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ever in motion, and sliding away from beneath the eye of the beholder.

But there is nothing that makes its way more directly to the soul than beauty, which immediately diffuses a secret satisfaction and complacency through the imagination, and gives a finishing to anything that is great or uncommon. The very first discovery of it strikes the mind with an inward joy, and spreads a cheerfulness and delight through all its faculties. There is not perhaps any real beauty or deformity more in one piece of matter than another, because we might have been so made, that whatsoever now appears loathsome to us might have shown itself agreeable; but we find by experience that there are several modifications of matter, which the mind, without any previous consideration, pronounces at first sight beautiful or deformed. Thus we see that every different species of sensible creatures has its different notions of beauty, and that each of them is most affected with the beauties of its own kind. This is nowhere more remarkable than in birds of the same shape and proportion, where we often see the male determined in his courtship by the single grain or tincture of a feather, and never discovering any charms but in the color of its species.)

Scit thalamo servare fidem, sanctasque veretur
Connubii leges; non illum in pectore candor
Solicitat niveus; neque pravum accendit amorem
Splendida lanugo, vel honesta in vertice crista,
Purpureusve nitor pennarum; ast agmina late
Fœmiuea explorat cautus, maculasque requirit
Cognatas, paribusque interiita corpora guttis;
Ni faceret, pictis sylvam circum undique monstris
Confusam aspiceres vulgo partusque biformes,
Et genus ambiguum, et veneris monumenta nefandæ.
Hinc merula in nigro se oblectat nigra marito;
Hinc socium lasciva petit Philomela canorum,
Agnoscitque pares sonitus; hinc noctua tetram
Canitiem alarum, et glaucos miratur ocellos
Nempe sibi semper constat, crescitque quotannis
Lucida progenies, castos confessa parentes;
Dum virides inter saltus lucosque sonoros
Vere novo exultat, plumasque decora juventus
Explicat ad solem patriisque coloribus ardet.*

The feather'd husband, to his partner true, Preserves connubial rites inviolate. With cold indifference every charm he sees, The milky whiteness of the stately neck, The shining down, proud crest, and purple wings: But cautious, with a searching eye explores The female tribes, his proper mate to find, With kindred colors mark'd; did he not so, The grove with painted monsters would abound; Th' ambiguous product of unnatural love. The blackbird hence selects her sooty spouse; The nightingale her musical compeer, Lur'd by the well-known voice, the bird of night, Smit with his dusky wings and greenish eyes, Wooes his dun paramour. The beauteous race Speak the chaste loves of their progenitors; When, by the Spring invited, they exult In woods and fields, and to the sun unfold Their plumes, that with paternal colors glow. There is a second kind of beauty that we find in the several products of art and nature, which does not work in the imagination with that warmth and violence as the beauty that appears in our proper species, but is apt, however, to raise in us a secret delight, and a kind of fondness for the places or objects in which we discover it. This consists either in the gayety or variety of colors, in the symmetry and proportion of parts, in the arrangement and disposition of bodies, or in a just mixture and concurrence of all together. Among these several kinds of beauty the eye takes most delight in colors. We nowhere meet with a more glorious or pleasing show in nature, than what appears in the heavens at the rising

It would seem, from his manner of introducing them, that Mr. Addison was himself the author of these fine verses.

and setting of the sun, which is wholly made up of those different stains of light that show them selves in the clouds of a different situation. For this reason we find the poets, who are always addressing themselves to the imagination, borrowing more of their epithets from colors, than from any other topic.

As the fancy delights in everything that is great, strange, or beautiful, and is still more pleased the more it finds of these perfections in the same object, so it is capable of receiving a new satisfaction by the assistance of another sense. Thus, any continued sound, as the music of birds, or a fall of water, awakens every moment the mind of the several beauties of the place that lie before him. beholder, and makes him more attentive to the Thus, if there arises a fragrancy of smells or perfumes, they heighten the pleasures of the imagination, and make even the colors and verdure of the landscape appear more agreeable; for the ideas of both senses recommend each other, and are pleasanter together than when they enter the mind separately; as the different colors of a picture, when they are well disposed, set off one another, and receive an additional beauty from the advantage of their situation.-0.

