or analogy, than a man,
and a house or temple: do we need to observe that their purposes are
entirely different? What I am apt to suspect is this: that these
analogies were devised to give a credit to the works of art, by showing
a conformity between them and the noblest works in nature; not that the
latter served at all to supply hints for the perfection of the former.
And I am the more fully convinced, that the patrons of proportion have
transferred their artificial ideas to nature, and not borrowed from
thence the proportions they use in works of art; because in any
discussion of this subject they always quit as soon as possible the open
field of natural beauties, the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and
fortify themselves within the artificial lines and angles of
architecture. For there is in mankind an unfortunate propensity to make
themselves, their views, and their works, the measure of excellence in
everything whatsoever. Therefore having observed that their dwellings
were most commodious and firm when they were thrown into regular
figures, with parts answerable to each other; they transferred these
ideas to their gardens; they turned their trees into pillars, pyramids,
and obelisks; they formed their hedges into so many green walls, and
fashioned their walks into squares, triangles, and other mathematical
figures, with exactness and symmetry; and they thought, if they were not
imitating, they were at least improving nature, and teaching her to know
her business. But nature has at last escaped from their discipline and
their fetters; and our gardens, if nothing else, declare, we begin to
feel that mathematical ideas are not the true measures of beauty. And
surely they are full as little so in the animal as the vegetable world.
For is it not extraordinary, that in these fine descriptive pieces,
these innumerable odes and elegies which are in the mouths of all the
world, and many of which have been the entertainment of ages, that in
these pieces which describe love with such a passionate energy, and
represent its object in such an infinite variety of lights, not one word
is said of proportion, if it be, what some insist it is, the principal
component of beauty; whilst, at the same time, several other qualities
are very frequently and warmly mentioned? But if proportion has not this
power, it may appear odd how men came originally to be so prepossessed
in its favor. It arose, I imagine, from the fondness I have just