ty, on the contrary, in the grand outlines sketched by her hand, appears perfectly suited to that infinity which is associated, in our conceptions, with all her operations; while it enhances, to an astonishing degree, the delight arising from the regularity which, in her minuter details, she every where scatters in such inexhaustible profusion.

It is, indeed, by very slow degrees, that this taste for natural beauty is formed; the first impulse of youth prompting it (as I before hinted) to subject nature to rules borrowed from the arts of human life. When such a taste, however, is at length acquired, the former not only appears false, but ludicrous; and perishes of itself, without any danger of again reviving.-The associations, on the other hand, by which the love of nature is strengthened, having their root in far higher and nobler principles of the mind than those attached to the puerile judgments which they gradually supplant, are invariably confirmed more and more, in proportion to the advancement of reason, and the enlargement of experience.

The traces of art, which formerly lent an additional charm to the natural beauties which it was employed to heighten, become now themselves offensive, wherever they appear; and even when it has been successfully exerted in supplying defects and correcting blemishes, the effect is destroyed, in proportion as its interposition is visible. The last stage of taste, therefore, in the progress of its improvement, leads to the admiration of what Martial calls-Rus verum et barbarum ;

"Where, if Art

E'er dar'd to tread, 'twas with unsandal'd foot,
Printless, as if the place were holy ground."

To analyse the different ingredients of the Beauty which scenery of this kind presents to an eye qualified to enjoy it, is a task which I do not mean to attempt; perhaps a task to which the faculties of man are not completely adequate. Not that this furnishes any objection to the inquiry, or diminishes the value of such approximations to the truth, as we are able to establish on a solid induction. But I confess it appears to me, that few of our best writers on the subject have been

sufficiently aware of its difficulty; and that they have all shown a disposition to bestow upon observations, collected from particular classes of facts, (and perhaps accurately and happily collected from these) a universality of application little suited to the multiplicity and variety of the phenomena which they profess to explain.* That this remark is not hazarded rashly, will, if I do not deceive myself, appear sufficiently from the critical strictures on some of Mr. Burke's principles which I find it necessary to introduce here, in order to obviate certain objections which are likely to occur to his followers, against the general scope of the foregoing doctrines. The digression may appear long to some of my readers; but I could not hope to engage any attention to the sequel of these discussions, till I had first endeavoured to remove the chief stumbling-blocks, which a theory, recommended by so illustrious a name, has thrown in my way. In the animadversions, besides, which I have to offer on Mr. Burke, I flatter myself I shall have an opportunity of unfolding my own ideas more clearly and fully than I could have done by stating them at once in a connected and didactic form.

* See Note (S.)

CHAPTER THIRD.

REMARKS ON SOME OF MR. BURKE'S PRINCIPLES WHICH DO NOT AGREE WITH THE FOREGOING CONCLUSIONS.

AMONG the various writers who have turned their attention to the Beautiful, with a design to trace the origin, and to define the nature of that idea, there is, perhaps, none who has engaged in the inquiry with views more comprehensive and just than Mr. Burke; but, even with respect to him it may be fairly questioned, if any one of the conclusions to which he has been led concerning the causes of beauty, amounts to more than a critical inference, applicable to some particular class or classes of the phenomena in question.

In examining the opinions of this author, it seems to me extremely worthy of observation, that although his good sense has resisted completely the metaphysical mysteries of the schools, he has suffered himself to be led astray by a predilection for that hypothetical physiology concerning the connexion between mind and matter, which has become so fashionable of late years. * His generalizations, too, proceed on an assumption, not indeed so unlimited as that already quoted from the Encyclopædia, but yet much more extensive than the nature of the subject will admit of:-That, in the objects of all our different external senses, there is some common quality to which the epithet Beautiful may be applied; and that this epithet, in all these different cases, conveys the same meaning. Instead, for example, of supposing (agreeably to the doctrine which I have already suggested) that the epithet in question is applied

