and made them bear to each other these perfect proportions and relations,
had no less knowledge, methinks, of the true principles of taste, and of
the very secrets of beauty, than the great Longinus himself. The beauty is
so rare, that it affects the mind almost like greatness itself. In truth,
in perfect beauty there is always that which overawes.'

'I cannot say,' replied Julia, 'that the learned Greek was the architect
and designer of these various forms of beauty. The credit, I believe, is
rather due to Periander, a native Athenian, a man, it is universally
conceded, of the highest genius. Yet it is at the same time to be said,
that the mind of Longinus presided over the whole. And he took not less
delight in ordering the arrangements of these gardens, than he did in
composing that great treatise, not long published, and which you must have
seen before you left Rome. He is a man of universal powers. You have not
failed to observe his grace, not less than his abilities, while we were at
the tables. You have seen that he can play the part of one who would win
the regards of two foolish girls, as well as that of first minister of a
great kingdom, or that of the chief living representative and teacher of
the philosophy of the immortal Plato.'

'For myself,' I replied, 'I could hardly withdraw myself from the simple
admiration of his noble head and form, to attend, so as to judge of it, to
what fell from his lips. It seems to me that if a sculptor of his own
Greece sought for a model of the human figure, he could hope to find none
so perfect as that of Longinus.'

'That makes it the foolisher and stranger,' said Fausta, 'that he should
toil at his toilet as he so manifestly does. Why can he not rely, for his
power over both men and women, upon his genius, and his natural graces. It
might be well enough for the Stagyrite to deck his little person in fine