his description; and thereby, as Dr. Arburthnos humourosly observes, represented the mountain, as in a fit of the cholic. Etna and all the burning mountains find Their kindled stores, with inbred storms of wind, Such instances show how much the sublime depends upon a proper selection of circumstances; and with how great care every circumstance must be avoided, which, by approaching in the smallest degree to the mean, or even to the gay or trifling, changes the tone of the emotion. What is commonly called the sublime style, is for the most part a very bad one, and has no relation whatever to the true sublime. Writers are apt to imagine, that splendid words, accumulated epithets, and a certain swelling kind of expression, by rising above what is customary or vulgar, constitutes the sublime; yet nothing is in reality more false. In genuine instances of sublime writing, nothing of this kind appears. "God said, let there be light; and there was light." This is striking and sublime; but put it into what is commonly called the sublime style; "The Sovereign Arbiter of nature, by the potent energy of a single word, commanded the light to exist and, as Boileau, justly observed, the style is indeed raised, but the thought is degraded. In general it may be observed, that Beauty and other Pleasures of Taste. 35 the sublime lies in the thought, not in the expression; and, when the thought is really noble, it will generally clothe itself in a native majesty of language. The faults, opposite to the sublime, are principally two, the frigid and the bombast. The frigid consists in degrading an object or sentiment, which is sublime in itself, by a mean conception of it; or by a weak, low, or puerile description of it. This betrays entire absence, or, at least, extreme poverty of genius. The bombast lies in forcing a common or trivial object out of its rank, and in labouring to raise it into the sublime; or, in attempting to exalt a sublime object beyond all natural bounds. BEAUTY AND OTHER PLEASURES OF TASTE. BEAUTY, next to sublimity, affords the highest pleasure to the imagination. The emotion which it raises, is easily distinguished from that of sublimity. It is of a calmer kind; more gentle and soothing; does not elevate the mind so much, but produces a pleasing serenity. Sublimity excites a feeling, too violent to be lasting; the pleasure, proceeding from beauty, admits longer duration. It extends also to a much greater variety of objects than sublimity; to a variety indeed so great, that the sensations which beautiful objects excite, differ exceedingly, not in degree only, but also in kind, from each other. Hence no word is used in a more undeterminer! signification than beauty. It is applied to almost every external object, which pleases the eye or the ear; to many of the graces of writing; to several dispositions of the mind; nay, to some objects of abstract science. We speak frequently of a beautiful tree or flower; a beautiful poem; a beautiful character; and a beautiful theorem in mathematics. Colour seems to afford the simplest instance of beauty. Association of ideas, it is probable, has some influence on the pleasure, which we receive from colours. Green, for example, may appear more beautiful, from being connected in our ideas with rural scenes and prospects: white, with innocence; blue, with the serenity of the sky. Independently of associations of this sort, all that we can farther observe respecting colours is, that those, chosen for beauty, are commonly delicate, rather than glaring. Such are the feathers of several kinds of birds, the leaves of flowers, and the fine variation of colours, shown by the sky, at the rising and setting of the sun. Figure opens to us forms of beauty more complex and diversified. Regularity first offers itself as a source of beauty. By a regular figure is meant one, which we perceive to be formed according to some certain rule, and not left arbitrary or loose in the construction of its parts. Thus a circle, a square, a triangle, or a hexagon, gives pleasure to the eye by its regularity, as a beautiful figure; yet a certain graceful variety is found to be a much more powerful principle of beauty. Regularity seems to appear beautiful to us chiefly, if not entirely, on account of its suggesting the ideas of fitness, propriety, and use, which have always a more intimate connection with orderly and proportioned forms, than those, which appear not constructed according to any certain rule. Nature, who is the most graceful artist, hath, in all her ornamental works, pursued variety with an apparent neglect of regularity. Cabinets, doors, and windows are made after a regular form, in cubes and parallelograms, with exact proportion of parts; and thus formed they please the eye, for this just reason, that, being works of use, they are by such figures better adapted to the ends, for which they were designed. But plants, flowers, and leaves are full of variety and diversity. A straight canal is an insipid figure, when compared with the meanders of a river. Cones and pyramids have their degree of beauty; but trees, growing in their natural wildness, have infinitely more beauty, than when trimmed into pyramids and cones. The apartments of a house must be disposed with regularity for the convenience of its inhabitants; but a garden, which is intended merely for beauty, would be extremely disgusting, if it had as much uniformity and order as a dwelling house. Motion affords another source of beauty, distinct from figure. Motion of itself is pleasing; and bodies in motion are, "cæteris paribus," universally preferred to those at rest. Only gentle motion, however, belongs to the beautiful; for, when it is swift, or very pow D erful, such as that of a torrent, it partakes of the sublime. The motion of a bird gliding through the air is exquisitely beautiful; but the swiftness with which lightning darts through the sky, is magnificent and astonishing. Here it is necessary to observe, that the sensations of sublime and beautiful are not always distinguished by very distant boundaries; but are capable in many instances of approaching toward each other. Thus a gentle running stream is one of the most beautiful objects in nature; but, as it swells gradually into a great river, the beautiful by degrees is lost in the sublime. A young tree is a beautiful object; a spreading ancient oak is a venerable and sublime one. To return, however, to the beauty of motion, it will be found to hold very generally, that motion in a straight line is not so beautiful, as in a waving direction; and motion upward is commonly more pleasing than motion downward. The easy, curling motion of flame and smoke is an object singularly agreeable. Hogarth observes very ingeniously, that all the common and necessary motions for the business of life are performed in straight or plain lines; but that all the graceful and ornamental movements are made in curve lines; an observation, worthy of the attention of those, who study the grace of gesture and action. Colour, figure, and motion, though separate principles of beauty, yet in many beautiful objects meet together, and thereby render the beauty greater and more complex. Thus in flowers, trees, and animals, we are entertained |