surface of the earth is so profusely decorated, an almost endless variety of systematic arrangements of beautiful figures, often so perfectly symmetrical in their combination, that the most careful application of the angleometer could scarcely detect the slightest deviation from geometrical precision; while, amongst the masses of foliage by which the forms of many trees are divided and subdivided into parts, as also amongst the hills and valleys, the mountains and ravines, which divide the earth’s surface, we find in every possible variety of aspect the beauty produced by that irregular species of symmetry which characterises the picturesque. In like manner, we find in wild as well as cultivated flowers the most symmetrical distributions of colours accompanying an equally precise species of harmony in their various kinds of contrasts, often as mathematically regular as the geometric diagrams by which writers upon colour sometimes illustrate their works; while in the general colouring of the picturesque beauties of nature, there is an endless variety in its distributions, its blendings, and its modifications. In the forms and colouring of animals, too, the same endless variety of regular and irregular symmetry is to be found. But the highest degree of beauty in nature is the result of an equal balance of uniformity with variety. Of this the human figure is an example; because, when it is of those proportions universally acknowledged to be the most perfect, its uniformity bears to its variety an apparently equal ratio. The harmony of combination in the normal proportions of its parts, and the beautifully simple harmony of succession in the normal melody of its softly undulating outline, are the perfection of symmetrical beauty, while the innumerable changes upon the contour which arise from the actions and attitudes occasioned by the various emotions of the mind, are calculated to produce every species of picturesque beauty, from the softest and most pleasing to the grandest and most sublime.