idea of pleasure refulting from a moderate degree of warmth; but the eye triumphs in the infinite extent and multiplicity of its objects. But there is such a fimilitude in the pleasures of thefe fenfes, that I am apt to fancy, if it were poffible that one might difcern colour by feeling (as it is faid some blind men have done), that the fame colours, and the fame difpofition of colouring, which are found beautiful to the fight, would be found likewise most grateful to the touch. But, fetting afide conjectures, let us pafs to the other fenfe; of hearing.

SECT. XXV.

The beautiful in SOUNDS.

N this fenfe we find an equal aptitude to be affec

IN

ted in a foft and delicate manner; and how far sweet or beautiful founds agree with our descriptions of beauty in other fenfes, the experience of every one must decide. Milton has described this fpecies of mufic in one of his juvenile poems *. I need not say that Milton was perfectly well versed in that art; and that no man had a finer ear, with a happier manner of expreffing the affections of one fense by metaphors taken from another. The description is as follows:

-And ever against eating cares,
Lap me in foft Lydian airs;

* L'allegro.

In

In notes with many a winding bout

Of linked sweetness long drawn out;
With wanton head and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running ;
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden foul of harmony.

Let us parallel this with the foftnefs, the winding furface, the unbroken continuance, the eafy gradation of the beautiful in other things; and all the diversities of the several senses, with all their several affections, will rather help to throw lights from one another to finish one clear, consistent idea of the whole, than to obfcure it by their intricacy and variety.

To the above-mentioned defcription I fhall add one or two remarks. The firft is; that the beautiful in mufic will not bear that loudness and ftrength of founds, which may be used to raise other paffions; nor notes, which are thrill or harsh, or deep: it agrees beft with fuch as are clear, even, fmooth, and weak. The fecond is; that great variety, and quick tranfitions from one measure or tone to another, are contrary to the genius of the beautiful in mufic. Such * tranfitions often excite mirth, or other fudden and tumultuous paffions; but not that finking, that melting, that languor, which is the characteristical effect of the beautiful as it regards every fenfe. The paffion excited by beauty is in fact nearer to a species of melancholy, than to jollity and mirth. I do not

I ne'er am merry, when I hear sweet mufic.

here mean to confine mufic to any one fpecies of potes, or tones, neither is it an art in which 1 can fay I have any great fkill. My fole defign in this remark is, to fettle a confiftent idea of beauty. The infinite variety of the affections of the foul will fuggeft to a good head, and skilful ear, a variety of fuch founds as are fitted to raise them. It can be no prejudice to this, to clear and diftinguish fome few particulars, that belong to the fame class, and are confiftent with each other, from the immenfe crowd of different, and fometimes contradictory ideas, that rank vulgarly under the standard of beauty. And of these it is my intention to mark fuch only of the leading points as fhew the conformity of the sense of hearing, with all the other fenfes in the article of their pleasures.

TH

SECT. XXVI.

TASTE and S MEL L.

HIS general agreement of the fenfes is yet more evident on minutely confidering those of tafte and smell. We metaphorically apply the idea of fweetness to fights and founds; but as the qualities of bodies by which they are fitted to excite either pleasure or pain in thefe fenfes, are not fo obvious at they are in the others, we fhall refer an explanation of their analogy, which is a very clofe one, to that part, wherein we come to confider the common efficient caufe of beauty, as it regards all the fenfes. I do not think any thing better fitted to establish a

clear

clear and fettled idea of visual beauty than this way of examining the fimilar pleasures of other fenfes; for one part is fometimes clear in one of these fenfes, that is more obfcure in another; and where there is a clear concurrence of all, we may with more certainty speak of any one of them. By this means, they bear witnefs to each other; nature is, as it were, fcrutinized; and we report nothing of her but what we receive from her own information.

SECT. XXVII,

The Sublime and Beautiful compared.

ON clofing this general view of beauty, it natu

Ο

rally occurs, that we fhould compare it with the fublime; and in this comparison there appears a remarkable contraft. For fublime objects are vast in their dimenfions, beautiful ones comparatively fmall: beauty fhould be smooth and polished; the great, rugged and negligent: beauty fhould shun the right line, yet deviate from it infenfibly: the great in many cafes loves the right line; and when it deviates, it often makes a strong deviation: beauty fhould not be obfcure; the great ought to be dark and gloomy: beauty fhould be light and delicate; the great ought to be folid, and even maflive. They are indeed ideas of a very different nature, one being founded on pain, the other on pleasure; and however they may vary afterwards from the direct nature of their caufes, yet thefe causes keep up an eternal distinction between them, a distinction never to be forgotten

forgotten by any whose business it is to affect the paffions. In the infinite variety of natural combinations, we must expect to find the qualities of things the most remote imaginable from each other united in the fame object. We must expect also to find combinations of the fame kind in the works of art. But when we confider the power of an object upon our paffions, we must know that when any thing is intended to affect the mind by the force of fome predominant property, the affection produced is like to be the more uniform and perfect, if all the other properties or qualities of the object be of the fame nature, and tending to the fame defign as the principal;

If black and white blend, foften, and unite,

A thousand ways, are there no black and white?

If the qualities of the fublime and beautiful are fometimes found united, does this prove that they are the fame; does it prove that they are any way allied; does it prove even that they are not oppofite and contradictory? Black and white may foften, may blend; but they are not therefore the fame. Nor, when they are so foftened and blended with each other, or with different colours, is the power of black as black, or of white as white, fo strong as when each stands uniform and diftinguished.

THE END OF THE THIRD PART.