of plastic art, lies the modern art of Engraving, or Sculptural Painting in its various species.

1010. It is sufficiently apparent from the foregoing premises that all plastic, constructive, and graphic art, and that of Drawing in particular, consists elementarily in the ability to form the three primary lines in their various positions, gradations, and compositions. It is apparent, also, by what nice gradations figures run into each other in an infinite progression; or, in other words, by what geometrical forms the figures of bodies are mellowed or melodized in a regular and coincident scale, like those of the musician and colourist.

1011. Whence the seemingly irregular beauty of forms and figure, especially called picturesque, arises from circular flowing into angular forms, and thence becoming linear, as we see in the exquisite graining of woods and other natural objects; which figures run linearly into each other, as in the outlines and ramifications of trees, foliage, &c.; and spread into superficial and solid forms of like geometrical relations and plastic beauty-gliding and eliding from figure to figure, as seen in marbles, clouds, &c.,- eliciting picturesque beauties infinitely, according to unvarying principles of order and harmony throughout figure, number, and motion.

1012. The same may be instanced not only in the solid substances of nature, but also in the rippling of the brook, the currents and undulations

of rivers, the billows and breakers of the torrent and the ocean, and the glorious forms of the sky.

1013. Accordingly, the ingenious theory of Mr. Luke Howard attributes three primary forms to the clouds, the one of which he has called Stratus, another Cirrus, and the third Cumulusthe first being linear, the second angular, and the third globular or circular-whence his compound secondary forms are Cirro-stratus, Cirro-cumulus, and Cumulo-stratus; and he compounds the three under the denomination of Cumulo-cirro-stratus, or Nimbus: an arrangement for this branch of meteorological science, wherein natural observation goes sagaciously home to original principle simply, elegantly, and ingeniously.

1014. It appears, also, in a manner perfectly coincident and analogous, how figures oppose and harmonize each other in art with reference to pictural Composition, and its various forms, linear, angular, circular, and compound; and why the modern artist has made such eminent use of the primary angular, or pyramidal, or middle form in particular, in the grouping and composition of his figures, &c.

1015. The most graceful of the modern masters have employed principally undulating curves in their designs and compositions, or the Hogarthian line of beauty; but the antient Greeks composed variously with the three primary lines together: and to this may be attributed the more energetic,

natural, and noble character of their works-and of those of Michael Angelo, also, which were founded upon them.

1016. Upon inspecting the great works of Raphael, it will be seen that he composed principally upon the curve and circle, of which his "School of Athens," his "Last Supper," and his " Death of Ananias," are instances; and Leonardo da Vinci delighted in triangular and triadic compositions, as appears in his great work of the "Last Supper." Thus we have evidence of this regimen of forms in three of the greatest masters of the chief modern school of Design. We have spoken principally of historic composition; but the same principles apply to landscape and the other branches of pictural art.*

1017. The chromatic axiom, which prescribes in the harmonizing of colours a due exhibition of their three primaries in community, is equally aplicable in Plastics, for there can be no perfect harmony in the composition of figures in which either of the three genera is wanting, and the varieties of harmony in composition and design depend upon the various predominance and subordination of the three. Hence, of the secondary figures, the Cylinder is harmonized and contrasted by the Triangle, &c.; the Prism by the Circle, &c.; and the Cone by

* See Dagley's "Compendium of the Art of Painting," &c. ed. 2.

the Parallelogram, &c.: for by these means the three primary figures are variously combined together.

1018. Hence the rule that any secondary colour composed of two primaries is harmonized by opposing to it the remaining primary, applies also to forms or figures. It is hence that the parallel forms of an architectural structure, composed of right lines and angles, give harmony and beauty by opposition to the irregular curves and compound or broken forms of a landscape; or that the circular temple, or cylindrical columns, contrast the angular and devious forms of mountain scenery, when such forms are in due subordination; and they become equally destructive of harmony when unduly predominating or transcending, by subduing the unifying forms, the archeus and key-note of the composition.

1019. Hence also arises, on the other hand, the beauty and harmony which result from trees and animate figures, or a touch of landscape in subordination to an architectural composition: the principle is universal; and, whenever forms compounded principally of two primary figures predominate, the third primary figure introduced in subordination will infallibly contribute to the harmony of the composition.

1020. It is a fallacious and narrow maxim, therefore, which is entertained by some, that geometrical forms or figures are to be totally excluded

from pictural design, as inimical to grace and beauty; yet these forms are, like the primary and secondary colours, in themselves, and individually, beautiful; and all the precaution required by the artist who employs them in composition, is, that they be comported with the harmony upon which general beauty, grace, and expression, according to the design depends.

1021. In coincidence herewith, the diatessaron or fourth, which was held to be the foundation of all harmony in the music of antient Greece, consists of the above relation, and is analogically, also, the basis of all chromatic harmony, and appears, according to the same analogy, to be the basis of harmony in the composition of figures; and not so of these alone, since we have abundant evidence thereof in the lowest objects of taste and the senses.

1022. As to the human figure and human countenance, to which natural composition, and, in particular, expression, pre-eminently belong, and in which these plastic relations are more diversified, compounded, and subtilized, to them our analogy equally applies; and the artist who aims at originality and nature may undoubtedly reap advantage in his studies of the human figure, by looking beyond its anatomy to that upon which its anatomy is framed; or, in other words, to the anatomy of form itself.

1023. For as in drawing a figure he will evince