584 ઃઃ word, that is not made up of some Latin or Greek names."— See page 111 of the folio edition of Hobbes, printed at London in 1750; and compare it with page 103 of the same volume. Note (Q.) p. 229. I do not quote the following lines as a favourable specimen of the Abbé de Lille's poetry, but merely as an illustration of the heterogeneous metaphors which obtrude themselves on the fancy, whenever we attempt to describe the phenomena of Memory. It is but justice to him to remark, at the same time, that some of them (particularly those printed in Italics) do no small honour to his philosophical penetration. ❝ Cependant des objets la trace passagère "S'enfuirait loin de nous comme une ombre légère, "La mémoire. A ce nom se troublent tous nos sages; "Quel Dieu range avec art tous ces nombreux tiroirs, Dépend-elle des temps, du hasard et des lieux? "Va mesurer la terre, interroger les cieux, De Lille. L'Imagination, Chant. I. Note (R.) p. 241. "It is never from an attention to etymology, which would << frequently mislead us, but from custom, the only infallible 66 guide in this matter, that the meanings of words in present use 66 must be learnt. And, indeed, if the want in question were material, it would equally affect all those words, no inconsiderable part of our language, whose descent is doubtful or unknown, Besides, in no case can the line of derivation be traced back. "wards to infinity. We must always terminate in some words "of whose genealogy no account can be given."-Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric, Book ii. Chap. 2. In this remark I perfectly agree with the very acute and judicious writer; but I do not well see its connection with the following note which is subjoined to it: 46 "Dr Johnson, who, notwithstanding his acknowledged learning, penetration, and ingenuity, appears sometimes, if I may "adopt his own expression, lost in lexicography,' hath declared "the name punch, which signifies a certain mixt liquor very well "known, a cant word, because, being to appearance without << etymology, it hath probably arisen from some silly conceit among the people. The name sherbet, which signifies another "known mixture, he allows to be good, because it is Arabic; "though, for aught we know, its origin among the Arabs hath "been equally ignoble or uncertain. By this way of reckoning, "if the word punch, in the sense wherein we use it, should, by 66 any accident, be imported into Arabia, and come into use there, "it would make good Arabic, though it be but cant English; as "their sherbet, though, in all likelihood, but cant Arabic, makes "good English. This, I own, appears to me very capricious."Ibid. I cannot help being of opinion, that, in Dr Johnson's decision concerning the comparative rank of these two words in the English language, he has greatly the advantage over his critic; although nothing, undoubtedly, can be more absurd than the principle on which it proceeds; that "those words, which being to 66 appearance without etymology, have probably arisen from some "silly conceit among the people," ought, on that account, to be banished from good writing. The real ground of the difference, in point of effect, which the words punch and sherbet produce on the ear of an Englishman, is, that the former recals images of low life and of disgusting intemperance; whereas the latter, if it at all awakens the fancy, transports it, at once, to the romantic regions of the East. If the Arabians were to feel with respect to England, as every well educated Englishman feels with respect to Arabia, the word punch could not fail to affect their ear, as the word sherbet does ours. Nor should this be ascribed to caprice, but to the general and unalterable laws of the human frame. To a Frenchman who never visited this island, and who knows English manners by description alone, the word punch has, by no means, the same air of vulgarity with which it appears to our eyes. In fact, I am inclined to believe, that ponche and sorbet would be considered by him as words of the same class, and standing very nearly on the same level. I shall avail myself of the opportunity which the last quotation from Dr Campbell affords me, to express my surprise, that an author who has illustrated, so very ably as he has done, the para-` mount authority of custom in all questions relative to language, should have adhered, with such systematic obstinacy, to the antiquated hath in preference to has. In discourses from the pulpit it certainly contributes to the solemnity of style; in consequence, partly, of the use made of it in our excellent translation of the Bible; and partly, of its rare occurrence in our ordinary forms of speaking. If it were universally substituted for has (as Swift wished it to be), it would lose this charm altogether; while, in the mean time, nothing would be added to our common diction but stiffness and formality. A choice of such expressions, according to the nature of our subject, is an advantage which our language possesses in no inconsiderable degree; nor ought it to be the object of a philosophical critic to sacrifice it to a mere speculative refinement. If analogy is to be followed uniformly as a guide, why does Campbell, in the very same sentence with hath, make use of such words as signifies and allows?—Why not signifieth and alloweth ? * Note (S.) p. 257. I do not here go so far as to assert, that a blind man might not receive, by means of touch, something analogous to our notion of beauty. In the case of those who see, the word is, in no instance that I can recollect, applied immediately to the perceptions of that sense; but this question, though started in one of the volumes of the Encyclopédie, is of no moment whatever in the present inquiry. I have no objection, therefore, to acquiesce in the following statement, as it is there given : "Il n'y a ni beau ni laid pour l'odorat et le goût. Le Pere "André, Jesuite, dans son Essai sur le Beau, joint même à ces "deux sens celui de toucher: mais je crois que son systême peut"être contredit en ce point. Il me semble qu'un aveugle a des "idées de rapport, d'ordre, de symmetrie, et que ces notions sont "entrées dans son entendement par le toucher, comme dans le "notre par la vue, moins parfaites peut-être, et moins exactes: "mais cela prouve tout au plus, que les aveugles sont moins af"fectés du beau que nous autres clairvoyans.