now appealus equally ridiculous and un-consequence of a sort of resemblance or ar. becoming; merely because such appendages are no longer to be seen, but upon the heads of sober and sedentary lawyers, or in the pictures of antiquated esquires. We cannot afford, however, to enlarge any farther upon these considerations, and are inelined indeed to think, that what has been already said on the subject of associations, which, though not universal, are common to whole classes of persons, will make it unnecessary to enlarge on those that are peculiar to each individual. It is almost enough, indeed, to transcribe the following short passage from Mr. Alison. -There is no man, who has not some interesting associations with particular scenes, or airs, or books; and who does not feel their beauty or sublimity enhanced to him by such connections. The view of the house where one was born, of the school where one was educated, and where the gay years of infancy were passed, is indifferent to no man. There are songs also, which we have heard in our infancy, which, when brought to our remembrance in after years, raise emotions for which we cannot well account; and which, though perhaps very indifferent in themselves, still continue from this association, and from the variety of conceptions which they kindle in our minds, to be our favourites through life. The scenes which have been distinguished by the residence of any person, whose memory we admire, produce a similar effect. Mremur enim, nescio quo pacto, locis ipsis, in quibus eorum, quos diligimus, aut admiramur adsent vestigia. The scenes themselves may be little beautiful; but the delight with which we recollect the traces of their lives, blends itself insensibly with the emotions which the scenery excites; and the admiration which these recollections afford, seems to give a kind of sanctity to the place where they dwelt, and converts every thing into beauty which appears to have been connected with them." There are similar impressions as to the sort of scenery to which we have been long sorastomed as to the style of personal beauty by which we were first enchanted-and even as to the dialect, or the form of versification which we first began to admire, that bestow a secret and adventitious charm upon all these objects, and enable us to discover in them a beauty which is invisible, because it is non-existent to every other eye. In all the cases we have hitherto considered, the external object is supposed to have acquired its beauty by being actually connected with the causes of our natural emotions, either as a constant sign of their existence, or as being casually present on the ordinary joccasions of their excitement. There is a relation, however, of another kind, to which also it is necessary to attend, both to elucidate the general grounds of the theory, and to explain several appearances that might otherwise expose it to objections. This is the relation which external objects may bear to our internal feelings, and the power they may amsequently acquire of suggesting them, in alogy which they seem to have to their natural and appropriate objects. The language of Poetry is founded, in a great degree, upon this analogy; and all language, indeed, is full of it; and attests, by its structure, both the extent to which it is spontaneously pursued, and the effects that are produced by its suggestion. We take a familiar instance from the elegant writer to whom we have already referred. "What, for instance, is the leading impression we receive from the scenery of spring? The soft and gentle green with which the earth is spread, the feeble texture of the plants and flowers, and the remains of winter yet lingering among the woods and hillsall conspire to infuse into our minds somewhat of that fearful tenderness with which infancy is usually beheld. With such a sentiment, how innumerable are the ideas which present themselves to our imagination! ideas, it is apparent, by no means confined to the scene before our eyes, or to the possible desolation which may yet await its infant beauty, but which almost involuntarily extend themselves to analogies with the life of man! and bring before us all those images of hope or fear, which, according to our peculiar situations, have the dominion of our hearts! The beauty of autumn is accompanied with a similar exercise of thought: the leaves begin then to drop from the trees; the flowers and shrubs, with which the fields were adorned in the summer months, decay; the woods and groves are silent; the sun himself seems gradually to withdraw his light, or to become enfeebled in his power. Who is there, who, at this season, does not feel his mind impressed with a sentiment of melancholy? or who is able to resist that current of thought, which, from such appearances of decay, so naturally leads him to the solemn imagination of that inevitable fate, which is to bring on alike the decay of life, of empire, and of nature itself?" A thousand such analogies, indeed, are suggested to us by the most familiar aspects of nature. The morning and the evening pre sent the same ready picture of youth and of closing life, as the various vicissitudes of the year. The withering of flowers images out to us the langour of beauty, or the sickness of childhood. The loud roar of troubled waters seems to bear some resemblance to the voice of lamentation or violence; and the softer murmur of brighter streams, to be expressive of cheerfulness and innocence. The purity and transparency of water or of air, indeed, is universally itself felt to be expressive of mental purity and gaiety; and their darkness or turbulence, of mental gloom and dejection. The genial warmth of autumn suggests to us the feeling of mild benevolence; the sunny gleams and fitful showers of early spring, remind us of the waywardness of infancy;flowers waving on their slender stems, impress us with the notion of flexibility and lightness of temper. All fine and delicate forms are typical of delicacy and gentleness 1 character; and almost all forms, bounded by waving or flowing lines, suggest