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."

sing, entitled "Exercises for Ladies," a knowledge of which, and the practice of its principles, would render beauty, and especially beauty of the shoulders and arms, far more common in every family.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE IDEAL OF FEMALE BEAUTY.

"Hominum divômque 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 Athenæus, 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.

Apelles and Praxiteles, we are told, were both upon the shore; and both resolved to represent the birth of Venus according to the beautiful model which they had just beheld.

Such is said to have been the origin of two of the greatest works of antiquity. The work of Apelles, known under the name of Venus Anadyomene, was placed by Cesar in the temple of Venus Genitrix, after the conquest of Greece. An idea of the sculpture of Praxiteles is supposed to have been imperfectly preserved to modern times in the Venus de Medici.

We are farther told, that, after having studied several attitudes, Phryne fancied to have discovered one more favorable than the rest for displaying all her perfections; and that both painter and sculptor were obliged to adopt her favorite posture. From this cause, the Venus of Cnidos, and the Venus of Cos, were so perfectly alike, that it was impossible to remark any difference in their features, contour, or more particularly in their attitude.

The painting of Apelles, it is added, was far from exciting so much enthusiasm among the Greeks, as the sculpture of Praxiteles. They fancied that the marble moved; that it seemed to speak; and their illusion, says Lucian, was so great, that they

ended by applying their lips to those of the goddess.*

"Praxiteles," says Flaxman, "excelled in the highest graces of youth and beauty. He is said to have excelled not only other sculptors, but himself, by his marble statues in the Ceramicus of Athens; but his Venus was preferable to all others in the world, and many sailed to Cnidos for the purpose of seeing it. This sculptor having made two statues of Venus, one with drapery, the other without, the Coans preferred the clothed figure, on account of its severe modesty, the same price being set upon each. The citizens of Cnidos took the rejected statue, and afterward refused it to King Nicomedes, who would have forgiven them an immense debt in return; but they were resolved to suffer anything so long as this statue by Praxiteles ennobled Cnidos. . . . This figure is known by the descriptions of Lucian and Cedrenus, and it is represented on a medal of Caracalla and Plautilla, in the imperial cabinet of France. This Venus was still in Cnidos during the reign of the emperor Alcadius, about four hundred years after Christ.

It was at the extremity of the modern Cape Crio, anciently Triopium, a promontory of Doris, a province of Caria, that was built the celebrated city of Cnidos. Here Venus was worshipped: here was seen this statue of that goddess, the most beautiful of the works of Praxiteles. A temple, far from spacious, and open on all sides, contained it, without concealing it from view; and, in whatever point of view it was examined, it excited equal admiration. No drapery veiled its charms; and so uncommon was its beauty, that it inflamed with a violent passion another Pygmalion.

This statue seems to offer the first idea of the Venus de Medici, which is likely to be the repetition of another Venus, the work of this artist." He elsewhere says of the Venus of Praxiteles, it was "the most admired female statue of all antiquity, whose beauty is as perfect as it is elevated, and as innocent as perfect; from which the Medicean Venus seems but a deteriorated variety."

Flaxman states that he himself had seen, in the stables of the Braschi palace, a statue which he supposed might be the original work of Praxiteles. Strange to tell, nothing is now known of its fate! A supposed cast from this, or from a copy of it, conforming to the figure on the model of Caracalla, is to be seen at the Royal Academy.

was

Of the VENUS DE MEDICI, Flaxman says, it (6 so much a favorite of the Greeks and Romans, that a hundred ancient repetitions of this statue have been noticed by travellers. The individual figure is said to have been found in the forum of Octavia. The style of sculpture seems to have been later than Alexander the Great.

Let us now briefly examine this Model of Female Beauty.

The Venus de Medici represents woman at that age when every beauty has just been perfected "The Venus de Medici at Florence," says Winckelmann, “is like a rose which, after a beautiful daybreak, expands its leaves to the first ray of the sun, and represents that age when the limbs assume a more finished form and the breast begins to develop itself."