confirmed to me what has been now said, particularly as to the legs and thighs being too long and too large for the upper parts. And Andrea Sacchi, one of the great Italian painters, seems to have been of the same opinion, or he would hardly have given his Apollo, crowning Pasquilini the musician, the exact proportion of the Antinous (in a famous picture of his now in England) as otherwise it seems to be a direct copy from the Apollo. Although in very great works we often see an inferior part neglected, yet here it cannot be the case, because in a fine statue, just proportion is one of its essential beauties: therefore it stands to reason that these limbs must have been lengthened on purpose, otherwise it might easily have been avoided. So that if we examine the beauties of this figure thoroughly, we may reasonably conclude that what has been hitherto thought so unaccountably excellent in its general appearance, hath been owing to what hath seemed a blemish in a part of it."—All this is very evident, and I would add that Homer had, long before Phidias, perceived and shown that an appearance

of exaltation and dignity is produced, simply from this addition of size in the dimensions of the legs and thighs. When Antenor wishes to compare the form of Ulysses with that of Menelaus, he is made to say,— *

"Erect, the Spartan most engaged our view,
Ulysses, seated, greater reverence drew."

Since Ulysses gained, as much as Menelaus lost, in sitting, it is easy to determine the relative proportion which the upper part of the body of each bore to their lower extremities. Ulysses had the advantage of height in the former, and Menelaus in the latter.

** Iliad, r. v. 210—11.

TWENTY-THIRD SECTION.

Deformity may be a fit Subject for the Poet, but not for the Painter. Observations on the Deformity of Thersites.

A single discordant part may interrupt the harmonious operation of several in the production of beauty. But the object does not on that account become deformed. Deformity requires the existence of a number of discordant parts, which the eye must, moreover, be able to comprehend at a single glance, in order to awaken in us the opposite sensations to those which beauty excites.

It would seem, then, that deformity, in its essence, is not a fit subject for poetry; yet Homer has not only delineated the extreme of deformity in his Thersites, but he has even dwelt on its separate component parts. Why

was it allowable in him to adopt that practice with regard to deformity, which he so judiciously avoided with regard to beauty? Is not the effect of deformity as much impeded as that of beauty, by the consecutive enumeration of its separate elements ?—There can be no doubt that it is; and in this very circumstance lies Homer's justification. It is precisely because deformity, in the poet's delineation, presents a less adverse appearance of corporeal imperfections, and, in regard to its effect, ceases, as it were, to be deformity, that it is available to the poet; so that what he cannot turn to use on its own account, he employs with advantage as an ingredient in producing and strengthening certain mixed sensations, with which he is obliged to provide us, in default of those which are more exclusively agreeable. These mixed sensations are the ridiculous and the terrific.

Homer makes Thersites deformed in order to render him ridiculous. It is not, however, his mere deformity which excites our ridicule; for deformity is merely an imperfection, and the ridiculous requires a contrast of perfections and

imperfections. To this observation of Mendelssohn, I might add that the contrast must not be too sudden and cutting; that the opposed tints, to use the language of the painter, should be of such a kind as will readily blend into each other. The sage and honest Æsop does not appear ridiculous in our eyes because the deformity of Thersites is attributed to him, with the silly view of transferring to his person the Ts\ow (ridiculous) of his instructive tales. A misshapen body and a beauteous soul are like oil and vinegar, which, let them be ever so much shaken together, will always remain distinct to the taste. They admit of no third state; the body excites aversion, and the soul pleasurable emotion; each affecting the mind in its own peculiar way. When, however, the misshapen body is at the same time feeble and sickly, so as to impede the operations of the soul, and to become the source of prejudices unfavorable to her then aversion and pleasure glide one into the other, and the new product of this

* Mendelssohn's Philosophical Essays, part 2.