F5^
-•
A
DIALOGUE
ON THE DISTINCT CHARACTERS
OF
The Picturesque and the Beautiful.
BY
UVEDALE PRICE, ESQ.
.
•
A
DIALOGUE
ON
THE DISTINCT CHARACTERS
OF
The Picturesque and the Beautiful.
IN ANSWER TO THE
OBJECTIONS OF MR. KNIGHT.
PREFACED BY
An Introductory ESSAY on BEAUTY;
WITH
REMARKS
ON THE IDEAS OF
Sir Joshua Reynolds X Mr. Burke,
UPON THAT SUBJECT.
BY WED ALE PRICE, ES2.
PRINTED BY D. WALKER; FOR J. ROBSON, NEW BOND -STREET, LONDON.
= 1801 =
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.
YT has often occurred to me fmce I pub- lifhed my Eflay on the Piclurefque, that, in order to underftand thoroughly the diftinclion I have endeavoured to eftablifh, the reader fhould previoufly be acquainted with that which Mr. Burke has fo admirably pointed out and illuftrated, between the Sublime and Beautiful. At firfl fight, it may appear prefumptuous in me to fuppofe, that my Eflay is likely to be more familiarly known than Mr. Burke's; but a new pub- lication is often more generally read at the time, than an old one of infinitely greater
« excel-
C 1° 3
excellence. On that ground, I may, per- haps, be allowed to give a Ihort abridgment of Mr. Burke's fyftem, as far as it relates to the Sublime and Beautiful in vifible ob- jecls, with which I am chiefly concerned. Such an account, though perfectly ufelefs to thofe who have read the original Efiay with attention, may give fome idea of its general tendency to thofe who have never read it, and induce them to confult the work itfelf ; and may alfo ferve to recal its lead- ing principles to thofe who have only given it a curfory reading.
The two great divifions on which Mr. Burke's fyflem is founded, are Self-pre- fervation, and Society ; the ends of one or other of which, he obferves, all our paffions are calculated to anfwer. The paffions which concern felf-prefervation, turn moftly on pain and danger, and they are the moft powerful of all the paffions : whatever, there- fore,
C » D
fore, is fitted in any way to excite the ideas of pain and danger — that is to fay, whatever is in any fort terrible, or converfant about terrible objects — is a fourceofthe fublime; that is, it is productive of the ftrongeft emo- tions the mind is capable of feeling. The paflion caufed by the great or fublime in nature, when thofe caufes operate moft powerfully, is aftonifhment; and aftonifh- ment is that (late of the foul, in which all its motions are fufpended with fome degree of horror. This is the effect of the fublime in its higheft degree : the inferior effects are admiration, reverence, and refpect. Mr. Burke then goes through the principal caufes of the fublime — obfcurity, power, all general privations, as vacuity, darknefs, folitude, filence ; then confiders greatnefs of dimenfion, infinity; the artificial infinite, as arifing from uniformity and fucceflion ; and, luftly, the effects of colour, of light, and of B 2 its
r I* 3
its oppofite darknefs, in producing the fub- lime. If even the bare enumeration of thefe caufes of our firongeft emotions has fome- thing finking in it, what muft they be, when fet forth and illuftrated by a writer of the mod fplendid and poetical imagination, that ever adorned this, or, perhaps, any other, country.
The other head under which Mr. Burke claffes the paflions, that of Society, he di- vides into two forts — the fociety of the fexes, which anfwers the purpofes of propa- gation ; and that more general fociety which we have with men and with animals, and which we may in fome fort be faid to have with the inanimate world. The object of the mixed paflion, which we call love, is the beauty of the fez. Men are carried to the fex in general, as it is the fex, and by the common law of nature; but they are at- tached to particulars by perfonal beauty.
I call
C 13 3
I call beauty (Mr. Burke then adds,) ajo- cial quality; for where women and men, and not only they, but when other animals, give us a fenfe of joy and pleafure in be- holding them, (and there are many that do fo,) they infpire us with fentiments of ten- dernefs and affection towards their perfons : we like to have them near us, and we enter willingly into a kind of relation with them, unlefs we fhould have ftrong reafons to the contrary. This very juft and natural dif- tinclion between the mixed paffion of love which relates to the fex, and that perfectly unmixed love and tendernefs which is uni- verfally the effect of beauty, muft be con- flantly kept in the reader's mind, when he is confidering this part of Mr. Burke's fyf- tem; according to which, he applies the name of Beauty to fuch qualities as induce in us a fenfe of tendernefs and affection, or fome other paffion the moft nearly refem- bling thefe.
B 3 Mr.
C H 1
Mr. Burke afterwards takes a review of the opinions that have been entertained of Beauty, and points out the impropriety of applying that term to virtue, or any of the feverer, or fublimer, qualities of the mind ; and alfo (hews, that it does not confift in pro- portion, in perfection, or in fitnefs or utility : he then examines in what it really confifts, and what are its qualities. Of thefe qualities, I (hall merely give the enumeration, and (hall do what will be moft fatisfaclory, by copy- ing Mr. Burke's own comparifon of them with the qualities of the fublime. Sublime objects are vaft in their dimenfions ; beau- tiful ones comparatively fmall : beauty fhould be fmooth and polifhed ; the great, rugged and negligent : beauty mould (him the right line, yet deviate from it infenfi- bly : the great in many cafes loves the right line, and when it deviates, makes a ftrong deviation: beauty, fhould not be obfcure; the great ought to be dark and gloomy:
beauty
C '5 3
beauty fliould be light and delicate; the great ought to be folid, and even maflive.
This is the fkeleton of Mr. Burke's fyf- tem $f the fublime and beautiful, and of the diftinclion between the two characters. As far as I have been able to obferve, his prin- ciples of the fublime are more generally admitted, than thofe of the beautiful ; which may be eafily accounted for : we have been ufed to confider the terrible as a principal fource of the fublime in poetry, and, there- fore, were prepared to have that principle extended to the whole compafs of vifible objects, and to have it founded on the great bafis of felf- prefer vation : but with refpecl to the beautiful, we had not the fame pre- paration ; and, as we have been accuftomed to apply the term in a very vague and li- centious manner, his attempt to reftrain the fenfe within more exact: and narrow bounds, has not, I imagine, been fo favourably re- B 4 ceived.
t 4* a
ceived. If fuch were the cafe in this coun- try, his ideas of the beautiful were lefs likely to be adopted in France, as the word beau, from its being fo particularly oppof^d to joli, almoft always, I believe, indicates, that the object is comparatively large; whereas it is one part of Mr. Burke's fyftem, that beautiful objects are comparatively fmall. Some of his other qualities of beauty have been objected to by his own countrymen ; and altogether, as I conceive, his idea of beauty has been thought too confined. Now, as I have introduced a third diftinct cha- racter, that of the Picturefque, I am more interefled than Mr. Burke himfelf could be, to {hew that his idea of the beautiful is not too limited ; for when three feparate cha- radlers are to be diftinguifhed from each other, each of them muft of courfe be kept within ftricter bounds.
In order to examine how far the idea of
beauty
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beauty may be limited, the firft enquiry will be, whether in thofe times when beauty of form was molt particularly attended to, we can trace any idea of the beautiful as feparate from all other characters. I think it clearly appears, that, although beauty of the higheft kind was attributed to all the fuperior GodclefTes, and that the ancient artifts endeavoured to exprefs it in their re- prefentations of them, yet the beauty of Venus, if not more perfect, was at leaft without the fmalleft tinge of any other cha- racter; whereas Juno, Pallas, Diana, and the other Goddefies had a mixture of awful majefty, of the feverity of wifdom, of war- like valour, or of rigid chaftity. Thefe, in- deed, were additions to beauty, but one may properly fay, that in this cafe, additio probat rtiinorem : and what particularly ftrengthens Mr. Burke's fyftem is, that the effects which all fuch additions produce, are oppofite to
thofe
n is 3
thofe of beauty. The effecl of beauty, as
Mr. Burke has fo well pointed out, whether
in the human fpecies, in animals, or even
in inanimate objecls, is love, or fome paf-
jfion the moft nearly refembling it: now,
the effe<5l of majefty or feverity, even when
allied to beauty, is awe — a fenfation very
oppofite to love ; and thence the poet, who
moft ftudied all that belongs to love and
beauty, has pronounced, that majefty and
love cannot dwell together. If love cannot
dwell with majefty, it certainly can as little
dwell with that feverity which arifes from
the more manly virtues and habits ; efpeci-
ally when accompanied with fomething ap-
proaching to manly ftrength and vigour of
body. Cupid, therefore, tells his mother
that he feels a dread of Minerva from her
terrible and mafculine appearance ;* and
fuch muft always be the effecl: of any mix-
i. — Lucian, 19th Dial, of the Gods.
ture
C 19 3
ture of the fublime with the beautiful ; but the goddefs of love, is likewife the goddefs
of perfect unmixed beauty.*
In
* A doubt has been fuggefted, whether there is any autho- rity for fuppofing that Venus was confidered by the ancients .:s the goddefs of beauty; or whether beauty was confidered by them as a pofitive quality, of which there could be an abftrad perfonilication. It is very poflible that there may be no paflage in which Venus is directly mentioned as the goddefs of beauty; but, I may fafely aflcrt, that no figurative gene- alogy was ever more plain and obvious, than that love is the offspring of beauty ; and, therefore, the mother of love, whofe attendants are the graces, muft virtually be confidered as beauty perfonified and deified. The judgment of Paris, not- withftanding the charge of bribery in the judge, is ftrongly in favour of her fuperiority over the other goddcfles in point of beauty; and we find in the poets, that women are compared to Venus for beauty, as they arc to Minerva for excellence in the arts, or to Diana for ftature. The ancients were fo much in the habit of perfonifying abftrad qualities, that it would be Angular indeed, if it mould appear that they had neglected one, which they fo highly prized as that of beauty. Force and ftrength arc not merely perfonified by £fchylus in defcription, but they are two of the dramatis perfona?, and a<5t no incon- fiderable part in the Prometheus. That beauty was confidered as a pofitive quality, and actually perfonified, may, I think, be ihewn from a pafiage in one of the poems that go under the name of Anacreon, and which were at leail written early enough to be of fufficient authority iu the prefeut cafe.
Ai Mi»0"OH TOV EfVTK
Iu KaXAe* v}»fft}ux.a.».
Love, bound by the Mufes, and delivered over to Beauty,
is
r; *° 3
In point of beauty, fmgly confidered, the female form has always had the preference ; and to that Mr. Burke' s principles of beauty moft ftriclly apply : it may only be doubted whether he be right in faying, without any reftriclion, that beautiful objects are com- paratively fmall. But, on the other hand, there feems to be as little reafon for making them comparatively large; for, we muft naturally fuppofe, in the human figure particularly, fome juft ftandard of height and proportion; in which cafe, all who poflefied the qualities of beauty, but were above that ftandard, would, as far as fize is concerned, begin to rife into grandeur; and all below it, to fink into prettinefs — beau^ ty being the golden mean. It muft be own- is a manifeft perfonifkation of thai quality: and if it flioulcl be a fingle inftance, it will, on that account, be rather in favour of what I have advanced ; for, I take it, that the reafon why beauty was not in general perfonified as beauty, is, that it was perfonified in a more auguft and fplendid manner under the name and deity of Venus, or Aphrodite.
ed,
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ed, however, that, like the French, the more ancient Greeks appear to have confi- dered large ftature as almoft a requifite of beauty, not only in men, but in women: this, I think, may have arifen from the very high eftimation in which ftrength of body, and, confequently, largenefs of ftature, was held in thofe ancient times, when the words which fignify beauty, and beautiful, were firft made ufe of; and thence that com- bined fenfe of the words may have remained, when, from the high perfection and refine- ment of the arts, a more juft and delicate notion and reprefentation of beauty, fepa- rate from ftrength and fize, had taken place. I may here obferve, that the moft admired ftatue of Venus now exifting, and the allow- ed model of female beauty, is rather below the common ftandard ; a circumftance which, as far as it goes, feems to favour Mr. Burke's idea, that beautiful obje6ts are comparatively
fmall.
i: 22 j
fmall.* But, whatever may be the prevailing opinion on that point, I think it is perfectly clear, that his general principles of beauty — • that fmoothnefs, gradual variation, delicacy of make, tender colours, and fuch as infen- fibly melt into each other — are ftriclly ap- plicable to female beauty ; fo much fo, that not one of them can be changed or diminim- ed, without a manifeft diminution of beauty.
The manner in which the ancients have reprefented their male deities, will throw
* There is a paffage in Virgil which might be quoted in oppo- iition to what I have juft obferved : it is where J^neas defcribes the appearance of Venus to him, at the moment when he is going to kill Helen —
" Alma parens confeffa Deam, qualifque videri
" Ca"UcoHs et quanta folet."
This, however, feems to refer to the proportion of deities in refpecl; to each other; for it is clear, from the paffage itfelf, that this was an unufual manner of appearing, and that upon moft occasions her ftature was no larger than that of women in gene- ral. I may add, too, that it was a moment of great importance : flie wi (lied to make an immediate and awful impreffion on .flSneas, and to prevent him from doing a deed very unworthy of a hero, and particularly of her fon. She was alfo to appear on the fame theatre with Juno and Pallas, who, though invisible to mortals in general, may be fuppofed to have been in their own celeiiial forms, and their full flature. '
filll
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ftill more light on their ideas of beauty as a feparate character . The two moft beauti- ful of their gods, Apollo and Bacchus, enjoy perpetual youth; that is, they continue in the ftate in which the male fex is moft like to the female ; they are reprefented without beards ; their limbs fmooth and round, and without any marked articulation of the muf- cles; in Bacchus, particularly, the turn of the limbs, and the ftyle of face is perfectly female ; and his extreme beauty and femi- nine appearance are mentioned at the fame time by the poets, as connected with each other.
Tu formosissimus alto
Conspiceris coelo ; tibi, cum sine cornibus adstas I'irginnim caput est.*
On the other hand, their awful and terrible
* There were myftic representations of many deities, totally different from the characters of them in the poets, and from the ftatues which accord with their defcriptions. Not only Bacchus, but even Venus, "was reprcfented with a beard. Her ftatue at Paphos, which is laid to be the original Venus, was an androgynous figure, with a long beard. With fuch repre- fentations, however, I have no more concern, than with the form of any Egyptian hieroglyphic.
deities,
C H 1
deities, Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto, and Mars, are reprefented in the full ftrength of man- hood, or of more advanced maturity.
It may be faid, perhaps, that in the fineft ftatue of Apollo which has been preferved, dignity is intimately connected with beauty ; and that the mixture has produced the liigheft idea of male beauty, of which we have any model. This is perfectly true, and feems to contradict what I have before ob- ferved : but, if inftead of a few ftatues faved from the general wreck of ancient fculpture, we could at once view and compare with each other all the different mafter-pieces which once exifted at the fame period, we fhould probably find the niceft fhades of diftinction, not only between different dei- ties, but between the different characters of the fame deity.* The Belvidere Apollo
is
* There cannot be a ftronger inftance of fuch a nice diftinc- t'ron, than that of the three famous flatues of Scopas, repre- fenting three different names of Cupid — that is, three fhades or
difiin&ions
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is in the acl of flaying the Python ; he is the deftroying, not the creating power — " Se- " vere in youthful beauty :" there may have been other equally perfect ftatues of him, as the god of poetry and mufic ; he may have been reprefented in the enthufiafm of thofe divine arts, or in the fofter emotions of love, a pailion to which none of the deities was more fubjecl ; and certainly the expreflion of rapture and tendernefs is more congenial to beauty, than that of anger, however dig- nified. In fuch reprefentations of him, his beauty might have borne the fame rela- tion to that of the flatue we poflefs, as the beauty of the Gnidian Venus did, to differ- ent ftatues of Juno or Minerva; that is, would have had lefs of awful and fevere dignity, and more of lovelinefs. We may be fure, alfo, that beauty, and not dignity,
diftiuctions of the paflion of Love. The names are Epwj, €I/xfpos, IloOoj. There probably are no terms that exadly correfpond with thHe, in any other language.
c was
C 26 3
was the prevailing character of the Apollo : the higheft idea of dignity is found only in the father of gods and men, in the Jupiter of Phidias, or Lyfippus, of Homer or Virgil ; whether he be reprefented in the terrible, or the beneficent exercife of his power ; as bend- ing his awful brow and fhaking the heavens with his nod; or with that mild counte- nance by which he diffufes ferenity through all nature. This feems to fhew that dig- nity, though it may be united with youth, more properly belongs to maturer age ; and that may be one reafon why the addition of it takes off, in fome degree, from the ge- nuine character and effect of beauty.* No one can doubt that youth is the feafon
* The following paflage fliews the opinion of the ancients on this fubject. *' Diligeutia ac decor in Pol^cleto, cui quanquam ' a plerifque tribuatur palma, tamen ne nihil detrahatur, de- ' effe pondus putant. Nam ut humanae forma? decorem ad- ' diderit fupra verum, ita non explevifle deoruin authoritatem ' videtur. Quin setatem quoque graviorem vicletur refugifle, ' nihil aufus praeter leves genas." Quint. Inft. lib. xii. cap. 10.
Of
c s7 n
of beauty : it is then that the lines are moft flowing, the frame rnoft delicate ; that the Ikin has its moft perfecl fmoothnefs and clearnefs; and every part that gradual va- riation, which, at a more advanced period, gives way to ftronger marked lines and angular forms, and ends in wrinkles and decay : the fame holds good in all animals, and not lefs in the vegetable world. On this laft point, Mr. Burke has touched more (lightly ; and therefore I fhall dwell fome- what longer upon it, as I think it will tend to illuftrate the whole fubjeft.
Almoft all trees, except the pointed tribe of firs, difplay, when in health and vigour, the greateft variety of undulating forms in their general outline : all groups of them do the fame ; and large continued mafles of them mark the inequalities of the ground they Hand upon, (however broken and a- brupt the ground itfelf may be) by the fame
c 2 graceful
C 28 3
graceful undulations. As this is the general character of all fcenery where there is much natural wood in a flourifhing ftate, and as trees and woods form the principal outlines in all pleafmg fcenery, it furely is a fuffi- cient reafon for a ftrong inherent love of undulating lines in the general face of nature. Such a flyle of fcenery, chiefly prevails in fituations free from violent winds, and where the fertility of the foil correfponds with the ideas imprefled by the general afpecl:: but where the country is rocky and barren, and fubject to ftorms and hurricanes, there the forms of the trees, like thofe of the rocks on which they grow, are ufually abrupt and broken ; and exhibit marks of fudden violence, or premature decay. The trees in the pictures of Claude, who fludied what was foft and beautiful in na- ture, are almoft all of the firft kind ; while thofe of Salvator Rofa, who chofe the
wildeft
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wildeft and mod favage views, are as ge- nerally of the fecond : their forms are in- deed fo fharp and broken, and they are often fo deftitute of foliage, that a perfon ufed only to the full and fwelling outlines of rich vegetation, would fcarcely know them to be trees. Thefe laft, however, have frequently a grand, generally a ftriking and peculiar character ; but when we call fuch broken, difeafed and decaying forms, (and, I may add, the colours that accompany them) beautiful, either in reality or imita- tion, we clearly fpeak in direct oppofition to nature ; for it is juft as unnatural to call an old, decaying, leaflefs tree beautiful, as to call a withered, bald, old man or woman, by that moft ill-applied term.
If, from trees, we go to thofe vegetable productions which nature feems to have taken moft pleafure in adorning, we fliall perceive that the fame undulation prevails.
c 3 Fruit
t: s° 3
Fruit and flowers are allowed to be the moft beautiful of vegetable productions ; the forms of moft kinds of fruit are round, or oval, or at leaft are compofed of f welling curves without any angles; as they ripen, their form and colour gradually attain their perfection; and, no one doubts, that when ripe, that is, when in their moft perfect ftate, they are moft beautiful to the eye. In flow- ers, the extremities of the leaves are cut into an infinite diverfity of fhapes, many of which are ftrongly angular, and diftinguifhed (as fi- milar leaves in trees are,) by the terms fawed, and jagged ; but the general form of the moft admired among them, prefents a fwelling out- line : in them nature feems to act on a final], as fhe does in trees on a large fcale; for thofe trees, the particular leaves of which are divided into angles, have often as varied undulations in their general outline, as moft others of the deciduous forts.
I may
C si 3
I may here obferve, that there is as much analogy as their different natures may be conceived to afford, between the refpeclive beauty of young trees in their different de- grees of growth, oppofed to thofe which have nearly attained their full fize, and that of children of different ages, compared with the form of men and women when it has ac- quired its full perfection. In the early ftate of many trees, there are particular circum- fiances of beauty which they afterwards lofe : fuch, for inftance, as the fmoothnefs of their bark ; but in point of form, the very circum- flance of rapid growth, though extremely pleafing in other refpecls, often produces a comparatively ftraggling outline; whereas in full-grown trees, the fhoots being lefs lux- uriant, and more connected with each other, the whole has a greater fulncfs of form, a more gradual variation in the general out- line, and a richer and more cluttering effecl
04, in
C 32 3
in the different parts. Much in the fame manner, children, and the unformed youth of both fexes, have generally more delicate {kins and complexions, than when their growth is completed ; but the limbs, during that ftate of increafe, have feldom that roimd- nefs, that juft fymmetry and connection with each other, fo neceflary to perfecl beauty.
I muft own it ftrikes me, that if there be any one pofition on this fubjec~l likely to be generally admitted, it is, that each produc- tion of nature is mojl beautiful in that par- ticular jlate, in which Jhe may be faid to have brought it to that point of perfection, before which her work would have appeared incomplete and unfini/bed, and after it would feem to be tending, however gradually, to- wards decay. It may, perhaps, be doubted, how far the complete ftate, whether in ani- mals or vegetables, is the precife moment of beauty; fome may think it a little before
the
C 33 H
the perfect expanfion, though none after; but in my opinion,
Crude is the bud, and stale the fading flower. On Venus' breast the full-expanded rose, Alone, with all its sweets, and all its richness glows.
