It will scarcely admit of a dispute, that the outside of this building is much more perfect than that of St. Peter's at Rome: but the inside, though as fine and noble as the space it stands on, and our religion will allow of, must give way to the splendour, shew, and magnificence of that of St. Peter's, on account of the sculptures and paintings, as well as the greater magnitude of the whole, which makes it excel as to quantity.

There are many other churches of great beauty, the work of the same architect, which are hid in the heart of the city, whose steeples and spires are raised higher than ordinary, that they may be seen at a distance above the other buildings; and the great number of them dispersed about the whole city, adorn the prospect of it, and give it an air of opulency and magnificence on which account their shapes will be found to be particularly beautiful. Of these, and perhaps of any in Europe, St. Mary-le-bow is the most elegantly varied. St. Bride's in Fleet-street diminishes P. 48 sweetly by elegant degrees, but its variations, though very curious when you are near them, not being quite so bold, and distinct, as those of Bow, it too soon loses variety at a distance. Some gothic spires are finely and artfully varied, particularly the famous steeple of Strasburg.

Westminster-Abbey is a good contrast to St. Paul's, with regard to simplicity and distinctness, the great number of its filligrean ornaments, and small divided and subdivided parts appear confused when nigh, and are totally lost at a moderate distance; yet there is .nevertheless such a consistency of parts altogether in

a good gothic taste, and such propriety relative to the gloomy ideas, they were then calculated to convey, that they have at length acquired an established and distinct character in building. It would be looked upon as an impropriety and as a kind of profanation to.build places for mirth and entertainment in the

same taste.

CHAPTER IX.

P.49

OF COMPOSITION WITH THE

WAVING-LINE.

THERE is scarce a room in any house whatever, where one does not see the waving-line employed in some way or other. How inelegant would the shapes of all our moveables be without it? how very plain and unornamental the mouldings of cornices, and chimney-pieces, without the variety introduced by the ogee member, which is entirely composed of wavinglines.

Though all sorts of waving-lines are ornamental, when properly applied; yet, strictly speaking, there is but one precise line, properly to be called the line of beauty, which in the scale of them is number 4: the lines 5, 6, 7, by their bulging too much in their curvature becoming gross and clumsy; and, on the contrary, 3, 2, 1, as they straighten, becoming mean and poor; as will appear in the next figure † where they are applied to the legs of chairs.

A still more perfect idea of the effects of the precise waving-line, and of those lines that deviate from it, may be conceived by the row of stays, figure ‡, where number 4 is composed of precise waving-lines,

Fig. 49. T. p. 1. + Fig. 50. T. p. 1. Fig. 53. B. p. 1.

and is therefore the best shaped stay. Every whalebone of a good stay must be made to bend in this manner: for the whole stay, when put close together behind, is truly a shell of well-varied contents, and its surface of course a fine form; so that if a line, or the lace were to be drawn, or brought from the top of the lacing of the stay behind, round the body, and down to the bottom peak of the stomacher; it would form such a perfect, precise, serpentine-line, as has been shewn, round the cone, figure 26 in plate 1.For this reason all ornaments obliquely contrasting the body in this manner, as the ribbons worn by the knights of the garter, are both genteel and graceful. The numbers 5, 6, 7, and 3, 2, 1, are deviations into stiffness and meanness on one hand, and clumsiness and deformity on the other. The reasons for which P. 50 disagreeable effects, after what has been already said, will be evident to the meanest capacity.

It may be worth our notice however, that the stay, number 2, would better fit a well-shaped man than number 4; and that number 4, would better fit a well-formed woman, than number 2; and when on considering them, merely as to their forms, and comparing them together as you would do two vases, it has been shewn by our principles, how much finer and more beautiful number 4 is, than number 2: does not this our determination enhance the merit of these principles, as it proves at the same time how much the form of a woman's body surpasses in beauty that of a man?

From the examples that have been given, enough may be gathered to carry on our observations from

them to any other objects that may chance to come in our way, either animate or inanimate; so that we may not only lineally account for the ugliness of the toad, the hog, the bear and the spider, which are totally void of this waving-line, but also for the different degrees of beauty belonging to those objects that possess it.