ideas of easy movement, social pliability, and elegance. Rapid and impetuous motion seems to be emblematical of violence and passion; -slow and steady motion, of deliberation, dignity, and resolution;-fluttering motion, of inconstancy or terror; and waving motion, according as it is slow or swift, of sadness or playfulness. A lofty tower, or a massive building, gives us at once the idea of firmness and elevation of character; -a rock battered by the waves, of fortitude in adversity. Stillness and calmness, in the water or the air, seem to shadow out tenderness, indolence, and placidity; -moonlight we call pensive and gentle; and the unclouded sun gives us an impression of exulting vigour, and domineering ambition and glory. It is not difficult, with the assistance which language affords us, to trace the origin of all these, and a thousand other associations. In many instances, the qualities which thus suggest mental emotions, do actually resemble their constant concomitants in human nature; as is obviously the case with the forms and motions which are sublime and beautiful: and, in some, their effects and relations bear so obvious an analogy to those of human conduct or feeling, as to force itself upon the no the poet has connected with human emotions. a variety of objects, to which common minds could not discover such a relation. What the poet does for his readers, however, by his original similes and metaphors, in these higher cases, even the dullest of those readers de, in some degree, every day, for themselves: and the beauty which is perceived, when natural objects are unexpectedly vivified by the glowing fancy of the former, is precisely of the same kind that is felt when the close. ness of the analogy enables them to force human feelings upon the recollection of all mankind. As the poet sees more of beauty in nature than ordinary mortals, just because he perceives more of these analogies and relations to social emotion, in which all beauty consists; so other men see more or less of this beauty, exactly as they happen to possess that fancy, or those habits, which enable them readily to trace out these relations. From all these sources of evidence, then, we think it is pretty well made out, that the beauty or sublimity of external objects is no thing but the reflection of emotions excited by the feelings or condition of sentient beings; and is produced altogether by certain little portions, as it were, of love, joy, pity, veneration, or terror, that adhere to the ob tice of the most careless beholder. But, what-jects that were present on the occasions of ever may have been their original, the very structure of language attests the vast extent to which they have been carried, and the nature of the suggestions to which they are indebted for their interest or beauty. Since we all speak familiarly of the sparkling of witand the darkness of melancholy-can it be any way difficult to conceive that bright light may be agreeable, because it reminds us of gaiety and darkness oppressive, because it is felt to be emblematical of sorrow? It is very remarkable, indeed, that, while almost all the words by which the affections of the mind are expressed, seem to have been borrowed originally from the qualities of matter, the epithets by which we learn afterwards to distinguish such material objects as are felt to be sublime or beautiful, are all of them epithets that had been previously appropriated to express some quality or emotion of mind. Colours are thus familiarly said to be gay or grave-motions to be lively, or deliberate, or capricious-forms to be delicate or modest-sounds to be animated or mournful --prospects to be cheerful or melancholy- from objects that are felt to be beautiful, and rocks to be bold-waters to be tranquil-and that in the highest degree, do not differ at all such emotions.-Nor, after what we have already said, does it seem necessary to reply to more than one of the objections to which we are aware that this theory is liable. If beauty be nothing more than a reflection of love, pity, or veneration, how comes it, it may be asked, to be distinguished from these sen timents? They are never confounded with each other, either in our feelings or our language:-Why, then, should they all be confounded under the common name of beauty? and why should beauty, in all cases, affect us in a way so different from the love or compassion of which it is said to be merely the reflection? a thousand other phrases of the same import; all indicating, most unequivocally, the sources from which our interest in matter is derived, and proving, that it is necessary, in all cases, to confer mind and feeling upon it, before it can be conceived as either sublime or beautiful. The great charm, indeed, and the great secret of poetical diction, consists in thus lending life and emotion to all the objects it embraces; and the enchanting beauty which we sometimes recognise in descriptions of very ordinaty phenomena, will be found to arise from the force of imagination, by which Now, to these questions, we are somewhat tempted to answer, after the manner of our country, by asking, in our turn, whether it be really true, that beauty always affects us in one and the same manner, and always in a different manner from the simple and ele. mentary affections which it is its office to recal to us? In very many cases, it appear to us, that the sensations which we receive from the direct movements of tenderness or pity towards sentient beings. If the epithet of beauty be correctly (as it is universally) applied to many of the most admired and enr chanting passages in poetry, which consist entirely in the expression of affecting sentiments, the question would be speedily de. cided; and it is a fact, at all events, too remarkable to be omitted, that some of the most powerful and de delightful emotions that are uniformly classed under this name, arise altogether from the direct influence of such pathetic emotions, without the intervention 1 1 of ary material imagery. We not wish, suggests or recals to us the ordinary