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Dress, and its Relation to Temperaments.
171

articles in the composition of dress, which is never observed or violated without either increasing or diminishing the beauty of the person it distinguishes.

"As the general beauty of the dress depends upon the predominant colour being distinguished by some pleasing or interesting expression, so the beauty of dress in any particular situation or cha­racter depends upon this expression being suited to that particular character or situation."

But as the scope and character of the work pre­vents us from following the artist into his minute analysis of colour, we shall conclude this branch of our subject with the lines of Ovid, addressed to the ladies of Rome nearly two thousand years ago:—

"One with a dye is tinged of lovely blue,
Such as through air serene the sky we view;
With yellow lustre see another spread,
As if the golden fleece composed the thread.
Some of the seagreen wave the cast display,—
With this the nymphs their beauteous forms array;
And some the saffron hue will well adorn:
Such is the mantle of the blushing morn.
Of myrtle-berries one the tincture shows;
In this of amethyst the purple glows,
And that more imitates the paler rose.
Nor Thracian cranes forget whose silvery plumes
Give patterns which employ the mimic looms,
Nor almonds, nor the chesnut dye disdain,
Nor others which from wax derive their name,