This ft ate of full expanfion and comple- tion in the works of nature, may, I think, be admitted as a general criterion ; and from ob- ferving the qualities which are more com- monly found in objects during that ftate, we fureiy may be faid to obtain more juft and rational ideas of the qualities and principles of beauty, than from any other fource ; and thofe, I believe, Mr. Burke has very ac- curately pointed out, though not on the ground that I have taken.* But although thefe qualities, more or lefs, exift in all
beautiful
* I have already had occafion, in foine iuftances, to differ from Mr. Burke, but in none fo ftrongly (at leaft in appearance) as in the prefent ; for he exprefsly fiates, that perfection is not the caufe of beauty, and has an entire fedion on that particular point : I imagine, however, that Mr. Burke was there confider- jng the fubjeci with a different view; for it is clear that, as I J have considered it, nothing can more exactly accord with his general principles. Mr. Burke's aim throughout his Effay,
L 34 3
beautiful objects, and though no objecl can be beautiful that is totally deprived of them, yet they Hill are only qualities or in- gredients ; and beauty is a thing of much too refined and delicate a nature to be made by a receipt, or to be judged of with accuracy, merely by an acquaintance with its general qualities ; more efpecially with refpecl to
is to mew that love is the conftant effect of beauty; while every thing that creates awe, or even refpect, is allied to the fublime: he points out that the fublimer virtues, which approach to mental perfection, are lefs engaging than the fofter virtues; fome of which (as compafiion, for hirlance,) border upon weaknefs. It is on this fame idea, as I conceive, that iu the fection I allude to, -he fuppofes that there may be fome kinds of bodily weakneffes and imperfections, more attractive, and thence more conducive to beauty, than the abfolute ex- emption from all defects —
" The faultlefs monfter which the world ne'er faw." I muft own, however, that there is, in my opinion, a very efiential difference between the two cafes : it is undoubtedly true, that there is an awful feverity in the higher virtues, and in a perfect moral character exempt from all human frailty ; but there is nothing fevere or awful in the frefh and tender colours, and in the graceful form of youthful beauty, however perfect, confidered in themfelves: the Antinous, and the Ve- nus de Medicis, are only attractive; fo, probably, both in form and colour, was the Venus of Apelles: and if the Belvidere Apollo ftrikes us with a fort of awe, it is from the grandeur, not from the beauty of his countenance and attitude.
form,
L 35 3
form, and, above all, the human form. It required a long feries of obfervations, to en- able men to difcriminate amidft the general mafs of beauty, what was in a pre-eminent, and exquifite degree beautiful : this has been done by men, who, in an age when all the arts were in their higheft perfection, in the happieft climate for producing beautiful forms, and in a country where beauty in either fex had almofl divine honours paid to it, made thofe forms their peculiar ftudy, and who, by means of the noble and durable art of fculpture, have been able to embody their ideas ; and, fortunately, fome few at leaft of their tineft produdttons ftill remain.
By examining, then, the different antique flatties, bu(is, gems, and coins; by compar- ing the ideas which they prefent with thofe of the poets, and with thofe alfo which are exprefled in the works of the great matters of the revived arts of painting and fculpture ;
and
C 36 1
and all of them again with the exifting forms of nature, — I think it will appear, that there is in the human form a character, which may be pronounced flriclly and purely beau- tiful: that by allying beauty with any of the more fublime qualities, the refult will be more awful and impofing, but lefs lovely and engaging ; it may be a Juno, or a Pallas, but no longer a Venus: and, it may not be foreign to my prefent argument to men- tion, that two of the moft celebrated flatues of Juno and Minerva, were coloflal, whereas the Gnidian Venus of Praxiteles, the moft famous of any of the ftatues of that goddefs, was of the natural fize.*
* Though no great argument can be drawn from the fize of ftatues, which might be varied according to the fculptor's fancy, •yet I cannot help mentioning, that Paufanias. in defcribing a fiatue of Diana (alfo by Praxiteles), obferves, that its ftature exceeded that of the tailed woman. As the large ftature of Diana is often remarked by the poets, this difference between the ftatues of the two goddefies by the fame fculptor, feems to ftew an attention to the fuppofed proportion of different deities. Paufanias, lib. x. cap. 37.
But
C 37 3
But if beauty fhould not be colofTal, fo neither fhould it be diminutive in fize or character : there feems to belong to the idea of genuine beauty, a certain mild and grace- ful dignity, as well as an exact fymmetry ; and, therefore, when in nature the fcale is below the common ftandard, and the cha- racter wants that degree of elevation, we are apt to call fuch objects pretty, rather than beautiful ; juft as we call them fine, when in the oppofite extreme. Again, when there are any marked irregularities in the features combined with the qualities of beauty, al- though fuch combinations have often a wild variety and playfulnefs, more attractive per- haps than even beauty of a more pure and unmixed kind, yet the difference is manifeft, and the addition of the term pi6turefque to that of beauty, moft accurately marks the diftinction.
As the fame analogy, in a greater or lefs
degree,
C 38 3
degree, prevails throughout all the produc- tions of nature and of art, it poflibly may not be too much to affirm, that the terms which anfwer to beauty and beautiful in all languages, however vaguely and licenti- oufly employed in common ufe, yet, in their uricl: and proper fenfe, muft have nearly the fame meaning : they muft refer in general to objects in their moft perfect, finifhed, and flourifhing ftate; and among them, to thofe particular combinations of form, which, from attentive and enlightened obfervation and experience, have been difcovered to be more complete in thofe qualities, which are found to conftitute beauty in general.
I muft here acknowledge, that the opi- nion of Sir Jofhua Reynolds, in the laft of his Letters inferted in the Idler, and fince publiflied in his works, does not coincide with that of Mr. Burke; but, on the contrary, differs from it in fome
effential
C 39 3
cflential points. 1 imagine Sir Jofhua's at- tack (for fuch it is) was directed againft Hogarth's Analyfis of Beauty, and in parti- cular againft a very vulnerable part of it — the line of beauty; but as Mr. Burke adopt- ed many of Hogarth's principles, though he rejected the idea of any one line peculiarly beautiful, he Hill is expofed to a ridicule, which might not have been levelled againft him.
It cannot be fuppofed, that in thefe firii Eflays written for a periodical paper, the ideas can be fo perfedtly digefted, as in his later, and more ftudied, productions: ftill, whatever comes from fuch a mind as his, efpecially on fubje&s connected with his own art, deferves the higheft attention ; and although I feel great unwillingnefs to contro- vert any opinions of a man, whofe memory I fo much love and reverence, yet were I to omit doing it, the weight of his authority
might
C 4° 1
might very juftly be brought againft me. As his works are, or at leaft ought to be, in the hands of every man who has the flighteft pretenfion to tafte, it will be only necefiary for me to mention thofe points which I wifh to confider.
In this Letter, before he examines Ho- garth's ideas of beauty, Sir Jofhua gives us his own: thefe he founds on the great and general ideas inherent in univerfal. nature, which, according to the practice of the Ita- lian painters, are to be diftinguifhed from the accidental blemifhes that are continually varying the furface of her works. This he illuftrates by the leaves of a tree, of which, though no two are exactly alike, yet the general form is invariable ; and a naturalift, after comparing many, felecls, as the painter does, the moft beautiful, that is, the molt ge- neral form. Nature, he goes on to fay, is conftantly tending towards that determinate
form;
C 4i D
form ; and it will be found that fheoftener pro- duces perfect beauty than deformity, that is, than deformity of any one kind : for inftance, the line that forms the ridge of the nofe, is beautiful when ftrait ; this is the central form, which is oftener found than either con- cave, convex, or any irregular form that fhall be propofed. As we are, therefore, more accuftomed to beauty than deformity, we may conclude that to be the reafon why we approve and admire it.
He then obferves, that whoever pretends to defend the preference he gives to one form rather than to another, — as of a fwan to a dove, — by endeavouring to prove that this more beautiful form proceeds from a particular gradation of magnitude, undula-» tion of a curve, or direction of a line, or whatever other conceit of his imagination he fhall fix on as a criterion of form, will be continually contradicting himfelf, and
» find
C & 3
find that nature will not be fubjecled to fuch narrow rules. The moft general rea- fon of preference is cuftom, which, in a certain fenfe, makes white black, and black white: it is cuftom, alone, determines our preference of the colour of the Europeans to the Ethiopians; and they, for the fame reafon, prefer their own colour to ours. This he illuftrates in a very ingenious manner, by faying, that if one of their painters were to paint the goddefs of beauty, nobody will doubt that he would reprefent her black, with thick lips, flat nofe, and woolly hair; and he would a<5l very unnaturally, (adds Sir Jofhua,) if he did not; for, by what criterion will any one difpute the propriety of his idea? we indeed fay, that the form arid colour of the European is preferable to that of the Ethiopian, but I know of no other reafon we have for it, but that we are more accuftomed to it.
After
C 43 3
After obferving, that neither novelty nor fitnefs can be faid to be caufes of beauty (in which he and Mr. Burke agree,) he thus makes a fort of recapitulation : " from what " has been faid, it may be inferred that the " works of nature, if we compare one fpe- " cies with another, are all equally beauti- " ful; and that preference is given from " cuftom, or fome aflbciation of ideas ; " and that in creatures of the fame fpecies, " beauty is the medium or centre of all its " various forms."
Such are Sir Jofhua Reynolds's opinions on the fubjecl of beauty, and fuch his criti- cifms on thofe of others. With relpedl to the latter, I imagine that, though by un- dulation of a curve, and direction of a line, he may only allude to Hogarth's line of beauty, yet by gradation of magnitude he muft have meant nearly what Mr. Burke calls gradual variation; and, indeed, it is D 2 moft
C 44 3
moft probable that his ridicule is pointed againft the whole fyftem of diftincT:, vifible qualities of beauty.
The only way in which one can hope to vanquifh fuch an adverfary as Sir Jofhua, is to oppofe him to himfelf — his practice to his theory —
Ut nemo Ajacem poterit superare nisi Ajax,
Certainly no painter has made a more con- flant and judicious ufe of the principle of undulating lines, and gradual variation; and the acknowledged grace and beauty of his forms are the beft proofs of its excellence ; but deprive his pictures, or thofe of Cor- reggio or Guido, of that principle which per- vades them, and you would rob them of the charms to which they owe their greateft reputation. It is true that undulation, gra- dual variation, &c. like other general prin- ciples, have been often abfurdly applied, and that they will not in themfelves create
beauty ;
[ 45 3
beauty; but, I think, it may fafely be laid down as a maxim, and it is one, to which in this difcuflion frequent reference may be made — that thofe qualities, without which a character cannot exift, muft be eflential to that character.
I may here obferve, that, although the me- thod of confidering beauty as the central form, and as being produced by attending only to the great general ideas inherent in univerfal nature, is a grander way of treating the fub- ject; and though the difcri mi nations of Mr. Burke may, in comparifon, appear minute ; yet, after all, each object, or fet of objects, according to their characters, muft be com- pofed of qualities, the knowledge of which is neceflary to a knowledge of their diftinct characters. Such a method is more eafily comprehended, than the more general and abftract one which Sir Jolhua propofes ; and when allied with it, is more likely to produce
D 3 a juft
n 46 3
a juft eftimate of the character altogether, than any other method fmgly.
Sir Jofhua remarks, that cuftom, though not the caufe of beauty, is certainly the caufe of our liking it ; and that if we were more ufed to deformity than beauty, deformity would lofe the idea now annexed to it, and take that of beauty. If by being ufed to deformity,* is meant a fuppofed cafe, that the forms of vifible objects on this planet were univerfally what we now call deformed, his pofition is probably true; in that cafe, how- ever, cuftom would only be another name for nature : but on any other fuppofition, I rather think, he has given to that fecond nature cuftom, a power which only belongs to nature itfelf; that is, to univerfal cuf- tom.
It feems to me, that partial cuftom and
* In this place, I imagine Sir Jofhua ufes the word deformity in its common acceptation ; in others, he ufes it for any devia- tion from the central form.
habit,
C 47 3
habit, are more employed in reconciling us to defecls and deformities, than in abfo- lutely converting them into beauties ; and that, if in fome particular cafes they do convert them into beauties, (as it is faid that thofe who have the goitres, or fvvelling in their throats, think that excrefcence be- coming, and thofe who want it deformed,) yet fuch a notion of beauty is confined to the ignorant inhabitants of a few narrow diftricls. The Ethiopians, indeed, and what are in general called negroes, are much more nu- merous ; and they probably prefer their own form and colour to thofe of Europeans ; but, as Sir Jofhua remarks, " the black and " white nations muft, in refpecl of beauty, " be confidered as of different kinds, or " at lead as different fpecies of the fame '« kind."
As this part of Sir Jofhua's Letter has
been thought to contain, not only a lively
D 4 and
i 48 :
and ftriking illuftration of his own doclrines, but like wife a refutation of thofe of Mr. Burke, it is necefiary for me to difcufs it more particularly, and to examine how far it affects Mr. Burke's fyftem. It is clear, that as the black and white nations may be confidered as different fpecies, an Ethiopian painter would with great propriety reprefent the goddefs of beauty in the manner Sir Jofhua has defcribed ; that is, with the characleriftic marks of his diftincT: race : but in other refpecls it is probable that the painter would felecl fuch a model as a Eu- ropean painter would felecl:, if employed to paint an Ethiopian Venus ; her fkin black, indeed, but of a clear jetty black—
Such as in esteem
Prince Memnon's sister might beseem ;
her limbs round and fmooth, and without any fharp angles or projections ; her eyes of a clear transparent colour : in fhort, he
would
C 49 3
would felecl a model, with all thofe qualities of beauty which Mr. Burke has mentioned,
J
the peculiar marks of the fpecies only ex- cepted. I will even go further, and, not- with (land ing the very high authority of Sir Jofhua, will venture to propofe ibme rea- fons, why Loth the form, and the colour of Europeans, may claim a preference to thofe of the Ethiopians, independently of our be- ing more accuftomed to them.
The moft ftriking difference is the colour; and it feems to me that there are fo many obvious arguments in favour of the Euro- pean, that I am furprifed the preference fhould have been attributed to mere habit. Light and colours are the only natural pleafures of vifion, all the others being acquired: but black is, in fome degree, a privation both of light and colour; and it is aflbciated with the more general privations caufed by night and darknefs, and all the
gloomy
C s° 3
gloomy ideas that refult from them. Vari- ety, gradation, and combination of tints, are among the higheft pleafures of vifion : black is abfolute monotony. In the particular in- ftance of the human countenance, and mofl of all in that of females, the changes which arife from the fofter paffions and fenfations, are above all others delightful; both from their outward effect in regard to colour, and from the connexion between that appearance and the inward feelings of the mind : but no Ethiopian poet could fay of his miftrefs,
Her pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought, That you might almost say her body thought.
The well-known anfwer of a Grecian kdy, is not a lefs high compliment to the fame fort of appearance in the male fex : when afked what was the mod beautiful colour in nature, fhe replied, the blufh of an ingenuous youth. From that charming
fuffufion
C 51 3
fuffufion in the human face, which can only take place where the fkin is tranfparent, we borrow an epithet very commonly given to the moft beautiful of flowers : an Ethiopian lady may admire the rofe's blufhing hue (and it is faid that the black nations have a fort of paffion for the rofe), but no fuch pleafing aflbciation can arife in her mind.
In difcufling this fubjecl, I think I may fairly be allowed to reafon from the analogy of all we fee around us, efpecially from objects, whether animate or inanimate, of acknowledged beauty. I will firft obferve, what every one muft have remarked, that nature has made ufe of black in a very fmall proportion : almoft all the objects we fee are adorned with colours, or with white, which is the union of them all; but fhe avoids black, which is their extinction. In vege- tation, fhe has interfperfed upon the general cloathing of green, the ornaments of flowers,
and
C 53 3
and of fruit; and thofe (he has decorated with every delightful variety and combina- tion of colours: lefs often, however, with abfolute black, though from the accompani- ment of leaves, a certain proportion of black has a very rich effecl ; as we fee in the deep purple of grapes, and in other berries either bkck, or nearly approaching to black. In flowers, black is atleaft as rare; and, upon the whole, I think I am fully juftified in fay- ing, that the colour of the Europeans, has a much ftronger relation to the colours which prevail in the moft avowedly beautiful ob- jecls, than that of the Ethiopians, and, con- fequently has the befl founded claim to beauty.
It may be faid, (and it is an argument which has been made ufe of) that, although we call the negro complexion black, from its being many degrees darker than that of the darkeft European, yet it is far from being of one
uniform
C 53 1
uniform black nefs : and that its tint, though lefs varied, has arichnefs, which, in a pain- ter's eye, may compenfate its comparative monotony, and may, therefore, by him be called beautiful. It is true, that fome of the greateft colourifts have introduced negroes into their piclures, and feem to have painted them, as the Italians exprefs it, con a more, and certainly with ftriking effect ; and, I may add, none with more truth, or with a richer tone of colouring, than Sir Jofhua Reynolds him- felf:* but that he did not think fuch a tint could accord with beauty, and efpecially with female beauty, there is the cleareft proof in one of his' admirable Notes on Du Fref- noi. Sir Jofhua is there fpeaking of the Venetian flyle of colouring, and that of Ti- tian in particular, as the moft excellent, and
* There is a head of a negro painted by him, and now in the pofleflion of Sir George Beaumont, which for character, colouring, and mafterly execution, may vie with any head 01 the fame kind, by any mnfter.
as
C 54 H
as eclipfing with its fplendour whatever i§ brought into competition with it; yet, he adds, if female delicacy and beauty be the principal object of the painter's aim, the purity and clearnefs of the tint of Guido will correfpond better, and more contribute to produce it, than even the glowing tint of Titian. Now, if he judged that the hue of Titian's naked figures, whether women or children, which that great colourift had ftu- died with more attention than any other painter, and from models, not of a fouthern climate, but of the north of Italy — if he judged that hue to be too rich and glow- ing to correfpond with the idea of delicate beauty, what would he have thought, if Ti- tian, as a companion to his Florentine Ve- nus, had painted an Ethiopian goddefs of beauty, with Cupids of the fame dufky complexion ?
From the whole of the Note, it appears
clearly
C 55 D
clearly to have been the opinion of Sir Jofhua, at a time too when his judgment was perfectly matured, that Guido's co- louring, the ftyle of which he characterizes by the expreffion of filver tint, as oppofed to the golden hue of Titian, is a ftandard for the colouring of flefh, where beauty is the objecl. That filver tint reprefents the colour of the mod delicate European fkins, in which white predominates ; and the gol- den hue, thofe on which a richer, but a browner tint has been imprefled. Every gradation downwards from that golden, to a deeper, and more dufky hue, is, accor- ding to this doclrine, a departure from beauty ; and confequently the complexion of the negro, is at the extremity of the fcale, as being the dire6t oppofite to a clear and filvery tint.*
With
* White, in its greateft purity, being the union of all other colours, ranks as high, and in lomr infiances higher, than any
C 56 1
With refpecl: to form, I will begin by ob- ferving in general, that the feature wirch moft ftrongly diftinguifhes the human coun- tenance, from that of all other animals, is the nofe. Man is, I believe, the only ani- jnal that has a marked projection in the middle of the face; the nofes of other animals being either flat, or not placed in that cen- tral pofition. All proje6n'ons, univerfally, in all objects, give character ; flatnefs and in- fipidity being fvnonymous : but between thofe large projections which give a ftrongly marked characler, and thofe flight eleva- tions which are deficient in characler, lies that medium, which in all things has the
one of them feparately, or than any other union of them: and, for the oppofite reafon, black, being the abfence, or extinction of all colours, ranks below them all. In pearls and diamonds, •which are chiefly valuable for the pleafure they give to the fight, pure colourlefs tranfparency constitutes the highefl excel- lence : and though it might be prefumed, that the rich and the tender colours of rubies, emeralds, &c. would be more attrac- tive, yet the pure colourlefs luftre of the diamond, has the preference. The fame may, perhaps, be faid of the moft pure and perfed ftatuary marble.
beft
C 57 3
bed claim to beauty. The fame principles prevail in the form, as in the fize of pro- jections : any fudden depreflion or eleva- tion, or fudden variation of any kind, is a departure from the medium, or central form, as Sir Jofhua has exprefled it ; and if that be the fenfe of his expreflion, the pre- ference due to the European nofe over that of the negroes, will be founded on his own principles.
According to the fame principles, the lips of the negroes are lefs beautiful, than thofe which are moft admired among the Euro- peans ; for they are further removed from the central form — from the medium be- tween fuch lips as fcarce feem to cover the teeth, and thofe which appear unnaturally fwoln.
The laft object of comparifon is the hair ;
a circumftance of great beauty in itfelf. and
of the higheft ufe in accompanying the face.
E One
C «8 i
One very principal beauty in hair, is its loofe texture and flexibility ; by means of which it takes, (as vines, and other flexible plants, do in vegetation } a number of graceful and becoming forms, without any affiftance from art : and, like them too, is capable of taking any arrangement that art can invent. Add to this, the great diverfity of colours, from the darkefl to the lighteft in all their gradations ; the glofly furface ; the play of light and fhadow, which always attends va- riety of form ; and then contrail all this with the monotony of the black woolly hair of the negro ! its colour, nearly the fame in all of them, and the form, without any natural play or variety, and incapable of receiving any from art! There is, likewife, another circumftance of difference not to be omitted, - — that of motion : the poets are particularly fond of defcribing this light, airy, playful effecl of hair, both in man and in animals ;
Luduntque
C 59 ]
Luduntquc juba? per colla per armos. Irftonsosque agftaret Apollinis aura capfllos.
And Taflb, in fome meafure, makes it the
diftinguifhing mark of beauty- Delia piu vaga, et cara Virginella, Clie mai spiagasse al vcnto chioma d'oro.