No. 413.] TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 1712.

PAPER III.

ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION.

CONTENTS.

Why the necessary cause of our being pleased with what is great, new, or beautiful, unknown. Why the final cause more known and more useful. The final cause of our being pleased with what is great. The final cause of our being pleased with what is new. The final cause of our being pleased with what is beautiful in our own species. The final cause of our being pleased with what is beautiful in general.

Causa latet, vis est, notissima OVID, Met. ix, 207. The cause is secret, but the effect is known.-ADDISON.

THOUGH in yesterday's paper we considered how everything that is great, new or beautiful, is apt to affect the imagination with pleasure, we must own that it is impossible for us to assign the necessary cause of this pleasure, because we know neither the nature of an idea, nor the substance of a human soul, which might help us to discover the conformity or disagreeableness of the one to the other; and therefore, for want of such a light, all that we can do in speculations of this kind, is to reflect on those operations of the soul that are most agreeable, and to range, under their proper heads, what is pleasing or displeasing to the mind, without being able to trace out the several necessary and efficient causes from whence the pleasure or displeasure arises.

Final causes lie more bare and open to our observation, as there are often a greater variety that belong to the same effect; and these, though they are not altogether so satisfactory, are generally more useful than the other, as they give us greater occasion of admiring the goodness and wisdom of the first Contriver.

One of the final causes of our delight in anything that is great may be this. The Supreme Author of our being has so formed the soul of man, that nothing but Himself can be its last, adequate, and proper happiness. Because, therefore, a great part of our happiness must arise from the contemplation of his being, that he might give our souls a just relish for such a contemplation, he has made them naturally delight in the apprehension of what is great or unlimited. Our admiration, which is

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a very pleasing motion of the mind, immediately is a truth which has been proved incontestably by rises at the consideration of any object that takes up a great deal of room in the faney, and, by consequence, will improve into the highest pitch of astonishment and devotion when we contemplate his nature, that is neither circumscribed by time nor place, nor to be comprehended by the largest capacity of a created being.

He has annexed a secret pleasure to the idea of anything that is new or uncommon, that he might encourage us in the pursuit after knowledge, and engage us to search into the wonders of his creation; for every new idea brings such a pleasure with it, as rewards any pains we have taken in its acquisition, and consequently serves as a motive to put us upon fresh discoveries.

He has made everything that is beautiful in our own species pleasant, that all creatures might be tempted to multiply their kind, and fill the world with inhabitants; for it is very remarkable that wherever nature is crossed in the production of a monster (the result of any unnatural mixture), the breed is incapable of propagating its likeness, and of founding a new order of creatures; so that, unless all animals were allured by the beauty of their own species, generation would be at an end, and the earth unpeopled.

many modern philosophe s, and is indeed one of
the finest speculations in that science, if the Eng-
lish reader would see the notion explained at large,
he may find it in the eighth chapter of the second
book of Mr. Locke's Essay on Human Under-
standing.-O.

The following letter of Steele to Addison is reprinted
here from the original edition of the Spectator in
folio.
June 24, 1712.

