itself; the more useful the vegetable, fruit, flower, bird, or animal, the less beautiful it will be found. Compare a dish of potatoes with a dish of celery, and do you not find the first more useful and the second more beautiful? Compare similarly a dish of parsnips with a dish of beetroot; compare cauliflowers with parsley; compare the various kinds of cabbage with the various kinds of lettuce; compare spinach, beans, and turnips with leeks, mustard, and pickling cabbage; and I think that in each of these cases. men would prefer to be deprived of the most beautiful vegetable, and yet be disposed to admire the least useful. So in fruit, I think oranges, grapes, cherries, currants, raspberries, and peaches will be pronounced more beautiful than pears, apples, gooseberries, plums, damsons, and strawberries, which are commoner and more serviceable fruits; and the Chaumontel, which is one of the most valuable of pears, is certainly one of the least elegant. The beauty, however, of some of the last-named fruits of the second list may be equal to any of those in the first list, but the utility also may be much about the

same.

The utility of flowers has been explained to consist, amongst other things, in colour and fragrance; and it so happens that these utilities, one of which is much more pungent and sensible than the other, are generally found inversely coexistent in flowers, so that a flower which boasts the best and brightest colour will have the least fragrance, and that which yields the most grateful perfume will show the dullest dress. Geraniums, pelargoniums, lobelias, fuschias, dahlias, asters, pansies, nasturtiums, chrysanthemums, tulips, crocuses, the ranunculus, marigolds, calceolarias, poppies, phlox, the gladiolas, balsams, rhododendrons, azaleas, the polyanthus, flowering verbenas, mimulus, and a great many others that might be named, display the most rare and brilliant hues, and are either destitute of perfume or have none worth talking of, or else, like asters and nasturtiums, have actually an

unpleasant odour; while lavender, verbena, musk, mignonette, myrtle, heliotropes, primroses, may, meadow-sweet, jonquil, jasmine, clematis, lily of the valley, woodbine, lilac, and sweet-briar have but dull or indifferent colours, or else exhibit very little variety of hue, and yet yield the most grateful of perfumes. The martagon lily is of a most brilliant scarlet, and has no scent; the white lily, which has no hue, has a very pleasant flagrance-and indeed it seems to be a rule that when any variety of a sweetlyscented species gains in colour it loses in odour; the sweet-scented verbena is very unattractive in appearance, and the brilliant variegated verbenas are without perfume; the primrose has very little variety of hue, being generally yellow, white, or of a pale slate colour, but its fragrance is universally loved; "the polyanthus of unnumbered dyes," as Shakspere calls it, is a species of primrose boasting the most brilliant colours but destitute of odour. The flowers which "join scent to hue" are justly valued and esteemed as the best of all. Their number is not great, however. The rose is called the " queen of flowers"

because it unites the most brilliant and various of colours with the most grateful and pleasant of perfumes; hyacinths for the same reason take a very high place among flowers; carnations follow suit; furze is also brilliant and sweet; the cytisus, the bonvardia, the stephanotis, and others may be mentioned, but flowers of this class are comparatively scarce.

As colour and odour in the flower, so plumage and song in the bird seem to coexist generally in an inverse ratio. Chaffinches, jays, kingfishers, wagtails, hoopoes, woodpeckers, shrikes, rollers, waxwings, sheldrakes, crossbills, pheasants, and peacocks are sufficiently gay, but have either no song or a very poor one; while nightingales, wrens, larks, linnets, thrushes, blackbirds, sedge-warblers, hedge-sparrows, and pipits are comparatively plain, but sing very sweetly. A few birds, such as the goldfinch, robin, siskin, goldcrest, bullfinch, and golden oriel, both

shine and sing. Song-birds are few in number and small in size; they generally live near the habitations of men, and apart from their colour and their carol they are but of little use. The vast majority of birds are non-singers, and the most useful are usually the plainest in appearance. Let us compare a few of them.

Look at a domestic hen beside a golden pheasant; few birds are more useful than a domestic hen, and few are more beautiful than a golden pheasant. Compare ducks and geese and turkeys with pigeons, plover, partridge, grouse, sea-gulls, and woodcock; and compare the latter list with other birds less useful still-with peacocks, birds of paradise, parrots and paroquets, kingfishers, swans, eagles, lyre-birds, &c.

