No. LXXXII. Saturday, August 18. 1753.

Nunc fcio quid fit amor.

VIRG

Now know I what is love...

THOUGH the danger of disappointment is always in pro-portion to the height of expectation, yet I this day claim the attention of the ladies, and profess to teach an art by which all may obtain what has hitherto been deemed the prerogative of a few; an art by which their predominant paffion may be gratified, and their conquests not only extended but secured; "The art of "being pretty."

But though my subject may interest the ladies, it may, perhaps, offend those profound moralifts, who have long fince determined, that beauty ought rather to be defpised than defired; that, like strength, it is a mere natural excellence, the effect of causes wholly out of our power, and not intended either as the pledge of happiness, or the diftinction of merit,

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To these gentlemen I shall remark, that beauty is among those qualities, which no effort of human wit could ever bring into contempt: it is therefore to be wished at least, that beauty was in some degree dependent upon sentiment and manners, that fo high a privilege might not be poffefsed by the unworthy, and that human reason might no longer suffer the mortification of those who are compelled to adorn an idol, which differs from a stone or a log only by the skill of the artificer: and if they cannot themselves behold beauty with indifference, they must furely approve an attempt to shew that it merits their regard.

I shall, however, principally confider that species of beauty which is expressed in the countenance; for this alone is peculiar to human beings, and is not less complicated than their nature. In the countenance there are but two requifites to perfect beauty, which are wholly produced by external causes, colour and proportion: and it will appear, that even in common estimation these are not the chief, but that though there may be beauty without them, yet there cannot be beau. ty without something more.

The finest features, ranged in the most exact symmetry, and heightened by the most blooming complexion, must be animated before they can strike; and when they are animated, will generally excite the same paffions which they express. If they are fixed in the dead calm of insensibility, they will be examined without emotion; and if they do not express kindness, they will be beheld without love. Looks of contempt, disdain or malevolence, will be reflected as from a mirfor, by every countenance on which they are turned ;

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and if a wanton aspect excites defire, it is but like that of a favage for his prey, which cannot be gratified without the destruction of its object.

Among particular graces the dimple has always been allowed the pre-eminence, and the reason is evident; dimples are produced by a smile, and a smile is an expression of complacency: so the contraction of the brows into a frown, as it is an indication of a contrary temper, has always been deemed a capital defect.

The lover is generally at a loss to define the beauty, by which his passion was suddenly and irresistiby determined to a particular object; but this could never happen, if it depended upon any known rule of proportion, upon the shape or disposition of the features, or the colour of the skin: he tells you, thas it is something which he cannot fully express, something not fixed in any part, but diffused over the whole; he calls it a sweetness, a softness, a placid sensibility, or gives it fome other appellation which connects beauty with sentiment, and expresses a charm which is not peculiar to any set of features, but is perhaps poffible to all.

This beauty, however, does not always confift in smiles, but varies, as expressions of meekness and kindness vary with their objects; it is extremely forcible in the filent complaint of patient fufferance, the tender folicitude of friendship, and the glow of filial obedience; and in tears, whether of joy, of pity, or of grief, it is almost irrefiftible.

This is the charm which captivates without the aid of nature, and without which her utmost bounty is ineffectual. But it cannot be assumed as a mask to conceal insensibility or malevolence; it must be the ge. nuine effect of corresponding sentiments, or it will imprefs

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press upon the countenance a new and more disgusting deformity, affectation; it will produce the grin, the fimper, the stare, the languish, the pout, and innumerable other grimaces, that render folly ridiculous, and change pity to contempt. By some, indeed, this species of hypocrisy has been practised with such skill as to deceive fuperficial observers, though it can deceive even these but for a moment. Looks which do not correspond with the heart, cannot be assumed without labour, nor continued without pain; the motive to relinquish them must, therefore, soon preponderate, and the aspect and apparel of the visit will be laid by together; the smiles and the languishments of art will vanish, and the fierceness of rage, or the gloom of difcontent, will either obfcure or destroy all the elegance of symmetry and complexion.

The artificial aspect is, indeed, as wretched a fubstitute for the expression of fentiment, as the smear of paint for the blushes of health: it is not only equally tranfient, and equally liable to detection; but as paint leaves the countenance yet more withered and ghastly, the paffions burst out with more violence after restraint, the features become more distorted, and excite more determined aversion.

Beauty, therefore, depends principally upon the mind, and consequently may be influenced by education. It has been remarked, that the predominant passion may generally be discovered in the countenance; because the muscles by which it is expressed, being almost perpetually contracted, lose their tone, and never totally relax; so that the expreffion remains when the passion is suspended: thus, an angry, a disdainful, a fubtle, and a fufpicious temper, is displayed in characters that are almost universally understood. It is equally true of the pleasing and the softer passions, that they leave their fignatures upon the countenance when they ceafe to act: the prevalence of these passions, therefore, produces a mechanical effect upon the aspect, and gives a turn and cast to the features, which makes a more favourable, and forcible impreffion upon the mind of others, than any charm produced by mere external caufes.

Neither does the beauty which depends upon temper and sentiment, equally endanger the poffeffor; . "It is," to use an eastern metaphor, like "the towers " of a city, not only an orpament, but a defence:" if it excites defire, it at once controuls and refines it; it represses with awe, it softens with delicacy, and it wins. to imitation. The love of reason and of virtue is mingled with the love of beauty; because this beauty. is little more than the emanation of intellectual excel-. lence, which is not an object of corporeal appetite. As it excites a purer paffion, it also more forcibly en-gages to fidelity: every man finds himself more power-fully restrained from giving pain to goodness than to beauty; and every look of a countenance in which they are blended, in which beauty is the expression of goodness, is a filent reproach of the first irregular with; and the purpose immediately appears to be disfingenuous and cruel, by which the tender hope of ineffable affection would be disappointed, the placid confidence of unsuspecting fimplicity abused, and the peace even of virtue endangered by the most sordid infidelity, and the breach of the strongest obligations.

But the hope of the hypocrite must perish. When the factious beauty has laid by her smiles; when the luftre of her eyes and the bloom of her cheeks have