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"I would not divert the course of your discourses, when you seem bent upon obliging the world with a train of thinking, which, rightly attended to, may render the life of every one that reads it more easy and happy for the future. The pleasures of the imagination are what bewilder life, when reason and judgment do not interpose; it is therefore, a worthy action in you, to look. carefully into the powers of fancy, that other men, from the knowledge of them, may improve their joys, and allay their griefs, by a just use of that faculty. I say, Sir, I would not interrupt you in the progress of this discourse; but if you will do me the favor of inserting this letter in your next In the last place, he has made everything that paper, you will do some service to the public, is beautiful in all other objects pleasant, or rather though not in so noble a way of obliging, as that has made so many objects appear beautiful, that of improving their minds. Allow me, Sir, to ache might render the whole creation more gay and quaint you with a design (of which I am partly delightful. He has given almost everything about author), though it tends to no greater a good than us the power of raising an agreeable idea in the that of getting money. I should not hope for the imagination so that it is impossible for us to be- favor of a philosopher in this matter if it were not hold his works with coldness or indifference, and attempted under the restrictions which you sages to survey so many beauties without a secret satis- put upon private acquisitions. The first purpose faction and complacency. Things would make which every good man is to propose to himself, is but a poor appearance to the eye, if we saw them the service of his prince and country: after that only in their proper figures and motions; and what is done, he cannot add to himself, but he must reason can we assign for their exciting in us many also be beneficial to them. This scheme of gain of those ideas which are different from anything is not only consistent with that end, but has its that exists in the objects themselves (for such are very being in subordination to it; for no man can light and colors), were it not to add supernume- be a gainer here but at the same time he himself, rary ornaments to the universe, and make it more or some other, must succeed in their dealings with agreeable to the imagination? We are everywhere the government. It is called The Multiplication entertained with pleasing shows and apparitions: Table,' and is so far calculated for the immediate we discover imaginary glories in the heavens and service of her majesty, that the same person who in the earth, and see some of this visionary beauty is fortunate in the lottery of the state, may receive poured out upon the whole creation: but what a yet further advantage in this table. And I am rough, unsightly sketch of nature should we be en- sure nothing can be more pleasing to her gracious tertained with, did all her coloring disappear, and temper than to find out additional methods of inthe several distinctions of light and shade vanish? creasing their good fortune who adventure anyIn short, our souls are at present delightfully lost thing in her service, or laying occasions for others and bewildered in a pleasing delusion, and we walk to become capable of serving their country who about like the enchanted hero of a romance, who are at present in too low circumstances to exert sees beautiful castles, woods and meadows; and, themselves. The manner of executing the design at the same time, hears the warbling of birds, and is by giving out receipts for half guineas rethe purling of streams: but upon the finishing of ceived, which shall entitle the fortunate bearer to some secret spell the fantastic scene breaks up, certain sums in the table, as is set forth at large and the disconsolate knight finds him on a barren in the proposals printed on the 23d instant. There heath, or in a solitary desert. It is not improbable is another circumstance in this design which gives that something like this may be the state of the me hopes of your favor to it, and that is what soul after its first separation, in respect of the im- Tully advises, to wit, that the benefit be made as ages it will receive from matter; though indeed, diffusive as possible. Every one that has half a the ideas of colors are so pleasing and beautiful guinea, is put into the possibility, from that small in the imagination, that it is possible the soul sum, to raise himself an easy fortune: when these will not be deprived of them, but perhaps find little parcels of wealth are, as it were, thus thrown them excited by some other occasional cause, back into the redonation of Providence, we are to as they are at present by the different impres-expect that some who live under hardships or obsions of the subtile matter on the organ of sight. scurity may be produced to the world in the figure I have here supposed that my reader is ac- they deserve by this means. I doubt not but this quainted with that great modern discovery, which last argument will have force with you; and I is at present universally acknowledged by all the cannot add another to it, but what your severity inquirers into natural philosophy; namely, that will, I fear, very little regard, which is, that I light and colors, as apprehended by the imagina- am, "Sir, your greatest Admirer, tion, are only ideas in the mind, and not quali"RICHARD STEELE," ties that have any existence in matter. As this

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HOR. Ars Poet. v. 410.

as they more or less resemble those of art, we may be sure that artificial works receive a greater advantage from their resemblance of such as are natural; because here the similitude is not only pleasant, but the pattern more perfect. The prettiest landscape I ever saw, was one drawn on the walls of a dark room, which stood opposite on one side to a navigable river, and on the other to a park. The experiment is very common in opties. Here you might discover the waves and fluctuations of the water in strong and proper colors, with the picture of a ship entering at one end, and sailing by degrees through the whole piece. On another there appeared the green shadows of trees, waving to and fro with the wind, and herds of deer among them in miniature, leaping about upon the wall. I must confess the novelty of such a sight may be one occasion of its pleasantness to the imagination; but certainly its chief reason is its nearest resemblance to nature, as it does not only, like other pictures, give the color and figure, but the motion of the things it represents.