causes however, to dwell upon an argument, which certainly is not applicable to all parts of the question; and, admitting that, on many occasions, the feelings which we experience from beauty, are sensibly different from the primary emotions in which we think they eriginate, we shall endeavour in a very few words, to give an explanation of this difference, which seems to be perfectly consistent with the theory we have undertaken to illustrate. are In the first place, it should make some difference on the primary affections to which we have alluded, that, in the cases alluded to, they reflected from material objects, and not directly excited by their natural causes. The light of the moon has a very different complexion from that of the sun;-though it im substance the sun's light: and glimpses of interesting, or even of familiar objects, caught unexpectedly from a mirror placed at a distance from these objects, will affect us, Uke sudden allusions in poetry, very differenily from the natural perception of those objects in their ordinary relations. In the next place, the emotion, when suggested in the hape of beauty, comes upon us, for the most part, disencumbered of all those accompaniments which frequently give it a peculiar and less satisfactory character, when it arises from direct intercourse with its living objects. The compassion, for example, that is suggested by beauty of a gentle and winning description, is or proper objects of these emotions, it is evident that our fancy is kindled by a sudden flash of recollection; and that the effect is produced by means of a certain poetical creation that is instantly conjured up in the mind. It is this active and heated state of the imagination, and this divided and busy occupation of the mind, that constitute the great peculiarity of the emotions we experience from the perception of beauty. Finally, and this is perhaps the most important consideration of the whole, it should be recollected, that, along with the shadow or suggestion of associated emotions, there is always present a real and direct perception, which not only gives a force and liveliness to all the images which it suggests, but seems to impart to them some share of its own reality. That there is an illusion of this kind in the case, is sufficiently demonstrated by the fact, that we invariably ascribe the interest, which we think has been proved to arise wholly from these associations, to the object itself, as one of its actual and inherent qualities; and consider its beauty as no less a property belonging to it, than any of its physical attributes. The associated interest, therefore, is beyond all doubt confounded with the present perception of the object itself; and a livelier and more instant impression is accordingly made upon the mind, than if the interesting conceptions had been merely excited in the memory by the usual operation of re 20t attended with any of that disgust and un-flection or voluntary meditation. Something easiness which frequently accompany the analogous to this is familiarly known to occur spectacle of real distress; nor with that im- in other cases. When we merely think of an portunate suggestion of the duty of relieving absent friend, our emotions are incomparably it. from which it is almost inseparable. Nor less lively than when the recollection of him does the temporary delight which we receive is suddenly suggested by the unexpected from beauty of a gay and animating character. call upon us for any such expenditure of spirits, or active demonstrations of sympathy, as an sometimes demanded by the turbulence of real joy. In the third place, the emotion of beauty, being partly founded upon illusion, is far more transitory in its own nature, and is both more apt to fluctuate and vary in its character, and more capable of being dismissed at pleasure, than any of the pimary affections, whose shadow and representative it is. In the fourth place, the perception of beauty implies a certain exercise of the imagination that is not required in the case of direct emotion, and is sufficient, of itself, both to give a new character to every emotion that is suggested by the intervention of such an exercise, and to account for our classing all the various emotions that are so suggested under the same denomination of beauty. When we are injured, we feel indignation-when we are wounded, we feel pam-when we see suffering, we feel compesion and when we witness any splendid act of heroism or generosity, we feel admirafion-without any effort of the imagination, or the intervention of any picture or vision in sight of his picture, of the house where he dwelt, or the spot on which we last parted from him and all these objects seem for the moment to wear the colours of our own associated affections. When Captain Cook's companions found, in the remotest corner of the habitable globe, a broken spoon with the word London stamped upon it-and burst into tears at the sight! they proved how differently we may be moved by emotions thus connected with the real presence of an actual perception, than by the mere recollection of the objects on which those emotions depend. Every one of them had probably thought of London every day since he left it; and many of them might have been talking of it with tranquillity, but a moment before this more effectual appeal was made to their sensibility. If we add to all this, that there is necessa rily something of vagueness and variableness ( in the emotions most generally excited by the perception of beauty, and that the mind wanders with the eye, over the different objects which may supply these emotions, with a degree of unsteadiness, and half voluntary half involuntary fluctuation, we may come to understand how the effect not only should be the mind. But when we feel indignation or essentially different from that of the simple pity, or admiration, in consequence of seeing presentinent of any one interesting concep me piece of inanimate matter that merely tion, but should acquire a peculiarity which entitles it to a different denomination. Most human