les, chairs, scritoires, chimneys,
coaches, sadles, ploughs, and indeed to every work of art; it being an
universal rule, that their beauty is chiefly derived from their utility,
and from their fitness for that purpose, to which they are destined.
But this is an advantage, that concerns only the owner, nor is there any
thing but sympathy, which can interest the spectator.

It is evident, that nothing renders a field more agreeable than its
fertility, and that scarce any advantages of ornament or situation will
be able to equal this beauty. It is the same case with particular trees
and plants, as with the field on which they grow. I know not but a
plain, overgrown with furze and broom, may be, in itself, as beautiful
as a hill covered with vines or olive-trees; though it will never appear
so to one, who is acquainted with the value of each. But this is a
beauty merely of imagination, and has no foundation in what appears to
the senses. Fertility and value have a plain reference to use; and
that to riches, joy, and plenty; in which though we have no hope of
partaking, yet we enter into them by the vivacity of the fancy, and
share them, in some measure, with the proprietor.

There is no rule in painting more reasonable than that of ballancing the
figures, and placing them with the greatest exactness on their proper
centers of gravity. A figure, which is not justly ballanced, is
disagreeable; and that because it conveys the ideas of its fall, of
harm, and of pain: Which ideas are painful, when by sympathy they
acquire any degree of force and vivacity.

Add to this, that the principal part of personal beauty is an air
of health and vigour, and such a construction of members as promises
strength and activity. This idea of beauty cannot be accounted for but
by sympathy.

In general we may remark, that the minds of men are mirrors to one
another, not only because they reflect each others emotions, but also
because those rays of passions, sentiments and opinions may be often
reverberated, and may decay away by insensible degrees. Thus the
pleasure, which a rich man receives from his possessions, being thrown
upon the beholder, causes a pleasure and esteem; which sentiments again,
being perceived and sympathized with, encrease the pleasure of the
possessor; and being once more reflected, become a new foundation for
pleasure and esteem in the beholder. There is certainly an original
satisfaction in riches derived from that pow