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change! Impossible. If the beauty of the objects in question depended on any established natural law of order or proportion, the same rule most hold in both Grecian and Gothic architecture. mark their difference, their entire variance from each other. Let men of great taste, and small enquiry, rave about Grecian architecture, and the intrinsic beauty of its proportions; we may rest satisfied with an explanation much plainer, and more general, than any of their dark and mysterious dogmas.

We are plainly reminded by the sight of fine buildings in either of these established styles of architecture, of the utility, convenience, and fitness of such buildings, of the skill and power of our fellow men in designing and executing such works; of magnificence, splendour, and expense; above all, in the case of buildings in the Grecian model, they forcibly recal to our minds thoughts of Grecian and Roman greatness and grandeur of their temples and mythology; while those of the Gothic order are as naturally associated with those venerable sanctuaries of our holy religion, those ancient and impressive structures, with which not a few of our most sublime and agitating feelings are from our earliest youth necessarily connected.

Let the architect endeavour to unite these two styles in one building; and although he violates no natural rule of proportion or order, he appears to have created a gross incongruity, an unmeaning combination, that excites only feelings of disapprobation and disgust. ut turpiter atrum

Desinat in piscem, mulier formosa supernè.

The plain fact is, it must be one or other of those unmixed styles with which we are familiar, to create those peculiar emotions, which either by itself is from association calculated to produce,-but the effect of which, by the unhappy union of both, is neutralized and destroyed.

But I forbear any further illustration-let us pause a moment, and examine to what consequences the admission of these doctrines leads us. What, I hear one exclaim, are we to believe that all tastes are alike well founded? That every man who chooses to call any object, however mean or misshapen, beautiful, has as good grounds for his taste, as the man of cultivated refinement who pronounces the same object, ugly? Yes. For if, as we have seen, things are not endowed with any innate beauty, but only serve to suggest interesting emotions to the mind, it follows that every object which has the power to create these sensations in the mind of any man-to that man be the object what it may, that object is beautiful.

Am I then to quarrel with a Chinese who considers white the most dismal of colors, from the fact of its being used among his nation as the external symbol of mourning? Am I to treat with contempt the taste of the African who fancies that the thickest lips, the blackest color, and a profusion of odorous oil, convey the clearest notions of female loveliness and elegance? Ought any one

to deride my simplicity, because from habits of association very fortunate for myself, I implicitly believe, contrary to the general opinion, that there may by chance exist honest and uncorrupt lawyers! There can be no reason or authority for despising each other's tastes, or, in other words, different associations; the truth is, as I have already hinted, that every object may be beautiful by the effect of association--a lock of hair may convey more delight than the finest picture Raphael ever painted---a few harsh metres more genuine feeling than the entire volumes of Byron--the meanest hut be more impressive than the Church of St. Peter's; and no one can possess the right to find fault with these tastes, so long as they are confined to the individuals---I say confined to themselves, for it is only when men burn to see others impressed in the same manner as themselves, that we can have a right to call their judgment in question.

If a man being enamoured with the beauty of a lock of hair--a few doggrel verses---a chosen residence, endeavour to convince me also of their attractions, their superiority to Raphael, Byron, or St. Peter's, and abuses my taste for not appreciating their merits in the same degree as himself; I must then consider of some appeal from his censure, and seek a reason to justify my indifference.

This is the source of all the diversified specimens of what is called a bad and corrupt taste in artists and authors. They mistake partial and casual associations which may affect their own minds, for general principles of beauty and causes of emotion; and dictating to the public, who have no such associations, succeed in nothing but to cover themselves with derision and contempt. We need be at no loss in the present day for examples of entire schools, as they are called, of poetry; who delighting themselves with narrow and accidental views of nature and life, and finding that the public feel but little sympathy for these associations, conscientiously come to the conclusion which they make known, that this indifference can possibly arise from no other cause than mean prejudice or ignorance.

