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168 ought to be one predominating colour, to which the rest should be subordinate. As painters—

so in dress; one part of the body should never be distinguished by one colour, and the other by another. Whatever divides the attention dimi­nishes the beauty of the object; and though each part taken separately may appear beautiful, yet as a whole the effect is destroyed.

"It may be observed," says Mr. Alison, in his work on Taste, "that no dress is beautiful in which there is not some leading or predominant colour displayed, or in which, if I may use the expression, there is not some unity of colour. A dress in which different colours were employed in equal quantities, in which one half of the body was dis­tinguished by one colour and the other by another, or in which each particular limb was differently coloured, would be ridiculous instead of being beautiful. It is in this way, accordingly, that mountebanks are dressed, and it never fails to produce the effect that is intended by it—to excite the mirth and the ridicule of the common people.