Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

Mr Burke, himself, has somewhere spoken of the soft green of the soul. If the transitive applications of the word beauty be more numerous and more heterogeneous than those of the words sweetness, softness, and harmony, is it not probable that some account of this peculiarity may be derived from the comparative multiplicity of those perceptions of which the eye is the common organ? Such, accordingly, is the very simple principle on which the following speculations proceed; and which it is the chief aim of these speculations to establish. In prosecuting the subject, however, I shall not fetter myself by any regular plan, but shall readily give way to whatever discussions may naturally arise, either from my own conclusions, or from the remarks I may be led to offer on the theories of others.

The first ideas of beauty formed by the mind are, in all probability, derived from colours. * Long be

*It is, accordingly, upon this assumption that I proceed in tracing the progressive generalizations of these ideas; but the intelligent reader will immediately perceive, that this supposition is not essentially necessary to my argument. Supposing the first ideas of beauty to be derived from forms, the general conclusions which I wish to establish would have been precisely the same. In the case of a blind man, whatever notions he attaches to the word Beautiful (which I believe to be very different from ours), must necessarily originate in the perception of such forms or shapes as are agreeable to his sense of touch; combined, perhaps, with the grateful sensations connected with softness, smooth ́ness, and warmth. If this view of the subject be just, an easy explanation may be deduced from it, of the correct and consistent use of poetical language, in speaking of objects of sight, by such a writer as the late Dr Blacklock.

fore infants receive any pleasures from the beauties of form or of motion (both of which require, for their perception, a certain effort of attention and of thought), their eye may be caught and delighted with brilliant colouring, or with splendid illumination. I am inclined, too, to suspect, that, in the judgment of a peasant, this ingredient of beauty predominates over every other, even in his estimate of the perfections of the female form; * and, in the inanimate creation, there seems to be little else which he beholds with any rapture. It is, accordingly, from the effect produced by the rich painting of the clouds, when gilded by a setting sun, that Akenside infers the existence of the seeds of Taste, where it is impossible to trace them to any hand but that of Nature.

"Ask the swain

"Who journeys homewards from a summer-day's
"Long labour, why, forgetful of his toils,
"And due repose, he loiters to behold

"The sunshine gleaming, as through amber clouds,
"O'er all the western sky; full soon, I ween,

"His rude expression, and untutor'd airs,
"Beyond the power of language, will unfold
"The form of Beauty smiling at his heart."

Nor is it only in the judgment of the infant or of the peasant, that colours rank high among the constituents of the beautiful. The spectacle alluded to by Akenside, in the foregoing lines, as it forms the

* The opinion of Shenstone, on a point of this sort, is of some weight. "It is probable," he observes, "that a clown would "require more colour in his Chloe's face than a courtier."

most pleasant of any to the untutored mind, so it continues, after the experience of a life spent in the cultivation of taste, to retain its undiminished attractions: I should rather say, retains all its first attractions, heightened by many stronger ones of a moral

nature.

"HIM have we seen, the greenwood side along,
"As o'er the heath we hied, our labour done,
"Oft as the wood-lark piped his evening song,
"With wishful eye pursue the setting sun."

Such is one of the characteristical features in a portrait, sketched for himself, by the exquisite pencil of Gray; presenting an interesting counterpart to what he has elsewhere said of the poetical visions which delighted his childhood.

[ocr errors]

"Oft before his infant eye would run "Such forms as glitter in the muses ray, "With orient hues."

Among the several kinds of beauty," says Mr Addison," the eye takes most delight in colours. "We nowhere meet with a more glorious or pleas"ing shew in nature, than what appears in the hea"vens, at the rising and setting of the sun, which is

wholly made up of those different stains of light, "that shew themselves in clouds of a different situa"tion. For this reason we find the poets, who are always addressing themselves to the imagination, borrowing more of their epithets from colours "than from any other topic.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

From the admiration of colours, the eye gradually

*Spectator, No. 412.

advances to that of forms; beginning first with such as are most obviously regular. Hence the pleasure which children, almost without exception, express, when they see gardens laid out after the Dutch manner; and hence the justness of the epithet childish, or puerile, which is commonly employed to characterize this species of taste ;-one of the earliest stages of its progress both in individuals and in nations.

When, in addition to the pleasures connected with colours, external objects present those which arise from certain modifications of form, the same name will be naturally applied to both the causes of the mixed emotion. The emotion appears, in point of fact, to our consciousness, simple and uncompounded, no person being able to say, while it is felt, how much of the effect is to be ascribed to either cause, in preference to the other; and it is the philosopher alone who ever thinks of attempting, by a series of observations and experiments, to accomplish such an analysis. The following expressions of Virgil shew how easily the fancy confounds these two ingredients of the Beautiful under one common epithet. "Edera formosior alba." "O formose

puer, nimium ne crede colori." That the adjective formosus originally referred to the beauty of form alone, is manifest from its etymology; and yet it would appear that, even to the correct taste of Virgil, it seemed no less applicable to the beauty of colour.

In another passage the same epithet is employed, by the same poet, as the most comprehensive which the language afforded, to describe the countless

charms of nature, in the most beautiful season of the

year:

"Et nunc omnis ager, nunc omnis parturit arbos;
"Nunc frondent sylvæ, nunc formosissimus annus.”

Similar remarks may be extended to the word Beauty, when applied to motion, a species of beauty which may be considered as in part a modification of that of form; being perceived when a pleasing outline is thus sketched, or traced out, to the spectator's fancy. The beauty of motion has, however, beside this, a charm peculiar to itself; more particularly when exhibited by an animated being;-above all, when exhibited by an individual of our own species. In these cases, it produces that powerful effect, to the unknown cause of which we give the name of grace;-an effect which seems to depend, in no inconsiderable degree, on the additional interest which the pleasing form derives from its fugitive and evanescent existence; the memory dwelling fondly on the charm which has fled, while the eye is fascinated with the expectation of what is to follow. A fascination, somewhat analogous to this, is experienced when we look at the undulations of a flag streaming to the wind ;-at the wreathings and convolutions of a column of smoke ;-or at the momentary beauties and splendours of fireworks, amid the darkness of night. In the human figure, however, the enchanting power of graceful motion is probably owing chiefly to the living expression which it exhibits ;—an expression ever renewed and ever varied,-of taste and of mental elegance.

« AnteriorContinuar »