But mutually they need each other's help.-ROSCOMMON. If we consider the works of nature and art as they are qualified to entertain the imagination, we shall find the last very defective in comparison of the former; for though they may sometimes appear as beautiful or strange, they can have nothing in them of that vastness and immensity, which afford so great an entertainment to the mind of the beholder. The one may be as polite and delicate as the other, but can never show herself so august We have before observed, that there is generally and magnificent in the design. There is something in nature something more grand and august than more bold and masterly in the rough, careless strokes of nature, than in the nice touches and embellishments of art. The beauties of the most stately garden or palace lie in a narrow compass; the imagination immediately runs them over and requires something else to gratify her; but in the wide fields of nature, the sight wanders up and down without confinement, and is fed with an infinite variety of images, without any certain stint or number. For this reason we always find the poet in love with the country life, where nature appears in the greatest perfection, and furnishes out all those scenes that are most apt to delight the imagination.

Scriptorum chorus omnis amat nemus, et fugit urbes.
HOR. 2 Ep. ii. 77.

-To grottoes and to groves we run,
To ease and silence, every Muse's son.-POPE.
Hic secura quies, et nescia fallere vita,
Speluncæ, vivique lacus; hic frigida Tempe,
Dives opum variarum: hic latis otia fundis,
Mugitusque boum, mollesque sub arbore somni.
VIRG. Georg. ii. 467.

Here easy quiet, a secure retreat,
A harmless life that knows not how to cheat,
With home bred plenty the rich owner bless,
And rural pleasures crown his happiness.
Unvex'd with quarrels, undisturb'd with noise,
The country king his peaceful realm enjoys:
Cool grots and living lakes, the flow'ry pride
Of meads, and streams that through the valley glide;
And shady groves, that easy sleep invite,

And, after foilsome days, a sweet repose at night.

DRYDEN.

But though there are several of those wild scenes that are more delightful than any artificial shows, yet we find the works of nature still more pleasant, the more they resemble those of art: for in this case our pleasure rises from a double principle; from the agreeableness of the objects to the eye, and from their similitude to other objects. We are pleased as well with comparing their beauties, as with surveying them, and can represent them to our minds, either as copies or originals. Hence it is that we take delight in a prospect which is well laid out, and diversified with fields and meadows, woods and rivers; in those accidental landscapes of trees, clouds, and cities, that are sometimes found in the veins of marble; in the curious fretwork of rocks and grottoes; and, in a word, in anything that hath such a variety or regularity as may seem the effect of design in what we call the works of chance.

If the products of nature rise in value according

what we meet with in the curiosities of art. When, therefore, we see this imitated in any measure, it gives us a nobler and more exalted kind of pleasure than what we received from the nicer and more accurate productions of art. On this account our English gardens are not so entertaining to the fancy as those in France and Italy, where we see a large extent of ground covered over with an agreeable mixture of garden and forest, which represent everywhere an artificial rudeness, much more charming than that neatness and elegancy which we meet with in those of our own country. It might indeed be of ill consequence to the public, as well as unprofitable to private persons, to alienate so much ground from pasturage and the plow, in many parts of a country that is so well peopled, and cultivated to a far greater advantage. But why may not a whole estate be thrown into a kind of garden by frequent plantations, that may turn as much to the profit as the pleasure of the owner? A marsh overgrown with willows, or a mountain shaded with oaks, are not only more beautiful, but more beneficial, than when they lie bare and unadorned. Fields of corn make a pleasant prospect; and if the walks were a little taken care of that lie between them, if the natural embroidery of the meadows were helped and improved by some small additions of art, and the several rows of hedges set off by trees and flowers that the soil was capable of receiving, a man might make a pretty landscape of his own possessions.