The like arrangement obtains amongst quadrupeds—the least useful being the most beautiful, and the most valuable being the plainest. Compare the most useful of all quadrupeds-sheep, cows, pigs, goats, asses, horses, elephants, dromedaries, and camels, with the least useful -stags, musk oxen, reindeer, elks, gazelles, antelopes, squirrels, foxes, civets, cats, genets, camelopards, and I think the inverse ratio rule will be recognised.

Looking again at sub-classes among quadrupeds, do we not find that, among horses, for instance, racers, hunters, saddle and carriage horses are much more beautiful but much less useful than great dray-horses, huge van, waggon, and cart horses, or than homely and unassuming hackney-cab, car, and omnibus horses? The latter do nearly all the real horse work in commercial countries, by carrying business people about town and enabling them to fulfil their engagements and discharge their duties, and by transferring merchandise, goods, and the necessaries of life from place to place; while the former serve for racing and amusement and betting, for carrying huntsmen through fences and over farms and plantations, or for taking the affluent on pleasure rides and idle canters, and ladies on shopping expeditions. It were needless to wander among

details of this kind; all nature is full of the rule, or the law, whichever it be. Let us therefore pass on to another class, viz., vehicles.

Among vehicles it will only be necessary to point out those which do the most work, and compare them with those that do the least, and the inverse ratio of coexistent beauty and utility will appear forthwith. What are those vehicles which do the greatest amount of work in civilised communities-which co-operate with horses in transferring corn, clothing, eatables, furniture, and building materials from one place to another, according to the requirements of existence? Are they not carts and waggons? And what are those which do the least amount of reproductive or important work? Are they not private carriages, phaetons, victorias, landaus? Look now at the respective beauty of these vehicles. Comparé the work done by an omnibus, either as regards importance or amount, with that done by a four-in-hand excursion coach, and then compare their beauty. Compare the work done by vans, drays, and cabs with that done by waggonettes, barouches, broughams, gigs, and dogcarts, and then compare their beauty. Consider the utility of a wheelbarrow and its beauty, as compared with the utility of a perambulator and its beauty. Estimate the utility of a train which gets over forty or fifty miles of ground in an hour, as compared with that of a steamer which gets over ten or fifteen miles in the same time, and then compare the beauty of the vehicles. Among ships, again, place the beauty of yachts, schooners, launches, and canoes beside that of brigs, merchantmen, sloops, lightships, barges, and boats, and then calculate their utility.

If we glance at shops, we shall find that they have been largely disposed of already by what was said concerning the various necessaries and luxuries of life; for if meat and bread, &c., have little beauty in detail, they will have no more in the aggregate. We shall consequently find but little to arrest our attention and but small time lost in

admiring butchers', bakers', and bootmakers' shops, but considerable attention and often much time accorded to jewellers', photographers', and toy shops. Compare the number of people seen gazing in at grocery, hosiery, and chandlers' establishments, with those observed lingering before depôts of antique art, oil paintings, and engravings, and then calculate the respective utilities of the institutions; compare the beauty of a dairy with that of a hairdresser's window, and then estimate the respective values of false hair and pomatums, and of milk and butter; compare the appearance of a fishmonger's shop with that of a lace depôt, and then note their use. So likewise greengrocers may be compared with fruiterers; fruiterers with florists; ironmongers with opticians; leather shops with naturalists'; book shops with china shops; and under-clothing with outer-clothing warehouses; and it will, I think, require but little ingenuity to make out the inverse ratio law.

Let us pass on to buildings, and ascertain if beauty and utility still fulfil their inverse promise. In architecture it is evident we come to a very important branch of beauty, and if the principle be violated here, the theory may fall to the ground altogether. First of all, then, let us ask ourselves, what are the most useful buildings in a country? Are they not indisputably the houses which the people inhabit? Take away their houses and the people must perish. Domiciles are the first erections in every country; they exist before any other building is thought of, and will remain after every other building has disappeared, as long as the land is peopled. Savages who know nothing of ornamental edifices have at least their houses to live in-tents or huts. Secondly, let us inquire what class of buildings are the least utilised? In civilised countries the answer must be-ecclesiastical buildings; for churches and cathedrals are utilised some of them but once or twice a week, others of them every day no doubt, but none of them by more than a small