ground of its not being picturesque, would it not have been more agreeable to common language, to have objected to it on the ground of its not being beautiful? For my own part, I am inclined to admit asperity, sharp angles, and irregularity (when introduced in their proper places), among the constituents of Beauty, as well as their opposites; and I would study the art of combining them happily, not in the arbitrary definitions of theorists, but in the great volume of Nature herself. The conjectures of various modern writers concerning the principles upon which different forms produce their effects, and the conclusions of some of them (particularly of Hogarth) with respect to the waving line, do great honour to their ingenuity, and may probably admit, in some of the arts, of very useful practical applications; but philosophical distinctness, as well as universal practice, requires that the meaning of the word Beauty, instead of being restricted in conformity to any partial system whatever, should continue to be the generic word for expressing every quality which, in the works either of Nature or of Art, contributes to render them agreeable to the eye. I would not therefore restrict, even to Hogarth's line, the appellation of the line of beauty, if that phrase be understood to imply anything more than that this line seems, from an examination of many of Nature's most pleasing productions, to be one of her favourite forms.

Before dismissing the theories of Hogarth and Burke, I think it proper again to remind my readers, that I do not dispute their practical value in

some of the fine arts. I only object to such systems when they profess to embrace all the principles on which the complicated charms of Nature depend; or when, without any reference to a particular design, they are converted into universal maxims, arising out of the very definition of Beauty; and to which, of consequence, artists may conceive it to be incumbent on them to adhere, in order to insure success. In works which are merely ornamental, they are much more likely to hold, than when some further end is proposed; for, in cases of the latter sort, the pleasing or disagreeable effects connected with material forms, considered abstractly, are so easily overpowered by the more weighty considerations suggested by views of fitness and utility, that the maxims adapted to one art will seldom be found of much use when applied to another: the maxims, for example, of architecture, when applied to landscape-gardening; or those of landscape-gardening, when applied to architecture.

The beauty of a winding approach to a house, when the easy deviations from the straight line are all accounted for by the shape of the ground, or by the position of trees, is universally acknowledged; but what more ridiculous than a road meandering through a plain, perfectly level and open? In this last case, I am inclined to refer the disagreeable effect to the principle of the sufficient reason already mentioned. The slightest apology for a sweep satisfies the taste at once. It is enough that the designer has the appearance of humouring Nature,

U

and not of indulging his own caprice. The pleasing effect of the irregular tracks worn out upon the surface of broken ground, by the frequent footsteps of shepherds, or of their flocks, will be found, on examination, to turn on the very same principle.

How much our feelings, in such cases, are influenced by considerations of fitness or utility, appears from the different judgments we pronounce on the beauty of the same line, according to the purpose for which we conceive it to be destined. In judging of an approach to a house, we have always a secret reference to the form and mechanism of our common wheel-carriages.

It does not follow from these remarks, that there is no beauty in the serpentine line; but only that, in things destined for any useful purpose, its pleasing effect may be destroyed by the most trivial circum

stances.

ones.

I recollect the period when serpentine ridges, in ploughed land, were pretty generally considered in Scotland as beautiful; and if they were equally consistent with good husbandry, I have no doubt that they would be more pleasing to the eye than straight The association, however, which is now universally established between the former, and the ideas of carelessness, sloth, and poverty ;-between the latter and the ideas of industry, skill, and prosperity, has completely altered our notions concerning both. Mr Burke, indeed, rejects utility from his enumeration of the constituents of beauty; but I am persuaded that I speak in perfect conformity to the common feelings and common language of man

kind, when I say, that nothing is more beautiful than a highly dressed field. Such, too, I am happy to add, was the opinion of Cicero. " Agro bene "culto, nil potest esse, nec usu uberius, nec specie "ornatius."

CHAPTER FIFTH.

CONTINUATION OF THE SAME SUBJECT.

To the latitude in the use of the word Beauty, of which I have been thus attempting to vindicate the propriety, it has been objected, both by Mr Burke and Mr Price, that it has a tendency to produce a confusion of ideas, and to give rise to ill-judged applications of the term. The inconveniencies, however, of which they complain, appear to have arisen entirely from their own inattention to a very important distinction among the various elements, or ingredients, which may enter into the composition of the Beautiful. Of these elements, there are some which are themselves intrinsically pleasing, without a reference to anything else; there are others which please only in a state of combination. There are certain colours which every person would pronounce to be pleasing, when presented singly to the eye; there are others, which, without possessing any such recommendation, produce a pleasing effect when happily assorted. The beauty of the former may be said to be absolute or intrinsic; that of the latter to be only relative.