The European ladies, in the wantonnefs and caprice of fafhion, have fometimes chofen *o hnitate the Ethiopian character of hair ; though according to the French term for fuch a head-drefs, the immediate objecl of imitation was the head of a (beep : but the Ethiopian ladies could not take their re- venge ; they have no trefles which they can either fpread ioofely on their fhoulders, or tye up and arrange in numberless graceful and becoming forms.
I flatter myfelf, that from what has been faid of the chara^eriftic differences between the Ethiopians and the Europeans, it wffl appear, that die preference which we give
E 2 to
C 60 j
to the form and colour of the latter, is not merely the effect of habit and prejudice ; but that it . is founded on the beft grounds that can be had in fuch cafes, — on the manifeft analogy which fubfifts between thofe forms and colours, and fuch as are acknowledged to be beautiful in every other part of nature ; and, like wife, on that very juft principle, that the moft beautiful forms are thofe which lie between the extremes, whether of thick - nefs or thinnefs, flatnefs and fharpnefs, or whatever thofe extremes may be.
The moft peculiar circumftance in what we call Grecian beauty, is the ftrait line of the nofe and forehead ; which is thought to be almoft as characleriftic of the Grecian face, as the flat nofe is of the Ethiopian. This certainly is very unfavourable to the doclrine of waving lines, and gradual variation ; for although it might plaufibly be faid, that one fuch ftrait line has a pleafing, as well as a
ftriking
C ei 3
ftriking, effect, when contrafted with the number of flowing lines of which the hu- man face is compofed, ftill, however, in fo very principal a feature as the nofe, it muft be owned that the contraft is of too fudden and marked a kind, to accord with Mr. Burke's fyftem. But, on the other hand, how very ftrong an argument will it be in favour of that fyftem, if it fhould appear, that in fome of the moft exquifite pieces of Grecian art, in which beauty, in its ftricleft fenfe, has been the chief object of the artift, the line of the nofe and forehead has juft that degree of gradual variation, which feems in perfecl harmony with all the other lines of the face. This, I believe, is the cafe in a number of ftatues, gems and medals ; and particularly in the ftatue, which, of all others, is the beft example on the prefent occafion, — that of the Venus de Medicis : and as cafts of that ftatue, and especially of the buft, are E 3 very
C 6* 3
very common, it is eafy for any perfon to Satisfy himfelf with refpecl to the degree of variation.
If this be true, even of one flatue of the higheft clafs, that fingle inftance will out- weigh millions of examples, drawn from in- ferior works of art; more efpecially if it be confidered that the ftatue in queftion, repre- fents the Goddefs of Love and Beauty. It muft, therefore, be at leaft doubtful, whether the ancients confidered the ilrait line of the nofe and forehead as the moil beautiful; but whatever may have been their opinion, or the forms of living models in Greece, the reafon which Sir Joihua has affigned for the beauty of that line, can hardly be admitted in this country ; for fuch a line is fo far from being the moft common, that we can eafily recollecl the very few examples we have feen of it.
The more extended pofition, "that the
" moft
C % 1
•' moft general form of nature is the moft " beautiful," muft, I think, relate to a fuppofed central form, not to fuch as aclu- ally exift : for, with refpect to the human figure, to which he principally refers, we can never caft our eyes round any place of public re fort, without perceiving that the proportion of handfome perfons of either fex is comparatively fmall; much more fo of thofe who are really beautiful: but if habit and cuftom determined our preference, we fhoulcl certainly prefer mediocrity to beauty, as being infinitely more accuftomed to it.
The illuftration which he has drawn from the naturalift, is not, I think, perfectly in point. The aim of the naturalift is directed towards the afcertainment of the fpecies; he com- pares the different leaves, not as the painter compares other objects, for the purpofe of difcovering whether there be any of fo pe- culiarly pleafing a form, as to deferve that E 4 he
C 6* 3
he fhould except them from the general mafs, but limply to know what is that fhape, in which the greateft number mod nearly agree. By fuch obfervation, the naturalift knows at the firft glance, the general form of leaf in any particular fpecies ; if in fome of the leaves there fhould be a flight differ- ence, he ftill acknowledges them to be of the fame fpecies; but if the variation, either in the fhape, or the pofition of thofe marks by which he diftinguifhes it, pafs certain bounds, he confiders fuch a leaf as a mon- ftrous, or capricious production of nature. This is neither more nor lefs than we all do in our own fpecies, from the unavoid- able habit of obfervation : but this has no- thing to do with the refearch of beauty in either cafe ; nor does it at all tend to prove, that the mofi general forms, are the moft beautiful.
I therefore cannot avoid fufpecling, that
Sir
t 65 3
Sir Jofhua's meaning imift be different from what his words feem to exprefs : no man certainly had better opportunities of know- ing how fcarce a thing beauty is, even in this country, where, in comparifon with many others, it fo much abounds ; and how very few among thofe who really de- ferved that title, approached towards that perfection, of which none had a jufter or nicer idea than himfelf ; nor was he to be informed, that in moft languages the epi- thet rare is conftantly applied to beauty; and the oppofite one of common, to the faces and figures of women who are totally void of it. If more inftances were required in fo plain a cafe, there is a very peculiar one in the Italian language — that of applying the epithet pellegrina, or foreign, to beauty ; bellezze pellegrine ; leggiadria fmgolare et Pellegrina ; as if beauty in any high degree was fo rare, that they could not look for it
within
C 66 D
within their own well-known limits, but could only hope that it might vifit them from fome diftant, and more fortunate re- gion. If, then, Beauty be as rare, as thefe expreflions, and our own experience fhow it to be, it can hardly be called the moft general form of nature, or the medium or centre of its various forms, in any other fenfe than that which I have fuppofed.
Beauty, then, according to this fuppofi- tion, may, in refpecl to form, and particu- larly the human form, be confidered as the centre or medium between the extremes of every kind ; but this per feel central form, fo far from being common or general, has very rarely been found to exift in any one individual : to difcover, to abftracl, and fe- parate it from all exiiting forms, required numberlefs and repeated trials, obferva- tions, and refinements : thefe were made during a confiderable period of time by the
Grecian
C 67 3
Grecian artifts ; and though they could fel- dom find that central form in the whole of anv one individual, they found it in parti- c..lar parts; at lead fufficiently exadl for them to copy from, with ftich corrections, perhaps, as the abftracl ideas they had formed under the guidance of nature might fuggeft.* By putting thefe moft perfect parts together and connecting them into a wliole, both by means of the rules of fym- raetry and proportion, which they had laid down in confequence of repeated trials, and likewife by the guidance of that nicety of tafte and judgment, which adds all that rules cannot teach, they created, what has been called ideal beauty. In one particular ftatue, Polycletus fo happily exemplified the
* PRryne feems to be an exception ; as fhe is faicl to have be«u the model of the Gnuliau Veuus oi" Praxiteles, and of the Venus Anadyomene of Apelles: nor is it mentioned that thofe artrfts matle aoy corrections, in copying tliat " human " form divine," but thought it worthy, of reprelenting the god- dl-ft, to whofe fervice it had always been dedicated.
rules
IT 68 3
rules w hich he him felf had committed to writ- ing, that they jointly obtained the name of the canon', or the rule and model of the relation which one part of the human figure bears to the other, and of the refult of the whole.
Here, then, after long refearches, is a diftincl: central form, to which others may be referred ; a form to which nothing could be added, from which nothing could be taken away: this, therefore, with fuch other works of art, as were wrought ac- cording to the fame rules, and in the fame fpirit, may properly be called " the inva- " riable general form," not « which na- ie ture moft frequently produces/' but which {he may be fuppofed " to intend in her pro- " duclions." Such real, vifible models " of " the great and general ideas which are " fixed and inherent in univerfal nature" being once acknowledged, it will naturally follow, that all deviations from them muft
be
C % H
be reckoned among " thofe accidental ble- " mifhes and excrefcencies, which are con- " tinually varying the furface of nature's " works ;" and thence we have a clear con- ception, of that to which die painter ought to attend, when ftudying the higheft ftyle of the art, and of that which he ought to avoid. The practice of his belt guides the ancient artifts, plainly {hews, that in their opinion, whatever nature's intention may be, fhe rarely produces a perfecl whole, or even perfect parts ; and the ancient writers con- firm that opinion, by their avowal of the fuperiority of ftatues, even when they are fpeaking of the parts of the human body—
Pectoraque artifkuin laudatis proxime signis.*
From
* As the art of fculpture, if even invented in the time of Homer, was then in its infancy, he has not made any compa- rifon between his heroes and ftatues : but, what is curious enough, in order to give an idea of the perfecl form of the king of men, he has felecled different parts even of the gods — 'O/ui/LcctTa xa* xE^aAy.y J'xstoj Aw TEpwtxijjanKw, AfU TI Qmfj ffrtfvov Si rToo-t^awM.
One might almoft imaging, that Shakcfpeare had thought. of
this
C. 70 3
From all that has hitherto been faid, the opinions of Sir Joflaua Reynolds, and Mr. Burke, feem to differ very much on the fub- je6t of -beauty ; but, I believe, the difference is more in the manner in which they viewed and treated the fubjecl, than in the judg- ment, which, according to their own prin- ciples, they would have given of any work, either of nature, or of art. The moft per- fect fpecimens of the latter, are certainly the fine antique ftatues; which being wrought upon the principles already mentioned, ap- proach as nearly as poffible to what Sir Jofhua calls the central form : that is, to g&* neral abftract nature, in oppofition to parti- cular individual nature. From them the
this paflage in his description of Hamlet's father ; and that, as nn particular part of Mars was clefcribed in Homer's compa- rifon, he had chofen to take the eyes from Jupiter, and transfer them to that god :
" Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himfelf ;
" An eye like Mars to threaten or command ;
" A ftation like the herald Mercury,
" New lighted on a heaven- killing hill.'"
great
C 7' H
great Italian mailers firft learned to gene- ralize their ideas, on all that in any way re- lutes to their art; and from them, likewife, they acquired their notions of perfe6t, ideal beauty: but theie two acquirements, though founded on one principle, ought, in my opi- nion, to be confidered in diftin6l points of view ; as, from the want of fuch diftincliottj beauty and grandeur of character have been ftrangely confounded.
This will appear in a very clear light, if we reflecl, that the abftra6t method of con- iidering the human form and countenance, extended to all ages and characters; to the ideal heads of aged bards, lawgivers, and philofophers, as well as to the youthful forms of either fex : and therefore beauty, in any juft fenfe of the word, could not be the conftant refult of it. That quality mull be confined to fuch ftatues, as repreient young and graceful perfons ; and thofe, indeed, are
the
C 72 1
the moft perfect illuftrations of Sir Jofhua's ideas of the beautiful.
But, again, as fuch ftatues difplay, in an eminent degree, the qualities which Mr. Burke has afligned to beauty, they are alfo the moft perfect illuftrations of his fyftem :* it therefore appears very plainly, that when the models, to which both thefe eminent judges would certainly have referred their notions of perfecl beauty, are analyfed, thofe notions are found to coincide : and the only difference between them is, that the one treats of the great general abftracl principles of beauty; the other of its diftincl: vifible qualities. Were there now extant any of
-> I lately hit upon a paflage that I had not remarked before,
in which Sir Jothua confiders flowing lines as effential to beauty,
and as being, in a manner, the chara&criftic marks of it. The
paffage is in his 56th Note on Du Frefnoi ; he there fays, " a
flowing outline is recommended, becaufe beauty (which a-
lone is nature) cannot be produced without it : old age or
leannefs produces ftrait lines ; corpulency round lines; but
in a ftate of health accompanying youth, the outlines are
waving, flowing, and ferpentine."
the
C 73 ]
the firft-rate pictures of the ancient Greek fchool — the Venus of Apelles, or the Helen of Zeuxis — in perfedl prefervation, we fliould probably fee, that the delicate blending of the tints, their clearnefs and purity, would equally tend to eftablifh Sir Jofhua's and Mr. Burke's principles of the beautiful in colour.*
if,
* Sir Jolluia's opinion on this point, as expreffed in his 43d Note, has already been Hated. From that, and the laft men- tioned Note I think it may he inferred, that he confidered beauty <>i form as a difiinct character ; to which a flowing out- line is efiential, and to which a particular ftyle of colouring, of a pure and delicate kind, is above all others congenial : and fo far he coincides with Mr. Burke's idea of the beautiful, in the two principal points of form and colour. Then, likcwife, as he considers a more rich and glowing tint, though its effecl i-; much more linking and powerful, as lefs fuited to genuine beauty, I Hatter myfelf that his great authority fupports in fume meafure my idea of a character in colour, and in colour- ing, which might without impropriety be called piciurefque :* for if the colouring of Titian, who fo minutely attended to the niceft variations in the tints of naked bodies, (confeffedly the molt difficult part of the art of colouring,) was thought by him Id-; fuited to beauty than that of Guido, how much lei's fuited to it muli be the colouring of many other painters, who are indeed highly celebrated for richncfs and effect, but are far from pofieffing the delicacy of Titian ; ftich as Mola and Feti among the Italian, and Rcmbrant among the Dutch matters !
* Kflay on the riflurrfq'ie, v<H I :> 198.
That
C 74 3
If, then, it be true, that by adhering to a central form as difplayed in the beft an- tique ftatues, and by applying to it the qua- lities of beauty as dated by Mr. Burke, it would be almoft impoflible not to produce a beautiful object ; and if, on the other hand, it would be quite impoflible to produce one, if that central form, and thofe qualities, were rejected ; and if this may equally be affirm- ed, with refpect to all other objects in na- ture, as well as to the human figure — it points out very diftinclly, in what beauty does, and does not, confift ; and it fhews, that although an Apollo Belvidere, or a Venus de Medicis, cannot be made by means of rules and qualities, yet they could not be made in oppofition to them.
That their ftyle of colouring is not congenial to beauty in it? Uriel; fenfe, we have Sir Jofhua's authority : \ve have likewife his authority, that it is not fuited to grandeur, when compared •with the unbroken colours of the Roman and Florentine fchools, or the foleinn hue of the Bolognian j* but that it mull be fuited to fome character in nature, and of no mean or obfcure kind, it is impoflible to doubt.
* Difcourfc IV. p. 59.
Laffly,
C 75 3
Laftly, if it appear, that thofe qualities which are fuppofed to conflitute the beau- tiful, are in all objects chiefly found to exifl at that period, when nature has attained, but not parted, a ftate of perfect completion, we furely have as clear, and as certain principles on this, as on many other fubjects, where little doubt is entertained. There feems, however, to be this difference in regard to our ideas of the fublime, and of the beau- tiful. Thofe objects which call forth our wonder, are rare ; and their rarity is in- deed one caufe of their effect : the term fub- lime, is therefore lefs frequently mifapplied. Thofe, on the other hand, which create our pleafure, are comparatively common, and familiar ; and as we are apt to give the name of beauty to all objects which give us pleafure, however different from each other in their qualities, or character, our notions of beauty, and our application of
2 the
C 76 1
the term, have been proportionably lax and indiftincl. To give them a juft degree of precifion, it therefore was not fufficient to point out what in its ftri6l acceptation is beautiful ; it was likewife neceflary to ac- count for the pleafure which we receive from numberlefs objects, r-Mther fublime, nor beautiful, yet well entitled to form a feparate clafs ; and this I have endeavoured to do, in my EiTays on the Piclurefque.
THE DISTINCT CHARACTERS
OP
The Piflurefque and the Beautiful,
IN ANSWER TO THE
OBJECTIONS OF MR. KMGIIT.
PREFACE.
JL HE following Dialogue is written in anfwer to a Note, which my friend Mr. Knight has inferted in the fecond edi- tion of The Land/cape. In that Note he has dated it as his opinion, that the diftin&ion which I have endeavoured to eftabliih between the Beautiful and the Pi&urefque, is an imaginary one; and has given his reafons for thinking fo. Now, as that diiMnftion forms a principal part of my EiTay, I have, perhaps, too long neglefted to anfwer fuch an antagonift.
F 4 Great
C 8o 3
Great part of what I have now print- ed, was written immediately after the publication of the Note; but being at that time very much occupied in pre- paring a fecond edition of my firft vo- lume, and in fmifhing my fecond, I laid the Dialogue by, till they were both completed: and having left what I had written in its unfinifhed ftate, I fhould never have refumed it, if a perfon, on whofe judgment I have the greateft re- liance, had not been of opinion, that it placed the whole of my diftin&ion in a new, and, in fome refpecls, in a more (biking point of view, than any of my former publications.
I have thrown my defence into its prefent form, in hopes that, after fo much difcuflion upon the fubjecl:, fome- thing lighter, and more like amufement,
-might
C 81 3
might be furnifhcd by this method. I allb thought, that many perfons who were not affefted or convinced by rea- foning only, might poffibly be ftruck with it when mixed with imagery; when the different objects were placed before them, and fucceffrvely examin- ed and canvaffed by the different fpeak- ers in the Dialogue ; and when the doubts and queftions, which may na- turally occur to an unpra&ifed mind, were dated by a character of that dc- fcription, and thereby more familiarly difcuffed and explained, than can be done in a regular Effay.
For this purpofe, I have fuppofed two of the characters to be very con- verfant in all that relates to nature, and painting: that one of them, whom for diftinftion I have called by the name
of
C 82 j
of Howard, is a partizan of Mr. Knight's; that the other, whom I have called Hamilton, is attached to my opinions; and that the third, of the name of Seymour, has little acquaint- ance with the art of painting, or with the application of its principles to that of gardening, or to natural fcenery.
By means of the fuppofed partizan of Mr. Knight's opinions, 1 have in- troduced almoft the whole of the Note into the body of the Dialogue: but as it appears there in detached parts, juft as ^ the arguments might be conceived to occur in the courfe of the difcuffion, I thought it right to print it altoge- ther; for it would be very unfair to Mr. Knight, if the reader were not enabled to view the whole chain of his
reafon-
C 83 3
reafoning as he had arranged it himfelf, and likewife to refer to it whenever he had occafion.
Some of my friends, who had read this Dialogue in manufcript, were in- clined to think, that the paifages which were taken from the Note, fhould be diftinguiihed by inverted commas: but as the Note itfelf is now prefixed, fuch a diftinftion feems lefs neceflfary. There were, indeed, fome objections to it; for I have at times been obliged to in- troduce and conned thofe paffages by words of my own, which therefore could not, without impropriety, have been included within the commas; and yet, being part of the fame fpeech, could not, without aukwardnefs, have been excluded. I judged, alfo, that the frequent recurrence of fuch com- mas,
C 84 3
mas, might dinra& the reader's atten- tion from what was going forward, and, in any cafe, take off from the natural- nefs of the dialogue.
NOTE
AVXEXED TO
THE SECOND EDITION
OF
THE LANDSCAPE
A DIDACTIC POEM.
HY R. P. KNIGHT, ESQ.
NOTE
ANNEXED TO
HIE SECOND EDITION
OF
THE LANDSCAPE.
IT is now, I believe, generally admitted, that the fyftem of piclurefque improvement, employed by the late Mr. Brown and his followers, is the very reverfe of pi6turefque ; all fubjecls for painting inftantly difappear- ing as they advance ; whence an ingenious profefibr, who has long pracliied under the title of Landfcape Gardener, has fuddenly changed his ground ; and taking advantage of a fuppofed dinMnclion between the piclu- refque and the beautiful, confefled that his art was never intended to produce landfcapes,
but
r ss ]
but fome kind of neat, fimple, and elegant effects, or non-defcript beauties, which have not yet been named or clafled. ( See Letter to Mr. Price, p. 9.) "A beautiful garden " fcene," he fays, "is not more defective be- " caufe it would not look well on canvas, than " a didaSlic poem, becaufe it neither furnijlies " a fubjeSt for the painter or the mufician." (Ibid. p. 5 and 6. ) Certainly not : — for fuch a poem muft be void of imagery and melo- dy; and, therefore, more exactly refembling one of this profeflbr's improved places than he probably imagined when he made the comparifon. It may, indeed, have all the neatnefe, funplicity, and elegance of E?tgli/Jj gardening (ibid. p. 9.) ; but it will alfo have its vapid and tirefome infipidity ; and, how- ever it may be efteemed by a profeffor or a critic, who judge every thing by rule and meafure, will make no impreffion on the generality of readers, whofe tafte is guided by their feelings.
I cannot
C 89 ]
I cannot, however, but think that the diftinction, of which this ingenious profef- for has thus taken advantage, is an imagi- nary one, and that the piclurefque is merely that kind of beauty which belongs exclu- fively to the fenfe of vifion ; or to the ima- gination, guided by that fenfe. It mufl always be remembered in inquiries of this kind, that the eye, unafiifted, perceives no- thing but light varioufly graduated and modified : black objects are thofe which totally abforb it, and white thofe which en- tirely reflect it ; and all the intermediate ihades and colours are the various degrees in which it i^ partially abforbed or impeded, and the various modes in which it is reflecl- cd and refracled. Smoothnefs, or harmony of furface, is to the touch what harmony of colour is to the eye ; and as the eye has learnt by habit to perceive form as inftan- taneoufly as colour, we perpetually apply
G terms
C 9° 3
terms belonging to the fenfe of touch to objecls of fight ; and while they relate only to perception, we are guilty of no impro- priety in fo doing ; but we fhould not for- get that perception and fenfation are quite different ; the one being an operation of the mind, and the other an impreflion on the organs ; and that therefore, when we fpeak of the pleafures and pains of each, we ought to keep them quite feparate, as belonging to different clafles, and governed by diffe- rent laws.
Where men agree in facts, almoft all their difputes concerning inferences arife from a confufion of terms ; no language being fuf- ficiently copious and accurate to afford a dif- tincl expreffion for every difcrimination ne- ceflary to be made in a philofophical inquiry, not guided by the certain limits of number and quantity; and vulgar ufe having intro- duced a mixture of literal and metaphorical
meanings
C 9i D
meanings fo perplexing, that people perpe- tually ufe words without attaching any pre- cife meaning to them whatever. This is peculiarly the cafe with the word beauty, which is employed fometimes to fignify that congruity and proportion of parts, which in compofition pleafes the underftanding ; fometimes thofe perfonal charms, which ex- cite animal defires between the fexes ; and fometimes thofe harmonious combinations of colours and fmells, which make grate- ful imprefllons upon the vifual or olfactory nerves. It often happens too, in the laxity of common converfation or defultory writ- ing, that the word is ufed without any pointed application to either, but with a mere general and indiftincl reference to what is any ways pleafing.