-En un mot, il me "paroit bien hardi de prononcer, que l'aveugle statuaire qui fai"soit des bustes ressemblans, n'avoit cependant aucune idée de "beauté."-Encyclop. Artic. Beauté. According to Dr Lowth, hath and doth belong to the serious and solemu style; has and does to the familiar; and yet, in the very first paragraph of the preface to his English Grammar (a composition, one would think, where the serious and solemn style might have been dispensed with), there are no less than four haths within the compass of a very few lines. His example has misled Campbell and many others;more particularly, many writers of the clerical profession. That our notions of the beauty of visible objects are, in many instances, powerfully modified by associations originally suggested by the sense of touch, will afterwards appear. Note (T.) p. 286. The following extract from a letter of Dr Swift's to Lord Peterborough, in which he ridicules some of the partial and confined maxims concerning gardening which were current in his time, may be applied (mutatis mutandis) to most of the theories hitherto proposed with respect to the beautiful in general: "That this letter may be all of a piece, I'll fill the << rest with an account of a consultation lately held in my neigh "bourhood, about designing a princely garden. Several critics 66 were of several opinions: one declared he would not have too "much art in it: for my notion (said he) of gardening is, "that it is only sweeping nature: another told them, that gravel"walks were not of a good taste, for all the finest abroad were "of loose sand: a third advised peremptorily there should not be "one lime-tree in the whole plantation: a fourth made the same "exclusive clause extend to horse-chesnuts, which he affirmed "not to be trees, but weeds. Dutch elms were condemned by a "fifth; and thus about half the trees were proscribed, contrary "to the Paradise of God's own planting, which is expressly said "to be planted with all trees. There were some who could not "bear ever-greens, and called them never-greens; some who were 66 angry at them only when cut into shapes, and gave the modern 66 gardeners the name of ever-green tailors; some, who had no "dislike to cones and cubes, but would have them cut in forest. "trces; and some who were in a passion against any thing in "shape, even against clip't hedges, which they called green walls. "These (my Lord) are our men of taste, who pretend to prove "it by tasting little or nothing. Sure such a taste is like such a "stomach, not a good one, but a weak one." "I have lately been with my Lord who is a zealous yet a "charitable planter, and has so bad a taste, as to like all that is "good."-Pope's Works. Note (U.) p. 311. The following definition of the word Picturesque is given by the Abbe du Bos, in his critical reflections on poetry and painting. I do not think it corresponds exactly with any acceptation in which it has ever been understood in this country. In one respect, it approaches to the definition of Gilpin, mentioned in the text. 66 "J'appelle composition pittoresque, l'arrangement des objets qui doivent entrer dans un tableau par rapport à l'effet général "du tableau. Une bonne composition pittoresque est celle dont "le coup d'œil fait un grand effet, suivant l'intention du peintre "et le but qu'il s'est proposé. Il faut pour cela que le tableau << ne soit point embarassé par les figures, quoiqu'il y en ait assez pour remplir la toile. Il faut que les objets s'y démêlent facilement. Il ne faut pas que les figures s'estropient l'une l'autre, en se cachant réciproquement la moitie de la tête, ni d'autres parties du corps, lesquelles il convient au sujet de faire voir. "Il faut enfin, que les groupes soient bien composés, que la lu"mière leur soit distribuée judicieusement, et que les couleurs "locales, loin de s'entretuer, soient disposées de manière quil re"sulte du tout une harmonie agreeable à l'œil par elle-meme." * The chief difference between this definition and that of Gilpin is, that the latter refers chiefly to natural objects; the former exclusively to painting. But both agree in one common idea, that of a landscape so composed as to produce a happy effect in a picture. Du Bos applies the epithet to this composition when exhibited by the artist on canvas: Gilpin, to such compositions when they happen to be sketched out to the painter's pencil by the hand of nature herself. Gilpin's definition, therefore, presupposes the idea which Du Bos attempts to explain; and may, perhaps, be considered as a generalization of it, applicable both to the com. binations of nature, and to the designs of art. It is in the former of these senses, however, that he in general uses the word through the whole of his Essay. It is remarkable, that Sir J. Reynolds seems, at one time, to have been disposed to restrict the meaning of picturesque to natural objects; while the definition of Du Bos would restrict it to the art of painting. From a note of Mr Gilpin's, it appears, that when his Essay was first communicated to Reynolds, the latter objected to the use he sometimes made of the term picturesque; observing, that, in his opinion, this word should be applied only "to the works of nature." + But on this point he seems to have afterwards changed his opinion. In an earlier performance, too, of Reynolds, we find the word employed by himself, in the very same sense in which he objects to it in the above sentence. Speaking of a picture of Rubens (the crucifixion of Christ between the two thieves, at Antwerp), he observes, that "the three 66 crosses are placed prospectively in an uncommonly picturesque 66 manner," ," &c. &c. (See the rest of the passage, which is worth consulting, in his journey through Flanders and Holland, in the year 1781.) Reflexions Critiques, &c. Sect. 31. Three Essays on Picturesque Beauty, pp. 35, 36. |