THE very great difficulty there is in describing this
line, either in words, or by the pencil (as was hinted
before, when I first mention'd it) will make it necesssary

for

[51]

for me to proceed very slowly in what I have to say in
this chapter, and to beg the reader's patience whilst
I lead him step by step into the knowledge of what I
think the sublime in form, so remarkably display'd in
the human body; in which, I believe, when he is once
acquainted with the idea of them, he will find this spe-
cies of lines to be principally concern'd.
First, then let him consider fig.+, which represents a
straight horn, with its contents, and he will find, as it
varies like the cone, it is a form of some beauty, merely
on that account.
Next let him observe in what manner, and in what
degree the beauty of this horn is increas'd, in fig.*
where it is supposed to be bent two different ways.
And lastly, let him attend to the vast increase of
beauty, even to grace and elegance, in the same horn,
fig.++, where it is supposed to have been twisted round,
at the same time, that it was bent two different ways,
(as in the last figure.)
In the first of these figures, the dotted line down the
middle expresses the straight lines of which it is com-
posed; which, without the assistance of curve lines,
or light and shade, would hardly shew it to have
contents.
The same is true of the second, tho' by the bending
of the horn, the straight dotted line is changed into the
beautiful waving-line.

H 2 But

† Fig. 56. B. p. 2.

*Fig. 57. B. p. 2.

‡ Fig. 58. B. p. 2.

[52]

But in the last, this dotted line, by the twisting as
well as the bending of the horn, is changed from the
waving into the serpentine-line ; which, as it dips
out of sight behind the horn in the middle, and returns
again at the smaller end, not only gives play to the ima-
gination, and delights the eye, on that account; but
informs it likewise of the quantity and variety of the
contents.
I have chosen this simple example, as the easiest way
of giving a plain and general idea of the peculiar qua-
lities of these serpentine-lines, and the advantage of
bringing them into compositions, where the contents
you are to express, admit of grace and elegance.
And I beg the same things may be understood of
these serpentine-lines, that I have said before of the
waving-lines. For as among the vast variety of waving-
lines that may be conceiv'd, there is but one that truly
deserves the name of the line of beauty, so there is
only one precise serpentine-line that I call the line of
grace. Yet, even when they are made too bulging, or
too tapering, though they certainly lose of their beauty
and grace, they do not become so wholly void of it,
as not to be of excellent service in compositions, where
beauty and grace are not particularly design'd tobe ex-
press'd in their greatest perfection.
Though I have distinguish'd these lines so particularly
as to give them the titles of the lines of beauty and grace,
I mean that the use and application of them should still

be


[53]

be confined by the principles I have laid down for com-
position in general; and that they should be judiciously
mixt and combined with one another, and even with
those I may term plain lines, (in opposition to these) as
the subject in hand requires. Thus the cornu-copia,
fig. +, is twisted and bent after the same manner, as the
last figure of the horn; but more ornamental, and with
a greater number of other lines of the same twisted
kind, winding round it with as quick returns as those
of a screw.
This sort of form may be seen with yet more varia-
tions, (and therefore more beautiful) in the goat's horn,
from which, in all probability, the ancients originally
took the extreme elegant forms they have given their
cornu-copias.
there is another way of considering this last figure
of the horn I would recommend to my reader, in order
to give him a clearer idead of the use both of the waving
and serpentine-lines in composition.
This is to imagine the horn, thus bent and twisted,
to be cut length-ways by a very fine saw into two equal
parts; and to observe one of these in the same posi-
tion the whole horn is represented in; and these two
observations will naturally occur to him. First, that
the edge of the saw must run from one end to the other
of the horn in the line of beauty; so that the edges of
this half of the horn will have a beautiful shape: and,
secondly, that wherever the dotted serpentine-line on the

surface

† Fig. 59.
B. P. 2.


[54]

surface of the whole horn dips behind, and is lost to
the eye, it immediately comes into sight on the hollow
surface of the divided horn.
The use I shall make of these observations will appear
very considerable in the application of them to the hu-
man form, which we are next to attempt.
It will be sufficient, therefore, at present only to ob-
serve, first, that the whole horn acquires a beauty by its
being thus genteely bent two different ways; secondly,
that whatever lines are drawn on its external surfade be-
come graceful, as they must all of them, from the twist
that is given the horn, partake in some degree or other,
of the shape of the serpentine-line: and, lastly, when
the horn is split, and the inner, as well as the outward
surface of its shell-like form is exposed, the eye is pecu-
liarly entertained and relieved in the pursuit of these
serpentine-lines, as in their twistings their concavities
and convexities are alternately offer'd to its view. Hol-
low forms, therefore, composed of such lines are ex-
tremely beautiful and pleasing to the eye; in many cases
more so, than those of solid bodies.
Almost all the muscles, and bones, of which the hu-
man form is composed, have more, or less of these kind
of twists in them; and give in a less degree, the same
kind of appearance to the parts which cover them, and
are the immediate object of the eye: and for this reason
it is that I have been so particular in describing these
forms of the bent, and twisted, and ornamental horn.

