that make them so, to old hovels and mills, to the wild forest horse, and other objects of the same kind. "If we ascend," adds Mr. Price, "to the highest order of created beings, as painted by the grandest of our poets, they, in their state of glory and happiness, raise no ideas but those of beauty and sublimity. The picturesque (as in earthly objects) only shows itself when they are in a state of ruin; when shadows have obscured their original brightness, and that uniform, though angelic, expression of pure love and joy, has been destroyed by a variety of warring passions. 'Darken'd so, yet shone Above them all the Archangel; but his face Mr. Price then goes on to show, that these two characters of the picturesque and beautiful, are perfectly distinguishable in painting and in grounds. He traces it in color; and maintains that there is a picturesque in taste and in smell. One principal effect of smoothness, according to Mr. Burke and Mr. Price, the essential characteristic of beauty, is, that it gives an appearance of quiet and repose to all objects; roughness, on the contrary, a spirit and animation. Hence, where there is a want of smoothness, there will be a want of repose; and where there is no roughness, there is a want of spirit and stimulus. Picturesqueness, therefore, appears in this theory to hold a station between beauty and sublimity; and, on that account, to be more frequently and happily blended with them both, than they are with each other; it is, however, distinct from either. It is not the beautiful, because it is founded on qualities totally opposite to the beautiful-on roughness, and sudden variation; on that of age, and even of decay. It is not the sublime, because it has nothing to do with greatness of dimensions, and is found in the smallest as well as the largest objects; it inspires no feelings of * Price on the Picturesque, p. 71. awe and terror, like the sublime: the picturesque loves boundaries, infinity is one of the efficient causes of the sublime. Lastly: uniformity, which is so great an enemy to the picturesque, is not only compatible with the sublime, but often the cause of it. Concerning the elegance with which this dissertation on the picturesque is expressed, and the ingenuity with which it is conceived, there can, I should think, be but one opinion; it is not often, in such difficult investigations, that perspicuity, acuteness, good taste, and admirable writing, are so eminently united. But, however, it is not quite so easy to determine upon the real truth and justice which the system contains. One thing seems quite clear, that Mr. Price has chosen a very bad word for the class of feelings which he conceives himself to have discovered; nor does he, in my humble opinion, at all justify it, by what he says of its etymology. The word will naturally be taken by every body for that which is fit to make a good picture; and so, according to the genius of our language, it ought to be taken; and one of the most considerable difficulties Mr. Price's theory will have to encounter, will be that of affixing any other meaning to this expression of the picturesque. With respect to the theory itself, the first question seems to be, Is there any class of objects, to be distinguished by any assignable circumstances, which inspire the mind with a common feeling? This, Mr. Price has, I think, proved clearly enough. All the objects he has mentioned the old horse, the jackass, the mill, the beggar -do arrest the attention, and arrest it in a similar manner; and not merely with a reference to the art of painting, for a person wholly unacquainted with pictures, but who had leisure to contemplate the appearances of natural objects, would probably notice these, which I have mentioned, and refer them to one class, from the similar manner in which they affected his mind. They all rouse the mind agreeably, and provoke instant attention. After the first sensation is over, the different objects lead the mind into a different set of feelings, according to the particular nature of each object; but there is I think one common sensation they excite at first, which establishes a common nature, and justifies the classification of Mr. Price. These are very difficult subjects to speculate upon, and not quite as important as they are difficult; but I should rather think it might be the very faintest feeling of grandeur or sublimity which Mr. Price distinguishes under the appellation of picturesque. Sudden variation, for instance, in a great scale, is most commonly either grand or sublime; it sets all the faculties up in arms, and communicates that feeling of faint danger, which is so necessary an ingredient to the sublime. To come upon a sudden on a yawning abyss, unless the danger be imminent, is sublime. The sudden variation from the hill country of Gloucestershire to the Vale of Severn, as observed from Birdlip, or Frowcester Hill, is strikingly sublime. You travel for twenty or five-and-twenty miles over one of the most unfortunate, desolate countries under heaven, divided by stone walls, and abandoned to screaming kites and