Writers who have given us an account of China, tell us the inhabitants of that country laugh at the plantations of our Europeans, which are laid out by the rule and line; because, they say, any person may place trees in equal rows and uniform figures. They choose rather to show a genius in works of this nature, and therefore always conceal the art by which they direct themselves. They have a word, it seems, in their language, by which they express the particular beauty of a plantation that thus strikes the imagination at first sight, without discovering what it is that has so agreeable an effect. Our British gardeners, on the contrary, instead of humoring nature, love to deviate from it as much as possible. Our trees rise in cones, globes, and pyramids. We see the marks of the scissors upon every plant and bush. I do not know whether I am singular in my opinion, but for my own part, I would rather look upon a tree in all its luxuriancy and

diffusion of boughs and branches, than when it is thus cut and trimmed into a mathematical figure; and cannot but fancy that an orchard in flower looks infinitely more delightful than all the little labyrinths of the most finished parterre. But, as our great modelers of gardens have their magazines of plants to dispose of, it is very natural for them to tear up all the beautiful plantations of fruittrees, and contrive a plan that may most turn to their own profit, in taking off their evergreens, and the like movable plants, with which their shops are plentifully stocked.-O.

No. 415.] THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 1712.

PAPER V.

ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION.
CONTENTS.

Of architecture, as it affects the imagination. Greatness in architecture relates either to the bulk or to the manner. Greatness of bulk in the ancient oriental buildings. The ancient accounts of these buildings confirmed. 1. From the advantages for raising such works, in the first ages of the world, and in eastern climates; 2. From several of them which are still extant. Instances how greatness of manner affects the imagination. A French author's observations on this subject. Why concave and convex figures give a greatness of manner to works of architecture. Everything that pleases the imagination in architecture, is either great, beautiful, or new.

Adde tot egregias urbes, operumque laborem. VIRG. Georg. ii, 155. Witness our cities of illustrious name, Their costly labor, and stupendous frame.-DRYDEN. HAVING already shown how the fancy is affected by the works of nature, and afterward considered in general both the works of nature and of art, how they mutually assist and complete each other in forming such scenes and prospects as are most apt to delight the mind of the beholder I shall in this paper throw together some reflections on that particular art, which has more immediate tendency, than any other, to produce those primary pleasures of the imagination which have hitherto been the subject of this discourse. The art I mean is that of architecture, which I shall consider only with regard to the light in which the foregoing speculations have placed it, without entering into those rules and maxims which the great masters of architecture have laid down, and explained at large in numberless treatises upon that subject.

Greatness in the works of architecture may be considered as relating to the bulk and body of structure, or to the manner in which it is built. As for the first, we find the ancients, especially among the eastern nations of the world, infinitely superior to the moderns.

Not to mention the tower of Babel, of which an old author says, there were the foundations to be seen in his time, which looked like a spacious mountain; what could be more noble than the walls of Babylon, its hanging gardens, and its temple to Jupiter Belus, that rose a mile high by eight several stories, each story a furlong in height, and on the top of which was the Babylonian observatory? I might here, likewise, take notice of the huge rock that was cut into the figure of Semiramis, with the smaller rocks that lay by it in the shape of tributary kings; the prodigious basin, or artificial lake, which took in the whole Euphrates, till such time as a new canal was formed for its reception, with the several trenches through which that river was conveyed. I know there are persons who look upon some of these wonders of art as fabulous; but I

