PREFACE.

os contradiction as the most obscure quibble ever deli-vers at Delphos, because, winding lines are as often thecause of deformity as of grace , the solution os which, inthis place, would be an anticipation of what the readerwill find at large in the body of the work.

There are also strong prejudices in savour os straightlines, as constituting true beauty in the human form,where they never should appear. A middling connoisseurthinks no profile has beauty without a very straight nose,and is the forehead be continued straight with it, he thinksit is still more sublime. I have seen miserable scratcheswith the pen, fell at-a considerable rate for pnly havingin them a fide face or two, like that between fig. 22,and fig. 105, plate 1, which was made, and any onemight do the fame, with the eyes shut. The commonnotion that a person should be straight as an arrow, andperfectly erect is of this kind. If a dancing-master wereto fee his scholar in the ealy and gracesully-turned atti-tude of the Antinous (fig. 6, plate 1,) he would cryshame on him, and tell him he looked as crooked as aram’s horn, and bid him hold up his head as he himselfdid. Se£ fig. 7, plate 1.

The painters, in like manner, by their works, seemto be no less divided upon the subject than the authors.The French, except such as have imitated the antique,or the Italian school, seem to have studiously avoidedthe serpentine line in all their pictures, especially An-thony Coy pel, history painter, and Rigaud, principalportrait painter to Lewis the 14th. Rubens,