nutriment of the whole; much more when we survey all the parts and members of a living animal; or when we examine any of the curious works of art; such as a clock, a ship, or any nice machine; the pleasure which we have in the survey, is wholly founded on this sense of beauty. It is altogether different from the perception of beauty produced by colour, figure, variety, or any of the causes formerly mentioned. When I look at a watch, for instance, the case of it, if finely engraved, and of curious workmanship, strikes me as beautiful in the former sense; bright colour, exquisite polish, figures finely raised and turned. But when I examine the spring and the wheels, and praise the beauty of the internal machinery, my pleasure then arises wholly from the view of that admirable art, with which so many various and complicated parts are made to unite for one purpose.

This sense of beauty, in fitness and design, has an extensive influence over many of our ideas. It is the foundation of the beauty which we discover in the proportion of doors, windows, arches, pillars, and all the orders of architecture. Let the ornaments of a building be ever so fine and elegant in themselves, yet, if they interfere with this sense of fitness and design, they lose their beauty, and hurt the eye, like disagreeable objects. Twisted columns, for instance, are undoubtedly ornamental; but as they have an appearance of weakness, they always displease when they are made use of to support any part of a building that is massy, and that seems to require a more substantial prop. We cannot look upon any work whatever, without being led, by a natural association of ideas, to think of its end and design, and of course to examine the propriety of its parts, in relation to this design and end. When their propriety is clearly discerned, the work seems always to have some beauty; but when there is a total want of propriety, it never fails of appearing deformed. Our sense of fitness and design,therefore, is so powerful, and holds so high a rank among our perceptions, as to regulate, in a great measure, our other ideas of beauty: an observation which I the rather make, as it is of the utmost importance, that all who study composition should carefully attend to it. For, in an epic poem, a history, an oration, or any work of genius, we always require, as we do in other works, a fitness, or adjustment of means to the end which the author is supposed to have in view. Let his descriptions be ever so rich, or his figures ever so elegant, yet, if they are out of place, if they are not proper parts of that whole, if they suit not the main design, they lose all their beauty, nay, from beauties they are converted into deformities. Such power has our sense of fitness and congruity, to produce a total transformation of an object whose appearance otherwise would have been beautiful.

After having mentioned so many various species of beauty, it now only remains to take notice of beauty as it is applied to writing or discourse; a term commonly used in a sense altogether loose and undetermined. For it is applied to all that pleases, either in style or sentiment, from whatever principle that pleasure flows; and a beautiful poem or oration means, in common language, no other than a good one, or one well composed. In this sense, it is plain, the word is al

together indefinite, and points at no particular species or kind of beauty. There is, however, another sense, somewhat more definite, in which beauty of writing characterizes a particular manner; when it is used to signify a certain grace and amenity in the turn either of style or sentiment for which some authors have been peculiarly distinguished. In this sense, it denotes a manner neither remarkably sublime, nor vehemently passionate, nor uncommonly sparkling; but such as raises in the reader an emotion of the gentle, placid kind, similar to what is raised by the contemplation of beautiful objects in nature; which neither lifts the mind very high, nor agitates it very much, but diffuses over the imagination an agreeable and pleasing serenity. Mr. Addison is a writer altogether of this character; and is one of the most proper and precise examples that can be given of it. Fenelon, the author of the Adventures of Telemachus, may be given as another example. Virgil too, though very capable of rising on occasions into the sublime, yet, in his general manner, is distinguished by the character of beauty and grace, rather than of sublimity. Among orators, Cicero has more of the beautiful than Demosthenes, whose genius led him wholly towards vehemence and strength.

This much it is sufficient to have said upon the subject of beauty. We have traced it through a variety of forms; as next to sublimity, it is the most copious source of the pleasures of taste; and as the consideration of the different appearances, and principles of beauty, tends to the improvement of taste in many subjects.

But it is not only by appearing under the forms of sublime or beautiful, that objects delight the imagination. From several other principles also, they derive their power of giving it pleasure.

Novelty, for instance, has been mentioned by Mr. Addison, and by every writer on this subject. An object which has no merit to recommend it, except its being uncommon or new, by means of this quality alone, produces in the mind a vivid and an agreeable emotion. Hence that passion of curiosity, which prevails so generally among mankind. Objects and ideas which have been long familiar, make too faint an impression to give an agreeable exercise to our faculties. New and strange objects rouse the mind from its dormant state by giving it a quick and pleasing impulse. Hence, in a great measure, the entertainment afforded us by fiction and romance. The emotion raised by novelty is of a more lively and pungent nature, than that produced by beauty; but much shorter in its continuance. For if the object have in itself no charms to hold our attention, the shining gloss thrown upon it by novelty soon wears off.

