become pleasing in harmony: let me add, also, that it awakens some passions which we perceive not in ordinary life. Particularly the most elevated sensation of music arifes from a confufed perception of ideal or vifionary beauty and rapture, which is sufficiently perceivable to fire the imagination, but not clear enough to become an object of knowledge. This shadowy beauty the mind attempts, with a languishing curiofity, to collect into a diftinct object of view and comprehenfion; but it finks and escapes, like the diffolving ideas of a delightful dream, that are neither within the reach of the memory, nor yet totally fled. The nobleft charm of mufic then, though real and affecting, seems too confused and fluid to be collected into a distinct idea. Harmony is always understood by the crowd, and almost always mistaken by musicians; who are, with hardly any exception, fervile followers of the taste of mode, and who having expended much time and pains on the mechanic and practical part, lay a stress on the dexterities of hand, which yet have no real value, but as they ferve to produce those collections of found that move the passions. The present Italian taste for music is exactly correfpondent to the taste of tragi-comedy, that about a century ago gained ground upon the stage. The musicians of the present day are charmed at the union they form between the grave and the fantastic, and at the furprifing tranfitions they make between extremes, while every hearer who has the leaft remainder of the taste of nature left, is shocked at the strange jargon. If the same taste should prevail in painting, we must soon expect to fee the woman's head, a horfe's body, and a fish's tail, united by soft gradations, greatly admired at our public exhibitions. Musical gentlemen should take particular care to preserve in its full vigour and sensibility their original natural taste, which alone feels and difcovers the true beauty of music. If Milton, Shakespeare, or Dryden, had been born with the fame genius and infpiration for music as for poetry, and had passed through the practical part without corrupting the natural taste, or blending with it a prepossession in favour of the flights and dexterities of hand, then would their notes be tuned to paffions and, to sentiments as natural and expressive as the tones and modulations of the voice in difcourse. The music and the thought would not make different expreffions: the hearers would only think impetuously; and the effect of the music would be to give the ideas a tumultuous violence and divine impulse upon the mind. Any perfon conversant with the claffic poets, sees inftantly that the paffionate power of mufic I speak of, was perfectly understood and practised by the ancients; that the muses of the Greeks always fung, and their fong was the echo of the subject, which swelled their poetry into enthusiasm and rapture. An enquiry into the nature and merits of the ancient music, and a comparison thereof with modern compofition, by a person of poetic genius and an admirer of harmony, who is free from the shackles of practice, and the prejudices of the mode, aided by the countenance of a few men of rank, of elevated and true taste, would probably lay the present half-Gothic mode of music in ruins, like those towers of whose little laboured ornaments it is an exact picture, and restore the Grecian taste of paffionate harmony once more, to the delight and wonder of mankind. But as from the disposition of things, and the force of fashion, we cannot hope in our time to refcue the sacred lyre, and fee it put into the hands of men of genius, I can only recall you to your own natural feeling of harmony, and observe to you, that its emotions are not found in the la boured, fantastic, and surprising compofitions that form the modern style of music; but you meet them in fome few pieces that are the growth of wild unvitiated taste; you discover them in the swelling founds that wrap us in imaginary grandeur; in those plaintive notes that make us in love with woe; in the tones that utter the lover's fighs, and fluctuate the breast with gentle pain; in the noble ftrokes that coil up the courage and fury of the foul, or that lull it in confused visions of joy: in short, in those affecting strains that find their way to the inward receffes of the heart: Untwisting all the chains that tie § 222. On Sculpture and Painting. Sculpture and painting have their standard in nature; and their principles differ only according to the different materials made use of in these arts. The variety of his colours, and the flat furface on which the painter is at liberty to raise his magic objects, objects, give him a vast scope for ornament, variety, harmony of parts, and oppofition, to please the mind, and divert it from too ftrict an examination. The sculptor, being fo much confined, has nothing to move with but beauty, passion, and force of attitude; sculpture therefore admits of no mediocrity; its works are either intolerable, or very fine. In Greece, the finishing of a fingle ftatue was often the work of many years. Sculpture and painting take their merit from the same spirit that poetry does; a justness, a grandeur, and force of expreffion: and their principal objects are, the fublime, the beautiful, and the passionate. Painting, on account of its great latitude, approaches also very near to the variety of poctry; in general their principles vary only according to the different materials of each. Poetry is capable of taking a feries of successive facts, which comprehend a whole action from the beginning. It puts the paffions in motion gradually, and winds them up by successive efforts, that all conduce to the intended effect; the mind could never be agitated so violently, if the ftorm had not come on by degrees: be fides, language, by its capacity of representing thoughts, of forming the communication