comfort, ingenuity, and fortune All of the associations of which we have been last these, indeed, obviously resolve themselves speaking, as being founded on the analogies into the great object of sympathy-human or fanciful resemblances that are felt to exist between physical objects and qualities, and the interesting affections of mind, are intrinsically of this vague and wavering description-and when we look at a fine landscape, or any other scene of complicated beauty, a great variety of such images are suddenly presented to the fancy, and as suddenly succeeded by others, as the eye ranges over the different features of which it is composed, and feeds upon the charms which it discloses. Now, the direct perception, in all such cases, not only perpetually accompanies the associated emotions, but is inextricably confounded with them in our feelings, and is even recognised upon reflection as the cause, not merely of their unusual strength, but of the several peculiarities by which we have shown that they are distinguished. It is not enjoyment. Convenience and comfort is but another name for a lower, but very indispensable ingredient of that emotion. Skill and ingenuity readily present themselves as means by which enjoyment may be promoted; and high fortune, and opulence, and splendour, pass, at least at a distance, for its certain causes and attendants. The beauty of fitness and adaptation of parts, even in the works of nature, is derived from the same fountainpartly by means of its obvious analogy to works of human skill, and partly by suggestions of that Creative power and wisdom, to which all human destiny is subjected. The feelings, therefore, associated with all those qualities, though scarcely rising to the height of emotion, are obviously in a certain degree pleasing or interesting; and when several of them happen to be united in one object, may wonderful, therefore, either that emotions so accumulate to a very great degree of beauty. circumstanced should not be classed along It is needless, we think, to pursue these gene with similar affections, excited under different circumstances, or that the perception of present existence, thus mixed up, and indissolubly confounded with interesting conceptions, should between them produce a sensation of so distinct a nature as naturally to be distinguished by a peculiar name or that the beauty which results from this combination should, in ordinary language, be ascribed to the objects themselves the presence and perception of which is a necessary condition of its existence. ral propositions through all the details to which they so obviously lead. We shall confine ourselves, therefore, to a very few remarks upon the beauty of architecture-and chiefly as an illustration of our general position. There are few things, about which men of virtu are more apt to rave, than the merits of the Grecian architecture; and most of those who affect an uncommon purity and delicacy of taste, talk of the intrinsic beauty of its proportions as a thing not to be disputed, except by barbarian ignorance and stupidity. Mr. Alison, we think, was the first who gave a full and convincing refutation of this mysterious dogma; and, while he admits, in the most ample terms, the actual beauty of the objects in question, has shown, we think, in the clearest manner, that it arises entirely from the combination of the following associations:-1st, The association of utility, convenience, or fitness for the purposes of the building; 2d, Of security and stability, with a view to the nature of the materials; 3d, Of the skill and power requisite to mould such materials into forms so commodious; 4th, Of magnificence, and splendour, and expense; 5th, Of antiquity; and, 6thly, Of Roman and Grecian greatness. His observations are summed up in the following short sentence. What we have now said is enough, we believe, to give an attentive reader that general conception of the theory before us, which is all that we can hope to give in the narrow limits to which we are confined. It may be observed, however, that we have spoken only of those sorts of beauty which we think capable of being resolved into some passion, or emotion, or pretty lively sentiment of our nature; and though these are undoubtedly the highest and most decided kinds of beauty, it is certain that there are many things called beautiful which cannot claim so lofty a connection. It is necessary, therefore, to observe, that, though every thing that excites any feeling worthy to be called an emotion, by its beauty or sublimity, will be found to be related to the natural objects of human passions "The proportions," he observes, "of these or affections, there are many things which are orders, it is to be remembered, are distinct pleasing or agreeable enough to be called subjects of beauty, from the ornaments with beautiful, in consequence of their relation which they are embellished, from the magnimerely to human convenience and comfort; - ficence with which they are executed, from many others that please by suggesting ideas the purposes of elegance they are intended to of human skill and ingenuity; and many serve, or the scenes of grandeur they are desthat obtain the name of beautiful, by being tined to adorn. It is in such scenes, however, associated with human fortune, vanity, or and with such additions, that we are accus. splendour. After what has been already said, tomed to observe them; and, while we feel it will not be necessary either to exemplify or the effect of all these accidental associations, explain these subordinate phenomena. It is we are seldom willing to examine what are enough merely to suggest, that they all please the causes of the complex emotion we feel, upon the same great principle of sympathy with and readily attribute to the nature of the arhuman feelings; and are explained by the chitecture itself, the whole pleasure which simple and indisputable fact, that enjoy. But, besides these, there are other pleased with the direct contemplation of associations we have with these forms, tha' we are we till more