e affectionate orang-outang,
or the faithful mastiff? Nay, we may run through a long list of most
useful and amiable creatures, that could not, under any circumstances,
give birth to an emotion corresponding to that which we ascribe to the
beautiful.

But there is scarcely a subject on which mankind are wider at
variance, than on the beauty of their own species,--some preferring
this, and others that, particular conformation; which can only be
accounted for on the supposition of some predominant expression,
either moral, intellectual, or sensual, with which they are in
sympathy, or else the reverse. While some will task their memory,
and resort to the schools, for their supposed infallible
_rules_;--forgetting, meanwhile, that ultimate tribunal to which
their canon must itself appeal, the ever-living principle which first
evolved its truth, and which now, as then, is not to be reasoned
about, but _felt_. It need not be added how fruitful of blunders
is this mechanical ground.

Now we venture to assert that no mistake was ever made, even in a
single glance, concerning any natural object, not disfigured by human
caprice, or which the eye had not been trained to look at through
some conventional medium. Under this latter circumstance, there are
doubtless many things in nature which affect men very differently; and
more especially such as, from their familiar nearness, have come under
the influence of _opinion_, and been incrusted, as it were, by
the successive deposits of many generations. But of the vast and
various multitude of objects which have thus been forced from their
original state, there is perhaps no one which has undergone so many
and such strange disfigurements as the human form; or in relation to
which our "ideas," as we are pleased to call them, but in truth our
opinions, have been so fluctuating. If an Idea, indeed, had any thing
to do with Fashion, we should call many things monstrous to
which custom has reconciled us. Let us suppose a case, by way of
illustration. A gentleman and lady, from one of our fashionable
cities, are making a tour on the borders of some of our new
settlements in the West. They are standing on the edge of a forest,
perhaps admiring the grandeur of nature; perhaps, also, they are
lovers, and sharing with nature their admiration for each other, whose
personal charms are set off to the utmost, according to the most
approved notions, by the taste and elegance of their dress. Then
s