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properly to Schlegel himself, than to Mr. Hazlett; for he acknowledges, in his preface, that "some little jealousy of the national understanding was not without its share in producing the undertaking." "We were piqued" (he says) "that it should be reserved for a Foreigner to give reasons for the faith which we, English, have in Shakspeare; certainly, no writer among ourselves, has shewn such enthusiastic admiration of his genius, or the same philosophical acuteness in pointing out his characteristic excellencies." Such is the critic, with whose theory, on the source of Tragio Pleasure, I shall commence the following inquiry. After examining what he has written on the subject, and the various hypotheses which he quotes and rejects, I shall offer some observations on the theories which have been adopted by other writers. My own theory shall follow, in which I shall examine those of Du Bos, Fontenelle, and Hume.

Philosophical Inquiry into the Source of the Pleasures derived from Tragic Representations, by M. McDermot.

REMARKS ON POETRY

AS COMPARED WITH PAINTING AND SCULPTURE.

THE received opinion, that every well-described poem must also furnish a good subject for the artist in painting or sculpture, and that the representation of the two latter is the absolute criterion of the poet's merits, so far at least as the artist is able to follow the

poet in all the features of the poem, requires some limitation, even when the sphere of both is considered à priori. For poetry must be considered to possess a much wider sphere than the fine arts, in the unlimited region of the fancy, and the immateriality of her figures, which may coexist in the greatest number and variety, without one covering, or injuring the other: whereas, in the representation of the things themselves, or of their natural symbols, by the artist, it is confined within the limits of time and space. However, though the sphere of the fine arts cannot comprehend the greater one of poetry, yet it must be acknowledged that the former is always contained in the latter; that, though it cannot be said that every subject on which the poet descants will produce the same good effect, when represented on canvas, or in marble, yet every pleasing representation from the artist must produce the same effect when described by the poet. For what we find beautiful in works of art does not prove to be so by its effect on the eye alone, but by its influence on our imagination through the medium of the senses; if, therefore, the same image could be raised in our minds by the arbitrary symbols of language, as its representation by the painter or sculptor, it would produce a similar effect on our imagination.

The identity of Poetry and Painting.

Poetry and painting alike present to our minds absent objects as present-representing appearances as realities; both effect an illusion, and the illusions of both please. The pleasing nature of both has its origin in the same source, in the form of beauty.

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That conception of beauty which is formed in our imagination through the process of the mind in abstracting the variety of forms from material objects, is subject to general rules, and may be applied to actions, thoughts, and forms. But, notwithstanding this essential identity, it could not be said with correctness, that painting is but mute poetry, or that the latter is a loud expression of the former; and it was justly observed, even by the ancient critics, that though the works of both produce a similar effect on our fancy, yet they are dissimilar both in their productions, and in their manner of imitating nature.

The limited nature of Painting and Sculpture
compared with Poetry.

The boundaries which the ancients have fixed to the productions of art, are:-1. Beautiful objects, so as to exclude from its efforts the mere pleasure to be produced by a true imitation only, when the object represented is not pleasing on account of the beauty of its form. To this strict rule the Greek artists particularly adhered. They, moreover, condemned every effort to represent a likeness by exaggerating the ugly parts of the original; in other words, they condemned caricature. To represent beauty in all its forms was the chief rule of the Greek artists, with but few exceptions. The general characteristic in the painting and sculpture of the Greeks is, according to Mr. Winkelman, a graceful naïveté and a solemn grandeur, both in the attitude and expression of the objects represented. As the depth of the sea remains continually calm amidst the rage which reigns on its surface, in the

same manner does the expression in the statues of the Greeks, under the dominion of the passions, exhibit a great and steady soul.

2. The distinguishing boundaries of art, in comparison with poetry, were, with the Greeks in particular, -never to represent the extreme expression of the various passions, but always to confine their imitations of them to some degrees lower, and to leave it to the imagination of the beholder to guess at the rest. Those degrees of the various passions which manifest themselves by an awkward distortion of the face, and which cause the whole body to assume such a posture, that the beautiful lines, by which the human figure is circumscribed, are lost, were either not respresented at all, or, at least, some fainter exhibition of the same passions were fixed upon by the Greek painter or sculptor. Rage and Despair are never represented in their masterpieces; and it may be said, that they never depicted a Fury. They lowered indignation to mere earnestness. According to their poets, it is indignant Jupiter who slings the lightning, but their artists represent him as merely grave. Lamentation was turned into sorrow by these artists, and where this softening could not be effected, as in the picture of Timanthes, representing the sacrificing of Iphigenia, in which sorrow, in all its various degrees, is depicted in the faces of the byestanders, the countenance of the father, which must have expressed the highest degree of it, is, as has been well remarked, veiled, in order to hide the distorted face of Agamemnon, which must otherwise have been so respresented. In a word, this covering of the father's face, far from considering it,

as some have supposed it, a prudent step of the painter not to strive to represent the sorrow of a father on such an occasion, which must be above all representation, should be rather considered as a sacrifice on his part to the forms of beauty, in only depicting that in which beauty as well as dignity could be maintained; but that which he could not, in compliance with the rules of beauty, represent, he left to the imagination to guess.

However, modern artists have enlarged the aforesaid limits in their representations, and extended their efforts at imitation to all visible objects in nature, of which those which are beautiful, form but a small part; and have conceived that as nature itself generally sacrifices beauty to higher purposes, in like manner must the artist allow beauty of form to yield to expression and truth: and never follow beauty farther, but rest satisfied that in realizing the latter, he has made a deformed object of nature, a handsome one of art. But even allowing these ideas to remain undisputed, still the artist must, in some measure, be restricted in representing the expressions of the mind, and never fix upon the highest degree of expression in any human action. The reason for this is as obvious as it is indisputable; for as the artist can imitate nature, which is ever changing, in one of her single moments only, and even that single moment can be represented by the painter only from one point of view; therefore, if both the sculptor and the painter wish their performances to be perceived not only at one time, but to be repeatedly contemplated, and to be reflected upon for a long interval of time, it must

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