of mind with mind, and defcribing emotions, takes in feveral great, awful, and paffionate ideas that colours cannot reprefent; but the painter is confined to objects of vision, and to one point or inftant of time: and is not to bring into view any events which did not, or at least might not happen, at one and the fame inftant. The chief art of the history painter, is to hit upon a point of time, that unites the whole successive action in one view, and strikes out the emotion you are defirous of raifing. Some painters have had the power of preserving the traces of a receding paffion, or the mixed disturbed emotions of the mind, without impairing the principal paffion. The Medea of Timomachus was a miracle of this kind; her wild love, her rage, and her maternal pity were all poured forth to the eye, in one portrait. From this mixture of paffions, which is in nature, the murderefs appeared dreadfully affect ing. It is very necessary, for the union of defign in painting, that one principal figure appear eminently in view, and that all the rest be fubordinate to it; that is, the passion or attention of that principal object should give a caft to the whole piece: for instance, if it be a wrestler, or a courser in the race, the whole scene should not only be active, but the attentions and passions of the rest of the figures should all be direçted by that object. If it be a fisherman over the stream, the whole scene must be filent and meditative; if ruins, a bridge, or waterfall, even the living perfons must be fubordinate, and the traveller should gaze and look back with wonder. This strict union and concord is rather more neceffary in painting than in poetry: the reason is, painting is almost palpably a deception, and requires the utmost skill in felecting a vicinity of probable ideas, to give it the air of reality and nature. For this reason also nothing strange, wonderful, or shocking to credulity, ought to be admitted in paintings that are defigned after real life. The principal art of the landscape painter lies in selecting those objects of view that are beautiful or great, provided there be a propriety and a just neighbourhood preferved in the affemblage, along with a careless diftribution that folicits your eye to the principal object where it refts; in giving fuch a glance or confufed view of those that retire out of profpect, as to raise curiofity, and create in the imagination affecting ideas that do not appear; and in bestowing as much life and action as poffible, without overcharging the piece. A landscape is enlivened by putting the animated figures into action; by flinging over it the chearful aspect which the fun bestows, either by a proper difpofition of shade, or by the appearances that beautify his rifing or fetting; and by a judicious profpect of water, which always conveys the ideas of motion: a few difhevelled clouds have the fame effect, but with somewhat less vivacity. The excellence of portrait-painting and sculpture springs from the fame principles that affect us in life; they are not the perfons who perform at a comedy or tragedy we go to fee with fo much pleasure, but the pafiions and emotions they display: in like manner, the value of statues and pictures rifes in proportion to the strength and clearness of the expreffion of the raffions, and to the peculiar and diftinguishing air of character. Great painters almost always chuse a fine face to exhibit the paf-. fions in. If you recollect what I faid on beauty, you will eafily conceive the reason why Ecz why the agreeable passions are most lively in a beautiful face; beauty is the natural vehicle of the agreeable passions. For the fame reason the tempestuous passions appear strongest in a fine face; it fuffers the most violent derangement by them. To which we may add, upon the fame principle, that dignity or courage cannot be mixed in a very ill-favoured countenance; and that the painter, after exerting his whole skill, finds in their stead pride and terror. These obfervations, which have been often made, ferve to illustrate our thoughts on beauty. Befides the strict propriety of nature, sculpture and figure-painting is a kind of description, which, like poetry, is under the direction of genius; that, while it preferves nature, sometimes, in a fine flight of fancy, throws an ideal splendor over the figures that never existed in real life. Such is the fublime and celestial character that breathes over the Apollo Belvedere, and the inexpressible beauties that dwell upon the Venus of Medici, and seem to shed an illumination around her. This superior beauty must be varied with propriety, as well as the paffions; the elegance of Juno must be decent, lofty, and elated; of Minerva, mafculine, confident, and chaste; and of Venus, winning, soft, and confcious of pleasing. These filter arts, painting and statuary, as well as poetry, put it out of all doubt, that the imagination carries the ideas of the beautiful and the fublime far beyond visible nature; fince no mortal ever possessed the blaze of divine charms that furrounds the Apollo Belvedere, or the Venus of Medici, I have just mentioned. A variety and flush of colouring is generally the refuge of painters, who are not able to animate their designs. We may call a luftre of colouring, the rant and fuftian of painting, under which are hid the want of strength and nature. None but a painter of real genius can be severe and modest in his colouring, and please at the same time. It must be observed, that the glow and variety of colours give a pleasure of a very different kind from the object of painting. When foreign ornaments, gilding, and carving come to be confidered as necessary to the beauty of pictures, they are a plain diagnostic of a decay in taste and power. Usher. §223. On Architecture. A free and easy proportion, united with fimplicity, feem to conftitute the