet the pure colourless lustre of the diamond, has the preference. The same may, perhaps, be said of the most pure and perfect statuary marble. With respect to form, the feature which most strongly distinguishes the human countenance, from that of all other animals, is the nose. Man is, I believe, the only animal that has a marked projection in the middle of the face; the noses of other animals being either flat, or not placed in that central position. All projections, universally, in all objects, give character; flatness and insipidity being synonymous: but between those large projections which impress a strongly marked character, and those slight elevations which give scarcely any relief, lies that medium, which in all things has the best claim to beauty. The same principles prevail in the form, as in the size of projections: any sudden depression or elevation, or sudden variation of any kind, is a departure from the medium, or central form, as Sir Joshua has expressed it; and if that be the sense of his expression, the preference due to the European nose over that of the negroes, will be founded on his own principles. According to the same principles, the lips of the negroes are less beautiful, than those which are more admired among the Europeans; for they are further removed from the central form--from the medium between such lips as scarce seem to cover the teeth, and those which appear unnaturally swoln. The last object of comparison is the hair; a circumstance of great beauty in itself, and of the highest use in accompanying the face. One very principal beauty in hair, is its loose texture and flexibility; by means of which it takes, (as vines, and other flexible plants, do in vegetation) a number of graceful and becoming forms, without any assistance from art: and, like them too, is capable of taking any arrangement that art can invent. Add to this, the great diversity of colours, from the darkest to the lightest in all their gradations; the glossy surface; the play of light and shadow which always attends variety of form; and then contrast all this with the monotony of the black woolly hair of the negro ! its colour, nearly the same in all of them, and the form, without any natural play or variety, and incapable of receiving any from art! There is, likewise, another circumstance of difference not to be omitted, →that of motion: the poets are particularly fond of describing this light, airy, playful effect of hair, both in man and in animals; Luduntque jubæ per colla per armos. De Intonsosque agitaret Apollinis aura capillos, And Tasso, in some measure, makes it the distinguishing mark of beauty Della piu vaga, et cara Virginella,clu 15 The European ladies, in the wantonness and caprice of fashion, have sometimes t |