The artists repository and drawing magazine: exhibiting the principles of the polite arts in their various branches (1.1787)

LECTURE IV.

<c T? VERY thing, fays Solomon, is beautiful
in its fcafon and we adopt his opinion :
time, and place; a happy union of circumftances,
render many things highly pleafing, which, under
lefs favourable appearances, would fcarce receive
our notice: but, your prefent attention, Ladies
and Gentlemen, is not requefted on fubjects in-
terefting by accident, but on thofe which are
univerfally acknowledged to be uniformly en-
gaging-

Amidft the variety of beauty with which our
earth abounds, nothing is fo ftriking to mankind
as the elegance of the human form, and while
that predilection we lately mentioned continues,
it ever will be fo. This has been the fubject of
panegyric in all ages, and by all writers j our
inimitable Shakspeare, equally excellent on this
as on all other occafions ; thus exclaims *>
" What a piece of work is man ! how noble in
reafon ! how infinite in faculties 1 in form and

L 2 moving,

* Spoken by Hamlet.