elegance of form in building. A fubordination of parts to one evident defign forms fimplicity; when the members thus evidently related are great, the union is always very great. In the proportions of a noble edi'fice, you fee the image of a creating mind refult from the whole. The evident uniformity of the rotunda, and its unparalleled fimplicity, are probably the fources of its superior beauty. When we look up at a vaulted roof, that seems to rest upon our horizon, we are astonished at the magnificence, more than at the visible extent. When I am taking a review of the objects of beauty and grandeur, can I pass by unnoticed the fource of colours and vifible beauty? When the light is withdrawn all nature retires from view, visible bodies are annihilated, and the foul mourns the univerfal absence in solitude; when it returns, it brings along with it the creation, and restores joy as well as beauty. Ibid. § 224. Thoughts on Colours and Light. If I should diftinguish the perceptions of the fenfes from each other, according to the strength of the traces left on the imagination, I should call those of hearing, feeling, smelling, and tasting, notions, which impress the memory but weakly; while those of colours I should call ideas, to denote their strength and peculiar clearness upon the imagination. This diftinction deserves particular notice. The author of nature has drawn an impenetrable veil over the fixed material world that furrounds us: folid matter refuses our acquaintance, and will be known to us only by refifting the touch; but how obfcure are the informations of feeling? light comes like an intimate acquaintance to relieve us; it introduces all nature to us, the fields, the trees, the flowers, the crystal streams, and azure sky. But all this beauteous diversity is no more than an agreeable enchantment formed by the light that spreads itself to view; the fixed parts of nature are eternally entombed beneath the light, and we see nothing in fact but a creation of colours. Schoolmen, with their hual arrogance, will tell you their ideas are transcripts of nature, and affure you that the veracity of God requires they should be fo, because we cannot well avoid thinking so: but nothing is an object of vision but light, the picture we fee is not annexed to the earth, but comes with angelic celerity to meet our eyes. That which is called body or fubRance, ftance, that reflects the various colours of the light, and lies hid beneath the appearance, is wrapt in impenetrable obfcurity; it is fatally shut out from our eyes and imagination, and only causes in us the ideas of feeling, tafting, or smelling, which yet are not resemblances of any part of matter. I do not know if I appear too strong when I call colours the expression of the Divinity. Light ftrikes with such vivacity and force, that we can hardly call it inanimate or un intelligent. Usher. §225. On Uniformity. Shall we admit uniformity into our list of beauty, or first examine its real merits? When we look into the works of nature, we cannot avoid observing that uniformity is but the beauty of minute objects. The opposite sides of a leaf divided in the middle, and the leaves of the same species of vegetables, retain a striking uniformity; but the branch, the tree, and foreft, defert this fimilarity, and take a noble irregularity with vast advantage. Cut a tree into a regular form, and you change its lofty port for a minute prettiness. What forms the beauty of country scenes, but the want of uniformity? No two hills, vales, rivers, or profpects, are alike; and you are charm ed by the variety. Let us now suppose a country made up of the most beautiful hills and defcents imaginable, but every hill and every vale alike, and at an equal distance; they foon tire you, and you find the delight vanishes with the novelty. There are, I own, certain assemblages that form a powerful beauty by their union, of which a fine face is incontestible evidence. But the charm does not seem by any means to reside in the uniformity, which in the human countenance is not very exact. The human countenance may be planned out much more regularly, but I fancy without adding to the beauty, for which we must feek another fource. In truth, the finest eye in the world without meaning, and the finest mouth without a fmile, are infipid. An agreeable countenance includes in the idea thereof an agreeable and gentle disposition. How the countenance, and an arrangement of colours and features, can express the idea of an unseen mind, we know not; but so the fact is, and to this fine intelligent picture, whether it be false or true, certain I am, that the beauty of the human countenance is owing, more than to uniformity. Shall we then lay, that the greatest uniformity, along with the greatest variety, forms beauty? But this is a repetition of words without distinct ideas, and explicates a well-known effect by an obfcure cause. Uniformity, as far as it extends, excludes variety; and variety, as far as it reaches, excludes uniformity. Variety is by far more pleasing than uniformity, but it does not conftitute beauty; for it is impossible that can be called beauty, which, when well known, ceases to please: whereas a fine piece of music shall charm after being heard a hundred times; and a lovely countenance makes a stronger impression on the mind by being often feen, because there beauty is real. I think we may, upon the whole, conclude, that if uniformity be a beauty, it is but the beauty of minute objects; and that it pleases only by the visible design, and the evident footsteps of intelligence it discovers. Ibid. §226. On Novelty. I must say something of the evanefcent charms of novelty. When our curiosity is excited at the opening of new scenes, our ideas are affecting and beyond life, and we fee objects in a brighter hue than they after appear in. For when curiofity is sated, the objects