-a

under the shade of a tree, when introduced into a landscape, to recal the impressions and scenery of a summer noon ;—a ruined castle or abbey employed to awaken the memory of former times, accompanied with those feudal or monastic visions so dear to a romantic fancy; with numberless other instances of a similar sort, which must immediately occur to every reader.

For some reasons, which will afterwards appear, the word Picturesque, in this poetical sense, is applicable to many of the objects which are also picturesque, according to Mr Gilpin's definition; and which, at the same time, unite the most remarkable of those properties which Mr Price has pointed out, as distinguishing the Picturesque from the Beautiful. Hence these ingenious writers have been led, on several occasions, to ascribe much more effect to the mere visible appearance of such objects than really belongs to it. An example of this occurs in the stress which they have very justly laid on the form of the Ass, as peculiarly adapted to the artist's pencil; a form which they have both pronounced to be picturesque in an eminent degree.

But the Ass, it must be remembered, has, beside his appearance, strong claims, on other accounts, to the painter's attention. Few animals have so powerful an effect in awakening associated ideas and feelings; and, accordingly, it is eminently Picturesque, in the poetical sense of the word, as well as in the acceptation in which it is understood by Mr Price. Not to speak of the frequent allusions to it in Holy Writ, what interest are we led to attach to it, in our

early years, by the Fables of Æsop; by the similies of Homer; by the exploits of Don Quixote; by the pictures which it recals to us of the bye-paths in the forest, where we have so often met with it as the beast of burden, and the associate of the vagrant poor, or where we have stopped to gaze on the infant beauties which it carried in its panniers ;-in fine, by the circumstances which have called forth, in its eulogy, one of the most pleasing efforts of Buffon's eloquence,-its own quiet and inoffensive manners, and the patience with which it submits to its life of drudgery. It is worthy, too, of remark, that this animal, when we meet with it in painting, is seldom the common ass of our own country, but the ass ennobled by the painter's taste; or copied from the animal of the same species, which we have seen in the patriarchal journies, and other Scripturepieces of eminent masters. In consequence of this circumstance, a pleasing association, arising from the many beautiful compositions of which it forms a part, comes to be added to its other recommendations already mentioned, and has secured to it a rank on the canvas, which the degradation of its name will for ever prevent it from attaining in the works of our English poets.

These observations may be extended, in some degree, also to the Goat; strongly associated as its figure is with the romantic scenes of an Alpine region; and with the precipitous cliffs, where it has occasionally caught our eye, browsing on the pendent shrubs in security and solitude.

With respect to the peculiarities, in point of form,

colouring, roughness of coat, &c. to which, according to Mr Gilpin and Mr Price, both these animals owe their Picturesque character, they seem to me to operate chiefly by the stimulus they give to the powers of imagination and of memory. Where this is the end which the artist has in view, such forms and colours possess important and obvious advantages over those which are much more decidedly beautiful; inasmuch as these last, by the immediate pleasure which they communicate to the organ, have a tendency to arrest the progress of our thoughts, and to engage the whole of our attention to themselves.

It is scarcely necessary to add, that a great part of what has just been observed is applicable to the art of embellishing real scenery, as well as to the compositions of the painter. Many of Mr Price's suggestions for giving a Picturesque character to grounds and to buildings, turn upon circumstances which owe their whole effect to their poetical expression.

When these different considerations are combined together, there will not, I apprehend, appear to be any sound foundation for distinguishing the Picturesque from the Beautiful as a quality essentially different; the pleasure we receive from the former, resolving either into that arising from the conception or imagination of understood beauties, or into the accessary pleasures excited in the mind, by means of the associating principle.

On other occasions, the distinction stated by Mr Price between the Picturesque and the Beautiful coincides with the distinction between Natural and Artificial Beauty; and the rules he gives for pro

ducing the Picturesque resolve into the old precept of employing art to conceal her own operations. In these, as indeed in all other cases, his rules (as far as I am able to judge) are the result of exquisite taste, and evince habits of the nicest and most discriminating observation; and it is only to be regretted that he had not been more fortunate in the choice, and more consistent in the use of his phraseology. *

Notwithstanding, however, these occasional variations in his interpretation of the word Picturesque, the prevailing idea which he annexes to it, throughout his work, coincides very nearly with the definition of Mr Gilpin. In proof of this, it is sufficient to mention, that, in his title-page, what he professes to treat of is, the advantages to be derived from the study of paintings in improving real landscape; a circumstance which shews plainly that it was this notion of the Picturesque which was predominant in his mind while he was employed in the composition. The truth of the doctrine which he thus announces as his principal subject, I am by no means disposed to dispute; but some limitations of it occur to me as so indispensably necessary, that I shall slightly touch

the

* In some of the passages which I allude to at present, word picturesque seems to be synonymous with romantic, as formerly applied by our English writers to wild scenery.-Milton uses grotesque nearly in the same sense :

"The champaign head

"Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides

"With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,
"Access deny'd."--

upon one or two of the most important, before I conclude this chapter.

That the Picturesque (according to Mr Gilpin's definition of it) does not always coincide with what the eye pronounces to be Beautiful in the reality, has been often observed; and is, indeed, an obvious consequence of the limited powers of painting, and of the limited range of objects which the artist can present to the eye at once. No pencil can convey a pleasure bearing any resemblance to that which we receive, when we enjoy, from a commanding eminence, an extensive prospect of a rich champaign country, or a boundless view of the ocean; nor can it copy, with any success, many other of the most engaging aspects of nature. The painter, accordingly, when he attempts a portrait of real landscape, is obliged to seize such points of view as are adapted to the circumscribed resources of his art; and, in his observation of Nature, is unavoidably led to the study of what Mr Gilpin calls picturesque effect. By these habits of study, he cannot fail to acquire a new interest in the beautiful objects he meets with; a critical discrimination in his perceptions, unknown tó common spectators; and a sensibility to many pleasing details, which to them are invisible. "Quàm "multa vident pictores," says Cicero, in the words of Mr Price's motto," in umbris et in eminentia 86 quæ nos non videmus!" Nor is this all. To the pleasure arising from what is presented to his senses, is superadded that which he anticipates from the exercise of his own art; or those which are revived in his memory, by the resemblance of what he