Every man who comes before the public with a view of administering to, and gratifying its taste, cannot be too cautious that he do not mistake these casual and peculiar sources of personal pleasure, for natural and universal relations; a mistake which will surely prove the just and certain cause of neglect and disappointment.

But this leaves us with another question yet to answer---If it be true that all objects may be thus delightful by association, does it follow that every object is equally adapted to convey these impressions? Are all the arts equally suited to affect the mind, are they equal, in short, in point of power? are we, in truth, to consider that poetry, painting, and music, because they are all capable of conveying and associating ideas, are all equally capable of this, in the hands of their respective masters? I believe not, and shall furnish one or two brief reasons for thinking that there are gradations in the dignity of the arts, because of their different degrees of power---and that the distance between them is much wider than many are inclined to concede.

That poetry surpasses all the other arts in power, and consequently in dignity and importance, there are many reasons for believing; but a consideration of one or two of the most prominent seems to be all that is necessary for deciding the question.--In the first place, it excels painting beyond all comparison in the range and selection of noble and elevating subjects. There is no idea which can possibly be conveyed from one mind to the other, by the means of language, which cannot be embodied, and the natural and inherent grandeur of which may not be increased, by poetical representation and embellishment. The grandest subjects of poetry, those which excite in us the loftiest and most powerful emotions, embody ideas which no artist can ever hope to represent, even in the most crude and imperfect manner on the canvas.

Thus, entire darkness, motion of all kinds, the depth of the ocean, sweet or terrific sounds, and many of those associations which form the very finest materials for poetical description, are entirely excluded from the service of the painter;---they are conceptions which the limits of his art do not permit him to make apparent to the mind of another. Nor is this the greatest disadvantage with which the painter has to contend. The subjects which are alike best suited to poetry and painting, are those which represent an extraordinary elevation of human character, as seen in action or suffering :---or any mighty display of those common passions of our nature, that fills our minds with sympathy and astonishment at the new and intense forms in which these ordinary feelings are made to appear. But how can a painting, representing one moment of time only, delineating one action of many, hope to rival the effect of a poem, in which the peculiar emotions of the actors are distinctly traced and explained--the causes of events developed---and the mind of the reader gradually prepared for those great excitements of feeling, which the painter must produce instantaneously, must create at once, or not at all?

This is an inferiority which no conceivable skill of the artist can ever hope to atone for. In a great poem, the mind is at first interested at the commencement of a series of events in the fortunes of the actors ---the natural emotions of compassion for misfortune and hatred of injustice, and the whole range of our social and most lively passions, are brought directly into exercise. Then follows an affecting succession of incidents, in which the most intense anxiety for the future is excited; and as we proceed to the main events, we are warmed into a general interest for the success of virtue, and punishment of vice, until the greatest incidents are brought before us. Similar incidents the painter may have to select, but he has to produce the effect at one blow, on a mind unprepared and uninterested.

It is impossible, under such circumstances, that we should feel, except upon very peculiar occasions, any thing like the impression produced by a great picture, as by a great poem. The most perfect efforts of painting, therefore, are on those subjects in which we are more generally interested, and on which our knowledge of the events

represented is so perfect, as to stand in no need of previous information and relation. Thus the incidents which have afforded the happiest subjects for painting, have been precisely those with which we have been most intimately acquainted. The most celebrated events from profane or classical and mythological history, and espe cially many of the characters and events connected with Christian history and belief, produce the greatest impression, because the mind of the spectator, from his historical knowledge, has not felt the necessity of being previously interested and excited.

In addition the poet possesses the power of producing the most powerful effects, by a sudden contrast of passion; he may arrange a succession of emotions, so as to produce the most striking effects and exhibition of character. All the attempts which have been made in painting to represent what may be termed a mixed passion, are so many proofs of the impotence of the art. The mind of a hero may be agitated at one time, by contending and opposite emotions, and the delineations of which, by a great poet, is affecting in the very highest degree. No art of the painter dare aspire to represent this sudden and changeful expression, these mixed and abrupt emotions.