grow dull, and our ideas fall to their diminutive natural fize. What I have said may account for the raptured profpect of our youth we fee backward; novelty. always recommends, because expectations of the unknown are ever high; and in youth we have an eternal novelty: unexperienced credulous youth gilds our young ideas, and ever meets a fresh lustre that is not yet allayed by doubts. In age, experience corrects our hopes, and the imagination cools; for this reason, wisdom and high pleasure do not refide together. I have observed through this discourse, that the delight we receive from the visible objects of nature, or from the fine arts, may be divided into the conceptions of the fublime, and conceptions of the beautiful. Of the origin of the fublime I spoke hypothetically, and with diffidence; all we certainly know on this head is, that the fenfations of the fublime we receive from external objects, are attended with obfcure ideas of power and immenfity; the origin of our sensations of beauty are still more unintelligible: however, I think there is fome foundation for classing the objects of beauty under different heads, by a correspondence or fimilarity, that may be observed between several particulars. Ibid. Без §227. §227. On the Origin of our general Ideas tinued motion, are ever beautiful. The of Beauty. A full and confiftent evidence of design, especially if the design be attended with an important effect, gives the idea of beauty: thus a ship under fail, a greyhound, a wellshaped horse, are beautiful, because they difplay with ease a great defign. Birds and beafts of prey, completely armed for destruction, are for the fame reason beautiful, although objects of terror. Where different designs at a single view, appear to concur to one effect, the beauty accumulates; as in the Grecian architecture: where different defigns, leading to different effects, unite in the same whole, they cause confufion, and diminish the idea of beauty, as in the Gothic buildings. Upon the fame principle, confufion and diforder are ugly or frightful; the figures made by spilled liquors are always ugly. Regular figures are handsome; and the circular, the most regular, is the moit beautiful. This regulation holds only where the fublime does not enter; for in that cafe the irregularity and carelessness add to the ideas of power, and raise in proportion our admiration. The confufion in which we fee the stars scattered over the heavens, and the rude arrangement of mountains, add to their grandeur, A mixture of the sublime aids exceedingly the idea of beauty, and heightens the horrors of disorder and ugliness. Personal beauty is vastly raised by a noble air; on the contrary, the diffolution and ruins of a large city, distress the mind proportionally: but while we mourn over great ruins, at the deftruction of our species, we are also foothed by the generous commiferation we feel in our own breasts, and therefore ruins give us the fame kind of grateful melancholy we feel at a tragedy. Of all the objects of difcord and confufion, no other is so shocking as the human foul in madnefs. When we fee the principle of thought and beauty difordered, the horror is too high, like that of a maffacre committed before our eyes, to fuffer the mind to make any reflex act on the god-like traces of pity that diftinguish our species; and we feel no sensations but those of dismay and terror. Regular motion and life shewn in inanimate objects, give us also the secret plea fure we call beauty. Thus waves spent, and fuccessively breaking upon the shore, and waving fields of corn and grass in con. beauty of colours may perhaps be arranged under this head: colours, like notes of mufic, affect the passions; red incites anger, black to melancholy, white brings a gentle joy to the mind; the fofter colours refresh or relax it. The mixtures and gradations of colours have an effect correspondent to the transitions and combinations of founds; but the strokes are too tranfient and feeble to become the objects of expreffion. Beauty also results from every difpofition of nature that plainly discovers her favour and indulgence to us. Thus the fpring season, when the weather becomes mild, the verdant fields, trees loaded with fruit or covered with shade, clear springs, but particularly the human face, where the genthe passions are delineated, are beyond expression beautiful. On the fame principle, inclement wintery skies, trees stripped of their verdure, defert barren lands, and above all death, are frightful and shocking. I must, however, observe, that I do not by any means fuppofe, that the fentiment of beauty arifes from a reflex confiderate act of the mind, upon the obfervation of the designs of nature or of art; the sentiment of beauty is inftantaneous, and depends upon no prior reflections. All I mean is, that design and beauty are in an arbitrary manner united together; fo that where we fee the one, whether we reflect on it or no, we perceive the other. I muit further add, that there may be other divi, fions of beauty easily discoverable, which I have not taken notice of. The general sense of beauty, as well as of grandeur, seems peculiar to man in the creation. The herd in common with him enjoy the gentle breath of fpring; they lie. down to repose on the flowery bank, and hear the peaceful humming of the bee; they enjoy the green fields and pastures: but we have reason to think, that it is man only who fees the image of beauty over the happy profpect, and rejoices at it; that it is hid from the brute creation, and depends not upon sense, but on the intelligent mind. We have just taken a tranfient view of the principal departments of talle; let us now, madam, make a few general reflec tions upon our fubject, Ujber. $228. Senfe, Taste, and Genius diftinguished The human genius, with the best assiftance, and the finest examples, breaks forth |