they are always found in an inverse ratio. This position might be verified by travelling over the whole domain of beauty and examining all objects whatsoever in which the quality is admitted to inhere. This course, however, is out of the question; and it will, I think, answer our purpose effectually to take a number of representative types from various classes of things, and a prima facie case being made out sufficient to warrant a recognition of the law, all who desire it can themselves pursue the argument farther, and establish its validity in more complete detail.

The multitudinous forms in which beauty is found or admired may be divided, for convenience, into three departments-things, places, and persons. We shall take these departments in their order, and endeavour to show that the more beautiful the thing, the place, or the person, the less useful it will be, and the more useful the less beautiful. I shall not in the following remarks observe any regular difference between natural and artificial beauty, for the rule applies whether the beauty is granted by nature or supplied by art.

Let us first consider those things which usually come under the head of ornaments-things that are thought capable of sustaining any amount of decoration, and on which, consequently, decoration is lavished in abundance. Take, for instance, jewellery, necklaces, brooches, lockets, rings, bracelets, earrings, fans, curtains, antimacassars, cushions, card-bowls, sachet-trays, flower-holders, pictureholders, screens, cabinets, caskets, albums, brackets, cornices, vases, jugs, candlesticks, spider-tables, tea-tables, occasional tables, whatnots, stools, ottomans, drawing-room timepieces, photograph-frames, match-holders, watch-stands, scent-bottles, snuff-boxes, and all the other drawing-room paraphernalia, kith and kin. Consider, also, the amount of enamelling, painting, carving, chasing, colouring, polishing, burnishing, turning, smoothing, gilding, and engraving, and note the representations, designs, patterns, and devices expended on such articles compared with the amount of

work they do and the return they yield. Not one of the above-named things belongs to the necessaries of life, or is in any respect essential to the enjoyment of existence; they are all the surplusage of luxury, the cankers of a large patrimony and prolonged refinement; and yet not one of them is primarily and confessedly without utility, for it was before shown that no object avowedly useless could secure lasting admiration, and consequently none such can come within the range of beauty. I shall not stop here to particularise, but leave it to the common sense of the reader to determine whether there is any other than an inverse proportion between the beauty of the aboveenumerated refinements of luxury and their innate utility. We before had some difficulty in making out the utility of flowers, jewels, sunsets, and other things decidedly very beautiful, but that is quite in accordance with the law proposed; and we ought to find no less difficulty in establishing the utility of that which is most beautiful than in making out the beauty of that which is most useful.

When now we come to a class of objects a degree more useful, we come to a class a degree less beautiful-objects whose increasing utility warns us that they are not capable of bearing the same amount of embellishment as their less useful kindred. In corroboration of this statement I may specify the following: purses, penknives, pens, spectacles, ink-bottles, desks, umbrellas, plates, saucers, cups, spoons, knives, forks, fire-irons, chairs, &c. It is to be noted that in these, as in all other classes of articles, whenever there is a sub-class, less utilised, set apart for public or particular purposes, or appropriated to occasions of unfrequent occurrence, that sub-class will for that very reason become capable of sustaining a greater share of ornament than its more useful brother class. For example, knives and forks, plates and dishes, spoons and vessels, which are used at dinner-or, at the main, the meat and vegetable part of dinner-are much less ornamented, much more sober, solid, plain, and unsuggesting, than those which are

reserved for dessert, sweetmeats, fruits, and miscellaneous delicacies. The latter sub-class are to be seen in cutlery and china shops, and at the tables of the wealthy, with a great variety and richness of ornamentation. The knives and forks and spoons boast the lily, kings, Constantine, beaded, and many other patterns; the blades being engraved, chased, pierced, and carved with flowers, fruit, leaves, twigs, creepers, birds, fishes, shells, and an endless catalogue of objects and designs. Cake-baskets, salvers, tureens, liquor-frames, cruet-stands, tea and coffee services, fruit plates, and generally such utensils as are brought out on state occasions only, obey the same law; for, appertaining only to the luxuries of life, they are made the subjects of profuse embellishment.