This confufion has been ftill more con- founded, by its having equally prevailed in all the terms applied to the conftituent pro- o 2 perties
t m 3
perties both of beauty and uglinefs. We call a ftill clear piece of water, furrounded by fhaven banks, and reflecting white build- ings, or other brilliant objects that ftand near it, fmooth, becaufe we perceive its fur- face to be fmooth and even, though the im- preflion, which all thefe harfh and edgy reflections of light produce on the eye, is analogous to that which roughnefs produces on the touch ; and is often fo violently irri- tating, that we cannot bear to look at it for any long time together. In the fame man- ner, we call an agitated ilream, flowing between broken and fedgy banks, and in- diftinctly reflecting the waving foliage that hangs over it, rough ; becaufe we know, from habitual obfervation, that its impref- fion on the eye is produced by uneven fur- faces ; at the fame time that the impreffion itfelf is all of foftnefs and harmony ; and analogous to what the mod grateful and
nicely
C 93 D
nicely varied fmoothnefs would be to tlie touch. This is the cafe with all fmooth ani- mals, whofe forms being determined by marked outlines, and the furfaces of whofe Jkins producing ftrong reflections of light, have an effecl on the eye correfponding to what irritating roughnefs has upon the touch; while the coats of animals which are rough and ftiaggy, by partly abforbing the light, and partly fattening it by a mixture of tender fhadows, and thus connecting and blending it with that which proceeds from furrounding objects, produce an effect on the eye fimilar to that which an undulated and gently varied fmoothnefs affords to the touch. The fame analogy prevails between (haven lawns and tufted paftures, drefled parks and fhaggy forefts, neat buildings and moulder- ing walls, &c. &c. as far as they affect the fenfes only. In all, our landscape gardeners feem to work for the touch rather than the fight.
G 3 When
[ 94 3
When harmony, either in colour or fur- face becomes abfolute unity, it finks into what, in found, we call monotony ; that is, its impreflion is fo languid and unvaried, that it produces no farther irritation on the organ than what is neceflary for mere per- ception, which, though never totally free from either pleafure or pain, is fo nearly neutral, that by a continuation it grows tirefome; that is, it leaves the organ to a fenfation of mere exiftence, which feems in itfelf to be painful.
If colours are fo harfh and contrafted, or the furface of a tangible objecl fo pointed or uneven, as to produce a ftronger or more varied impreffion than the organ is adapted to bear, the irritation becomes painful in proportion to its degree, and ultimately tends to its diflblution.
Between thefe extremes lies that grateful medium of grateful irritation, which pro- duces the fenfation of what we call beauty ;
and
C 95 1
and which in vifible objects we call piflu- refque beauty, becaufe painting, by imitat- ing the vifible qualities only, difcriminates it from the objects of other fenfes with which it may be combined ; and which, if produc- tive of ftronger impreflions, either of plea- fure or difgutt, will overpower it ; fo that a mind not habituated to fucli difcriminations, or (as more commonly exprefled,) a perfon not porTeffed of a painter's eye, does not dif- cover it till it is feparated in the artifVs imi- tation. Rembrandt, Oftade, Teniers, and others of the Dutch painters, have produced the moft beautiful pictures, by the moft ex- act imitations of the moft ugly and difguft- ing objects in nature ; and yet it is phy- fically impottible that an exact imitation Ihould exhibit qualities not exifting in its original; but the cafe is, that, in the ori- ginals, animal difguft, and the naufeating repugnance of appetite, drown and over-
G 4, whelm
C 96 U
whelm every milder pleafure of vifion, which a blended variety of mellow and harmonious tints muft neceflarily produce on the eye, in nature as well as in art, if viewed in both with the fame degree of abftracled and im- partial attention.
In like manner, properties pleafing to the other fenfes, often exift in objects difgufting or infipid to the eye, and make fo ftrong an impreflion, that perfons who feek only what is generally pleafing, confound their fenfa- tions, and imagine a thing beautiful, becaufe they fee in it fomething which gives them pleafure of another kind. I am not inclined, any more than Mr. Repton, to defpife the comforts of a gravel walk, or the delicious fragrance of afbrubbery ; (fee his Letter to Mr. Price, p. 18.) neither am I inclined to defpife the convenience of a paved ftreet, or the agreeable fcent of diftilled lavender ; but neverthelefs, if the pavier and perfumer
were
C 97 D
were to recommend their works as delicious gratifications for the eye, I might be tempt- ed to treat them both with fome degree of ridicule and contempt. Not only the fra- grance of ih rubs, but the frefhnefs of young graft, and green turf, and the coolnefs of clear water, however their difpofition in mo- dern gardens may be adverfe to piclurefque beauty, and difgufiing to the fenfe of feeing, are tilings fo grateful to the nature of man, that it is impoffible to render them wholly difagreeable. Even in painting, where frefh- iieis and coolnefs are happily reprefented, fcenes not d i Hi ngui fried by any beautiful varieties of tints or fhadows, pleafe through the medium of the imagination, which in- flantly conceives the comforts and pleafures which fuch fcenes mult afford ; but fiill, in painting, they never reconcile us to any harm, or glaring difcords of colour ; where- fore I have recommended that art as the
beft
C 98 3
beft criterion of the mere vifible beauties of rural fcenery, which are all that I have pre- tended to criticife.
If, however, an improver of grounds choofes to reject this criterion, and to con- fider piclurefque beauty as not belonging to his profeffion, I have nothing more to do with him ; the objects of our purfuit and inveftigation being entirely different. All that I beg of him is, that if he takes any profejponal title, it may be one really defcriptive of his profeflion, fuch as that of walk maker, Jhrub planter, turf cleaner, or rural perfumer ; for if landscapes are not what he means to produce, that of landfcape gardener is one not only of no mean, but .of no true pretenfion,
As for the beauties of congruity, intricacy, lightnefs, motion, repofe, &c. they belong exclufively to the understanding and imagi- nation ; and though I have flightly noticed
them
[ 99 3
them in the text, a full and accurate invefti- gation of them would not only exceed the limits of a note, but of my whole work. The firft great obfiruclion to it is the ambi- guity of language, and the difficulty of find- ing diftin6t terms to difcriminate diftinct ideas. The next is the habit which men are in, of flying for allufions to the inclination of the fexes towards each other ; which, being the ftrongeft of our inclinations, draws all the others into its vortex, and thus becomes the criterion of pleafures, with which it has no further connection than being derived from the fame animal functions with the reft. All male animals probably think the females of their own fpecies the moft beau- tiful part of the creation ; and in the various and complicated mind of civilized man, this original refult of appetite has been ib changed aad diverfified by the various mo- difications of mental fympathies, focial ha- bits,
C 100 ]
bits, and acquired propenfities, that it is im- poflible to analyze it : it can therefore afford no lights to guide us in exploring the gene- ral principles and theory of fenfation.
A
DIALOGUE
ON
i II E DISTINXT CHARACTERS
OF
THE PICTURESQUE K THE BEAUTIFUL.
R. Howard and Mr. Hamilton, two gen- tlemen remarkably fond of pictures, were on their return from a tour they had been making through the north of England. They were juft fetting out on their walk to a feat in the neighbourhood, where there was a famous collection of pictures, when a chaife drove to the inn door; and they faw, to their great delight, that the perfon who got out of it was Mr. Seymour, an intimate friend of their's. After the firft rejoicings at meeting fo unexpectedly, they told him whi- ther
C 10* 3
ther they were going, and propofed to him to accompany them. You know, faid he, how ignorant I am of pictures, and of every thing that relates to them ; but, at all events, I fhall have great pleafure in walking with you, and fhall not be forry to take a lefTon of connoifieurfhip from two fuch able matters.
Mr. Hamilton had formerly been a great deal at the houfe they were going to, and undertook to be their guide : the three friends however converfed fo eagerly together, that they miffed their way, and got into a wild unfrequented part of the country; when, iuddenly, they came to a ruinous hovel on the outfkirts of a heathy common. In a dark corner of it, fome gypfies were fitting over a half-extinguimed fire, which every now and then, as one of them (looped down to blow it, feebly blazed up for an inftant, and fhewed their footy faces, and black tangled locks. An old male gypfey Hood at
the
C 103 3
the entrance, with a countenance that well exprefled his three-fold occupation, of beg- gar, thief, and fortune-teller; and by him a few worn-out afTes : one loaded with nifty panniers, the others with old tattered cloaths and furniture. The hovel was propt and overhung by a blighted oak; its bare roots flaring through the crumbling bank on which it flood. A gleam of light from under a dark cloud, glanced on the moil prominent parts : the reft was buried in deep fhadow ; except where the dying em- bers
" Taught light to counterfeit a gloom."
The three friends flood a long while con- templating this fingular fcene ; but the two lovers of painting could hardly quit it : they talked in raptures of every part ; of the old hovel, the broken ground, the blafted oak, gypfies, afles, panniers, the catching lights, the deep fhadows, the rich mellow tints, the
group-
il 104 3
grouping, the compofition, the effecl of the whole ; and the words beautiful, and pic- turefque, were a hundred times repeated. The uninitiated friend liftened with fome furprife ; and when their raptures had a lit- tle fubfided, he begged them to explain to him how it happened, that many of thofe things which he himfelf, and moft others he /believed, would call ugly, they called beauti- ful, and piffiurefque — a word, which thofe who were converfant in painting, might per- haps ufe in a more precife, or a more extend- ed fenfe, than was done in common dif- courfe, or writing. Mr. Howard told him that the piclurefque, was merely that kind of beauty which belongs exclufively to the fenfe of vifion, or to the imagination guided by that fenfe. Then, faid Mr. Seymour, as far as vifible objects are concerned, what is piclurefque is beautiful, and vice verfa; in fhort, they are two words for the fame
idea.
C
idea. I do not, however, entirely compre- hend the meaning of exclufively, to the fenfe of vifion."
" It mull always be remembered," an- fwered the other, " in enquiries of this kind, that the eye, unaflified, perceives nothing but light varioufly graduated and modified: black objects are thofe which totally abforb it; and white, thofe which entirely reflect it; and all the intermediate fhades and co- lours, are the various degrees in which it is partially abforbed or impeded : fmoothnefs, or harmony of furface, is to the touch, what harmony of colour is to the eye ; and as the eye has learnt by habit to perceive form, as inftantaneoufly as colour, we perpetually ap- ply terms belonging to the fenfe of touch to objects of fight ; and while they relate only to perception, we are guilty of no impropriety in fo doing; but we fliould not forget that perception, and fenfation, are quite different :
H the
C 106 ]
the one being an operation of the mind, the other an impreflion on the organs ; and that therefore, when we fpeak of the pleafures and pains of each, we ought to keep them quite feparate, as belonging to different clafles, and governed by different laws/'
" There can be no doubt/' laid Mr. Seymour, " of the diftin£u'on between per- ception and fenfation ; but in fpeaking of vifible objecls, I can hardly admit that they are quite different, or that they ought to be kept quite feparate ; becaufe per- ception, as an operation of the mind, has no exiftence but through the medi- um of impreffions on the organs of fenfe: perception, therefore, in the mind, and fen- fation in the organ, although diftmcl opera- tions in themfelves, are practically infepara- ble. I am ready, for inftance, to allow, that an eye unailifted, fees nothing but light va- rioufly modified; but where will you find
fuch
c 10? n
fuch an eye ? We have all learned to diftin- guifh by the fight alone, not only form in general, but, likewife, its different qualities; fuch as hardnefs, foftnefs, roughnefs, fmooth- nefs, &c. and to judge of the diftance and gradation of objects: all thefe ideas, it is true, are originally acquired by the touch ; but from ufe, they are become as much ob- jecls of the fight, as colours. Ton may poi- fibly be able, fo to abftra£l your attention from all thefe heterogeneous qualities, as to fee light and colours only ; but, for my part, I plainly fee that old gypfey's wrinkles, as well as the colour of his fkin ; I fee that his beard is not only grizzle, but rough and flubbed, arid, in my mind, very ugly; I fee that the hovel is rugged and uneven, as well as brown and dingy ; and I cannot get thefe things out of my mind by any endea- vours : in fhort, what I fee and feel to be ugly, I cannot think, or call beautiful, what- ever lovers of painting may do/'
jr 2 « It
C 108 ]
" It is by a love and ftudy of pictures," replied Mr. Howard, " that this beauty is perceived; becaufe painting, by imitating the vifible qualities only, difcriminates it from the obje61s of the other fenfes with which it may be combined, and which, if produc- tive of flronger imprefllons either of plea- fure or difguft, will overpower it ; fo that a mind not habituated to fuch dilcriminations, or (as more commonly exprefled) a perfon not poflefled of a painter's eye, does not dif- cover it till it is feparated in the artift's imitation. Rembrandt, Oftade, Teniers, and others of the Dutch painters, have produced the moft beautiful pictures by the moft ex- a6t imitations of the moft ugly and difguft- ing objects in nature; and yet it is phy- fically impofTible, that an exact imitation fhould exhibit qualities not exifting in its original ; but the cafe is, that in the origi- nals, animal difguft and the naufeating re- pugnance of appetite, drown and overwhelm
every
C 309 3
every milder pleafure of vifion, which a blended variety of mellow and harmonious tints mud neceflarily produce on the eye, in nature as well as in art, if viewed in both with the fame degree of abftracted and im- partial attention."
" I have liftened," faid Mr. Seymour, " with much pleafure, for I think there is fomething very ingenious in this explana- tion ; ftill, however, I have many doubts and objections. The firft is, that when I fee that all the parts are ugly, I can hardly bring myfelf to call the whole beautiful, merely on account of thofe mellow, harmonious tints, you mention : much lefs can I bring myfelf to call the parts themfelves beautiful, or (what I find is the fame thing) piclu- refque. Were it true indeed, that we faw nothing but light varioufly modified, fuch a way of confidering objects would be more juft ; for then the eye would in fuch objects H 3 really
C n° 3
really lee nothing, but what, in point of harmony, was beautiful: but that pure ab- flracl: enjoyment of vifion, though poflibly referved in future for fome man, who may be born without the fenfe of feeling, our in- veterate habits will not let us partake of. Another circumftance ftrikes me in your manner of confidering objects : you lay great ftrefs, and, I dare fay, with reafon, on ge- neral effect, and general harmony ; but do you not, on the other hand, lay too little flrefs on the particular parts when you talk of beauty ? For inftance, what you call ef- fect of light and fhade, is, I imagine, when the fun fhines flrongly on fome parts, and others are in deep fhadow: but fuppofe thofe people and animals, and that building, were beautiful, according to the common notions of beauty ; that old gypfey, a hand- fome young man ; thofe worn-out beafts of burthen, gay and handfome horfes ; that
old
C n« 3
old hovel, a handfome building: would fuch a change preclude all effecl: of light and fha- dovv ? would it preclude all harmony of co- lours ? and are ugly objecls alone adapted to receive a blended variety of mellow and harmonious tints ?
" I am willing," continued he, after a fhort paufe, " to allow a great deal to harmony of colours ; its effect is perceived in a nofegay, or a riband ; but is, therefore, the beauty of particular colours to be totally out of the queftion, and their harmony folely to be at- tended to? and am I obliged to call a num- ber of colours beautiful, becaufe they match well, though each of them, feparately con- fidered, is ugly r It is very poffible, for ex- ample, that the old gypfey's tanned fkin, the afs and his panniers, the rotten pofts and thatch of the hovel, may match each other admirably ; but, for the foul of me, I cannot think of them in the fame light, with the frefh H 4 and
L I"
and tender colours in the cheeks of young men or women ; with the fhapes and colours of fleek and pampered horfes, richly and gaily caparifoned; or with thofe of porticos or columns of marble, porphyry, lapis la- zuli, or even common free-ftone ; and I can fcarcely think that you do. It is very poffi- "ble, alfo, that the blafted old oak there — its trunk a mere (hell — its bark full of knobs, fpots, and ftains — its branches broken and twifted, with every mark of injury and de- cay; may pleafe the painter more than a tree in full vigour and frefhnefs; and I grant that thofe circumftances do give it a wild and fmgular appearance, and fo far attract attention ; but, furely, you cannot be in earn- eft, when you call fuch circumftances beau- tiful?"
Mr. Hamilton had liftened in filence to the converfation of his two friends, and, at the fame time, had been obferving the courfe
of
of the country, in order to correct his mif- take in the road ; he now recollected a way arrofs the heathy common, which, after tak- ing a laft look at the hovel and its inhabi- tants, they purfued. under his guidance. Then turning to Mr. Howard, " there are feveral things," faicl he, " that have been thrown out by our uninitiated friend, which you could not well deny in general, nor yet venture to make thofe difcriminations which might naturally have occurred to you ; for you know they would tend to fanction a certain diitin6tion, that you have chofen to
" I perceive by this," faid Mr. Seymour, " that there are different feels among you modern connoifleurs, as there were among the antient philofophers ; and as an antient, whofe doubts were not perfectly refolved by a Stoic, would apply to an Epicurean or a Peripatetic, fo I \vill now beg to pro- pofe fome queries to you."
« There
C "4 3
" There is but one point of difference/' faid Mr. Hamilton, " between Howard and me, and that rather on a matter of curious enquiry, than of real moment; our gene- ral principles are the fame, and I flatter myfelf we mould pafs nearly the fame judgment on the merits and defects of any work of art, or on any piece of natural, or improved fcenery ; but our friend there has taken a ftrong antipathy to any diftinclion or fubdivifion on this fubjecV
" For the prefent," faid Mr. Seymour, " I will not enter any further on this point of difference, but will at once be- gin my queries. Tell me, then, how you account for this ftrange difference between an eye accuftomed to painting, and that of fuch a perfon as myfelf? If thofe things which Howard calls beautiful, and thofe which I mould call beautiful, are as diffe- rent as light and darknefs, would it not be better to have fome term totally unconnect- ed
t 11.* 1
ed with that of beauty, by which fuch objecls as we have juft been looking at, fliould be characlerifed ? By fuch means, you would avoid puzzling us vulgar obfervers with a term, to which we cannot help annexing ideas of what is foft, graceful, elegant, and lovely ; and which, therefore, when applied to hovels, rags, and gypfies, contradi6ts and confounds all our notions and feelings/'
" The term you require/' anfwered Mr. Hamilton, " has already been invented, for, according to my ideas, the word Piclu- refque, has exactly the meaning you have juft defcribed/'
" Then/' faid Mr. Seymour, " you do not hold piclurefque and beautiful to be fynonymous/'
" By no means/' faid he ; " and that is the only difference between Howard and me : in all the effecls that arife from the various combinations of form, colour, and
light
C »6' 1
light and fhadow, we agree ; and I am truly forry that we fhould difagree on this diftinc- tion/'
" No matter/' faid Mr. Seymour; " a friendly difcufTion of this kind, opens the road to truth; and, as I have no prejudice on either fide, I fhall take much delight in hearing your different opinions and argu- ments. Tell me, then, what is your idea of the piclurefque?"
" That is no eafy queftion," faid Mr. Hamilton, " for to explain my idea of it in detail, would be to talk a volume; but, in reality, you have yourfelf explained a very principal di function between the two characters : the fet of objects we have been looking at, ft ruck you with their fingularity ; but inftead of thinking them beautiful, you were difpofed to call them ugly: now, I fhould neither call them beau- tiful, nor ugly, but piclurefque ; for they
have
C
have qualities highly fuited to the painter and his art, but which are, in general, lefs attractive to the bulk of mankind ; whereas the qualities of beauty, are univerfaUy pleaf- ing and alluring to all obfervers/'
" I muft own," faid Mr. Seymour, " that it is fome relief to me to find, that, according to your doclrine, I am not forced to call an ugly thing beautiful ; yet, Hill, by the help of a middle term, may avoid the offence I mult otherwife give to painters. But what molt furprifes me, and what I wilh you to ex- plain, is, that thofe objects which you and Howard fo much admired, and which he called beautiful, not only appeared to me ugly, but very flrikingly fo : am I, then, to conclude that the more peculiarly and ftrik- ingly ugly an object is, the more charms it has for the painter?"
" You will be furprifed," faid Mr. Ha- milton, " when I tell you, that what you
have
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have, perhaps ironically, fuppofed, is in great meafure the cafe/'
Juft at this time, a man, with fomething of a foreign look, patted by them on the heath, whofe drefs and appearance they could not help flaring at. " There," faid Mr. Seymour, after he had pafled them, " I hope, Hamilton, you are charmed with that figure ! I hope he is fufficiently ugly for you : I fhall not get his image out of my head for fome time ; what a fingularly formed nofe he has, and J^what eyebrows ! how they, and
his black raven hair, hung over his eyes, and what a dark defigning look in thofe eyes ! then the flouched hat that he wore on one fide, and the fort of cloak he threw acrofs him, as if he were concealing fome wea- pon !"