There

[55]

There is scarce a straight bone in the whole body.
Almost all of them are not only bent different ways,
but have a kind of twist, which in some of them is very
graceful; and the muscles annex'd to them, tho' they
are of various shapes, appropriated to their particular
uses, generally have their component fibres running in
these serpentine-lines, surrounding and conforming
themselves to the varied shape of the bones they belong
to: more especially in the limbs. Anatomists are so
satisfied of this, that they take a pleasure in distinguish-
ing their several beauties. I shall only instance in the
thigh-bone, and those about the hips.
The thigh-bone fig.*, has the waving and twisted
turn of the horn, 58: but the beautiful bones adjoining,
call'd the ossa innominata ‡, have, with greater variety,
the same turns and twists of that horn when it is cut;
and its inner and outward surfaces are exposed to the
eye.
How ornamental these bones appear, when the pre-
judice we conceive against them, as being part of a ske-
leton, is taken off, by adding a little foliage to them,
may be seen in fig. ||----such shell-like winding forms,
mixt with foliage, twisting about them, are made use
of in all ornaments; a kind of composition calculated
merely to please the eye. Divest these of their serpentine
twinings and they immediately lose all grace, and return
to the poor gothic taste they were in an hundred years

ago§.

* Fig. 62. R. p. 2.

‡ Fig. 60. B p. 2.

|| Fig. 61. B. p. 2.

§ Fig. 63. B. p. 2.

Fig. * is meant to represent the manner, in which
most of the muscles, (those of the limbs in particular) are
twisted round the bones, and conform themselves to their
length and shape; but with no anatomical exactness.
As to the running of their fibres, some anatomists have
compared them to skains of thread, loose in the middle,
and tight at each end, which, when they are thus consi-
der'd as twisted contrary ways round the bone, gives the
strongest idea possible of a comparison of serpentine-
lines.
Of these fine winding forms then is the human body
composed, and which, by their varied situations with each
other, become more intricately pleasing, and form a con-
tinued waving of winding forms from one into the other,
as may be best seen by examining a good anatomical
figure, part of which you have here represented, in the
muscular leg and thigh, fig.†: which shews the serpen-
tine forms and varied situations of the muscles, as they
appear when the skin is taken off. It was drawn from
a plaister of paris figure cast off nature, the original of
which was prepared for the mould by Cowper, the famous
anatomist. In this last figure, as the skin is taken off
the parts are too distinctly traced by the eye, for that
intricate delicacy which is necessary to the utmost
beauty; yet the winding figures of the muscles, with
the variety of their situations, must always be allow'd
elegant forms: however, they lose in the imagination
some of the beauty, which they really have, by the idea

of

of their being flayed; nevertheless, by what has already
been shewn both of them and the bones, the human
frame hath more of its parts composed of serpentine-
lines than any other object in nature; which is a proof
both of its superior beauty to all others, and, at the
same time, that its beauty proceeds from those lines :
for although they may be required sometimes to be
bulging in their twists, as in the thick swelling muscles
of the Hercules, yet elegance and greatness of taste is
still preserved; but when these lines lose so much of
their twists as to become almost straight, all elegance
of taste vanishes.
Thus fig. *, was also taken from nature, and drawn
in the same position, but treated in a more dry, stiff,
and what the painters call, sticky manner, than the nature
of flesh is ever capable of appearing in, unless when its
moisture is dryed away: it must be allowed, that the
parts of this figure are of as right dimensions, and as
truly situated, as in the former; it wants only the true
twist of the lines to give it taste.
To prove this further, and to put the mean effect
of these plain or unvaried lines in a stronger light, see
fig.+, where, by the uniform, unvaried shapes and situ-
ation of the muscles, without so much as a waving-line
in them, it becomes so wooden a form, that he that
can fashion the leg of a joint-stool may carve this figure
as well as the best sculptor. In the same manner,
divest one of the best antique statues of all its
serpentine winding parts, and it becomes from an

