colours of the eye. Such appearances, therefore, are early and strongly associated with the qualities of mind with which they have so generally been found to be accompanied, and are naturally regarded as the signs of these qualities.

II.

The expression of the variable colours of the countenance is still more distinct and precise. That the affections and passions of the human mind have correspondent appearances in the colours of the countenance, is a fact which all men understand, and have understood from in. fancy. There is no man who does not distinguish between the blush of modesty and the glow of indignation; the paleness of fear and the lividness of envy; the sparkling eye of joy and the piercing eye of rage; the dim and languid eye of grief and the open and passive eye of astonishment, &c. These appearances are so uniform in the human countenance, and are so strongly associated with their correspondent affections of mind, that even the first period of infancy is sufficient to establish the connexion. It seems to me, therefore, altogether unnecessary to illustrate farther the reality of these associations.

I have thus very shortly stated some of the associations we have with the colours of the human countenance, or some of the characters or dispositions of mind of which they are expressive to us. It remains for me now to shew, that such colours owe their beauty or sublimity to this cause; and that, when these expressions are withdrawn, or no longer accompany them, our sentiment of beauty or sublimity is withdrawn along with them.

The beauty of colours, in this instance, must obvi. ously arise from one or other of these three sources:

Either, 1st, From some original beauty in these col ours themselves: or,

2dly, From some law of our nature, by which the ap pearance of such colours in the countenance is fitted immediately and permanently to produce the emotion of beauty: or,

Sdly, From their being significant to us of certain qualities capable of producing pleasing or interesting

emotion.

1. That such colours are not beautiful simply as colours, or as objects of sensation, has been already sufficiently shewn in the former chapter of colours.

2. That we have no reason to suppose any law of our nature, by which certain colours in the human coun tenance are immediately and permanently beautiful, may perhaps be obvious from the following considera

tions :

1. If there were any such law of our nature, it would be obvious (like every other) in infancy. The child would mark its love or admiration according to the complexion or colours of the countenances of those who surrounded it and its aversion would be shown to all who varied from these sole and central colours of beauty. The reverse of this is so much the case, that every one must have remarked it. For the first years of life, no sense of beauty among individuals, in this respect, is testified by children. The countenances of the old, on the contrary, with all their loss of colouring, are more delightful to them, than those of youth and infancy; and if there are any colours that appear to them as peculiarly beautiful, it is the pale countenance of the mother, in whose looks they read her affection, or the faded complexion of the aged nurse, for whose looks they mingle love with reverence.

2. If there were any such law of beauty, our opin ions of such a kind would be permanent. One central colour in every feature or portion of the countenance, would alone be beautiful, and every deviation from it would be felt as a deviation from this original and prescribed beauty. How much the reverse of all this is true, every man must have felt from his own experience. In countenances of different character, we look for different tones of complexion, and different degrees of colour. In different individuals we admire not only different, but opposite colours of eyes, of hair, of complexion; and what is still more, in the same individual, we admire, at different times, very different appearances of the same colours, on the same complexion. Such facts are altogether irreconcilable with the belief of any sole or central colour, which alone is beautiful.

3. If there were any such law of the beauty of colours, it would, like all the other laws of our nature, be universal, and all nations would have agreed in some certain colours of the human countenance, which alone were beautiful. How far this is from being true, and how much, on the contrary, every nation has its own national and peculiar sense of beauty in this respect, it would be very unnecessary to attempt to illustrate.

The remaining supposition is, that the beauty of. colours in the human countenance is derived from their being significant to us of certain qualities, capable of producing pleasing or interesting emotion.

That this is the case, and that the common sentiments of mankind are governed by this principle, may, I trust, appear from the following simple illustrations:

I.

The same colour which is beautiful in one countenance is not beautiful in another: whereas if there were

any law of nature, by which certain colours were perma. nently beautiful, these colours alone would be beautiful in every case. Of the truth of the fact which I have stated, no person can be ignorant. The colours which we admire in childhood are unsuitable to youth: those which we admire in youth, are as unsuitable to manhood: and both are different from those which we expect, and which we love in age. Reverse the order, give to age the colours of manhood, to manhood those of youth, or to youth those of childhood: and while the colours are the same, every eye would discover that there was some. thing unnatural in their appearance, and that they were significant of very different expressions, from those which we were in the habit of connecting with them.

The distinction of the sexes, and the very different expectations we form from them, afford another illustra tion. If any certain colours are instinctively beautiful in the human countenance, they must be equally beautiful in every countenance. Yet there is no one who does. not expect a very different degree, at least of colour, in the two sexes; and who does not find, that the same colour which is beautiful in the one, as expressive of the character he expects, is positively painful and disagreea. ble in the other. The dark red or the firm brown of complexion, so significant to us in man of energy and vigour, would be simply painful to us in the complexion of woman; while the pearly white, and the evanescent bloom which expresses to us so well all the gentleness, and all the delicacy of the female character, would be simply painful, or disgusting to us in the complexion of

man.

The same observation may be extended to all the professions of human life. In the shepherd and in the warrior, in the sage and in the citizen, in the tyrant and

1

in the martyr, we imagine, and we expect very different colours of complexion. To these expectations, the painter and the poet have always instinctively yielded, and in the imagination of colour, have not less exhibited their powers, than in the conception of feature, and in the disposal of attitude or gesture. Every colour of the human countenance we feel to be beautiful only when it corresponds to the character which is presented to us; and every colour, on the contrary, which is contradictory to the character that is meant to be expressed, we feel as imperfect or displeasing. Such feelings or conclusions, it is obvious, could never occur, if there were any certain or precise colours of the human countenance which were beautiful by some previous law of nature.

II. 1

The most different, and even opposite colours are felt as beautiful, when they are significant to us of pleasing or of interesting qualities in the countenances to which they belong.

There is nothing more opposite in point of colouring, than the bloom of youth to the paleness of old age; yet both we know are beautiful. We love the dazzling white of complexion of the infant in its cradle. We love afterwards the firm brown of colour which distinguishes the young adventurer in exercise or arms. In the recluse student, we expect the pale complexion, which signifies watching, and midnight meditation. In the soldier and sailor we look for a complexion hardened to climate, and embrowned with honourable toil. In all the variety of classes into which society has distributed mankind, we look for, in the same manner, some distinct colouring as significant of this classification. We meet with it in the descriptions of the poet, and the representations of the