" Need I now explain," interrupted Mr. Hamilton, " why an object peculiarly and ftrikingly ugly, is piclurefque ? Were this
figure,
r 119 n
figure, juft as you faw him, to be ex- prefled by a painter with exaftntfs and fpirit, would you not be ftruck with it, as you were juft now in nature, and from the fame reafons ? What indeed is the object of an artift, in whatever art ? Not merely to reprefent the foft, the ele- gant, or the dignified and majeftic ; his point is to fix the attention ; if he cannot by grandeur or beauty, he will try to do it by deformity : and indeed, according to Eraf- mus, " quae natura deformia funt, plus ha- *'< bent et artis et voluptatis in tabula." It is not uglinefs, it is infipidity, however ac- companied, that the painter avoids, and with reafon ; for if it deprives even beauty of its attractions, what mull it do when united to uglinefs ? Do you recollect a perfon who pafled by us, a little before you faw this figure that ftruck you fo much ? you muft remember the circumilance, for he bowed
to
[ 120 3
to me as he pafTed, and you afked me his hame, but made no further remark, or en- quiry. I, who have often feen him, know that he is as ugly, if not uglier, than the other; a fquat figure; a complexion like tallow ; an unmeaning, pudding face, the marks of the fmall-pox appearing all over it, like bits of fuet through the fkin of a real pudding : a nofe like a potatoe ; and dull, heavy, oyfter-like eyes, juft fuited to his face and perfon. A figure of this kind, drefTed as he was, in a common coat and waiftcoat, and a common fort of wig, excites little or no attention ; and if you do happen to look at it, makes you turn away with mere difguft. Such uglinefs, therefore, neither painters, nor others, pay any attention to; but the painter, from having obferved many ftrong- ly marked peculiarities and effects, which, in the human fpecies, though mixed with ugli- nefs, attract in fome degree the notice of all
behold-
C i" 3
beholders, is led to remark fimilar peculiari- ties and effects in inanimate, and confe- quently lefs interesting objects ; while thofe perfons, who have not confidered them in the fame point of view, pafs by them with indifference."
He had fcarcely done fpeak ing, when they had begun to enter a hollow lane on the oppo- fite fide of the common ; the banks were high and deep ; and the foil, being fand mixed with ftone, had crumbled away in many places from among the junipers, heath and furze, which, with fome thorns, and a few knotty old pollard oaks, and yews, cloathed the fides.
A little way further, but in fight from the entrance, flood a cottage, which was placed in a dip of the bank near the top ; fome rude fteps led from it into the lane : a few paces from the bottom of thefe fteps, the rill, which ran on the fame fide of the lane, had wafhed away the foil, and formed a fmall pool un-
i der
C
der the hollow of the bank : fome large flat ftones flood at the edge of the water; and juft at that moment, a woman and a girl were beating clothes upon them ; a little boy Hood looking on; fome other children fat upon the fteps, and an old woman was leaning over the wicket of the cottage porch, while her dog and cat lay bafking in the fun before it.
'* I wonder," faid Mr. Seymour, " why they do not clear the fides of this lane a lit- tle, and let in the fun and air ; the foil, in- deed, is naturally dry, but there are ruts and rough places, over which I have already ftumbled two or three times ; it is really im- poflible to walk three together."
The two others were fo occupied with the fcene, that they hardly heard what he faid, or mifled him as he pafled on before them : and the whole way up the lane, they met with fo many interefting objects, that they
were
C 123 3
were a long while getting tp the top of the afcent ; where they difcovered their compa- nion feated under a fpreading tree, and gaz- ing with delight, on what they began to look at with no lefs rapture. It was one of thofe views, which only fuch perfons as are infen- fible, or affectedly faftidious, ever look at, or fpeak of, without pleafure; though the chief circum fiances are familiar to all men. both in reality, and defcription : it was an extenfive view over a rich country, in which a river fometimes appeared in full fplendour, and again was concealed within its woody banks ; the whole bounded by diftant hills of the mod graceful form.
The place where Mr. Seymour fat, was juft where the lane ended, and fuddenly wi- dened into an open part, whence there was a gentle defcent towards the plain ; and to the broken and fhaggy banks, fucceeded a foft turf, interfperfed with a few trees, rif- i 2 ing
C 124 3
ing from amidft tufts of fern, and patches of thorn and juniper. The road continued winding towards the village, which flood about half way down the hill, and looked at once both gay and modeft, from the mix- ture of trees among the houfes : the church, with its tower and battlements, crowned the whole. To the right of the road and of the village, and fomewhat lower, was an an- cient manfion, the turrets of which appeared above the trees, while the offices, being built in the fame ftyle, moft happily group- ed with the principal building, and with the woods and thickets of the park. Beyond it, in the more diftant country, a handfome (tone bridge of feveral arches feen obliquely, crofled the river, and carried the eye to- wards a large city —
" With glittering spires and pinnacles adorn'd."
" What can you have been doing fo long in that hollow way," faid Mr. Seymour, as he
rofe
C
rofe from his feat. " I did not fee any gyp- fies, afles, or broken panniers ; but, now you are come, do tell me if you ever faw any thing half fo enchanting as this view, either in nature, or in painting ? I do not know, indeed, whether I ought to call it beau- tiful, or piclurefque; nor do I know whe- ther you connoifleurs, deign to admire, or whether painters deign to reprefent, what the common herd are pleafed with."
" You do us and the painters great in- juftice," anfwered Mr. Howard; " the moft celebrated of all the landfcape painters, re- prefented fuch popular fcenes as thefe; not indeed without making fuch alterations as his art required, and his experience fuggeft- ed : but in regard to the view before us, it happens that thofe breaks in the foreground, thofe feparations of the diftance by means of trees that rife above the horizon, and all thofe circum fiances of compofition, which i 3 are
c "6 :
are more peculiarly attended to by the pain- ter, are here, in a great degree, united with thofe general and popular beauties, that de- light all mankind/'
" Tou, therefore/' faid Mr. Seymour, " would call this fcene indifferently either beautiful, or piclurefque?" " Certainly/' anfwered Mr. Howard? — "And you?" ad- dreffing himfelf to Mr. Hamilton.
" I," faid he, " if I were to fpeak of its general character, fhould call it beautiful, and not piclurefque ; becaufe thofe circum- llances which all mankind acknowledge to be beautiful, infinitely prevail. For the fame reafon, I mould call the lane which we have juft pafled, piclurefque; and that it does not fuit the general tafte, you have given a ftrong proof, who feem by no means infenfible to another ftyle of fcenery: nothing detained you there — every thing detained us,"
" Well/' faid Mr. Seymour, "it is time, likewife, to quit this beautiful fpot, (for that
is
C 137 3
is the term I mult life when I am highly pleafed,) and get on to the houfe, where you tell me there are many fine pictures, and where I am to receive my firlt leflbn."
They then began to defcend towards the village, which, as they approached, prefent- ed a pleafing and chearful appearance. The church was placed upon a fmall eminence, and in the churchyard were fome large elms, and two venerable old yews : one of them flood in front, and hung over the road, the top of the tower appearing above it; the other was behind the church, but great part of its boughs advanced beyond the end of the chancel, the window of which was feen fideways againft it.
On the oppofite fide of the road, was the parfonage- houfe, which exhibited a fingular mixture of neatnefs and irregu- larity. Something feemed to have been added by each incumbent, juft as a room, a ftaircafe, or a paflage was wanting: i 4 there
r 128 3
there were all kinds of projections; of differ- ently fhaped windows and - chimneys; of rooms in odd corners ; of roofs crofTing each other in different directions. This curious old fabric was kept in the higheft order; part of it was rough-caft ; part only white- wafhed'; but the whole of a pleafing quiet colour: vines, rofes, jafmines, and honey- fuckles, flourifhed againft the walls, and hung over the old-fafhioned porch ; a luxu- riant Virginia creeper grew quite to the top of a mafi'y ftone chimney; and fhrubs, and fruit-trees, were very happily difpofed, fo as, in fome degree, to difguife and connecl the extreme irregularity of the building.
They were all much pleafed with the neat- nefs and comfortable look of this dwelling, and with the whole fcenery round it. " If I were not afraid of worrying you/' faid Mr. Seymour, " I could wifli to know what title you would give to this building: where I fee fo much neatnefs, chearfulnefs and comfort,
I am
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I am inclined to call the whole, if not beau- tiful, at leaft pretty, and pleaiing ; and yet it is fo ftrangely irregular, and has fo little of any thing like defign or fymmetry, that I am in doubt whether I may venture to call it any thing but odd."
" You put me in mind of the French/' faid Mr. Hamilton ; " when they are afraid of rifqiiing too ferious a commendation, they often fay, * mais, c'eft aflez drole !' and you have taken fomething of the fame cautious method, for fear of fhocking me with an im- proper term. I, of courfe, imagine, that your queftion refers to the diftinclion, about which Howard and I are not agreed ; and if you are really defirous that I fhould read a lecture on the fubjecl with refpecl to build- ings, I never can have a better opportu- nity/'
" Take care," faid Mr. Howard, laughing, " how you get entangled among thefe nice
diftinc-
C
diftinclions ; there is a fort of purfuit which leads us further from the game — what fportfmen call, running heel."
" I know," faid Mr. Hamilton, " what I rifque with fuch a keen adverfary as you are ; and our friend there, preferves a fort of armed neutrality, and will not allow any thing to pafs under the pretence of eftablifh- ed cuftom ; but the whole of this diftinclion appears to me fo clear and fatisfaclory, that I cannot help flattering myfelf with the hope of making it equally fo to others: in reality, before Seymour put the queftion to me, I had been confidering this fingular, old houfe, and thought it quite a thing made for a lecture; and I will now begin it. You muft know then, Seymour, (for I do not addrefs myfelf to that fcoffer at thefe dif- tinclions) that irregularity is one of the prin- cipal caufes of the pi6htrefque ; and as the general appearance of this building is in a
very
C '3i 3
very great degree irregular, fo far it is highly pi6turefque : but, then, another caufe, is fad- den and abrupt deviation. Do you remem- ber the hovel where the gypfies were ? how the roof was funk in parts ; the thatch rag- ged and uneven ; the walls broken, and bulging out in various directions ? you certainly muft alfo recollecl the weather- llains and concretions, on the walls and the wood-work ; for I very well remember your furprize at hearing the term beautiful ap- plied to them : now, the clean, even colour of this houfe, if contrafted with the mouldy tints of the hovel, might almoft be called beautiful. That hovel was finiply piclu- refque, without any quality that approached to what is beautiful, or to what would be likely to give pleafure to die generality of mankind : this, like many other buildings, has a mixture of both qualities; but their limits happen to be particularly diftincl : and
if
if what we have been converfmg upon, has made any impreffion on your mind, I am fure you will fee at once, by what means this building would become merely piclu- refque/'
" That," faid Mr. Seymour, " does not require much confideration ; only let it be neglecled for a few years, it will be as full of moulds, ftains, and broken parts, and as much out of the perpendicular, as any pain- ter could wifti ; and would afford little plea- fure to any but painters and connoifleurs. On the other hand, as irregularity, by your account, is fo principal a caufe of the pic- turefque, I no lefs eafily can conceive, that if a handfome, regular front were put to this old houfe, it would be as far from being piclurefque, as, in the other cafe, it would be far from being beautiful/'
At this time, the clergyman came into the garden, with his daughter; and being an
old
C J33 3
old acquaintance of Mr. Hamilton's, defired them to walk in. This gave them an op- portunity of looking round the whole of the premifes, and of afking fome queftions a- bout the manfion-houfe, and the grounds.
" You will find the place much altered," faid the clergyman to Mr. Hamilton, " fince you were here : you may perhaps recollect fome fine tall trees in front of the houfe ; at leaft you muft remember the old terras, and the baluftrade with urns and flower- pots on it, and the flight of fteps that led down into the lower garden, where the fta- tues and cyprefles were. The trees I am fpeaking of, were towards the end of that garden, a little to the left ; they were cut down two years ago ; and I who have known them for thefe forty years, and often fat under their (hade, exceedingly regret them : it may be prejudice ; but I declare I do not think the view looks fo well, now
they
C 134 3
they are away, though one fees a greater expanfe of country. The terras, too, and the old garden — the flatues, and all the fine ornaments, are gone ; and yet, in my judg- ment, they fuited the ftately old manfion : they were, Mr. Hamilton, the " veterum decora alta parentum ;" and put one in mind of the magnificence of ancient times. The river, too, is very much widened, and as they fay improved : you, perhaps, will think me an old-fafhioned fellow, and fond of every thing I remember in my youth ; but for my part, I liked it better, when, though fmaller, it had its own natural wooded bank, like the little brook behind my houfe, that you all feemed fo much pleafed with. There have been many other alterations, and they are now doing a great deal to different parts of the ground, and have made a new approach ; but you can- not mifs your way, if you turn to the right
at
C 135 D
at the end of the village, where you will fee a ftone foot-bridge over the brook, and a cottage, very much covered with ivy, clofe by it."
" I think/' faid Mr. Seymour, as they were walking on, " that the good old par- fon's daughter is made upon the model of her father's houfe : her features are as irre- gular, and her eyes are fomewhat inclined to look acrofs each other, like the roofs of the old parfonage ; but a clear fkin, clean white teeth, though not very even, and a look of neatnefs and chearfulnefs, in fpite of thefe irregularities, made me look at her with pleafure; and, I really think, if I were of the cloth, I mould like very well to take to the living, the houfe, and its inhabitant. You, Hamilton, I fuppofe, were thinking, how age and neglect would operate upon her as upon the houfe, and how fimply piclurefque (he would become, when her
cheeks
C 136 ]
cheeks were a little furrowed and weather- ftained, and her teeth had got a flight in- cruftation."
" No indeed/' faid the other, " I thought of her much as you did ; and I was reflect- ing how great a conformity there is between our taftes for the fex, and for other objects ; though Howard, I know, holds a very dif- ferent opinion. Here is a houfe and a wo- man, without fymmetry or beauty ; and yet many might prefer them both, to fuch as had infinitely more of what they, and the world, would acknowledge to be regularly beautiful : but then, again, deprive the wo- man, or the houfe, of thofe qualities that are analogous to beauty, and you will hardly find any man fond enough of the pictu- refque, to make the fort of proportion you have juft been making/'
" I muft own/' faid Mr. Howard, " that I do object to this kind of analogy : I do
not
C
not like the habit men are in, of flying for allufions to the inclination of the fexes to- wards each other ; for that being the ftrong- eft of our inclinations, it draws all others into its vortex, and thus becomes the cri- terion of pleafures, with which it has no further connection, than being derived from the fame animal functions with the reft."
" I agree with you entirely/' faid Mr. Hamilton, " that in any cafe where that in- clination was really made the criterion of other pleafures, or other taftes, we fhould reafon on falfe grounds : I believe, however, you will feldom find any inftance of that fort. Do but recollect: what women you have known men to be paffionately in love with : fome fhort and fat ; fome tall and fkinny; fome with a little turn-up nofe, a fmall gimlet eye, a dufky fldn, or one co- vered with freckles : and yet did you ever know one of thefe lovers fo biafled by his K particular
C 138 3
particular fancy, as to infift upon it that thefe were criteria, and univerfal principles of be£uty ? or who was not ready to ac- kfto^le^ge the fuperior, though, to him, lefs interefting, beauty of other women, whofe Iperfons differed in every refpect from that of the object of his paffion r I have as ffttle foutod, that the partiality we feel for our own fpecies, has made us think it a ftandard for beauty in other objects ; on the contrary, we are perpetually borrowing images from other animals, for the purpofe of conveying a higher idea of beauty, or of character : the eye of the eagle, the dove, the ox, are ufed to exprefs keennefs, mild- nefs, or fulnefs ; the neck of a beautiful wo- man is compared to that of a fwan ; and num- berlefs comparifons are drawn from animate and inanimate objects, in order to heighten the idea of human beauty. On the other hand, when a compliment is to be paid to an ani- mal,
C 139 3
mal, it is drawn from the more acknow- ledged fource of human fuperiority ; as " the half-reafoning elephant" in Pope ; and Rinaldo's famous horfe Bajardo, of whom Ariofto fays, " Che avea intelletto " umano/' — But I fee we are juft arrived at the gate, and luckily there is a fervant coming towards us/'
The fervant knew Mr. Hamilton, and conducted them into the houfe ; and as they were impatient to fee the pictures, they pafied at once into the gallery, which con- tained a great variety of them, and by matters of all the different fchools.
" Here/' faid Mr. Seymour, " we fliall have ample room for difcuffing the fubjecl: of the beautiful and the piclurefque in painting : I have already had a very good lecture on real objects. Tell me, Howard, do you as little agree to Hamilton's diftinc- tions here, as in nature ? do you make rough
K 2 and
C
and fmooth, gradual and abrupt — in fliort, all that he keeps feparate — tend to one point, to beauty only ? or do you allow of his diftin&ions in works of art, though not in real objects ?"
" I equally deny them in both/' faid he; " I hold, that between the extremes of mo- notony either of colour or furface, and fuch harlhnefs of either as produces a difagree- able fenfation, lyes that grateful medium of grateful irritation, which produces the fen- fation of what we call beauty, and which, in vifible objects, is called pifturefque beauty; becaufe painting, as I obferved to you be- fore, by imitating the vifible qualities only, difcriminates it from the objects of the other fenfes with which it may be combined, and which, if productive of ftronger impreffions, either of pleafure or difguft, will overpower it: fo that a mind not habituated to fuch difcrimi nations, or (as more commonly ex-
prefled )
C 14* 3
prefled ) a perfon not pofTefTed of a painter's eye, does not difcover it till feparated in the artift's imitation."
" This appears to me/' faid Mr. Sey- mour, " to be a very juft way of accounting for the tafte, which lovers of painting ac- quire for fuch objects ; and I eafily conceive how a relifh for them in painting, may beget fuch a relifh for them in reality, as may be ftrong enough to overcome the difguft of many naufeous accompaniments: but I will look round the room, and tell you freely what effect the pictures which happen to ftrike me, have upon my unlearned eye, and how far they feem to me to confirm, or con- tradict, your doctrine. I am glad to fee that the names of the painters are written on the frames: to you that is, probably, almofl ufelefs ; but to me, it will be very conve- nient ; for although the mere names of fome of the principal painters, like thofe of the K 3 ancient
C
ancient Greek artifts, are familiar to me, yet I muft own to my fhame, that I am almoft as little acquainted with their works, as with thofe of Parrhafius, or Protogenes. I fhall begin at once with this large picture oppo- fite to us, which has the name of Rubens upon it; for there is an air of fplendour in every part of it, that is very firiking. There feems, alfo, to be a great deal of action and energy ; tho' I cannot fay much for the grace or elegance either of his men or women : he really, however, has made amends in his horfes ; that one particularly, with the flow- ing, white mane, is a moft beautiful animal, and, I may add, in the higheft condition ; a great merit in real horfes, and, if I may judge from this fpecimen, no lefs fo in thofe that are painted. You know I have a paf- fion for horfes, and I am delighted to fee them, according to my notions, fo finely reprefented."
" Rubens,"
C '43 3
" Rubens," faid Mr Howard, "had the fame paOion; and as he kept a number of horfes, which, probably, were very beauti- ful, and in high order, he painted them truly after nature. I do not wonder at your being {truck with that horfe, and with the efie& of his white mane; nothing can be more brilliant than the touches of light upon it, and upon the foam on his mouth ; yet you fee thofe touches, and the whole of that inafs of white, are in perfedt harmony with the reft of the piclure. But you muft not negle6t that other large picture, which makes a companion to this : it is by Paul Veronefe, a painter of the Venetian fchool, from whom Rubens caught that general air of fplendotir you fojuftly admire/'
*' There is indeed/' faid Mr. Seymour, " a moft impofing air of fplendour and magnificence throughout the whole of it : I do not perceive, I mult own, any thing of
K 4, intereft
C H4 D
intereft or expreffion, in the very numerous company of well-drefied perfons he has brought together; but the richnefs of the drefles, the profufion of ornaments, and above all the aflemblage of fuperb buildings, would make a ftrong impreflion on me, if I were to fee them in reality, juft as they ap- pear in this painting: this may not always be a proper criterion, but it is a very natural one for an ignorant man to refort to/*
te As you have admired the fplendour of Rubens in that hiftorical picture," faid Mr. Howard, " you muft now look at thofe land- fcapes by him, which are not lefs fplendid : and firft obferve this fingular and brilliant effect of the fun-beams burlting through a dark wood/'
" It is more than brilliant/' replied Mr. Seymour. " it is perfectly dazzling ; and a moft extraordinary imitation of real light, when broken by leaves and branches. That
other
C
other picture of the thunder-ltorm, is not lefs linking : nothing can be more finely conceived, or more terrific, than the oppofi- tion of fuch extreme blacknefs in the clouds that hang over the mountain, to the lighten- ing, and the glaring ftream of light, which feems to pour down upon the buildings be- low it. Such effects in nature ftrike the moft infenfible perfons, but I ihould fuppofe it muft be extremely difficult to reprefent them in painting; the ancients at lead appear to have thought it nexttoimpoflible, if I may judge from what Pliny (fome what affectedly) fays of Apelles ; " pinxit et quse pingi non " pofftint; tonitrua, fulgetra, fulguraque." Mr. Seymour then went on, looking at many of the pictures, but not flopping long at any of them, till he came to one of Claude Lorraine. " This," faid he, after (landing fome time before it, and examining it with great attention, " is what I hardly expected,
though
C
though I believe you gave me a hint of it when we were looking at the profpect from the hill ; and really the view in this picture is not unlike that real view : it is feen in the fame manner between trees ; and the river, the bridge, the diftant buildings, and hills, are nearly in a fimiiar fituation. I have great pleafure in feeing the fame foft lights, the fame general glow which we admired in the real landscape, reprefented with fuch Ikill, that, now the true fplendour of the fun is no longer before us, the picture feems nature itfelf. This, I imagine, muft be the painter you alluded to, when I aiked you whether fuch views were ever painted : what a picture would this be to have in one's fit- ting room ! to have always before one fuch an image of fine weather, fuch a happy mixture of warmth and frefhnefs 1 a fcene where one imagines that every other fenfe mufl be charmed, as well as that of feeing !
Indeed,
C H7 3
Indeed, Howard, thistends very much tocon- firm what you have been faying; for, as allthe objects here are really charming, they have no need of being feparated from what might affect the other fenfes, by the artift's imita- tion : I am very fure at lead that it is not necefTary to have a painter's eye in order to admire this picture. I fear, however, I (hall look at nothing elfe \vith pleafure, and I hardly know how to quit it."