I ex-

exquisite piece of art, a figure of such ordinary lines
and unvaried con-tents, that a common stone-mason or
carpenter, with the help of his rule, calipers, and
compasses, might carve out an exact imitation of it:
and were it not for these lines a turner, in his lathe,
might turn a much finer neck than that of the Grecian
Venus, as according to the common notion of a
beautiful neck, it would be more truly round. For
the same reason, legs much swoln with disease, are as
easy to imitate as a post, having lost their drawing, as
the painters call it; that is, having their serpentine-lines
all effaced, by the skin's being equally puffed, as
figure *.
If in comparing these three figures one with another,
the reader, notwithstanding the prejudice his imagina-
tion may well have conceiv'd against them, as anatomical
figures, has been enabled only to perceive that one of
them is not so disagreeable as the others; he will easily
be led to see further, that this tendency to beauty in
one, is not owing to any greater degree of exactness in
the proportions of its parts, but merely to the more
pleasing turns, and intertwistings of the lines, which com-
pose its external form; for in all the three figures the
same proportions have been observ'd, and, on that ac-
count, they have all an equal claim to beauty.
And if he pursued this anatomical enquiry but a very
little further, just to form a true idea of the elegant
use that is made on the skin and fat beneath it, to con-

ceal

ceal from the eye all that is hard and disagreeable, and
at the same time to preserve to it whatever is necessary
in the shapes of the parts beneath, to give grace and
beauty to the whole limb: he will find himself insen-
sibly led into the principles of that grace and beauty
which is to be found in well-turn'd limbs, in fine,ele-
gant, healthy life, or in those of the best antique sta-
tues; as well as into the reason why his eye has so often
unknowingly been pleased and delighted with them.
Thus, in all other parts of the body, as well as these,
wherever, for the sake of the necessary motion of the
parts, with proper strength and agility, the insertions
of the muscles are too hard and sudden, their swellings
too bold, or the hollows between them too deep, for
their out-lines to be beautiful ; nature most judiciously
softens these hardnesses, and plumps up these vacancies
with a proper supply of fat, and covers the whole with
the soft, smooth, springy, and, in delicate life, almost
transparent skin, which, conforming itself to the ex-
ternal shape of all the parts beneath, expresses to the
eye the idea of its contents with the utmost delicacy of
beauty and grace.
The skin, therefore, thus tenderly embraced, and
gently conforming itself to the varied shapes of every
one of the outward muscles of the body, soften'd under-
neath by the fat, where, otherwise, the same hard lines
and furrows would appear, as we find come on with
age in the face, and with labour, in the limbs, is evi-

I 2 dently

those

those regular engralings (as the heralds express it) which
displeased the eye before. On the contrary, you will
see how gradually the changes in its shape are pro-
duced ; how imperceptibly the different curvatures run
into each other, and how easily the eye glides along
the varied wavings of its sweep. To enforce this still
further, if a line was to be drawn by a pencil exactly
where these wires have been supposed to pass, the point
of the pencil, in the muscular leg and thigh, would per-
petually meet with stops and rubs, whilst in the others
it would flow from muscle to muscle along the elastic
skin, as pleasantly as the lightest skill dances over the
gentlest wave.
This idea of the wire, retaining thus the shape of the
parts it passes over, seems of so much consequence, that
I would by no means have it forgot; as it may properly
be consider'd as one of the threads (or outlines) of the
shell (or external surface) of the human form: and the
frequently recurring to it will assist the imagination in
its conceptions of those parts of it, whose shapes are
most intricately varied: for the same sort of observa-
tions may be made, with equal justice, on the shapes of
ever so many such wires twisted in the same manner in
ever so many directions over every part of a well made
man, woman, or statue.
And if the reader will follow in his imagination the
most exquisite turns of the chissel in the hands of a
master, when he is putting the finishing touches to a

statue;

statue; he will soon be led to understand what it is
the real judges expect from the hand of such a master,
which the Italians call, the little more, Il poco piu, and
which in reality distinguishes the original master-pieces
at Rome from even the best copies of them.
An example or two will sufficiently explain what is
here meant; for as these exquisite turns are to be found,
in some degree of beauty or other, all over the whole
surface of the body and limbs : we may by taking any
one part of a fine figure (though so small a one that
only a few muscles are express'd in it) explain the
manner in which so much beauty and grace has been
given to them, as to convince a skilful artist, almost at
sight, that it must have been the work of a master.
I have chosen, for this purpose, a small piece of the
body of a statue, fig. *, representing part of the left
side under the arm, together with a little of the breast,
(including a very particular muscle, which, from the
likeness its edges bear to the teeth of a saw, is, if con-
sider'd by itself, void of beauty) as most proper to the
point in hand, because this its regular shape more pe-
culiarly requires the skill of the artist to give it a little
more variety than it generally has, even in nature.
First, then, I will give you a representation of this
part of the body, from an anatomical figure †, to show
what a sameness there is in the shapes of all the teeth-
like insertions of this muscle ; and how regularly the
fibres, which compose it, follow the almost parallel out-
lines of the ribs they partly cover.---------------

