The rule of ideal attitude, which I long ago deduced, both from physiological principles, and from the practice of the Greek artists, is that all the parts of one side of the body should be advanced or withdrawn together; that when one side is advanced, the other should be withdrawn; and that when the right arm is elevated, extended, or bent forward, the left leg should be elevated, extended, or bent backward--in all respects the reverse of the academical rule, so complacently mentioned by Dufresnoy, Reynolds, &c. The foundation of this rule in the necessary balance of the body, and that distribution of motion which equally animates every part, must be obvious to every one. It is illustrated by the finest statues of the Greeks, wherever the expression intended was free and unembarrassed, and even in those, as the Laocoon and his sons, where, though the action was constrained and convulsive, the sculptor was yet at liberty to employ the most beautiful attitude. It is abandoned in these great works, when either action embarrassed by purpose, or clownishness, as in the Dancing Faun, are expressed.[48] I have now only to add, with Moreau, that individual beauty, the most perfect, differs always greatly from the ideal, and that which is least removed from it, is very difficult to be found. Hence, in all languages, the epithet _rare_ is attached to beauty; and the Italians even call it _pellegrina_, foreign, to indicate that they have not frequently an opportunity of seeing it: they speak of "_bellezze pellegrine_,"--"_leggiadria singolare e pellegrina_." CHAPTER XIX. THE IDEAL OF FEMALE BEAUTY. "Hominum divûmque voluptas, alma Venus." Of this, the most perfect models have been created by Grecian art. Few, we are told, were the living beauties, from whom such ideal model could be framed. The difficulty of finding these among the women of Greece, must have been considerable, when Praxiteles and Apelles were obliged to have recourse, in a greater or less degree, to the same person, for the beauties of the Venus of Cnidos, executed in white marble, and the Venus of Cos, painted in colors. It is asserted by Athenæeus, that both these productions were, in some measure, taken from Phryne of Thespia, in Boeotia, then a courtesan at Athens. Both productions are said to have represented Phryne coming out of the sea, on the beach of Sciron, in the Saronic gulf, between Athens and Eleusis, where she was wont to bathe. It is said, that there, at the feast of Neptune, Phryne, in the presence of the people of Eleusis, having cast aside her dress, and allowing her long hair to fall over her shoulders, plunged into the sea, and sported long amid its waves. An immense number of spectators covered the shore; and when she came out of it, all exclaimed, "It is Venus who rises from the waters!" The people would actually have taken her for the goddess, if she had not been well known to them.