" You may come to it again by and by," faid Mr. Howard, " but do look at this pic- ture of Teniers ; and you will own that he has produced (and fo have many of the Dutch fchool,) the mod beautiful pidtures, by the mod exact imitation of the mod ugly and difgufting objects in nature: and yet, as I obferved before, it is phyfically impolli- ble that an exact imitation fhould exhibit qualities not exifting in its original/'
" I do allow/' faid Mr. Seymour, after looking at it for fome time, ** that this is an
admirable
C 148 3
admirable imitation ; and I own likewife, that if what the woman is washing and cleaning, were real tripes, gats, and garbage, the fenfe of fmelling, and animal difguft, would prevent any pleafure I might have (if pleafure there could be) in fuch a fight. This certainly is merely the pleafure arifmg from imitation ; I mean, as far as the hogs- puddings are concerned ; for there are other parts neither ugly nor difgu fling : that group of boys, for inftance, who are blowing bub- bles, I ihould look at with pleafure in na- ture ; and many parts of the building are what Hamilton would call pifturefque, for they are broken and irregular ; and although they have nothing of beauty, they at lead have nothing offenfive.
" You have given this very extraordinary piece of art as an inftance, that the moft beau- tiful pictures may be produced by the moft ugly and difguftingobje6ts: I mu ft fay, that if Hamilton grants you this in the ftricl fenfe of
the
C '49 3
the word, it will bear very hard upon his dif- tinclions, and indeed upon all diftinclionson this fubjecl ; but tell me, has not your eager- nefs to oppofe his new-fangled doclrines, betrayed you into fomething a little like fo- phiftry ? Is it not clear, that by beautiful, you only mean excellent ? and that in the prefent cafe the term would be quite abfurd in any other fenfe ? If fo, neither Hamilton, nor any one elfe will deny that the moft beautiful, that is, the moft excellent pictures, may be produced by any objects whatever ; though I, for one, do moft ftrenuoufly deny that the moft beautiful, that is, the moft lovely, pictures, can be produced by the ' moft unlovely objecls.
" Thefe incongruities ftrike us lefs, perhaps, in our own language; but how often have you and I been furprifed and diverted at the exprellions we have heard foreigners make ule of, that feemed infinitely too grand for the occafion ! If a Frenchman, for inftance,
were
C 150 3
were now to come into the room, and we were to fhew him this picture, it is a great chance if he did not exclaim, — " c'eft fu- perbe ! c'eft magnifique!" for we have often heard thofe two words full as fingularly ap- plied: and thence, my good friend, you might with equal fairnefs conclude, that the moft ftiperb and magnificent piclures, may be produced by the meaneft and moft filthy objects. Now, if we were afterwards to take the fame Frenchman to the two large pictures we firft looked at, he could not find any ftronger terms to exprefs his admi- ration of them, than fuperb and magnifi- cent ; but if he were an unprejudiced man, he would certainly allow, that thofe terms diflinclly characterized the peculiar excel- lence and ftyle of thofe two piclures ; while in the cafe of this Teniers, they were mere- ly ftrong expreflions of praife, without any other meaning.
" If all this be true, if fuch expreflions
often
c 151 n
often convey nothing more than general commendation, the whole feems to me very fimple; there is no longer any queftion about phyfical impoflibility, or the exhibition of qualities which do not exift in the original. The hog's infide, in this exact imitation, is neither more nor lefs beautiful, or magnifi- cent, than a real one in a real back -kitchen ; and the picture itfelf, according to my no- tions, is neither more nor lefs entitled to either of thofe epithets, than any other well- painted picture, without any one circum- ftance of beauty, or magnificence. The painter, it is true, has very fkilfully diftri- buted his colours, and his lights and fha- dows, fo that all is highly natural ; and the harmony of the whole pleafes my unprac- tifed eye, now 1 have been taught to reflect upon it : but I muft again repeat, that the term beautiful, applied to a pi6ture without a fmgle beautiful object in it, and with fiame
very
c 152 3
very ugly and nafty ones, is ufed, if not in a licentious, at leafl in a very vague fenfe : fo I will go back to the Claude, where I know and feel, that the whole, and every part, is beautiful."
" Stay/' faid Mr. Hamilton, " do not pafs by this Magdalen of Guido for mere landfcape."
" I did not obferve it," faid Mr. Sey- mour, " perhaps from its being hung higher than the reft ; and I am much obliged to you for flopping me. Good God ! what a difference it makes, when, with the fame harmony and foftnefs, there is fuch exqui- fite beauty of form ! not only in the face, and in the turn of the body, but where one fhould lefs ex peel it : look at that foot ; it has fuch elegance of fhape, and purity, and delicacy of colour, that it almoft rivals the face ; when the term beautiful is ap- plied to fuch a picture, how fully do we feel
and
C 153 3
and acknowledge its propriety ! If you quit this, Howard, and return to your Te- niers, I fhall fay you have a depraved ap- petite, that
" Sates itself in a celestial bed, " And preys on garbage."
But as I am here for my inftruclion, I muft quit it myfelf for the prefent, and look at other pictures. What is that which hangs next to it, with ftrong, harm lights, and the men looking like ruffians ? I fee the name is Spagnolet : I dare fay, it has great charms for connoifleurs, as well as that oppofite to it, on the other fide of the Magdalen, which I fuppofe is by the fame hand : no, I fee there is another name--— Michael Angelo Caravaggio : what amazingly deep fha- dows, and what a fmgular light ftrikes upon that man's fhoulder, and then upon the boy's cheek ! it is a mixture of mid-day and mid-night : the characters I do not like, L and
C 154 3
and the whole is a ftrong contrail to the foftnefs and delicacy of that charming Mag- dalen."
" Let me fhew you/' faid Mr. Howard, " what is as ftrong a contraft to your other favourite, the Claude, as thefe are to the Guido : it is this landlcape, with banditti, by Salvator Rofa, a painter of a wild, ori- ginal genius, and of whom I am a moft en- thufiaftic admirer. We did not perfe6Hy agree about the laft picture I pointed out to you ; perhaps I may be more lucky this time : I think, at leaft, you will like it a good deal better than thofe on each fide of the Magdalen/'
<c I do indeed/' faid he; "there is a fubli- mity in this fcene of rocks and mountains, fa- vage and defolate as they are, that is very ftriking : the whole, as you fay, is a perfect contraft to the Claude ; and it is really curious to look from the one to the other. In that,
every
C 155 3
t every thing feems formed to delight the eye, and the mind of man ; in this, to alarm and I terrify the imagination : in the Claude, the inhabitants infpire us with ideas of peace, fecurity, and happinefs ; in this of Salvator, (for I now recollect and feel the full force of thofe lines I only admired before) —
** Appears in burnish'd arms some savage band :
" Each figure boldly pressing into life,
" And breathing blood, calamity, and strife."*
In that fvveet fcene, the recefles amidft frefh woods and ftreams, feem bowers made for repofe and love ; in this, they are caves of death, the haunts of wild beads —
" Or savage men, more dreadful far than they."
What a ftormy, portentous appearance in thofe clouds, that roll over the dark moun- tains, and threaten, further on, ftill greater defolation ! while that mild evening iky, and foft tinge upon the diftant hills, feem
* The Landfcape, page 7, lino 88.
L 2 tO
t 156 3
to promife, if poffible, ftill more charming fcenes beyond them !•'
" Why, Seymour," faid Mr. Howard, " you talk with more enthufiafm on the fubje6l, than either Hamilton or myfelf \"
" Where there is fo much poetry in pic- tures," anfwered he, " it is not neceffary to have a painter's eye to enjoy them ; al- though I am well perfuaded, that a know- ledge of the art would greatly enhance the pleafure."
" As you are fo much delighted with the poetry of the art," faid Mr. Hamilton, " you muft look at thefe pictures by Nicholas Pouf- fin, a French painter, and one of the bright- eft ornaments, not only of his own fchool, but of the art itfelf. He is one of the moft learned and claflical of the painters, and equally excellent in figures and in land- fcape ; as I think you will fee, when you examine this Bacchanalian."
" I fee
C '57 ]
«' I fee at the firft glance/' replied Mr. Seymour, " a great deal of beauty, grace, and expreflion, in the figures ; and, as you obferved, there is a certain antique and claflical character in them, that gives to their grace and beauty a different caft, from that which I admired in the Magdalen. Without being any judge of the compofi- tion of landfcape, I admire very much the richnefs of thofe trees, with vine-leaves and cluflers of grapes mixed with their foliage, and hanging from them in feftoons. Such a mixture, befides its real beauty, is particu- larly ftriking to an Englifh eye, as it marks a warmer climate and a more luxuriant vegetation than our's, and is therefore per- fectly in unifon with the fcene, where the action may be fuppofed to have pafled : the general glow of the colouring no lefs happily accords with the fubject : indeed, it is in every refpect, a moft enchanting picture.
L 3 « But
C 158 3
" But I fee that the name of Pouflin is alfo on that picture of the Crucifixion. I fuppofe it mufl be fome other painter of the fame name, for I never faw any thing more harm and difcordant than the colours appear to my eye, or more completely dif- ferent from thofe of the Bacchanalian : and yet," continued he, " now I am nearer to it, the expreffions are very ftriking ; efpe- eially that of the foldier, who perceives the dead rifing from their graves/'
" It is more eafy," faid Mr. Hamilton, " to judge of Pouflm (for there is but one hiflorical painter of that name) by his cha- racters and expreffions, in which he very uniformly excelled, than by his colouring, in which no one was ever more different from himfelf : in the prefent inftance, it is poifible that thefe harm colours, and this ilrong oppofition of them, may have defign- edly been introduced, from an idea (I hardly think a juft one) that they fuited the terror
of
C '59 3
of the fubje<ft. In that other piclure of his — the Deluge — I believe you will be of opi- nion, that the colouring and the fubjecl are more happily adapted to each other."
" I am indeed," anfwered Mr. Seymour; " I feel very fenfibly, that the famenefs and deadnefs of the general hue, perfectly ac- cords with my conceptions of fuch a fcene : and, as he has (hewn in the Bacchanalian, that he knew how to give the moft animated glow to his colours, when the occafion cal- led for it, I muft attribute this total abfence of all brilliancy and variety, to great judg- ment and reflection."
" You have, perhaps unknowingly," faid Mr. Howard, " been paying a compliment to yourfelf, in (hewing fo much admiration of PoufTin ; for he has been called " Le " peintre des gens d'efprit."
" It was indeed unknowingly," replied
Mr. Seymour ; " but whatever interpreta-
L 4 tion
C '&> 3
tioti yoa may put on it, I cannot help faying, that he feems to deferve his ti- tle : but I muft tell you, Howard, that one thing ftrikes me, in confequence of the ex- treme contraft that I have remarked be- tween many of the pictures; and the reft of them will probably furmfh more ex- amples. You fay, that between the two extremes of monotony and harfhnefs, lyes the grateful medium of grateful irritation, which is called beauty, or piclurefque beau- ty : now, I muft fay, that this is a rnoft extenfive medium ; for, among the pictures that we have been looking at, there are fome as near as poffible to abfolute mono- tony ; and others, which are clearly in- tended to produce as much irritation, as can well be produced by ftrong, fudden con- trafts, of every kind. It feems to me, therefore, that, according to your fyftem, whatever is not abfolute monotony, or ab- folute
C
iblute difcord, is pofitive beauty ; or, if you pleafe, picturefque beauty : for that epi- thet, taken in your fenfe, only confines the term to vifible objects, but makes no other difcrimination."
" I flatter myfeif," faid Mr. Howard, " that as you become more converfant \vith pictures, you will come over to my opinion, and perceive that there is really no fuch dif- crimination as Hamilton imagines; I there- fore appeal from your prefent to your future judgment/'
46 My prefent judgment/' replied Mr. Seymour, " muft be very crude, as being formed on what has ftruck me at the mo- ment: I ihall mod willingly fufpend it, till I am better inftructed, which I hope to be in a fhort time, if I continue picture- hunting with you and Hamilton; and I af- fure you, alfo, that what I have juft feen, has amufed and interefted me much more than
I fhould
I fhould have expected; probably on ac- count of the difcuffion that has taken place. At prefent, indeed, I find I liave no relifh for many of the pictures which you feem to admire; for unlefs there be fomething obvioufly grand, or beautiful, according to my notions, what you call grandeur or beau- ty of ftyle, has little effect upon me. I muft, how. ver, except thefe fmall Dutch pictures ; for though the fubjects are mean, and the figures without grace or dignity, yet their characters, actions, and expreffions, are fo true, and the detail of circumflances fo dif- tinctly exprefied, that I have received great entertainment from feveral of them, though I did not think it worth while to difcufs their merits with you : I have even looked, not only without difguft, but with a degree of pleafure, at fome, where the fubject was rather of a coarfe and a dirty kind. There is a darkifh picture a little further on, which
feems
feems to be fomething of that nature. Now I am nearer to it, I fee it is an ox hung up, and the painter's name Rembrandt ; who, I conclude, is a Dutchman, though the pic- ture is not fo finifhed as the others. It cer- tainly is very like the thing ; and yet, though it is fo like, and the fubjecl fo offenfive, I do not look at it with as much repugnance as I ihould have ex peeled.
" You certainly are in the right, How- ard," continued Mr. Seymour, " and have accounted for this perfectly well: I can- not, indeed, eafily bring myfelf to call fuch a picture beautiful; but I do perceive, and with pleafure, the blended variety of mellow and harmonious tints you fpoke of, both on the ox itfelf, on the gloomy window behind, and on the woman leaning over the wicket. Now, I recollect: that in coming through the village, we pafled by a butcher's (hop, where a real ox was hung up much in the fume manner; but neither
of
C
of you flopped to examine it : on the con- trary, we all got a little out of the way. Ani- mal difguft, therefore, prevailed in the one cafe, and not in the other; and thus far, I think, even you, Hamilton, muft allow, that Howard's diftinclion is juft; though you do not agree with him on the point altogether."
" Before I anfwer you,J> faid Mr. Hamil- ton, «' I beg you will look at this head, and tell me what you think of it."
" What I think of it!" faid he, "why, I think it a much more exact, and extraordina- ry imitation of nature, than any thing I have feen; every line of the countenance, every hair is exprefled ; it is natural to a degree, that I had no idea the art of painting could ar- rive at; and I fhall not eafily forget the name of Denner, which the artift is well juftified in having written on it."
te I do not immediately guefs," faid Mr. Howard, " what is Hamilton's aim in mak- ing you look fo particularly at this Denner,
though,
C 16.5 ]
though, I dare fay, he has his motive. I muft now beg, in my turn, that you will caft your eye towards that head which hangs on one fide of the ox, and is by the fame matter, Rembrandt. It is, in one fenfe, and, I be- lieve, in the trueft fenfe, more natural than the Denner ; and as you may doubt my opi- nion, and think it rather paradoxical, I will mention a paflage from one of Sir Jofliua Reynolds's Difcourfes, which ftruck me fo forcibly when I firft read it, and has fince re- curred to me on fo many occafions, that I dare fay I can nearly repeat it.
" The detail of particulars," fays that excellent writer, " which does not afiift the " expreilion of the main characterise, is " vvorfe than ufelefs ; it is mifchievous, as it " difli pates the attention, and draws it from " the principal point. It may be remarked, " that the* impreflion which is left on our fc< mind, even of things which are familiar
" to
C 166 3
" to us, is feldom more than their general " effecl ; beyond which, we do not look in et recognizing fuch objecls. To exprefs £* this in painting, is to exprefs what is " congenial and natural to the mind of <e man, and what gives him, by reflection, " his own mode of conceiving. The other te prefuppofes nicety and refearch, which are " only the bunnefs of the curious and at- " tentive, and therefore does not fpeak to " the general fenfe of the whole fpecies ; *' in which common, and, as I may fo call " it, mother tongue, every thing grand and " comprehenfive mutt be uttered/'
"If you will apply this mailerly obfer- vation to the two heads before us, you will fee the reafon why Rembrandt holds a much higher place in the fcale of painters, than Denner."
" Nothing can be more flriking and convincing, than the pailage you have juft
" quoted/'
quoted," faid Mr. Seymour ; " and though, in fpite of reafon and authority, I ftill cannot help feeling a preference for this highly finim- ed head, yet I am perfuaded that you and Sir Jofhua are right. Indeed, the fame fort of reflection has frequently occurred to me, in refpecl to another kind of painting with which I am much more converfant, the pic- fura loquens, as poetry has been called. The defcriptions, for inftance, in Thomfon's Sea- fons, are admirable in their ftyle ; but, com- pared with thofe which we meet with in poets of a higher caft, and not profefledly defcriptive, I own they, in fomerefpecls, put me in mind of Denner; for Thomfon feenis to have watched all the detail of circum- ftances, one after another, in the moil mi- nute manner, in order to defcribe them as minutely; and, therefore, according to Sir Jofhua's excellent remark, (a remark equally applicable to both arts,) he does not fo
much
C 168 ]
much exprefs what is congenialand natural to the mind of man, as what prefuppofes refearch and nicety. I muft not, however be unjuft to Thomfon : his fubject often re- quired minute defcription ; and at leaf! he is' far from having the coldnefs which often accompanies minutenefs; on the contrary, to exprefs myielf in painters' language, he has great glow of colouring, and great force of light and fhadow."
" As you feem," faid Mr. Howard, '* ta- citly to allow, that Denner has ibme of the ue- fects which attend minutenefs, let me fliew you a mod uncommon union ; that of Rem- brandt's great principles of light and fhadow, with the detail of Denner. If you will come this way, you will fee it in that picture of Gerard Dow. Do nat, however, go too clofe, atfirfi, but look from this place at the general effect : you who begin to feel fonie relifh for the mellow harmonious tints of
Rembrandt,
C
Rembrandt, may here admire the fame ex- cellencies in this work of his fcholar. I will now allow you to come quite clofe ; and I beg you will examine the minute, but mel- low ftyle of finifhing, which is difplayed in the woman's face and hands, in the fleep- ing child, the bafket-work of the cradle, and, above all, in the old velvet chair; part of which you plainly fee has been rubbed thread-bare by long ufe. To raife your wonder ft ill higher, I muft defire you will look at it with this glafs : though, to fay the truth, the trial is too fevere; for the glafs is one I make ufe of for examining gems, and is a very powerful magnifier."
" This is furprifing, indeed, ' faid Mr. Seymour: " I faw, with my naked eye, how admirably he had reprefented the worn-out part of the velvet; but, with this alfiftance, one diftinguifhes each of the bare threads, fo as really to follow, in a manner, the pro- M cefs
C 170 3
cefs of the loom. You may now take your glafs again, for though it is very curious to examine it with fuch a magnifier, it is much more pleafant to look at it without. I am afraid the Denner will fuffer by comparifon with this exquifite piece of art; let us, how- ever, return to it. Yes/' continued he, " I do perceive that there is a crudenefs of imi- tation, compared with the laft — but, Hamil- ton, you have been quite filent all this time ; I believe Howard's fufpicion was unjuft, or, at leaft, that hitherto you agree with him in all he has advanced/'
" I do moft entirely agree with him," re- plied Mr. Hamilton; "for I am not fo apt to quarrel with his diflinclions, as he is with mine; and that distinction which he made between thefe three different flyles of paint- ing, is, in my opinion, a very juft one. But, tell me, which of the three do you pre- fer?"
" That.
C
" That of the picture with the child and cradle," anfwered he, " in which the detail, though highly intereft ing, is not forced upon your notice. I am not fure, however, whe- ther its being on fo much fmaller a fcale than the head, may not be one caufe of my pre- ference. I know, at leaft, that when I have been (hewn a view in a concave mirror, I have been highly pleafed with what I had looked at with indifference in nature; and, again, when I took my eyes off it, the real fcene has looked comparatively coarfe. Per- haps, therefore, the cradle pidture may have the fame fort of advantage over the head, as a view in the mirror has over the real one, and on this principle — that in both of them the detail, though not leflened in quantity by the diminution of the fcale, appears from it more foft and delicate/'
" On that principle/' faid Mr. Hamilton,
:f you then will certainly allow, that the real
M 2 carcafs
C i72 3
carcafs of an ox reflected in fuch a mirror, would lofe part of its difgufting appearance, though the detail would be preferved ; and flill more fo, if the mirror fhould be one of the dark kind, which are often made ufe of for viewing fcenery."
" I allow it," faid Mr. Seymour.
" Let us, then/' continued Mr. Hamilton. " apply all this to painting. If, for inftance, the ox in that Rembrandt, which (as in the cafe of the dark mirror) is of a lower tone than nature, and in which the detail is fkil- fully fupprefled, were painted in the fame full light, and with the fame minute exacl- nefs as this head of Denner, you would pro- bably turn with fome difguft from fuch a crude, undifguifed difplay of raw flefh. But, again, fuppofe inftead of being, as it now is, hardly a fourth part of the fize of a real ox, it were as large as nature, and Ml every part thus diftinclly exprefled as if feen quite
clofe,
C 173 n
clofe, I am not fure that you would not keep at the fame diftance from it, as you did from the fhambles in the village/'
" I eafily conceive," faid Mr. Seymour, " that it makes a very great difference whe- ther you are clofe to a large difgufting ob- ject, or at fome diftance from it, even fup- pofing any other fenfe than feeing out of the queftion ; but did painters never paint fhambles, and fuch objects on a large fcale?"
" They did," faid Mr. Hamilton; "but then they imagined the fpectator to be at fuch a diftance, as eafily to take in the whole together ; and confequently not likely to dif- tinguiih the minute parts, in the ufual man- ner of looking at fuch objects : they would therefore have been untrue to nature, had they made them diftinct. Denner has fup- pofed you to be quite clofe to the object, and intent upon every particular: his choice, therefore, is in fome meafure unnatural, M 3 though
C 174 3
though he has great merit in the execution. If you put all thefe circumftances together, I think you will perceive, that even without having recourfe to the operation of the other fenfes, we may account for the difference between the effecl: of difgufting objects in reality, and in pictures; in which laft, not only the fize of objects, and their detail, is in general very much lefiened, but alfo the fcale both of light and colour, is equally lowered.