From what has been said before of the use of the
natural covering of the skin, &c. the next figure* will
easily be understood to mean so tame a representation
of the same part of the body, that tho' the hard and stiff
appearance of the edges of this muscle is taken off by
that covering, yet enough of its regularity and same-
ness remains to render it disagreeable.
Now as regularity and sameness, according to our
doctrine, is want of elegance and true taste, we shall
endeavour in the next place to show how this very part
(in which the muscles take so very regular a form) may
be brought to have as much variety as any other part
of the body whatever. In order to this, though some
alteration must be made in almost every part of it, yet
it should be so inconsiderable in each, that no remarka-
ble change may appear in the shape and situation of
any.
Thus, let the parts mark'd 1, 2, 3, 4, (which ap-
pear so exactly similar in shape, and parallel in situation
in the muscular figure 77) and not much mended
in fig. 78, be first varied in their sizes, but not gra-
dually from the uppermost to the lowest, as in fig. ‡,
nor alternately one long and one short, as in fig.§, for
in either of these cases there would still remain too great
a formality. We should therefore endeavour, in the
next place, to vary them every way in our power, with-
out losing entirely the true idea of the parts them-
selves. Suppose them then to have changed their situa-

tions

tions a little, and slip'd beside each other irregularly,
(some how as is represented in fig.$, merely with re-
gard to their situation) and the external appearance of
the whole piece of the body, now under our considera-
tion, will assume the more varied and pleasing form,
represented in fig. 76; easily to be discern'd by com-
paring the three figures 76, 77, 78, on with another;
and it will as easily be seen, that were lines to be drawn,
or wires to be bent, over these muscles, from one to the
other, and so on to the adjoining parts; they would
have a continued waving flow, let them pass in any
direction whatever.
The unskilful, in drawing these parts after the life, as
their regularities are much more easily seen and copied
than their fine variations, seldom fail of making them
more regular and poor than they really appear even in
a consumptive person.
The difference will appear evident by comparing
fig. 78, purposely drawn in this tasteless manner, with
fig. 76. But will be more perfectly understood by ex-
amining this part in the Torso of Michael Angelo †,
whence this figure was taken.
Note, there are casts of a small copy of that famous
trunk of a body to be had at almost every plaster-figure
makers, wherein what has been here described may be
sufficiently seen, not only in the part which figure 76
was taken from, but all over that curious piece of an-
tiquity.

I

I must here again press my reader to a particular
attention to the windings of these superficial lines, even
in their passing over every joint, what alterations so-
ever may be made in the surface of the skin by the va-
rious bendings of the limbs : and tho' the space allow'd
for it, just in the joints, be ever so small, and conse-
quently the lines ever so short, the application of this
principle of varying these lines, as far as their lengths
will admit of, will be found to have its effect as grace-
fully as in the more lengthen'd muscles of the body.
It should be observ'd in the fingers, where the joints
are but short, and the tendons straight; and where
beauty seems to submit, in some degree, to use, yet not
so much but you trace in a full-grown taper finger,
these little winding lines among the wrinkles, or in
(what is more pretty because more simple) the dimples
of the nuckles. As we always distinguish things best
by seeing their reverse set in opposition with them ; if
fig.*, by the straightness of its lines, shews fig. +, to
have some little taste in it, tho' it is so slightly sketch'd;
the difference will more evidently appear when you in
like manner compare a straight coarse finger in common
life with the taper dimpled one of a fine lady.
There is an elegant degree of plumpness peculiar to
the skin of the softer sex, that occasions these delicate
dimplings in all their other joints, as well as these of
the fingers ; which so perfectly distinguishes them from
those even of a graceful man ; and which, assisted by

K the

the more soften'd shapes of the muscles underneath,
presents to the eye all the varieties in the whole figure
of the body, with gentler and fewer parts more sweetly
connected together, and with such a fine simplicity as
will always give the turn of the female frame, repre-
sented in the Venus +, the preference to that of the
Apollo *.
Now whoever can conceive lines thus constantly flow-
ing, and delicately varying over every part of the body
even to the fingers ends, and will recall to his remem-
brance what led us to this last description of what the
Italians call, Il poco piu (the little more that is expected
from the hand of a master) will, in my mind, want
very little more than what his own observation on the
works of art and nature will lead him to, to acquire
a true idea of the word Taste, when applied to form;
however inexplicable this word may hitherto have been
imagined.
We have all along had recourse chiefly to the works
of the ancients, not because the moderns have not pro-
duced some as excellent ; but because the works of
the former are more generally known : nor would we
have thought, that either of them have ever yet
come up to the utmost beauty of nature. Who but a
bigot, even to the antiques, will say that he has not
seen faces and necks, hands and arms in living women
that even the Grecian Venus doth but coarsely imi-
tate?

And

[67]

And what sufficient reason can be given why the
same may not be said of the rest of the body?