cannot find any grounds for such a suspicion; unless it be that we have no such works among us at present. There were indeed, many greater advantages for building in those times, and in that part of the world, than have been met with ever since. The earth was extremely fruitful; men lived generally on pasturage, which requires a much smaller number of hands than agriculture. There were few trades to employ the busy part of mankind, and fewer arts and sciences to give work to men of speculative tempers; and what is more than all the rest, the prince was absolute; so that, when he went to war, he put himself at the head of the whole people; as we find Semiramis leading her three millions to the field, and yet overpowered by the number of her enemies. It is no wonder therefore when she was at peace, and turned her thoughts on building, that she could accomplish such great works, with such a prodigious multitude of laborers: beside that in her climate there was small interruption of frosts and winters, which make the northern workmen lie half a year idle. I might mention, too, among the benefits of the climate, what historians say of the earth, that it sweated out a bitumen, or natural kind of mortar, which is doubtless the same with that mentioned in the holy writ, as contributing to the structure of Babel; "Slime they used instead of mortar."

In Egypt we still see their pyramids, which answer to the descriptions that have been made of them; and I question not but a traveler might find out some remains of the labyrinth that covered a whole province, and had a hundred temples disposed among its several quarters and divisions.

The wall of China is one of these eastern pieces of magnificence, which makes a figure even in the map of the world, although an account of it would have been thought fabulous, were not the wall itself still extant.

We are obliged to devotion for the noblest buildings that have adorned the several countries of the world. It is this which has set men at work on temples and public places of worship, not only that they might, by the magnificence of the building invite the Deity to reside within it, but that such stupendous works might, at the same time, open the mind to vast conceptions, and fit it to converse with the divinity of the place. For everything that is majestic imprints. an awfulness and reverence on the mind of the beholder, and strikes in with the natural greatness of the soul.

In the second place we are to consider greatness of manner in architecture, which has such force upon the imagination, that a small building, where it appears, shall give the mind nobler ideas than one of twenty times the bulk, where the manner is ordinary or little. Thus, perhaps, a man would have been more astonished with the majestic air that appeared in one of Lysippus's statues of Alexander, though no bigger than life, than he might have been with mount Athos, had it been cut into the figure of the hero, according to the proposal of Phidias, with a river in one hand, and a city in the other.

Let any one reflect on the disposition of mind he finds in himself at his first entrance into the Pantheon at Rome, and how his imagination is filled with something great and amazing; and, at the same time, consider how little, in proportion, he is affected with the inside of a Gothic cathedral, though it be five times larger than the other; which can arise from nothing else but the great

Dinocrates.

ness of the manner in the one, and the meanness in the other.

these two perfections in every building which of fers itself to his view, than of that which I have hitherto considered, I shall not trouble my readers with any reflections upon it. It is sufficient for my present purpose to observe, that there is nothing in this whole art which pleases the ima gination, but as it is great, uncommon, or beautiful.-O.

No. 416.] FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 1712.

PAPER VS

ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION.
CONTENTS.

The secondary pleasures of the imagination. The several
sources of these pleasures (statuary, painting, description,
and music) compared together. The final cause of our re-
ceiving pleasure from these several sources. Of descrip-
tions in particular. The power of words over the ima
gination. Why one reader is more pleased with descrip-
tions than another.

Quatenu' hoc simile est oculis, quod mente videmus.
LUCR. ix. 754.
So far as what we see with our minds, bears similitude to
what we see with our eyes.