powerfully serve to command our admmation; for they are the GRECIAN orders; they derive their origin from those times, and were the ornament of those countries which are most hallowed in our imaginations; and it is difficult for us to see them, even in their modem copies, without feeling them operate upon our minds as relics of those polished nations where they first arose, and of that greater people by whom they were afterwards borrowed." This analysis is to us perfectly satisfactory. But, indeed, we cannot conceive any more complete refutation of the notion of an intrinsic and inherent beauty in the proportions of the Grecian architecture, than the fact of the admitted beauty of such very opposite proportions in the Gothic. Opposite as they are, however, the great elements of beauty are the same in this style as in the otherthe impressions of religious awe and of chivalrous recollections, coming here in place of the classical associations which constitute so great a share of the interest of the former. It is well observed too by Mr. Alison, that the great durability and costliness of the producLons of this art, have had the effect, in almost ali regions of the world, of rendering their Fashion permanent, after it had once attained such a degree of perfection as to fulfil its substantial purposes. "Buildings," he observes, "may last, and are intended to last for centuries. The life of man is very inadequate to the duration of much productions; and the present period of the world, though old with respect to those arts which are employed upon perishable subjects, is yet young in relation to an art, which is employed upon so durable materials as those of architecture. Instead of a few years, therefore, centuries must probably pass before such productions demand to be renewed; and, long before that period is elapsed, the sacredness of antiquity is acquired by the sabject itself, and a new motive given for the preservation of similar forms. In every country, accordingly, the same effect has taken place: and the same causes which have thus served to produce among us, for so many years, an uniformity of taste with regard to the style of Grecian architecture, have produced also among the nations of the East, for a much longer course of time, a similar uniformity of taste with regard to their ornamental style of architecture; and have perpetuated among them the same forms which were in use among their forefathers, before the Grecian orders were invented." It is not necessary, we think, to carry these 'llustrations any farther: as the theory they are intended to explain, is now, we believe, universally adopted, though with some limitations, which we see no reason to retain. Those suggested by Mr. Alison, we have already endeavoured to dispose of in the few remarks we have made upon his publication; and it only remains to say a word or two more upon Mr. Knight's doctrine as to the primitive and independent beauty of colours, upon which we have aiready hazarded some remarks. Agreeing as he does with Mr. Alison, and all modern inquirers, that the whole beauty of objects consists, in the far greater number of instances, in the associations to which we have alluded, he still maintains, that some few visible objects affect us with a sense of beauty in consequence of the pleasurable impression they make upon the sense-and that our perception of beauty is, in these instances, a mere organic sensation. Now, we have already stated, that it would be something quite unexampled in the history either of mind or of language, if certain physical and bodily sensations should thus be confounded with moral and social feelings with which they had no connection, and pass familiarly under one and the same name. Beauty consists confessedly, in almost all cases, in the suggestion of moral or social emotions, mixed up and modified by a present sensation or perception; and it is this suggestion, and this identification with a present object, that constitutes its essence, and gives a common character to the whole class of feelings it produces, sufficient to justify their being designated by a common appellation. If the word beauty, in short, must mean something, and if this be very clearly what it means, in all the remarkable instances of its occurrence, it is difficult to conceive, that it should occasionally mean something quite different, and denote a mere sensual or physical gratification, unaccompanied by the suggestion of any moral emotion whatever. According to Mr. Knight, however, and, indeed, to many other writers, this is the case with regard to the beauty of colours; which depends altogether, they say, upon the delight which the eye naturally takes in their contemplation-this delight being just as primitive and sensual as that which the palate receives from the contact of agreeable flavours. It must be admitted, we think, in the first place, that such an allegation is in itself extremely improbable, and contrary to all analogy, and all experience of the structure of language, or of the laws of thought. It is farther to be considered, too, that if the pleasures of the senses are ever to be considered as beautiful, those pleasures which are the most lively and important would be the most likely to usurp this denomination, and to take rank with the higher gratifications that result from the perception of beauty. Now, it admits of no dispute, that the mere organic pleasures of the eye (if indeed they have any existence) are far inferior to those of the palate, the touch, and indeed almost all the other senses-none of which, however, are in any case confounded with the sense of beauty. In the next place, it should follow, that if what affords organic pleasure to the eye be properly called beautiful, what offends gives pain to it, should be called ugly. Now, excessive or dazzling light is offensive to the eye-but, considered by itself, it is never called ugly, but only painful or disagreeable. The moderate excitement of light, on the other hand, or the soothing of certain brigat but temperate colours, when considered in or |