" I mu ft here put you in mind of a cir- cumftance, that I dare fay you will remem- ber, though you could little expect: to hear it introduced on this occaiion. Do not you recollect calling upon me ibme time ago, when I was looking over fome prints ? They were by this very mailer, Rembrandt ; one of them was of a very ugly woman, in a filthy and indecent attitude, from which I remem- ber you turned with extreme difguft : yet,
that
C 175 1
that was merely a little black and white print ! what then would have been your difguft, if, upon entering my room, you had feen a pic- ture of the fame beaftly creature as large as life, and the whole detail as diftincHy co- loured and exprefled, as in this head of Den- ner ! I believe it would have been only lefs, than if you had feen the real object ^Efchy- lus, you know, makes one of his characters fay, Jf^opxa KTWSTOV. I think fuch a reprefen- tation, would juftify the application of the fame daring figure to another fenfe : I am fure, at leaft, the impreflion would have been fo powerful, that you would fcarcely have felt any "mild pleafure of vifion from the blend- " ed variety of mellow and harmonious " tints," fcarcely have been able to " view " them with abftracl and impartial atten- tion/' though they would have been "fe- *' parated in the painter's imitation."
" And now, I think, you muft have had
nearly enough of this difcuflion ; and very
M 4, probably
C 176 3
probably may imagine, from all you have feen and heard of the Dutch matters, that they never painted any but low, and thofe often filthy fubjecls. It is true, that they fel- dom attempted the higher ftyie of the art ; yet flill, they did not always confine them- felves to the lowed: and I fhould like to fhew you a picture of Wov^rmans, which ufed to hang at yonder corner next to the laloon. I do not mean that the fubjecl of this, or any of his other pictures, is at all elevated, except as compared with the reft of his fchool: they generally painted boors and peafants ; but Wovermans often repre- fented the moft dignified characters he was acquainted with ; that is, the nobility of the country, handfomely drefTed, and mounted on beautiful horfes, and occupied in the gay diverfions of hunting, hawking, &c."
When they came up to the piclure, Mr. Seymour looked very fignificantly at Mr. Ha- milton; " I begin to fufpecl:," faid he, " that
you
C 177 1
you had your rcafons for bringing me al- moft the whole length of the gallery, to look at this picture. I now recoiled, when we firlt began this difcuilion, foon after leaving the hovel, that I afked Howard, whether handfome, well-dreiTed men and women, and handfome horfes, with gay caparifons, could not admit of effects of light and fha- dow, and harmonious colouring, as well as gypfies, afles, and panniers: and I rejoice to have my queftions fo fatisfaclorily an- fwcred. Thefe are, indeed, very beautiful horfes, and full of fprightly and graceful ac- tion ; their riders, of both fexes, arc pleaf- ing figures ; the whole fcenery, too, the por- tico, the gardens, the fountains, and the handfome country houfes in different parts, have all a very rich and chearful appearance. I am quite glad to find, that what, accord- ing to my ideas, is beautiful, and highly ornamented, may be exprelFed in painting, as well as what is fo like dirt and uglinefs,
that
C 178 3
that it requires fome practice to diftinguifh in what the difference confifts: had I the li- berty of picking out a few pictures from this colle61ion for my own amuiement, this cer- tainly would be one of them."
" And with much reafon," faid Mr. Ha- milton ; " for where great excellence in the art is employed on pleafmg objects, the fu- perior intereft will be felt by every obferver ; but efpecially by thofe who are lefs conver- fant in the mechanical part. On that account, I am perfuaded, that the two pictures of Panini in the next room, which Howard and I have both mentioned to you, will give as much pleafure to you, as they do to us ; particularly that of the infide of St. Pe- ter's."
<* As it is getting rather late," faid Mr. Seymour, " and as we have nearly finifhed the gallery, I think we had better try the experiment."
" If you will give me leave," faid Mr.
Howard.
C ^79 J
Howard, " I fhall commit you to Hamilton's care ; I know the two pi<5tures by heart, having often feen them in the houfe of their late pofiefibr, and I \viih to examine a few pictures in the lower part of the gallery, that are new to me : I believe, however, I am doing an imprudent thing ; for, I have no doubt, that Hamilton will take this oppor- tunity of inftilling fome of his doctrines/'
" 1 fhall not neglect it, moft certainly," laid he ; " and I rather think the opportu- nity will be favourable."
Mr. Howard then returned to the further part of the gallery, while the two other friends entered the faloon together ; on the oppofite iide of which, and quite alone, hung the picture of the infide of St. Peter's.
As they advanced towards it, Mr. Hamil- ton obferved, with great pleafure, the admi- ration of his friend ; who Hopped before it a long while, without laying a word. When
at
c
at laft he began to fpeak: " I have often heard," faid he, " of the beauty and mag- nificence of this building, the grandeft, I be- lieve, of any modern temple, or perhaps of any that ever exifted: I have often long- ed to fee the original, and juft before the French got poffeffion of Italy, I had deter- mined to go to Rome. This picture makes me feel ft ill greater regret at the difappoint- ment; and at the fame time, in fome de- gree, confoles me for it : but I cannot help reflecting with pain, that a building, which requires fuch conftant attention and expence to keep it in repair, may now perhaps, by degrees, become a mere ruin : all that de- lightful fymmetry, that eorrefpondence of all the parts, that profufion of gilding amj of precious marbles, may, in a few years, be broken and defaced, and covered with dirty ftains and incruftations ; in fhort, all its high finifhed ornaments totally deftroyed: and
then,
c
then, perhaps, this piclure, a frail memo- rial of fuch a work, may be the only one exifting of its former fplendotir and magni- ficence,"
" I wilh your fears may not be too well founded," faid Mr. Hamilton; "and I own I feel j uft as you do: now, if Howard were here, he could comfort you, though I can- not; for, according to his fyftem, it will be- come (till more beautiful, when it is in the Hate that you have juft been describing with fo much horror."
" You caiiiut mean this ferioufly," fait! the other; "you cannot mean, that Howard would aflert, that when all the circum fiances which now give beauty to this building are deftroyed, it will then become more beauti-
C II**
full
" No," replied Mr. Hamilton, "not in thofe terms ; he is not a man to give fuch a hold to his adverfary ; but it is a conclufion
fairly
r 182 :
fairly to be drawn from \vhat he has aflerted : he rnu ft acknowledge, (for nothing is more generally acknowledged,) that a building when in ruins, is more piclurefque than it was in its entire ftate; therefore, ac- cording to him, it muft be more beautiful, for he fays, there is no diftinclion between the two terms: in other words, that they are, in refpecl: to vifible objects, fynony- mous."
(_ — —
" You have, indeed, made good ufe of this infide of St. Peter's," faid Mr. Sey- mour; "and I muft own, it has befriended you extremely in this difcuffion. Nothing has fo much tended to convince me of the want of a diftindlion; for though I have ne- ver paid much attention to the ftricl: ufe of the word, I have perpetually heard it ob- ferved, that ruins are more pi6turefque than entire buildings : now, when I look at that building, there feems to be fomething fo
very
C 183 i
very contradictory in the idea of its becom- ing more beautiful by deftruclion, that I mufl either deny that it will become more piclurefque, or give a very different fenfe to thofe words. But is it poflible that in fuch a cafe Howard can really think there is no diftinclion?"
" I am fo thoroughly convinced, that there is one myfelf," faid Mr. Hamilton, " and the whole appears to me fo clear, that I can fcarcely believe him to be quite in earned. No one has a more quick, and ac- curate perception of diftinclions than our friend; and I once hoped he would have employed his talents in throwing new lights on this diftinclion : but, unfortunately, he has exercifed all his ingenuity in trying to prove, that youth and age, frefhnefs and decay, what is rough, broken, and rudely irregular, and what has that fymmetry, con- tinuity of parts, and laft finifhing polifh,
which
C 184 H
which the artift (whether divine or human) manifeftly intended, are all to be conlidered as belonging to one general clafs. There- fore, for in (lance, not only this building, in its prefent ftate, or in ruins, but this build- ing, and the infide of a broken hovel, would be indifferently either beautiful or piclu- refque; and either of thefe terms, would not only fuit a Paris or a Belifarius, but a Paris and a common old beggar."
" I can allow a great deal/' faid Mr. Seymour, " for the manner in which painters view objects, and confider them with re- fpecl: to their art, and confequently apply terms to them, which others would hardly ufe; except thofe, perhaps, who, without being artifts, may have acquired their ideas and language : but tell me, Hamilton, is it pofiible that when that roof, with all its bril- liant ornaments, fhall be rent and broken ; when the gilding, the marbles, the rich frizes,
and
L 185 3
and cornices, become ftained with moifture, and are mouldering away, the painter will admire them more than when in perfect prefervation, or think them more fuited to his art ? But why do I afk : is not this a picture ? and does it not delight you and Howard, as much as it does me, and fuch untutored eyes as mine ? — But I fee How- ard is juft come in; and I fhall not be forry to hear you difcufs this point together/'
" Well, Seymour/' faid Mr. Howard, when he came up to them, " are not thefe three admirable pictures ? I hardly know fo beautiful a head as that of the St. John, in the Parmeggiano ;* and the Virgin and child in the upper part, have a fine mixture of grace and dignity : as to the two Pani-
* The Parmeggiano, and the two Paninis, are in the col-
ledlion of the Marquis of Abercorn, and each of them fingly
occupies a fide of the faloon at the Priory. The Parmeggiano
is, I believe, the moft capital pi£lure of that rare and eminent
i . The Paninis are not lei's excellent in their ftyle.
nis,
C 186 3
nis, I can fcarcely tell which I prefer ; for that amazing aflemblage of columns in the oppofite piclure, the felva di colonne, as the Italians call them, is no lefs beautiful in its ftyle, than this richly ornamented in- fide of St. Peter's."
" To fay the truth/' faicl Mr. Seymour, " we have as yet only looked at this one piclure/'
" How, Seymour/' faid the other ! " all this time at one piclure ! The love of paint- ing has made a furprifmg progrefs with you ! but I fancy I prophefied very juftly when you left me."
" You did, indeed/' faid Mr. Seymour ; " Hamilton has made good ufe of his time, and of this piclure ; and, I can tell you, it is as dangerous to quit a difciple, as a mif- trefs : your rival has been very preffmg ; and I wifh I may not have given him too much encouragement. I am glad, how- ever,
C 187 ]
ever, you are come, as I had juft begun to queftion him on a point, which I wifli to hear difcufled with you : it is, whether painters, or connoifleurs like yourfelves, would continue to admire fuch a building as this, if all that I admire were broken and defaced, as much, or even more, than in its prefent entire and finifhed ftate/'
" I perceive you look to me for an anfwer," faid Mr. Hamilton, "probably as having origi- nally put the queftion to me ; and I know you rather love to promote a little altercation be- tween me and Howard ; but upon this par- ticular point, I think we mail not differ very materially. It certainly has been imagined, that becaufe ruins are more piclurefque than entire buildings, they are confequently pre- ferred to them by painters : I think, how- ever, the idea is unfounded ; for I believe there are at lead as many perfect buildings as there are ruins, in the works of the moft
N 2 eminent
C 188 3
eminent artifts. If, then, painters them- felves balance between the two, it is very natural that you, when you look at that picture, fhould think with horror of any poffible change ; and not conceive how the mofl prejudiced perfon, could make the fmalleft comparifon between the building you now fee, and any future ft ate of it : but the fact is, that however ftriking the effect of ruins, when they are fully mellowed by time, the firft beginning of decay is no lefs odious to the painter, than to the reft of mankind. When that gilded roof, thofe fmifhed ornaments, thofe precious marbles, fhall firft begin to be foiled and broken, while the greateft part of them will ftill re- main perfect, each crack, each ftain, will obvioufly deftroy fo much beauty ; that is, fo much of its original character : and this incongruity continues, till the whole, by degrees, afliimes a new, and totally diftinct
character.
C 189 1
character. Such a building, is not a phoe- nix that arifes with renewed, yet fimilar, beauty and brilliancy, from deft ruction : on the contrary, it is changed by a flow pro- cefs, into fomething totally different from its former felf; and that butterfly there, with his painted wings, is not more unlike the chryfalis from which it proceeded, than the St. Peter's you here fee in its glory, is unlike the St. Peter's, which fome future age, (I hope a far diftant one) will admire as a ruin/'
" I like the firft part of your explanation fo well," faid Mr. Howard, " that I will not quarrel with you about the end of it; and, indeed, I want you both to return to the gal- lery as foon as you have looked at the two other pictures; for, if I am. not mittaken, I (hall fhew you a fruit-piece that you will prefer to any of Baptift, or Van Huyf- fun."
N 3 When
C 190 3
When they had returned to the gallery (though not till they had paid proper atten- tion to the other Panini, and the Parmeg- giano), they found that the fervant had brought in a quantity of beautiful fruit ; and among the reft, fome remarkably fine bunches of grapes : thefe with their leaves, and the branches on which they hung, were fufpended over a fmall wooden frame in fuch a manner, that the frame was concealed, while the fruit and foliage were difplayed to the greateft advantage. They were all de- lighted with the fruit itfelf, and with its ar- rangement ; and they agreed that nothing could be more truly beautiful than the whole effea.
" I defire," faid Mr. Howard, " that you will look at the bread as well as the fruit, for according to Hamilton's doctrines, there never was fo truly piclurefque a loaf; at leaft I never faw one fo full of cracks, rough-^
nefles,
C 19' 3
Defies, and inequalities : all of which I ac- knowledge are very inviting to the tafte, whatever effect they may produce on the pleafures of vifion diftinclly confidered."
" I am much obliged to you," faid Mr. Hamilton, " for putting me in mind of a paflage I was reading a little time ago, and which, I believe, in all our difputes I never mentioned to you : you will be furprized to hear what a powerful ally I have met with, in fupport of my diftinclion; no lefs a one than Marcus Verus Aurelius Antoninus, Em- peror and Philoibphcr! The paflage is in his third book ; he there defcribes fuch a loaf as this, with a comment not very un- like your's, and afterwards mentions feveral other objects, which, together with the cir- cumftances attending them, we fhould call piclurefque ; fuch as the burning of figs when over-ripe ; the appearance of olives whenjufl approaching to decay ; the heads N 4 of
n
C
of corn bent downwards ; the over-hanging brows of a lion ; the foam of a wild boar ; all of which, he obferves (together with many other things of the fame kind), though far from beautiful to the eye, yet, if confi- dered diftinclly, and as they follow the courfe of nature, have an ornamental and alluring effedh"
" You will gain but little from this paf- fage," anfwered Mr. Howard ; " I remem- ber it very well, and am not afraid of your pretended ally. Antoninus, you know, was a ftoic, and the whole turns on the ftoical doctrines about nature : they held, that the productions of nature, and their acceffaries, were all xaXa ; that is, beautiful in the ge- neral fenfe, on account of their fitnefs, though they might not be ewthat, that is, beautiful to the eye ; and you muft recollect, that they thought much lefs highly of the pleafures of vifion than we do, and held them
indeed
[ '93 3
indeed below the concern of a philofophic mind. If you were to read the whole trea- tife, you would find, that every thing refers to thofe doctrines; but, I dare fay, you dif- cover very clearly in this paflage, the firft dawn of the diftinclion you are fo fond of; and confider Antoninus to have been as truly the herald of the piclurefque, as Ba- con was of the true philofophy."
" I may, perhaps, have indulged feme fancies of that kind," replied Mr. Hamilton; " indeed, the paflage was pointed out to me by our excellent friend Winterton, for, as you very well know, I am no great gre- cian, and the book itfelf is out of my courfe of reading. He thought the paflage curi- ous, and that it contained an allufion, though a faint one, to the diftinclion which you deny. I remember, too, that he was much diverted at the good emperor's panegyric on ki fling cruil ; and he put me in mind of a
fcene
C *94 3
fcene we had witnefled together, when a French gentleman, before a pretty large company at breakfaft, very openly expreiled his difappointment, at not finding any cruft of that kind : we had obferved him turning the loaf round feveral times ; at laft he ex- claimed, "• Ma foi je le tourne, le retourne, et n'y vois rien d'appetiffant!" But, to re- turn from this Frenchman to the Emperor: I believe, as you fay, that he meant to ac- count for the pleafure he received, folely from his ftoic doctrines ; and yet, as, accord- ing to thofe doctrines, all the productions of nature univerfally, (even thofe that are baneful, as poifons,) were to be admired, why fhould he felect and fpecify thefe particular objects, as having fomething peculiarly or- namental and attractive? I think I can ac- count for this felect ion, and, as you may fuppofe, in a manner that accords with my diftinction. The emperor, you know, was
a dilettante
C 135 ]
a dilettante in painting, as well as in philofo- phy, having actually ftudied the practical part of the art under Diognotus: this would naturally make him attend to thofe objects which have an effect in painting, fuch as the brow of the lion, the foam of the boar: and that the ancients were (truck with the effect of foam in a picture, we may infer from the ftory of Apelles; which, by the way, is a very good inftance of accident having per- formed, what defign could not. You re- member, that after trying in vain to paint the foam of a hoife in the regular way, he threw his fponge at the picture in defpair; and by that lucky accident produced an ef- fect of foam, which was the admiration of all who faw it. I am very fond of this anec- dote, for it agrees with my doctrine, that ac- cident is a principal agent in producing pic- turefque circum fiances/'
" I will own," faid Mr. Seymour, " that I fhould have fome fcruple in making acci- dent
dent fo very active an agent ; for, according to its etymology, which, I think, fhould al- ways be attended to, accident fignifies what falls, or befals, from the effect of fome un- known caufe; the ufe therefore which you feem inclined to make of it, appears to me (con rifpetto parlando,) rather unphilofophical : you may fay, perhaps, that one need not be fo very ftri6t in converfation ; but the hif- tory of our fenfations, and whatever relates to it, is a fubject fo truly philofophical, that even in common difcourfe I had rather confider it as fuch, and not get into a habit of turning effects into caufes."
" And yet," replied Mr. Hamilton, "from our very limited knowledge, how often are we obliged to confider effects as caufes ! I really think, as we make Fortune a God- defs, and place her in heaven, accident may be allowed to become an agent upon earth. Perhaps, too, if we were to examine into the rights of the univerfally acknowledged agent,
Nature,
C 197 ^
Nature, me might poffibly be degraded from a caufe into an effecl: : in Ihort, I have been fo much accuftomed, however unphilofophically, to give accident an ac- tive employment, that I fhould be quite at a lofs without its afliftance. All I can do for you is, to imitate what I have feen done in Italy by the writers of operas, though from motives which cer- tainly have nothing to do with philofophy : they begin with profefling, that although the words " fato fortuna," &c. are made ufe of, nothing is to be underfiood contrary to the true Catholic faith. I am ready to make the fame fort of profeflion ; and now, with your leave, will go on ; only premifing, that as by Nature, I mean the conftant and regular effecl of an unknown caufe; fo by Accident, I mean the inconftant, and irregular effecl, of a caufe equally unknown. " If then the emperor were prefent, I
think
C 198 i
think I could account to him for the plea- fure he received from the objects he men- tions, much better than he has done by his floic dcclrines ; and yet, in fome meafure, according to his own expre (lions . You tranf- late TO, iTriyivofAevot, roig (purst ywopsvoiq, the productions of nature, and their accefTaries ; I dare fay, very juftly: now I conceive that the Qvrei yutoptva, may refer to what might be called the ufual and regular courfe, either of nature or of art (for the emperor clearly gives one example from the latter,) and the liuywopsva to the effects of accident.* Thus, for inftance, the baker (as Antoninus ob- ferves) defigns to make the bread of a re- gular form, according to the principles of his art ; accident gives it a broken and ir- regular appearance, by which it becomes piclurefque, and likewife appetijjant ; or, as
* It fo happens, (and aptly enough for the found at lealt,) that Stephens interprets imymrcu fupervenit, mag'u taraen pro- prie accidit.
the
C 199 3
the iloical epicure gravely exprefles himfelf,
'srpoQvfAia.v Ttrpo$ rip rpofpyv ^iu$ tiuxxtvet. The fig becomes ripe in the regular courfe of nature ; it burlis in various ways from the operation of accident. Olives ripen in the fame regular manner; but accident often makes them drop before they are ripe, and then gives them that peculiar appearance in decay, which the emperor was flruck with. The fame may be faid of corn : its regular growth is upright ; accident bends it in a thoufand directions. The brow of the lion is always a marked feature of nature ; but the effect of paflions, which are the acci- dents of the mind, makes it infinitely more firiking ; and Antoninus might very pof- iibly think of that famous line of Homer, which defcribes the lion drawing down his brow in anger —
flay C£ r switrxuvtov KCX.TU eAxsra* oV<re KX^UTT-'JCV. The foam of the wild boar is alfoli mark
of
C 20° U
of paftion, and confequently has a frronger effect on the imagination. All that he fays, too, of the pleafure we receive from looking at thofe objects in reality, which we have been ufed to admire in painting, and of that which we receive from viewing the ftrongly marked lines of age, as well as the loveli- nefs of youth, fhew, that he examined ob- jecls with a painter's eye, however ftoically he might account for the pleafure they gave him.
" But let us fuppofe, that his matter Di- ognotus (or any painter of an enquiring mind, but not addicted, like Antoninus, to a particular feel) had been to account for the pleafure he received from fuch objects as the emperor has defcribed ; I think he very naturally would have firfl refle61ed on the pleafure they gave him, when he was imitat- ing them in his own art ; and thence have been led to enquire, what were the circum-
ftances,
C 201 3
fiances, which made them fo particularly fuited to that art. He would have found that they were fuited to it, by reafon of their ftrongly marked, and peculiar character; by their fudden, and irregular variation of form, and correfpondent lights and fhadows ; and often (as in the decaying olives,) by their peculiar tints: that thefe, in many cafes, arofe from accident ; in others, from natural conformation ; and that in mod cafes, acci- dent feemed to increafe peculiarity of cha- racter. He might then reflect, (as Antoni- nus does,) that all fuch objects were far from being beautiful; and he might alfo make a further reflection, which Antoninus does not make, but which the art of painting might well have fuggefted — that they were equally far from infipid uglinefs; that is, from the character of numberlefs objects, alike un- interefting to the painter, and to the reft of mankind : that, therefore, they formed a dif- o tindt
C 203 3
tincl clafs, highly fuited to his art, but of a fuitablenefs, clearly to be accounted for from their intrinfic qualities.
