concerto which give universal pleasure, are precisely those which do excite some feeling, which express either what is gay, or the strong passions, or a pleasing melancholy. See the effects of a long piece of music at a public concert. The orchestra are breathless with attention, jumping into major and minor keys, executing figures, and fiddling with the most ecstatic precision. In the midst of all this wonderful science, the audience are gaping, lolling, talking, staring about, and half devoured with ennui. On a sudden there springs up a lively little air, expressive of some natural feeling, though in point of science not worth a halfpenny: the audience all spring up, every head nods, every foot beats time, and every heart also; an universal smile breaks out on every face; the carriage is not ordered; and every one agrees that music is the most delightful rational entertainment that the human mind can possibly enjoy. In the same manner the astonishing execution of some great singers, has in it very little of the beautiful; it is mere difficulty overcome, like ropedancing and tumbling; and such difficulties overcome (as I have before said) do not excite the feeling of the beautiful, but of the wonderful.

Independently of these causes of pleasure in music, it may be aided by innumerable associations. It may be national music; it may record some great exploit of my. countrymen, as the "Belleisle March;" it may be the "Ranz des Vaches;" and innumerable other causes may aid its effects. In very loud music, as the organ, or in the assemblage of many instruments, an immediate physical effect is produced upon the body, independent of any feeling of the mind. I have seen one or two people so nervous, that they could not hear an organ without crying; and everybody remembers the innumerable instances of fainting and weeping at the commemoration in the Abbey, merely from the effect produced upon the nerves by sound. So that, to sum up all the causes I

have alleged of the beautiful in music, we may say it proceeds from an original power in sound to create that feeling, either in its simplest state, or in those instances of its combinations which we call concords; that that feeling of beautiful may be aided by our admiration of the skill displayed in harmony, as one agreeable feeling always aids and increases another;—but that the principal cause of beauty in music, is the facility with which it is associated with feelings, from its resemblance to the tones in which feelings are expressed; and that these feelings are made specific by the ministration of poetry, from the combination of which with music, great part of the power of the latter is derived.

Passing from the beauty judged of by the ear, to that which falls under the province of sight, I cannot (as I have before said) agree with those who would consider all colours as originally equally pleasing to the eye. I admit, association can make any colour agreeable, or any disagreeable but I contend, that, antecedent to all association, the eye delights in one colour more than another; that it passes over some with indifference, and receives exquisite delight from others. Fling among some common pebbles a Bristol stone, or some bits of coloured glass; present them to a child of two years old, which will he seize upon the first? When Captain Cook first broached his cargo of beads among the savages, and bought a large hog for a couple of beads, which were not worth the decimal of a farthing, what association can it be imagined the savages had formed with the various colours which proved so alluring to their eyes? The association, philosophers would tell us, that they liked blue, because it was the colour of the sky; white, because it was the colour of the day. But why did they like faint yellow? why orange colour? why deep purple? and why would they have rejected unglazed beads, as dull as this green baize, or of a colour as insipid as that of a common stone? It seems so very

strange to me, that men should doubt any more of the gluttony of the eye, than of the gluttony of the mouth. As the palate feasts upon savoury and sweet, the ear feasts upon melody, and the eye gorges upon light and colour till it aches with pleasure.

With respect to the beauty of forms, I am much more inclined to agree that there is no original beauty of form; but that it entirely depends on association. For the superior pleasure I receive from bright and transparent colours, to that of which I am conscious of in looking at those which are dull and opaque, I can give no reason. It appears to me an original fact, that the perception of this colour should be followed by the emotion of beauty. But I cannot say the same of forms: I certainly prefer one form to another, but then I think I can always give some reason for the preference.

We must divide forms into those which are simple, and those which are compounded of many other forms; and it appears to me the following causes may be stated of that feeling of the beautiful, excited by the forms of objects.

Any form which excites the idea of smoothness, or faint resistance to the touch, is beautiful; except where such notion of smoothness is accidentally united with any unpleasing notion.

66

"On the whole," says Mr. Burke, "if such parts in "human bodies as are found proportioned, were likewise "constantly found beautiful,—as they certainly are not; "or if they were so situated, as that a pleasure might "flow from the comparison, which they seldom are; or if any assignable proportions were found, either in plants or animals, which were always attended with "beauty, which never was the case; or if, where parts were well adapted to their purposes, they were constantly beautiful, and when no use appeared, there was "no beauty, which is contrary to all experience; we might conclude that beauty consisted in proportion or

แ

66

'utility. But since, in all respects, the case is quite "otherwise, we may be satisfied that beauty does not "depend on these, let it owe its origin to what else it "will."*

The form of a solid globe of glass would be much more beautiful than if its surface were broken into inequalities, because it would be much more agreeable to the touch. Is, then, the smoothness of trees cut into a round form, more beautiful than their natural irregularity and roughness? No, certainly not; it gives an idea of restraint and injury to the tree, which is painful. Is the smoothness of a swelled face beautiful? No, it gives the idea of disease. Here are disagreeable associations connected with the appearance of smoothness; but any single object, considered by itself, is considered as more beautiful when smooth than when rough, except where (as I have said before) the roughness is the sign of a pleasant, or the smoothness of an unpleasant, quality.

The forms of regular figures are agreeable, from the relations observed between the parts. The mind takes some pleasure in noticing that one side of a square is precisely like the other; that one angle is exactly of the same magnitude as its diagonal. All forms which are regular are much more distinctly comprehended, and easily retained, than any irregular form; because the accurate observation of one or two parts often leads to the knowledge of the whole. Thus, from a side, and solid angle, we have the whole regular solid; the measure of one side gives the whole square, one radius the whole circle, two diameters an oval, one ordinate and abscissa the parabola; and so on in more complex figures, which have any regularity, they can easily be determined and known in every part from a few data: whereas it might cost a man half his life to remember

* Burke, p. 230.

the form of the first pebble he picked up in the streets, so as to reproduce it at pleasure. Is, then, that form always agreeable in single objects which is regular? Is a square nose agreeable? or a head tapering off to a cone beautiful? No; they are both monstrous. Is a square tree upon espaliers more beautiful than a tree left to itself? No; it gives you an idea of restraint and confinement. Does, then, a square house give you an idea of restraint and confinement? No, by no means; you do not expect wildness in walls, and luxuriancy in buttresses: no man is so fond of the picturesque that he raises part of his drawing-room floor into hillocks, and depresses the rest into glens and valleys: the approach from the door to the table is not by any spiral and circuitous progress, but the servant enters, and, with the most unpicturesque straightness, deposits what he has to leave, The regularity of the figures, instead of the notion of restraint, conveys the notion of comfort in the use, and of skill and economy in the building. Walls have no natural disposition to assume one form more than another: trees have.

Those forms are beautiful which are associated with agreeable ends; as strength, health, and activity. Strength, however, is a quality in animals, which may be so easily turned to our destruction, that it requires to be joined with the notion of utility, to legitimate the usage of the word beautiful. The form of a rhinoceros indicates that he is as strong as a village, yet no one calls him beautiful. The form of an ox, or a cart-horse, which indicates strength supereminently above other animals of the same sort, is called beautiful — not by him whose mind has not been impressed with a strong association between the form and the useful quality; but as breeders, and men curious in cattle, do not scruple to apply to forms indicative of useful qualities, the appellation of beauty. However, I will discuss this more at length, when I come to consider the question synthe