I have seen an observation upon this subject in a French author, which very much pleased me. It is in Monsieur Freart's Parallel of the ancient and modern Architecture. I shall give it the reader with the same terms of art which he has made use of. "I am observing," says he, "a thing which, in my opinion, is very curious, whence it proceeds that in the same quantity of superficies, the one manner seems great and magnificent, and the other poor and trifling; the reason is fine and uncommon. I say, then, that to introduce into architecture this grandeur of manner, we ought so to proceed that the division of the principal members of the order may consist but of few parts, that they be all great, and of a bold and ample relievo, and swelling; and that the eye, beholding nothing little and mean, the imagination may be more vigorously touched and affected with the work that stands before it. For example: in a cornice, if the gola, or cymatium of the corona, the coping, the modillions or dentilli, make a noble show by their graceful projections, if we see none of that ordinary confusion which is the result of those little cavities, quarter rounds of the astragal, and I I AT first divided the pleasures of the imaginaknow not how many other intermingled particu- tion into such as arise from objects that are lars, which produce no effect in great and massy actually before our eyes, or that once entered into works, and which very unprofitably take up place our eyes, and are afterward called up into the to the prejudice of the principal member, it is most mind either barely by its own operations, or on certain that this manner will appear solemn and occasion of something without us, as statues or great; as, on the contrary, that it will have but a descriptions. We have already considered the poor and mean effect, where there is a redundancy first division, and shall therefore enter on the of those smaller ornaments, which divide and scat- other, which, for distinction sake, I have called ter the angles of the sight into such a multitude The Secondary Pleasures of the Imagination." of rays, so pressed together that the whole will When I say the ideas we receive from statues, appear but a confusion." descriptions, or such-like occasions, are the same that were once actually in our view, it must not be understood that we had once seen the very scribed. It is sufficient that we have seen places, persons, or actions in general, which bear a resemblance, or at least some remote analogy, with what we find represented; since it is in the power of the imagination, when it is once stocked with particular ideas, to enlarge, compound, and vary them at her own pleasure.

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Among all the figures in architecture, there are none that have a greater air than the concave and the convex; and we find in the ancient and mod-place, action, or person, that are carved or deern architecture, as well in the remote parts of China, as in countries nearer home, that round pillars and vaulted roofs make a great part of those buildings which are designed for pomp and magnificence. The reason I take to be, because in these figures we generally see more of the body than in those of other kinds. There are, indeed, figures of bodies, where the eye may take in twothirds of the surface; but, as in such bodies, the sight must split upon several angles, it does not take in one uniform idea, but several ideas of the same kind. Look upon the outside of a dome, your eye half surrounds it; look upon the inside, and at one glance you have all the prospect of it; the entire concavity falls into your eye at once, the sight being at the center that collects and gathers into it the lines of the whole circumfer ence in a square pillar, the sight often takes in but a fourth part of the surface; and in a square concave must move up and down to the different sides, before it is master of all the inward surface. For this reason, the fancy is infinitely more struck with the view of the open air and skies, that passes through an arch, than what comes through a square, or any other figure. The figure of the rainbow does not contribute less to its magnificence than the colors to its beauty, as it is very poetically described by the son of Sirach: "Look upon the rainbow, and praise Him that made it; very beautiful is it in its brightness; it encompasses the heavens with a glorious circle, and the hands of the Most High have bended it."

Having thus spoken of that greatness which affects the mind in architecture, I might next show the pleasure that arises in the imagination from what appears new and beautiful in this art; but as every beholder has naturally a greater taste of

Among the different kinds of representation, statuary is the most natural, and shows us something likest the object that is represented.] To make use of a cominon instance : let one who is born blind take an image in his hands, and trace out with his fingers the different furrows and impressions of the chisel, and he will easily conceive how the shape of a man, or beast may be represented by it; but should he draw his hand over a picture, where all is smooth and uniform, he would never be able to imagine how the several prominences and depressions of a human body should be shown on a plain piece of canvas, that has in it no unevenness or irregularity. Description runs yet farther from the things it represents than painting; for a picture bears a real resemblance to the original, which letters and syllables are wholly void of. Colors speak all languages, but words are understood only by such a people or nation. For this reason, though men's necessities quickly put them on finding out speech,. writing is probably of a later invention than painting; particularly we are told that in America, when the Spaniards first arrived there, ex presses were sent to the Emperor of Mexico in paint, and the news of his country delineated by the strokes of a pencil, which was a more natural way than that of writing, though at the same time much more imperfect, because it is impossi ble to draw the little connections of speech, or to

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