This sort of philosophy was much in vogue, all over Europe, about the time when Mr. Burke's book first appeared ;-in consequence, perhaps, chiefly of the enthusiastic admiration every where excited by the Spirit of Laws, then recently published. The microscopical observations on the papillæ of a sheep's tongue, to which Montesquieu has there appealed in his reasonings concerning the operation of physical causes on the mind, bear a remarkable resemblance to some of the data assumed by Mr. Burke in his physiological conclusions with respect to our perception of the beautiful. Something, also, which looks like an imitation of the same great man, is observable in the extreme shortness and abruptness of the sections, which incessantly interrupt the natural flow of Mr. Burke's composition.

to colors and to forms, in consequence of their both producing their pleasing effects through the medium of the same organ, he endeavours to show, that there is an analogy between these two classes of our pleasure; or, to use his own words, that "the beauty both of shape and coloring, are as nearly related as we can well suppose it possible for things of such different natures to be." * In both cases, he asserts, that the beautiful object has a tendency to produce an agreeable relaxation in the fibres; and it is in this tendency that he conceives the essence of the Beautiful to consist. In farther illustration of this, he observes, "that smooth things are relaxing; that sweet things, which are the smooth of taste, are relaxing too; and that sweet smells, which bear a great affinity to sweet tastes, relax very remarkably." He adds, that "we often apply the quality of sweetness metaphorically to visual objects;" after which observation, he proposes, "for the better carrying on this remarkable analogy of the senses, to call sweetness the beautiful of the taste.'

In order to convey a still more adequate idea of Mr. Burke's mode of philosophizing on this subject, I shall quote a few of his remarks on the causes, "why smoothness and sweetness are beautiful." The quotation is longer than I could have wished; but I was unwilling to attempt an abridgement of it in my own words, from my anxiety that his reasoning should have all the advantages which it may derive from his peculiar felicity of expression.

"There can be no doubt, that bodies which are rough and angular, rouse and vellicate the organs of feeling; causing a sense of pain, which consists in the violent tension or contraction of the muscular fibres. On the contrary, the application of smooth bodies relax :-gentle stroking with a smooth hand allays violent pains and cramps, and relaxes the suffering parts from their unnatural tension; and it has, therefore, very often, no mean effect in removing swellings and obstructions. The sense of feeling is highly gratified with smooth

*Part III. sect. 17.

bodies. A bed smoothly laid and soft, that is, where the resistance is every way inconsiderable, is a great luxury; disposing to an universal relaxation, and inducing, beyond any thing else, that species of it called sleep.

"Nor is it only in the touch that smooth bodies cause positive pleasure by relaxation. In the smell and taste we find all things agreeable to them, and which are commonly called sweet, to be of a smooth nature,* and that they all evidently tend to relax their respective sensories. Let us first consider the taste. Since it is most easy to inquire into the properties of liquids, and since all things seem to want a fluid vehicle to make them tasted at all, I intend rather to consider the liquid than the solid parts of our food. The vehicles of all tastes are water and oil. And what determines the taste, is some salt which affects variously, according to its nature, or its manner of being combined with other things. Water and oil, simply considered, are capable of giving some pleasure to the taste. Water, when simple, is insipid, inodorous, colorless, and smooth; it is found, when not cold, to be a great resolver of spasms, and lubricator of the fibres: this power it probably owes to its smoothness. For, as fluidity depends, according to the most general opinion, on the roundness, smoothness, and weak cohesion of the component parts of any body, and, as water acts merely as a simple fluid, it follows, that the cause of its fluidity is likewise the cause of its relaxing quality; namely, the smoothness and slippery texture of its parts. The other fluid ve

servation.

* On this part of his theory, Mr. Burke has very closely followed Lucretius, whose fancy anticipated the same hypothesis, without the aid of microscopical ob"Huc accedit, uti mellis lactisque liquores, Jucundo sensu linguæ, tractentur in ore; At contrà tetra absinthî natura, ferique Centaurî fœdo pertorquent ora sapore:

Ut facilè agnoscas è lævibus, atque rotundis

Esse ea, quæ sensus jucundè tangere possunt.

At contrà, quæ amara, atque aspera, cunque videntur,

Hæc magis hamatis inter se nexa teneri ;
Proptereaque solere vias rescindere nostris
Sensibus, introituque suo perrumpere corpus.
Omnia postremo," &c.

The continuation of the passage is not less curious.

Lucret. Lib. II. v. 398.