In infancy the faces of boys and girls ‡ have no visible difference, but as they grow up the features of the boy get the start, and grow faster in proportion to the ring of the eye, than those of the girl, which shews the diftinction of the sex in the face. Boys who have larger features than ordinary, in proportion to the rings of their eyes, are what we call manly-featured children; as those who have the contrary, look more childish and younger than they really are. It is this proportion of the features with the eyes, that makes women, when they are dressed in mens-clothes, look so young and boyish: but as nature doth not always stick close to these particulars,, we may be mistaken both in sexes and ages.

By these obvious appearances, and the differences of the whole size, we easily judge of ages till twenty, but not with such certainty afterwards; for the alterations from that age are of a different kind, subject to other changes by growing fatter or leaner, which it is well known, often give a different turn to the look of the person, with regard to his age.

The hair of the head, which encompasses a face as a frame doth a picture, and contrasts with its uniform. colour,

(a) Which represents three different sizes of the pupil of the eye; the least was exactly taken from the eye of a large featured man, aged 105, the biggest from one of twenty, who had this part larger than ordinary, and the other is the common size. If this part of the eye in the pictures of Charles II, and James II. painted by Vandyke at Kensington, were to be measured with a pair of compasses, and compared with their pictures painted by Lilly when they were men, the diameters would be found in both; pictures respectively the same.

Fig.115

T.p.1.(a)

colour, the variegated inclofed compofition, adding more or less beauty thereto, according as it is difposed by the rules of art, is another indication of advanced age. What remains to be said on the different appearances of ages, being less pleasing than what has gone before, shall be described with more brevity. In the age from twenty to thirty, barring accidents, there appears but little change, either in the colours or the lines of the face; for tho' the bloom tints may go off a little, yet on the other hand, the make of the features often attain a fort of settled firmness in them, aided by an air of acquired sensibility; which makes ample amends for that loss, and keeps beauty till thirty pretty much upon a par; after this time, as the alterations grow more and more visible, we perceive the sweet simplicity of many rounding parts of the face, begin to break into dented shapes, with more sudden turns about the muscles, occasioned by their many repeated movements; as also by dividing the broad parts, and thereby taking off the large sweeps of the serpentine lines; the shades of beauty also consequently suffering in their softnesses. Something of what is here meant between the two ages Fig.117. of thirty and fifty, fee in figures *, and what further Fig. 118. havock time continues to make after the age of fifty, is

and

B. p. 2.

too remarkable to need describing: the strokes and cuts he then lays on are plain enough; however, in spite of all his malice, those lineaments that have once been elegant, retain their flowing turns in venerable age, leaving to the last a comely piece of ruins.

CHAP. XVI.

Of ATTITUDE.

SUCH dispositions of the body and limbs as appear most graceful when seen at rest, depend upon. gentle winding contrasts, mostly governed by the precise serpentine line, which in attitudes of authority, are more, extended and spreading than ordinary, but reduced somewhat below the medium of grace, in those of negligence and ease: and as much exaggerated in insolent and proud carriage, or in distortions of pain (fee figure 9, plate 1.) as lessened and contracted into plain and parallel lines, to express meanness, aukwardness, and submission.

The general idea of an action, as well as of an attitude, may be given with a pencil in very few lines. It is easy to conceive that the attitude of a person upon the cross, may be fully signified by the true straight lines of the cross; so the extended manner of St. Andrew's crucifixion is wholly understood by the X-like cross.

Thus, as two or three lines at first arc sufficient to shew the intention of an attitude, I will take this opportunity of presenting my reader (who may have been at the trouble of following me thus far) with the sketch of a country-dance, in the manner I began to set out the design; in order to shew how few lines are necef

fary

I

fary to express the first thoughts, as to different attiFig. 71 tudes; see fig. *, which describe in some measure, the several figures and actions, mostly of the ridiculous kind, that are represented in the chief part of plate 2.

T. p. 2.

The most amiable person may deform his general appearance by throwing his body and limbs into plain lines; but such lines appear still in a more disagreeable light in people of a particular make, I have therefore chose such figures as I thought would agree best with my first score of lines, fig. 71.

The two parts of curves next to 71, served for the figures of the old woman and her partner at the farther end of the room. The curve and two straight lines at right angles, gave the hint for the fat man's sprawling posture. I next resolved to keep a figure within the bounds of a circle, which produced the upper part of the fat woman, between the fat man and the awkward one in the bag wig, for whom I had made a sort of an X. The prim lady, his partner, in the riding-habit, by pecking back her elbows, as they call it, from the waist upwards, made a tolerable D, with a straight line under it, to signify the scanty stiffness of her petticoat; and a Z stood for the angular position the body makes with the legs and thighs of the affected fellow in the tye-wig; the upper part of his plump partner was confined to an O, and this changed into a P, served as a hint for the straight lines behind. The uniform diamond of a card, was filled up by the flying dress, &c. of the little caper

ing figure in the spencer-wig; whilst a double L marked the parallel position of his poking partner's hands and arms: and lastly, the two waving lines were drawn for the more genteel turns of the two figures at the hither end.

The best representation in a picture, of even the most elegant dancing, as every figure is rather a suspended action in it than an attitude, must be always somewhat unnatural and ridiculous; for were it possible in a real dance to fix every person at one instant of time, as in a picture, not one in twenty would appear to be graceful, though each were ever so much so in their movements ; nor could the figure of the dance itself be at all underftood.

Fig. 72.

p. 2.

+Fig. 51.

P. 2.

Fig. 73.

P. 2.

The dancing-room is also ornamented purposely with such statues and pictures as may serve to a farther illustration. Henry viii. fig. *, makes a perfect X with his legs and arms; and the position of Charles the first, fig. ✝, is composed of less-varied lines than the statue of Edward the sixth, fig. ‡; and the medal over his head is in the like kind of lines; but that over Q. Elizabeth, as well as her figure, is in the contrary; so are also the two other wooden figures at the end. Likewise the comical gesture of astonishment (expressed by following the direction of one plain curve, as the dotted line in a french print of Sancho, where Don Quixote demolishes the puppet show, fig. ||,) is a good contrast to the effect Fig.75. of the serpentine lines in the fine turn of the Samaritan

R. p. 2.