For example, a painter may with great effect paint the ambitious chief Macbeth, in conversation with his lady at the time when she is breaking her purpose of the intended murder of Duncan, and which his lustful ambition leads him to approve; he might be represented at the moment of his answer to her taunts of cowardice-"I dare do all "that may become a man:" this is within the painter's art, his stern defiance of danger, and his steady courage; but no painter could mix with this, what he then really felt, and what is implied by his immediate question of doubt and irresolution, when he asks, “If we should "fail ?" Yet this, and all such mixed or sudden successions of feeling, are those by which our minds are most affected in history or poetry.

The painter's art is, in truth, confined to the representation of one instant of time, one attitude, one expression. The time may be chosen with refined judgment, the attitude designed with consummate knowledge of effect, and the expression dignified and exquisitely displayed; but the effect of the whole, it seems to me, must be greatly inferior to a poetical description of the same event, in which the succession of incidents may be delineated, and our hearts and affections warmed by a previous knowledge of the persons and characters concerned in the event pourtrayed.

For these reasons, also, it may be further remarked, that painting is incapable of communicating, however a painter may conceive, the ideas of a new and imaginative combination of human character. The foundation of all painting, descriptive of human passion and emotion, must be history or poetry. Now, the chief beauty of an historical painting, is unquestionably its fidelity; it must be strictly in agreement with the fact as recorded, and no considerable departure can be made from historical truth, with any chance of approbation or success. It is, indeed, in the painter's power to represent these facts in the most poetical and imaginative form; he may also add such cir

cumstances as may make the event more forcible and affecting; but any invention of character is in this case clearly unnatural and improper.

The merit of the painter of history, may be of the same kind as that of the writer of history. The fact that is to be impressed on the mind of a reader, may be so eloquently related, with such beauty of coloring, so much propriety and force, that it may receive an almost incalculable addition of attention and interest; but no historian can dare to bestow upon any one, for the sake of effect, those virtues in which it may be notorious he was deficient; he dare not give credit to Alexander for those virtues of temperance and moderation, which belong only to Scipio.

The poet, on the other hand, is not subject in any degree to restraints of this nature. He creates his hero by the powers of his imagination, bestows on him all the virtues which can awaken admiration, with such a proportion of failing and infirmity, as may serve to the general interest of the poem, and give occasion for the display of mixed and contending passions. In this consists the inferiority of painting; the painter is limited by his art, he may possess the finest and most creative imagination, but he can only adhere closely to the materials furnished by history or poetry, or he will fail to produce any effect, and, in short, to be intelligible. The highest effort of painting is to represent scenes of passion and interest, which history may describe or poetry invent. No man, whatever his powers of invention or execution might be, could ever convey by painting any one single idea or conception of an entirely new combination of character, such as is displayed, for instance, in Byron's Manfred, or in any other poetical concentration of varied emotions in one human being.

There is, however, one point in which painting and sculpture possess a decided advantage over poetry. It is this, the accurate delineation of the attitudes of passion and feeling. No description, however powerful, can arrive at the force and dignity of a finely conceived and delineated attitude. The gestures of intelligent beings, distinctly convey to us ideas of the emotions which are felt; and when shown with the art which a great painter knows how to employ, move us with an extraordinary degree of power and effect. Thus no description of poetry or prose could convey to us in the remotest degree those notions of conscious dignity and resistless eloquence, of which we feel the force when looking at the Paul preaching at Athens of Raphael. This exclusive power on the part of painting to represent propriety and impressiveness of gesture, will, of itself, always preserve for it a very high rank in the scale of the arts.

In drawing these distinctions between the comparative powers of poetry and painting, I am very far from wishing to excite or inflame any of that petty rivalry or jealousy which sometimes deforms their admirers. I wish constantly to bear in mind the Horatian precept"Nec tua laudabis studia, aut aliena reprendes." On the contrary, I think that a just and accurate knowledge of their natural limits, and of their respective powers, is the most effectual method of promoting

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