Of course every outline is rendered less defined by any motion of the eye of the observer, however slight.  Hence, perhaps, the comparative indistinctness of outline commonly seen in pictures, compared with those in nature; as the artist {64} would be apt to take advantage of this circumstance, and give to his painting the same kind of effect the reality would have to an eye wandering over it; thereby taking away the attention from individual parts, and, as it were, forcing it to judge of the general effect, which general effect is, perhaps, the main object in painting.

Hence it follows that wherever, in any design, separate portions are intended to arrest attention, the outline should be more defined and, accordingly, we may remark that Albert Durer, and others like him, who were very careful of minutiae, are also distinct and hard in their outlines, which is also the case, for the most part, in the Dutch school, and in architectural paintings, fruit-pieces, &c.; and we find that in proportion as the artist discards the comparatively unworthy minute accompaniments of his subject, and aims at unity of effect, so does he neglect sharpness of outline.  Which is the correct practice—­distinctness, or indistinctness of outline—­will be differently judged by those who hold different opinions on painting in general.  While one person will maintain that a picture, to be perfect, must be an exact copy of nature, in short an artistic daguerreotype; another will hold almost the contrary; so that the subject of outline must be matter of opinion still.  However, the lover of general effect has this rational ground of argument on his side, viz., there is no such thing as a strictly defined outline in nature, even to an eye at rest; while to one in motion, which is perhaps the normal state, that outline is rendered still more indistinct.

H.C.K.

——­ Rectory, Hereford, Dec. 28. 1850.

* * * * *

TEN CHILDREN AT A BIRTH.

(Vol. ii., p. 459.)

The curiosity excited by the perusal of my previous communication under the foregoing head, and the interesting editorial note appended in “NOTES AND QUERIES,” induce me to continue the attempt to verify one of the most remarkable instances of abnormal fecundity in an individual of the human species recorded in modern times.  The reader must judge of the following “circumstantial evidence:”—­

1.  I have just seen widow Platts (formerly Sarah Birch), a poor, fat, decent woman, who keeps a small greengrocer’s shop, in West Bar, Sheffield.  She says she was born in Spring Street in the same town, on the 29th Sept. 1781; well remembers wondering why she was so much looked at when a girl:  and her surprise, when afterwards told by her mother, that she was one of ten children born at the same time.  Had often been told that she was so small at birth, that she was readily put into a quart measure; and for some time, lay in a basket before the fire “wrapped in a flannel like a newly hatched chicken.”