If the foregoing passages be analysed, it will, I think, be found, first, that wit, like poetry, is relative and consists of two factors, an illustrated subject and an illustrating object; secondly, that the ludicrous effect is produced in consequence of one of these factors being below the dignity of the other, or both being below the dignity of the occasion. If the subject be extended so as to include every species and description of humour, the same rule. will, I think, be found still to assert itself.

CHAPTER VI.

IV. THE APPEARANCE OF BEAUTY VARIES INVERSELY WITH THE APPEARANCE OF UTILITY.

BEAUTY is a relative term and implies two things-first, an objective quality of matter, and secondly, a subjective emotion of the mind. The objective quality consists in suggestiveness, the subjective emotion in admiration; and where either of these factors is wanting the other is wanting also-no beauty can be recognised and no admiration felt. Furthermore, beauty is never found independent of utility: utility is its basis, its support, its root; and, being removed, beauty dies and admiration ceases. Consequently, there can be no abstract beauty—no beauty pure and simple anywhere: while connected with utility we may admire and warmly laud, but with the cessation of utility our admiration is exhausted, and we feel the dawning symptoms of contempt. These principles, which relate to the nature and meaning of beauty and to the conditions of its existence, have been examined and tested in the foregoing chapters. We have now to prove that the quantity of beauty is regulated by a law no less stringent and complete than those we have dismissed; a law which shows that the appearance of beauty is inversely proportional to the appearance of utility—that where the beauty increases in any object the utility diminishes, and where the utility increases the beauty diminishes, and this, too, whether the object be naturally adorned or artificially ornamented in other words, though beauty and utility exist only as they coexist, yet in regard to their amount

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