Besides novelty, imitation is another source of pleasure to taste. This gives rise to what Mr. Addison terms, the secondary pleasures of imagination; which form, doubtless, a very extensive class. For all imitation affords some pleasure; not only the imitation of beautiful or great objects, by recalling the original ideas of beauty or grandeur which such objects themselves exhibited; but even objects which have neither beauty nor grandeur, nay, some which are terrible or deformed, please us in a secondary or represented view.

The pleasures of melody and harmony belong also to taste: there is no agreeable sensation we receive either from beauty or sublimity, but what is capable of being heightened by the power of musical sound. Hence the delight of poetical numbers, and even of the more concealed and looser measures of prose. Wit, humour, and ridicule, likewise open a variety of pleasures of taste, quite distinct from any that we have yet considered.

At present it is not necessary to pursue any farther the subject of the pleasures of taste. I have opened some of the general principles; it is time now to make the application to our chief subject. If the question be put, to what class of those pleasures of taste which I have enumerated, that pleasure is to be referred which we receive from poetry, eloquence, or fine writing? My answer is, not to any one, but to them all. This singular advantage, writing and discourse possess, that they encompass so large and rich a field on all sides, and have power to exhibit, in great perfection, not a single set of objects only, but almost the whole of those which give pleasure to taste and imagination; whether that pleasure arise from sublimity, from beauty in its different forms, from design, and art, from moral sentiment, from novelty, from harmony, from wit, humour, and ridicule. To whichsoever of these the peculiar bent of a person's taste lies, from some writer or other, he has it always in his power to receive the gratification of it.

Now this high power which eloquence and poetry possess, of sup-. plying taste and imagination with such a wide circle of pleasures. they derive altogether from their having a greater capacity of imitation and description than is possessed by any other art. Of all the means which human ingenuity has contrived for recalling the images of real objects, and awakening, by representation, similar emotions to those which are raised by the original, none is so full and extensive as that which is executed by words and writing. Through the assistance of this happy invention, there is nothing, either in the natural or moral world, but what can be represented and set before the mind, in colours very strong and lively. Hence it is usual among critical writers, to speak of discourse as the chief of all the imitative or mimetic arts; they compare it with painting and with sculpture, and in many respects prefer it justly before them.

This style was first introduced by Aristotle in his poetics; and, since his time, has acquired a general currency among modern authors. But as it is of consequence to introduce as much precision as possible into critical language, I must observe, that this manner of speaking is not accurate. Neither discourse in general, nor poetry in particular, can be called altogether imitative arts. We must distinguish betwixt imitation and description, which are ideas that should not be confounded. Imitation is performed by means of somewhat that has a natural likeness and resemblance to the thing imitated, and of consequence is understood by all: such are statues and pictures. Description, again, is the raising in the mind the conception of an object by means of some arbitrary or instituted symbols, understood only by those who agree in the institution of

them; such are words and writing. Words have no natural resemblance to the ideas or objects which they are employed to signify; but a statue or a picture has a natural likeness to the original. And therefore imitation and description differ considerably in their nature from each other.

As far, indeed, as the poet introduces into his work persons actually speaking; and, by the words which he puts into their mouths, represents the discourse which they might be supposed to hold; so far his art may more accurately be called imitative; and this is the case in all dramatic composition. But, in narrative or descriptive works, it can with no propriety be called so. Who, for instance, would call Virgil's description of a tempest, in the first Eneid, an imitation of a storm? If we heard of the imitation of a battle, we might naturally think of some mock fight, or representation of a battle on the stage, but would never apprehend, that it meant one of Homer's descriptions in the Iliad. I admit, at the same time, that imitation and description agree in their principal effect, of recalling, by external signs, the ideas of things which we do not see. But though in this they coincide, yet it should not be forgotten, that the terms themselves are not synonymous; that they import different means of effecting the same end; and of course make different impressions on the mind.*

Whether we consider poetry in particular, and discourse in general, as imitative or descriptive; it is evident that their whole power, in recalling the impressions of real objects, is derived from the significancy of words. As their excellency flows altogether from this source, we must, in order to make way for further inquiries,

