"Rubens knew the waving line, but his contours are rather overcharged. Vandyke, his scholar, perhaps for fear of running into what he might think gross in his master's manner, imitated nature just as it chanced to present itself; and having an exact eye, produced portraits which abound with delicacy and simplicity; but when nature flagged he was tame, not knowing that principle which might have raised his ideas. His best works are, however, marked with grace." No. 3 is intended to represent one of those clumsy, grotesque ornaments with which our cathedrals abound, where a winged figure, perched in the niche of an arch behind a shield, seems intended as a guardian angel to the dust of the deceased hero, whose armorial bearing is sometimes displayed in the front. The last engraving which I have taken from the manuscript of the _Analysis_, makes an easy and elegant form; and I have ventured to introduce it in the title-page to this volume. The original drawing is on the same leaf with two sketches of an ill-shaped candlestick and torch thistle (Nos. 40 and 42), in the first plate to the _Analysis_. I think it may be denominated "The Dolphin Candlestick," as it is composed of dolphins and snakes, so twisted as to combine his favourite serpentine line, and crowned with the iris and lily. In his MS., after remarking that "our furniture and utensils are generally as tasteless and inelegant as straight and unvaried lines can make them,"--and producing as examples the ill-shaped candlesticks, etc., which are engraved in his first plate,--he concludes by observing, "It is said in vindication of such forms, that they are adhered to for the sake of simplicity; but this might be preserved, and yet some portion of beauty introduced, did they combine their little variations by the proper rules." "Let the 'Dolphin Candlestick,' composed of serpentine lines varying with each other, be compared with No. 40, plate I, which is made up of plain unvaried parts, and it will show, in a much clearer view than can be expressed by words, the necessity of variety to constitute beauty. "Nature gives us a few examples of tasteless forms in the torch thistle, and some other ill-shaped exotics to be found in green-houses, which form a striking contrast to such flowers as the Chalcedonian iris and lily, whose enchanting beauty proceeds from their variety--these two flowers united form a nozzle to the candlestick above alluded to."