larcenous crows; after traveling really twenty, and to appearance ninety miles, over this region of stone and sorrow, life begins to be a burden, and you wish to perish. At the very moment when you are taking this melancholy view of human affairs, and hating the postilion, and blaming the horses, there bursts upon your view, with all its towers, forests, and streams, the deep and shaded Vale of Severn. Sterility and nakedness are thrown in the background: as far as the eye can reach, all is comfort, opulence, product, and beauty; now it is an ancient city, or a fair castle rising out of the forests, and now the beautiful Severn is noticed winding among the cultivated fields, and the cheerful habitations of men. The train of mournful impressions is quite effaced, and you descend rapidly into a vale of plenty, with a heart full of wonder and delight. Now the effect produced by sudden variation on a great scale, impresses itself, perhaps, on the mind, and is not forgotten on lesser occasions; and what Mr. Price calls the picturesque may be the faintest state of this feeling, which requires nothing but greater dimensions to exalt itself into the real sublime. I only mention this as a very frivolous conjecture, upon a very unimportant subject, which I bring forward without reflection, and part with without difficulty. LECTURE XVI. ON THE SUBLIME. I MEAN by the sublime, as I meant by the beautiful, a feeling of mind; though, of course, a very different feeling. It is a feeling of pleasure, but of exalted tremulous pleasure, bordering on the very confines of pain; and driving before it every calm thought, and every regulated feeling. It is the feeling which men experience when they behold marvelous scenes of nature; or when they see great actions performed. Such feelings as come on the top of exceeding high mountains; or the hour before a battle; or when a man of great power, and of an unyielding spirit, is pleading before some august tribunal against the accusations of his enemies. These are the hours of sublimity, when all low and little passions are swallowed up by an overwhelming feeling; when the mind towers and springs above its common limits, breaks out into larger dimensions, and swells into a nobler and grander nature. It is necessary here to notice the opinions of Dr. Reid and Mr. Alison, upon the subject of the sublime, which I think may be very fairly expressed by this short quotation from the former of these gentleinen:-" When we consider matter as an inert, extended, divisible, and movable substance, there seems to be nothing in these qualities which we can call grand; and when we ascribe grandeur to any portion of matter, however modified, may it not borrow this quality from something intellectual, of which it is the effect, or sign, or instrument, or to which it bears some analogy; or, perhaps, because it produces in the mind an emotion that has some resemblance to that admiration, which truly grand objects raise? * * * * * * 66 Upon the whole, I humbly apprehend, that true grandeur is such a degree of excellence as is fit to raise' an enthusiastic admiration; that this grandeur is found originally and properly in qualities of the mind; that it is discerned in objects of sense, only by reflection, as the light we perceive in the moon and planets is, truly, the light of the sun; and that those who look for grandeur in mere matter, seek the living among the dead. 'If this be a mistake, it ought at least to be granted, that the grandeur which we perceive in qualities of mind, ought to have a different name from that which belongs properly to the objects of sense, as they are very different in their nature, and produce very different emotions in the mind of the spectator. "'* Upon the justice of these observations every one must determine for themselves. When I look upon a forest, I confess I am quite unconscious of any qualities of mind, which excite in me the feelings by which I am then possessed; nor can I, upon mature reflection, find that any other feelings are excited in me but wonder and terror: nor can I admit that the sublimity excited by matter, or by qualities of mind, should have different names, because I firmly believe that the two feelings do very much resemble each other; and if that be the case, their similarity of name indicates their affinity, and introduces something like classification into such a dark and mysterious subject as the feelings of the mind. I have said so much in my Lectures on the Beautiful, against referring that feeling to moral qualities alone, and the arguments would be so precisely the same for this feeling of the sublime, that I forbear going over them again. "The first cause of this feeling," says Mr. Burke, "is obscurity. In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, fear came upon me, and trembling; which made all my bones to shake: then, a spirit passed before my eyes; the hair of my flesh stood up! it stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes! there was silence, and I heard a voice! Shall mortal man be more * Reid's Essays on the Powers of the Mind. |