Though in the execution of particular parts, poetry is certainly descriptive rather than imitative, yet there is a qualified sense in which poetry, in the general, may be termed an imitative art. The subject of the poet (as Dr. Gerard has shown in the appendix to his Essay on Taste) is intended to be an imitation, not of things really existing, but of the course of nature: that is, a feigned representation of such events, or such scenes, as though they never had a being, yet might have existed; and which, therefore, by their probability, bear a resemblance to nature. It was probably in this sense, that Aristotle termed poetry a mimetic art. How far either the imitation or the description which poetry employs, is superior to the imitative powers of paint ing and music, is well shown by Mr. Harris, in his treatise on music, painting, and poetry. The chief advantage which poetry, or discourse in general, enjoys, is, that whereas, by the nature of his art, the painter is confined to the representation of a single moment, writing and discourse can trace a transaction through its whole progress. That moment, indeed, which the painter pitches upon for the subject of his picture, he may be said to exhibit with more advantage than the poet or orator; inasmuch as he sets before us, in one view, all the minute concurring circumstances of the event which happens in one individual point of time, as they appear in nature while discourse is obliged to exhibit them in succession, and by means of a detail which is in danger of becoming tedious, in order to be clear; or, if not tedious, is in danger of being obscure. But to that point of time which he has chosen, the painter being entirely confined, he cannot exhibit various stages of the same action or event; and he is subject to this farther defect, that he can only exhibit objects as they appear to the eye, and can very imperfectly delineate characters and sentiments, which are the noblest subjects of imitation or description. The power of representing these with full advantage, gives a high superiority to discourse and writing, above all other imitative arts.

begin at this fountain-head. I shall, therefore, in the next lecture, enter upon the consideration of language of the origin, the progress, and construction of which, I purpose to treat at some length.

QUESTIONS.

WHY was it necessary to treat of with what have these always a great sublimity at some length? Why will connexion? Of the course pursued by it not be necessary to discuss, so parti- nature, what is clear? Of cabinets, cularly, all the other pleasures that doors, and windows, what is observed; arise from taste? Why are several ob- and why do they please? Of a straight servations made on beauty? Beauty, canal, of cones and pyramids, and of next to sublimity, affording the highest the apartments of a house, what is pleasure to the imagination, what is said? What has Mr. Hogarth, in his the nature of the emotion which it Analysis of Beauty, observed? Upon raises? To how great a variety of ob- what two lines does he pitch; and jects does it extend; and hence what what does he call them? In what is the follows? To what is it applied; and of line of beauty found; and in what, the what do we currently talk? Hence, line of grace? How does he define the what may we easily perceive? By art of drawing pleasing forms; and what means do objects, denominated why? What furnishes another source beautiful, please? Why has the of beauty; and what is said of it? agreeable emotion which they all What motion only belongs to the beauraise, the common name of beauty tiful; and why? How is this illustragiven to it? For assigning what, have ted? Here, what is it proper to obhypotheses been framed? What has serve? How is this observation illusbeen insisted on, as the fundamental trated from a young tree, and an anquality of beauty? When does this cient oak; and from the morning and principle apply; and when does it not? evening? In the beauty of motion, Why does not this principle hold in ex-what, in general, will be found to hold ternal figured objects? Laying sys- true? What may be instanced as an tems of this kind, therefore, aside, what object singularly agreeable? Of the is proposed? What affords the simplest common and necessary motions for the instance of beauty? Here, what can- business of life, and of the graceful and not be assigned as the fundamental ornamental movements, what does Mr. quality of beauty? To what only can Hogarth very ingeniously observe? Of we refer it; and what do we accord- the union of colour, figure, and motion, ingly see? What, is it probable, in in many beautiful objects, what is obsome cases, has some influence; and served; and how is this illustrated? what examples are given? Indepen- Of the sensation produced by each of dent of associations of this kind, what is these, what is said; and why? In all that can be farther observed con- what, perhaps, is the most complete cerning colours? What instances are assemblage of beautiful objects presentmentioned? Of these, what is said? ed? How may this be rendered the From colour, to what do we proceed; highest source of that gay, cheerful, and of its beauty, what is observed? and placid sensation, that characterizes In it, what first occurs to be noticed as beauty? What is a necessary requisite a source of beauty; and by it what is for all who attempt poetical description? meant? What examples are given? Of the beauty of the human counteWhat must we not, however, conclude? nance, what is remarked; and what On the contrary, what is a more pow-does it include? But on what does its erful principle of beauty; and where is it chief beauty depend? What belongs studied? Why is our author inclined to not to us now to inquire; and what is think regularity appears beautiful; and certain?