of men in every performance which is difficult of execu tion, and in proportion to this difficulty; and will perceive the influence of this presence or command of mind in bestowing grace, from the boatman at his oar, or the smith at his anvil, to the deportment of the higher ranks in the drawing-room, where presence and ease and elevation of mind, may be expressed in things so trifling as in the movement of a fan, or in the presentation of a snuff-box.

There is still a higher degree of grace observable in those movements which express this self-possession and serenity of mind, in cases of danger; and wherever the gestures or attitudes are expressive of this serenity, they appear to me always to be felt as graceful. It is thus, I think, very observably, in feats of horsemanship, performances upon the tight-rope, &c. when they do not degenerate into tricks of mere agility, or unnatural postures. That they are felt as graceful even by the lowest people, is obvious from their conduct during such performances. They observe them with still apprehension; they shout and exult at their success; and when they speak of them to their companions, they erect their forms, and assume somewhat of the sympathetic dignity they have felt from these expressions of superiority to danger. It is impossible, I think, in the same manner, to observe the easy and careless movements of a mason upon a roof, or of a sailor upon the mast, without some sentiment of this nature. Observations of this kind, every one may pursue; and that it is from the expression of this strength and serenity of mind that the grace of such attitudes or gestures arises, may easily be inferred, when it is recollected that the same attitudes or gestures upon the ground, or in a place of security, would be altogether unnoticed.

I entreat leave yet further to remark, that the conjec

ture which I have now stated seems to be supported by the consideration of the parts of the human form, which are peculiarly expressive of grace, and by the nature of the movement of those parts when they are actually felt as graceful. The parts or members of the form which are peculiarly expressive to us of the temperance or intemperance of passion, are those which are most susceptible of motion, or which are most easily and visibly influenced by the character of mind. It is in these parts or members accordingly, that grace chiefly, if not solely resides; in the air and posture of the head, the turn of the neck, the expansion of the chest, the position of the arms, the motion or step of the limbs, the forms of the hair, and the folds of the drapery. That it is in the slow and composed movement alone of those parts, in that measure of motion, (if I may use the expression), which indicates self-possession and self-command, that the graceful is to be found, is an observation which every one must have made, and which has been made from the earliest antiquity. Grace, according to the luminous expression of Lord Bacon, consists "in gracious and decent motion ;” and I need not remind my classical readers, that wherev. er the poets of antiquity have represented graceful attitude or motion, they have always represented it as com posed or slow; and that wherever it has been represent ed by the sculptors of antiquity, it has been expressed by the same signs of self-command, and self-possession.qI presume to add only one illustration from Virgil, in which the distinction between beauty and grace in the air and movements of the human form, seems to me to be expressed with his usual delicacy of taste and of ima gination.

In the first appearance of Venus to Eneas she is thus described:

Cui mater media sese tulit obvia sylvâ
Virginis os habitumque gerens, et Virginis arma
Spartanæ; vel qualis equos Threissa fatigat
Harpalice, volucremque fuga prævertitur Eurum ;
Namque humeris de more habilem suspenderit arcum
Venatrix, dederatque comam diffundere ventis
Nuda genu, nodoque sinus collecta fluentes.

An. Is 314

In these lines, Venus appears in all the glow and gaiety of rural beauty :-She bursts upon us, as upon her son, by surprise her air, her attire, bespeak youth and animation, and her hair, floating upon the winds, marks the speed with which she has pursued her woodland game. All this is beautiful and picturesque, but it is not graceful. It is in the moment she disappears, and when she reveals herself by her gesture, that Virgil raises this fine being into the grace that belonged to her :

Dixit, et avertens rosea cervice refulsit,
Ambrosiæque comæ divinum vertice odorem
Spiravere; pedes vestis defluxit ad imos,
Et vera incessų patuit Dea.

Ibid. 402.

In this description every thing is changed and exalted; her form dilates into serener majesty: her locks cease to float upon the wind, and fall in dignity around her head; her robes descend, and assume those ampler folds which mark a more elevated form, and a loftier movement; and above all, her gait rises from the gay hurry of the Spartan nymph, into the slow and measured step which evinces the conscious dignity of her genuine being.

The influence of this expression may be pursued farther; and it may, perhaps, amuse the reader to follow it into many appearances, both in the animal world and in inanimate nature. Wherever the powers and faculties of motion are possessed, there the capacity of grace, at least, is possessed along with them: and whenever in

such motions grace is actually perceived, I think it will always be found to be in slow, and, if I may use the expression, in restrained or measured motions. The motions of the horse, when wild in the pasture, are beautiful; when urged to his speed, and straining for victory, they may be felt as sublime; but it is chiefly in movements of a different kind that we feel them as graceful, when in the impatience of the field, or in the curvetting of the manege, he seems to be conscious of all the powers with which he is animated, and yet to restrain them from some principle of beneficence, or of dignity. Every movement of the stag almost is beautiful, from the fineness of his form, and the ease of his gestures; yet it is not in these, or in the heat of the chase that he is graceful it is when he pauses upon some eminence in the pursuit, when he erects his crested head, and when, looking with disdain upon the enemy who follow, he bounds to the freedom of his hills. It is not, in the same manner, in the rapid speed of the eagle when he darts upon his prey, that we perceive the grace of which his motions are capable. It is when he soars slowly upwards to the sun, or when he wheels with easy and continuous motion in airy circles in the sky..

In the personification which we naturally give to all inanimate objects which are susceptible of movement, we may easily perceive the influence of the same association. We speak commonly, for instance, of the graceful motions of trees, and of the graceful movements of a river. It is never, however, when these motions are violent or extreme, that we apply to them the term of grace. It is the gentle waving of the tree in slow and measured cadence which is graceful, not the tossing of its branches amid the storm. It is the slow and easy winding which is graceful in the movements of the river,

and not the burst of the cateract, or the fury of the tor

rent.

SECTION VI.

Conclusion of this Essay.—Of the Final Cause of this Constitution of our Nature.

THE illustrations that have been offered in the course of this Essay upon the origin of the SUBLIMITY and BEAUTY of some of the principal qualities of MATTER, seem to afford sufficient evidence for the following conclusions:

I. That each of these qualities is either from nature, from experience, or from accident, the sign of some quality capable of producing emotion, or the exercise of some moral affection.

And,

II. That when these associations are dissolved, or in other words, when the material qualities cease to be significant of the associated qualities, they cease also to produce the emotions, either of sublimity or beauty.

If these conclusions are admitted, it appears necessarily to follow, that the beauty and sublimity of such objects are to be ascribed not to the material qualities themselves, but to the qualities they signify; and, of consequence, that the qualities of matter are not to be considered as sublime or beautiful in themselves, but as being the SIGNS OF EXPRESSIONS of such qualities, as, by the constitution of our nature, are fitted to produce pleasing or interesting emotion.

The opinion I have now stated coincides, in a great degree, with a DOCTRINE that appears very early to have distinguished the PLATONIC School; which is to be traced, perhaps, (amid their dark and figurative language), in all the philosophical systems of the East, and which has been maintained in this country, by several writers of eminence-by Lord Shaftesbury, Dr. Hutcheson, Dr.