" Thus the painter might have reafoned: while the philofopher, even fuppofmg the whole of thefe reflections had come into his mind, as part of them feems to have done, would have thought himfelf guilty of herefy, if he had thus accounted for his fenfations ; and confequently Antoninus, though he felt like a painter, reafoned like a ftoic. If he were prefent, I fhould purfue the fubject much further; but as he is not, I will fparc you."
" Many, many thanks to you for your forbearance/' faid Mr. Seymour ; " for though I like your different comments upon Anto- ninus's text, and at another time fhould not have been forry to prolong the difcuffion, I really think we may as well tafte the fruit that has given rife to it: and, I muft fay,
that
C 2°3 3
that it would be difficult to find two other men in all England, who, after fuch a walk, with fuch fruit before them, would have en- tered into a long difcuffion on their vifible qualities and effects/'
Mr. Seymour's advice was immediately followed ; and, after making a mofl delicious repaft (for every thing was as delightful to the tafte as to the eye,) the three friends walked towards the garden.
They flood forne time looking at the view from the houfe ; the diftant objects in which, were nearly the fame as thofe from the hill, but lefs happily accompanied : when Mr. Hamilton, addreflinghimfelf to Mr. Howard, " you cannot imagine," faid he, ** what a lofs there is in that group of trees, of which my old friend the clergyman was fpeaking. I can (hew you very nearly where it ftood : you fee where there is a finking in thofe hills to the left ; from about this point where we o 2 ftand,
C 204 ]
ftand, the trees juft interfered that part; and as they rofe a great deal above the horizon, and fpread very much at top, you may ima- gine how well they muft have divided this long continued view. You will immediately perceive, too, that the noble reach of the ri- ver in the fecond diftance, with the bridge, the town, and the hills beyond, came in to the right of the group ; and being feparated by it from the general view, formed quite a picture. The compofition was moft perfect from that window of the drawing-room ; but from many of the other windows, the glit- ter of the water and of the buildings on a fine evening like this, was feen between the ftems, and through the branches, in a man- ner that would have enchanted you with its brilliancy and variety. You too, I know, would have admired the terras and the ba- luftrade, with all their enrichments ; for this piece of grafs, was a garden in the old Italian
ftyfe;
C 205 ]
ftyle ; and there is no faying what a value thefe rich and ftrongly marked objects in the foreground, gave to the foft colouring of the diftance : you would have been no lefs pleafed with the numberlefs gradations of tints, be- ginning at the mafly balufters with their ac- companiments, and the forcible effecT: of their light and fhadow when the fun darted ob- liquely through them ; then going on to the high group of trees, near which, I remem- ber, there were fome old cyprefies, and ever- green oaks ; and thence to the more general glow on that fine expanfe of country, quite to the pearly hue of the moft diftant bounda- ry. I am well perfuaded, that all thefe ftrik- ing circum (lances have been deftroyed in- a great meafure, for the purpofe of making this ftiffly levelled flope ; and as the level of the trees, would not agree with that of the new-made ground, they of courfe were facri- ficed/'
03 "I per-
C 206 ]
" I perfectly conceive the effect of all the objects you have defcribed/' faid Mr. How- ard, " and regret the lofs of them as much as you can. I fuppofe, too, that the canal I fee in the lawn, is another improvement ; and that it was once the river your old friend at the parfonage fpoke of."
" Exactly fo," faid Mr. Hamilton ; " it is a tributary ftream, and no inconfiderable a one, to the large river beyond. We had better go down to it now, for, I believe, it is our neareft way."
They then pafled through a clofe fh rub- bery and a plantation, when the whole of the ferpentine river, with its regular curves, ap- peared in all its nakednefs and formality.
" If I may judge/' faid Mr. Seymour, " from all you have faid, and from your looks now, you have both of you the greateft contempt for this water; and, I muft ac- knowledge, (for you have made me perceive
it
r 207 ]
it more than I ufed to do) that there is fome- thing of tamenefs and monotony about it : but furely there is in the whole fcene, a great look of neatnefs and of high polifh, and that is no fmall point."
" I allow it," faid Mr. Howard; "but not fo great a one, as to juftify the exclufion of more eiTential qualities. By way of illuftra- tion, let me propofe to you our friend Lacy: nothing can be more highly polifh ed than his converfation, as far as high polifh confifts in the ab fence of all roughnefs ; you grew very fjck of it, however, towards the end of the week we palled with him laft fpring: how then fliould you like to pafs your life with a man, whofe ideas have one uniform flow, without the leafl energy or variety ? He is to the mind, what this place is to the eye."
" You might equally have made the
comparifon," faid Mr. Seymour, " between
his own place and his mind; for it is laid
o 4, out
C 208 i
out exactly in the fame ftyle with this : he had noble difputes with you both, and par- ticularly with Hamilton, about his improve- ments; but as at that time I felt no great in- tereft in the fubject, I did not much attend to them. I remember, however, that one of his great arguments was, that "his object was beauty alone, and that the improvers of Mr. Brown's fchool, had nothing to do with the picturefque." Had I then been as much ini- tiated in your doctrines as I am at prefent, I fhould have paid more attention to what was going forward: indeed, I probably fhould not have recollected even that one fentence, if Lacy had not fo frequently re- peated it."
" That one fentence/' faid Mr. Hamilton, " conftitutes the whole of their attack, and their defence; and I am glad you have men- tioned it, as it has been thought to contain fome argument: but the fophiftry of it is fo
eafily
I 209 ]
eafily pointed out, that you will hardly con- ceive how it can have impofed on any one. You will obferve, that in the firft member of this little lenience, beauty is employed to fignify whatever pleafcs, without regard to the manner; for they do not profefs to adopt any particular definition, or limitation of the word ; and confequently it may include what- ever is grand, or piclurefque : but then, in the fecond member, piclurefque is ufed as fomething contrafied to beauty, which thus, by implication, is confined to one peculiar fet of pleafing objecls. Now, if the mean- ing were exprefled in words that did not ad- mit of ambiguity, the ibphiftry would ap- pear at once ; for thus it would Hand — " the effecls which we of Mr. Brown's fchool mean to produce, are only fuch as proceed from verdure, i'moothnefs, and flowing lines, which in our idea conftitute beauty of fcenery ; we have nothing to do with irritation of any kind, \ or
C
or degree ; or with any of thofe fources of plealure, which arife from fudden variety and intricacy, from the contraft of wild and broken fcenery, of rocks, cataracls, or ab- ruptnefs of any kind ; or from what is called ^piclurefque competition." • " It muft be owned," faid Mr. Seymour, *' that you have tranflated them out of their fophiftry into plain Englifh : I queftion, however, whether you will get them to abide by your tranflation ; for it would confine them within ftricler limits than they proba- bly would approve of."
" I believe they are aware of it," faid Mr. Hamilton ; " and certainly fuch a clear ex- plicit declaration, might put a profefled im- prover of that fchool, into a perplexing fitua- tion. Suppofing, for inftance, that he were confulted on the improvements of a place, full of piclurefque fcenery; but where no art had been employed, thongh fome judi- cious
cious alterations and communications were wanting : he of courfe would not like to re- fufe fuch an engagement ; and yet, if he were a confcientious man, lie ought to tell his employer, " all this is out of my line, if you intend to preferve the prefent wild ftyle of fcenery, for I -have nothing to do v ith the piclurefque. If you would like to have the whole fmoothed and poliihed, and thofe irregular trees and thickets made into clumps, I can do it for you according to the moft approved method ; but as to that rude water- fall, thofe rocks, the manner of approach- ing them, and the fort of wild path which you wifh to make amicllt their intricacies, I really can give you no advice whatever: they are grand, as well as piclurefque, and we confine ourfelves entirely to the beautiful/'
" Of which," faid Mr. Howard, "the fcene before us, is a complete fpecimen/'
" Seymour/' faid Mr. Hamilton, " you will have hard work, if you attempt to de- fend
C 212 3
fend this piece of water ; Howard and I are firmly united againft you, and I am inclined to fpeak more ftrongly than he has done; for I remember it in its original, but by no means unpdifhed ftate. It was a charming n .tural meadow, perfe611y free from every thing that looked flovenly; but in which feveral groups of trees, mixed with a few thorns and hollies, had been very judicioufly, at leaft very luckily, fuffered to remain. I ufed to delight in walking along the old path- way: for the moft part, it kept very near the water, and every now-and-then pafled through one of the thickets, where for a mo- ment you loft fight of the river ; the banks of which, though neither high nor rocky, poflefled a great deal of pleafing variety. I recollect particularly one projecting part, that was higher than the reft, and moft beauti- fully fringed ; and where there were fome large ftones, on the fide, and at the bottom of the bank: I remember it the more, be-
caufe
C 213 i
caufe, from my favourite window in the draw- ing-room, it appeared with its beautiful re- flections, juft under the branches of that group of trees, which the old reclorand I fo much regret. Now, the trees, and the bank, and the path- way, and the thickets, are all gone ; and you fee how they are replaced, by thofe clumps, and that naked building, and (haven bank."
" I do perceive," faid Mr. Seymour, " that upon this point, you and Howard are per- feclly of the fame mind, and I fhall not contend againfl
" The Percy and the Douglas join'd together:"
indeed I myfelf fhould certainly have pre- ferred the path- way, and all the accompa- niments you have defcribed, to the prefent bare banks ; but really you two, feern quite i worn down with this laft part of our walk. You bring to my mind a French novel* 1
Palais de la Veritc, by Madame de Genlis.
\vas
C 2H ]
was lately reading, in which a fairy inflicls a fingular punifhment, on a young damfel of a lively, volatile difpofition : fhe places her in the midft of an immenfe fmooth, green lawn, where (he forces her by her enchantments, to be conftantly walking a /low, regular pace : now, I think an eternal walk, round and round the banks of one of thefe ferpentine rivers, would be no bad pu- nifhment in another world for piclurefque Tinners."
" It would be a moft terrifying one/' faid Mr. Howard ; " but I believe our prefent purgatory is nearly over ; for if I am not miftaken, that line of Scotch firs, announces the head which it was meant to conceal. I guefled right," continued he, when they got up to it; "I am glad to fee, however, that the improvements have proceeded no further, for below, the banks have not been touched. I now beg you will look at the contraft be- tween
C 215 1
tween nature, and fuch art as has been dif- played here ; and obferve, at the fame tiine, how very little the quality of fmoothnefs and evennefs of furface, has to do with beauty. Look at the reflection of that glaring white building, and of the fhaven banks in the ftill water above; we call that water fmooth, be- caufe we perceive its furface to be fmooth and even, though the impreflion which all thefe harfh and edgy reflections of light pro- duce on the eye, is analogous to that which roughnefs produces on the touch : I do not know how it affects you ; but to me the re- flection of that building is fo irritating, that I can hardly bear to look at it for any time. Now, pray turn round, and look at that agi- tated ftream, flowing between broken and fedgy banks, and indillinclly reflecting the waving foliage which hangs over it : that we call rough, becaufe we know from habitual obfervation, that its imprellion on the eye is
produced
C 216 3
produced by uneven fiirfaces: at the fame time, can any thing be more foft and harmo- nious than the impreffion itfelf, or more ana- logous to what the moft grateful and nicely
varied fmoothnefs would be to the touch ?" r
: Howard/' cried Mr. Hamilton, " this
is an excellent mafqued battery ; and Sey- mour can hardly guefs how dextroufly it is pointed againft me : for I agree with you en- tirely, that the upper fcene is harfh, and the lower one foft and harmonious. Your point is to prove, that fmoothnefs is not a princi- ple of the beautiful, nor roughnefs of the pic- turefque : then in order to make it appear that fmoothnefs may be harm and irritating, and analogous to what roughnefs is to the touch, you fhew us a piece of (till fmooth water, and a glaring white building reflected in it ; which proves nothing more, than what every body will acknowledge, namely, that a ftrong light is irritating, and that white objects are
thofe
C 217 i
thofe which reflect light moft ftrongly : for the water itfelf, my good friend, is only a mirror, and no more refponfible for the qua- lities of the objects which it reflects, than any other mirror. If a very perfect looking - glafs were fhewn to you, would you deny that the clearnefs and evennefs of its furface were beauties, becaufe a Bardolph, with his flaming carbuncled face in full fun-mine, happened to be (landing oppofite to it? This water is the looking-glafs, and that building (though, if it had been brick, my compari- fon would have been more perfecl) is Bar- dolph.
'* But to fhew you in what a peculiar de- gree, clear and ftill water accords with beau- tiful fcenery, and beautiful objects, I will put you in mind of a favourite defcription of your's in Milton, — that of the clear, fmooth lake, in which Eve firft views her own image : you furely muft feel, that, independently of
P its
C 218 3
its being a mirror, the leaft ruffling of its furface would deftroy the idea of that foft repofe, which, above all things, is congenial to beauty. What moft accords with beauty next to flillnefs in water (and in many re- fpe6ts, perhaps, in at leaft an equal degree,) is gentle motion: and now, having ftated fome of my principles, let us examine what you call the rough fcene below.
" In the firft place, I muft take notice of one exprefTion of your's in talking of it, which {hews that you were thinking more of point- ing your battery againft me, than of the fcene before you : it diverted me to hear you call that an agitated fiream, becaufe it was to be a principal feature in the rough fcene, and yet defcribed it as flowing between its fedgy banks; and you fee it does flow very gently where the reflections and the fedges begin; for here, immediately below us, as far as the effecl of the cafcade extends, and
where
C
where the water is really agitated, there are neither fedges nor reflections. The broken banks, too, you fee are difguifed and foften- ed by the foliage that hangs over them, and by the fedges below ; and certainly the in- diftincl reflections of fuch a bank in a flow- ing ftream. is a very mild example of rough- nefs, and much more fuited to Claude, than Salvator. If the fairy, whom Seymour juft now was fpeaking of, would only touch the two banks with her wand, and make them change their places, without changing the water, the fcene above — you muft own, Howard — would then be all foftnefs, har- mony, and variety; and this below, would beharfh and edgy, and infipid.
" Another thing/' continued Mr. Hamil- ton, "I mud mention: you have laid no flight ftrefson the analogy between the fight and the touch; there cannot be a more evi- dent one ; I think, however, there is this very
p 2 eflential
C
efTential difference as to the manner in which the two fenfes are affected : fharp, or rug- ged furfaces of any kind, are always un- pleafant to the touch —
" 'Tis pain in each degree j"
whereas light is only painful when exceffive : in all its various degrees, fhort of that ex- cefs, it is the great, the only fource of plea- fure ; and fo great is the pleafure, that light, by the fplendour and magnificence of its ef- fects, compenfates, in many inftances, the pain it gives to the mere organ. You re- member what Lear fays — •
" When the mind's free,
" The body's delicate :"
in the fame manner, when the imagination is not affected, the organ is delicate ; and as this white building, and fhaven bank, cer- tainly have no hold on your imagination, you are very impatient at the glare.
" How differently did you feel, when we were on the weftern coaft a few days ago !
how
C 221 3
how fteadily did you look towards the fet- ting fun, though I never yet faw a more dazzling light; for, as a flight breeze had curled the waves, they fparkled, as if the whole furface of the fea had been fiudded with diamonds: then, into the bargain, you know there were a number of vefTels, whofe white fails caught the light, which again glanced upon the rocks, and made the win. dow of the old caftle appear on fire. You then never once complained of irritation; and yet that ruffled fea was a thoufand times more dazzling than this ftill water: which proves, by-the-by, (as far as that fignifies) how infinitely more irritating the effedl of light becomes, when the furface which re- flects it is broken.
" With regard to that bank and build- ing, which have given rife to this difcuflion, they would make you ftill more indignant, if you had remembered the whole in its p 3 former
C
former ftate, as I do. I particularly regret the part where the building now ftands, fo naked and flaring; for, befides the bufhes and trees which adorned the old bank, be- fore it was newly formed and levelled, there were feveral large mafTy ftones that appear- ed in many parts, and all about it were the richeft tufts of fern I ever beheld : unluckily, I was abroad while the mifchief was doing, or might, poffibly, have prevented it; had I been here, how earneftly mould I have faid to the owner,
" Teach them to plaee, and not remove, the stone
:' On yoncjer bank, with moss and fern o'ergrown ;
" To cherish, not mow down, the weeds that creep
" Along the shore, and overhang the steep ;
" To break, not level, the slow-rising ground,
" And guard, not cut, the fern that shades it round."*
They now crofled the head of the water, and, after pafiing on to the other fide of a fmall hill, they found themfelves in a neglecl-
* The Landfcape, p. 40, 1. 194.
ed
C 223 D
ed part of the park, full of old, ragged thorns, that grew among a few flag-headed oaks. They got entangled in this wild fcene, and could not diftinguifh any path- way in the long, coarfe grafs; at laft, however, after wandering a good while, they faw the park- gate, where fome horfes were (landing, which, from the appearance of age, and the roughnefs of their coats, looked as if they had the run of the park in reward of their pad fervices : near them, was an afs and her foal ; and the whole made an excellent group, and mixed very happily with the thorns and oaks, and with the old park-pales, that were feen here-and -there between the trees and the thickets.
Mr. Seymour thought his two friends flopped to look at this, rather longer than was neceflary ; fo he dragged them on to the gate, and then through it into a piece of frefh pafture, in which, on a rifing bit of P 4 ground
C 224 3
ground to the right, were a number of very beautiful cattle; fome (landing, others lying down under the fhade of a large group of flourifhing trees. While they were looking at them, and admiring their beauty and high condition, a groom patted through the gate with two very fine horfes, which they un- der flood from him, were juft going to be turned out for half an hour, and for the firft time. As foon as he had let them loofe, they began
" Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud, " Such was the hot condition of their blood."
After gallopping twice round the field, and fcampering among the peaceful cattle, they flopped and grazed very quietly near the gate.
" This is really a very lucky incident," faid Mr. Seymour; " I never fa w two more beautiful horfes, in higher order, or with finer action: they are as ileek as moles, and that
chefnut
C 225 H
chefnut, particularly ; his coat is like filk, and looks as if it were powdered with gold : then this charming frefh turf, intermixed with fuch flourifhing trees, and the cattle, and the mildnefs of the evening, make it alto- gether one of the moft pleafing fcenes I ever faw: furely, Howard, you will allow that this, at lead, is all foftnefs and harmony/'
" I can by no means allow it," faid Mr. Howard, " particularly when compared with the fcene you forced me away from, on the other fide of the gate. You admire the fine coats of thefe horfes and cattle ; but if you were to confider the fubjecl: attentively, you would find, that all fmooth animals, as their forms are determined by marked outlines, and the furfaces of their fkins produce ftrong refl eel ions of light, have an effe6t on the eye, correfpondent to what irritating rough- nefs has on the touch; while the coats of animals which are rough and lhaggy, (like
thofe
thofe of the horfes and the afs on the other fide,) by partly ab (orbing the light, and partly foftening it by a mixture of tender fhadows, and thus connecting and blend- ing it with that which proceeds from fur- rounding objects, produce an effect on the eye fimilar to that which an undulated, and gently varied fmoothnefs, affords to the touch/'
" So, I find," faid Mr. Seymour, " that thefe horfes and cattle, have a rough, irritat- ing effect: on my eye, which I never fhould have fufpected : and yet you, who refer every thing fo much to painting, were de- lighted with two pictures in the gallery, in which there were horfes as fmooth, and with coats as fine, as thefe ; and I particularly remember your remarking, how admirably thofe in the larger picture (I think the painter's name was Rubens) harmonized with all the furrounding objects : furely, that
which
[ 227 n
which is in perfect harmony in a picture, muft often, at leaft, be fo in nature ; and cannot be like what irritating roughnefs is to the touch.
" It is true, that I have not much at- tended to thefe fubjecls; but fome of our earlieft ideas are, that fmoothnefs is pleaf- ing, and roughnefs unpleafmg, to the eye, .as well as to the touch ; and thefe firft ideas always prevail, though we afterwards learn to difcriminate, and to modify them. In the fame manner, bright and clear colours are more pleafing to the eye than fuch as are dingy ; and, therefore, almoft all men, I be- lieve, would think the colours of thefe horfes, and of this frefh turf, more beautiful than thofe of the old ragged horfes, of the afs, and of the fhaggy pafture in which they were feeding.
" I obferved from the remarks which both you and Hamilton made, on feveral of the
pictures
C 228 ]
pictures to-day, that there may be as much relative harmony between bright colours, and the objecls round them, as between fuch as are dingy; and yet it feems to me, that the whole tenor of your argument goes to prove, that, with refpecl: to colours, the mere ab- fence of difcord, is the great principle of vi- fible beauty ; whereas, if there be a pofitive beauty in any thing, it muft be in colours : the general effect, I allow, will not be beau- tiful without harmony ; but neither can the moft perfect: accord change the nature of dull or ugly colours, and make them beau- tiful. No, my dear friend, this negative fyftem of your's is too refined for the gene- rality of mankind ; and, as to myfelf, all that you can fay on this point, however I may admire the ingenuity of your arguments, cannot make my early and inveterate habits : fo, as the fun is getting low, we had better make the beft of our way to the inn."
They
C 229 ]
They then crofled the pafture, and, on getting over the next ftile, faw the town they were going to, ftanding on an eminence, and in great beauty ; for the fun being al- moft immediately behind it, gilded with his laft beams the tops of the trees, and the bat- tlements and pinnacles of the churches ; while the lower buildings were in a mafs of fhade. After a pleafant walk over fields, the three friends got to their inn juft before it was dufk, highly pleafed with the excur- fion they had made, and full of new plans for the reft of the time they were to pafs together.
FINIS.
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QL OCT V RECEIVED
flUG 1 1 jyag
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Kl6'9Qi2
JAN a 5 199'
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