Passing on to articles still more useful than any enumerated, and coming towards, if not actually among the necessaries of life, we reach a class of things which are capable of very little ornament, and are in fact generally left plain. Of such may be specified articles of male attire, boots and shoes and socks, hats and coats, blankets, towels, soap, baths, sponges, brushes, ladders, pumps, gardening implements, carpenters', masons' and mechanics' tools, surgical instruments, lawyers' briefs, theological volumes, scientific and educational books, state papers, &c. We were, in a previous chapter, at pains to make out the utility of objects whose beauty is apparent; we shall have no difficulty in making out the utility of objects whose beauty is microscopic, and we might have much difficulty in making out their beauty, such being the natural result of the inverse ratio law. Happily, however, the beauty of the latter class of objects need not be made out, for the law is satisfied if the most useful objects be not mean or ugly. With the catalogue of articles last enumerated compare statues, fountains, and coats-of-arms; these latter are capable of almost any amount of ornamentation, but their utility is unquestionably small, while lamp-posts, pillar-boxes, and gasometers, things of great value and

self-evident utility, are considered capable of next to none. Wall paper is of little use, but it is often highly, and sometimes lavishly decorated, while newspapers, whose use is conspicuous and extensive, are never ornamented.

When we come to the necessaries of life, things whose utility is paramount, we have reached a class of objects almost destitute of what is properly termed beauty, and which are, generally speaking, treated by men as wholly unfit for ornamentation. Meat, fish, fowl, bread, butter, porridge, potatoes, milk, water, salt, coal, candles, flannels, and underclothing, are not looked upon as things of beauty, and are surely not rendered a whit more admirable by any adventitious embellishment. The reason is evident. Beauty depends upon suggestiveness; suggestiveness can only be appreciated by an operation of the intellect; the objects just mentioned do not suggest, they assert, and assert so much and so loudly that there is nothing left for the intellect to employ itself on; they assert their utility in so plain and unmistakable a manner, that all other suggestions or assertions are swallowed up in the process. Therefore it is that the most useful things are not improved upon by being ornamented: they do not exclude beauty, they transcend it; they do not prohibit admiration, they include it; they go beyond-long, long beyondbeauty. Artificial decorations, therefore, are here wanton and ridiculous; for how can we stop short at admiration for things which command our desire?

Subdivisions here exhibit equal confirmations of the rule. Comparing the articles of food which have become a staple stand-by in civilised countries with those that are less essential to existence, we find that the law still holds good (though it be left to nature to furnish the ornament); for surely bread, butter, water, porridge, the various kinds of meat, fish, and fowl, will be thought more useful but less beautiful than vegetables with their green tops and branching stems. Compare chops and steaks and cutlets with potatoes, peas, and carrots; compare a

loaf of bread with a cauliflower, and so on. Vegetables will, in like manner, be thought more useful but less beautiful than fruits. Compare potatoes, peas, beans, carrots, turnips, parsnips, cabbages, onions, cauliflowers, and artichokes with oranges, apples, peaches, currants, grapes, plums, raspberries, strawberries, and cherries, and fruits will, I apprehend, be pronounced more useful but less beautiful than flowers. Compare the fruits last named, and many others into the bargain, with geraniums, roses, dahlias, pansies, tulips, asters, hyacinths, fuschias, petunias, pinks, calceolarias, crocuses, polyanthuses, phlox, &c.

The same remark holds good of insects as compared with birds, and of birds as compared with quadrupeds. Compare such butterflies as the red admiral, peacock, tortoiseshell, Camberwell beauty, swallow-tail, gatekeeper, orangetipped, fritillaries, coppers, blues, tiger moths, and many beetles, with the birds we are commonly accustomed to see, and I think the palm of beauty will be awarded to the insects; and compare thrushes, blackbirds, pigeons, goldfinches, bullfinches, chaffinches, robins, larks, linnets, swallows, sea-gulls, starlings, ducks, and geese, &c., with cows, sheep, horses, asses, goats, pigs, dogs, and cats, and I think the palm of beauty will be awarded to the birds. Tropical insects, birds, and quadrupeds are much more gorgeous and diversified than our British species, but will probably all be found to come under the same law. It would not be fair, however, to compare a particular member of one class or species with a particular member of another class or species for the purpose of upsetting the rule, because species or classes are purely an artificial arrangement. Tomatos, for instance, which are vegetable, would probably be thought more beautiful than pears, which are fruit; but the rule really holds good, for pears are much more useful than tomatos.

When now, amongst the above schedules, we again glance at sub-classes, we find that the law still maintains