individuality, and are formed into unions or groups. But the appearance of the object becoming then less defined, the impression made upon the organ is proportionably diminished. Such is precisely the case with simultaneous impressions, that is to say, with those that succeed each other rapidly. Thus a group of trees is seen in the distance of a landscape but as one tree; were they nearer, their component parts could only be viewed one after the other.

I must remark, before proceeding farther, that this in no wise invalidates the principle of unity of impressions, so necessary to the mind's enjoyment, since it is evident that several objects never produce a, so called, collective impression, except when they approach as nearly as possible to unity.

Toward this kind of unity, to form a whole of this nature, it is, that the unions of arts, concerning which I would now speak, tend, when employed about a work in common. Therein does both their peculiarity and their merit consist. It is a condition of the pleasure they procure, and without which, either they would fail to affect the mind or would occasion only an irksome and disagreeable sentiment.

There is a very sensible difference between what is called a union of arts, in order to produce a work formed from several works, and what I call a mixture of the elements of several arts, in a work proper to one only.

In a union, every art remains itself and its portion of labour is distinct. In a mixture of different arts, or forms of composition in the same art, each one is neutralized by the rest, and its share of work decomposed. In a union the mind can enjoy the labour of each art one after the other, by means of a more or less rapid transition, and can combine in one whole, what it has viewed separately. In a mixture, every part and the whole alike escape it.

When painting, sculpture and architecture concur in the embellishment of a gallery, that embellishment as a whole is a work in common to them all, and the effect of unity resulting from it, is the cause of the general pleasure that the eye experiences, notwithstanding that it cannot rest at the same time on a basso relievo and a picture.

When the means afforded by music, dramatic action, and vocal expression, are concurrently employed on the stage, in a common representation, one impression is, in like manner, produced by the agreement of those means, and another results from each of them separately. The mind, if it so will, enjoys each art separately, and all simultaneously on one point, and that point is the common link, the general harmony of the whole.

It is evident that there are, in these unions of arts thus brought together to co-operate to a work in common, two kinds of unity: the one that of

the individual and partial object, considered in its isolated state; the other, that of the objects viewed together, which latter is the collective unity, by the effect of which the several constituent parts are assembled together and compose but one whole. But this kind of effect and the pleasure derived from it, arise from the circumstance that the works of those arts, being many, are formed into one, and not on account of the diversity of the combined arts, but because their diversity is merged into unity.

It is then wholly out of the question that, when different arts are associated for a common purpose, and in the production of a collective work, any single one should be intermingled with several others, or that forms of composition distinguished by qualities mutually incompatible, should be identified one with the other, since, on the contrary, each is bound to continue what it really is.

It is equally erroneous to suppose that, either the particular effect of any art, or the pleasure the mind expects from it, can be augmented by such contiguity, or that such an alliance can add to its own proper capabilities.

Far from arriving at the conclusion that the pleasure caused by the conjunction of several arts in a common work, arises from any additional imitative capacity they acquire from the combinations already pointed out, enabling them to

attain that totality of resemblance denied them by nature, we must, on the contrary, infer consequences the very opposite.

It must indeed be remarked that, in such associations, every art, though without losing the individual character that separates it from another, nevertheless most frequently loses a portion of its special value and effect. Employed in combination with other arts, it holds only a subordinate station, and is subjected to the laws of a harmony only partly related to its individual interest, and this general regulator neither allows it to do all it is capable of, nor to be all it might. Hence it happens that, in all unions of arts, as in those of instruments in a symphony, each one co-operates only by a part of its capabilities. In like manner it is a condition imposed, in every society, on all who contribute their contingent, that they shall be entitled only to a certain share of the resulting advantages.

It is then by no means true that every art, as is believed, gains by being associated with others, nor that the portion of imitative resemblance allotted to it, is augmented, much less rendered more complete. Far from such being the case, it is constrained to lose more or less of its own proper worth. But this loss, which really takes I place with respect to every associated art, is compensated as regards the spectator or auditor by another kind of worth, arising from the pleasure

the collective whole or the general harmony! affords.

A striking example of this is afforded us in the alliance of music and poetry on the stage. There is a considerable degree of affinity between these two arts, whether owing to the nature of the organs and faculties to which they are addressed, or to a certain similarity in the intellectual means of their imitation. Notwithstanding these points of coincidence, however, it has always been impossible either to melt the two into one, to effect an equal participation, or to enrich the one at the expense of the other. The one has always been found to lose, without the other being enhanced.*

Many persons have expressed astonishment that the master-pieces of ancient and modern lyric poetry have not excited the enthusiasm of our musicians. They complain that our ablest composers have not wedded their skilful notes, to the skilful conceptions of our dramatic poets. They regret, in short, that the most beautiful verses are not allied to the most beautiful airs. That astonishment, and that regret, are but the natural effect of the too common mistake regarding the nature of imitation in general, and that of the imitative allotment proper to each art.

* The reader who would try this theory by the test of conflicting opinion may turn to Chapter vi. of the Second of James Harris's Three Treatises.-Tr.