meaning I shall have occasion to dwell more fully upon hereafter*. The earliest, and most perceptible attacks of time, are made on the bark, and on the skin; which at first, however, merely lose their evenness of surface, and perfect clearness of colour: by degrees, the lines grow stronger in each ; the tint more dingy; often unequal and in spots; and in proportion as either trees, or men advance towards decay, the regular progress of time, and often the effects of accident, occasion great and partial changes in their forms. In trees, the various hollows and inequalities which are produced by some parts failing, and others in consequence falling in; from accidental marks and protuberances, and from other circumstances which a long course of years gives rise to, are obvious; and many correspondent changes from similar causes in the human form, are no less obvious. By such changes, that nice symmetry and correspondence of parts so essential to beauty, is in both destroyed; in both, the hand of time roughens the surface, and traces still deeper furrows; a few leaves, a few hairs, are thinly scattered on their summits; that light, airy, aspiring look of youth is gone, and both seem shrunk and tottering, and ready to fall with the next blast. Such is the change from beauty; and to what? surely not to a higher, or an equal degree, or to a different style of beauty, no, nor to any thing that resembles it: and yet, that both these objects, even in this last state, have often strong attractions for painters their works afford sufficient testimony; that they are called picturesque-the general application of the term to such objects, makes equally clear; and that they totally differ from what is beautiful-the common feelings of mankind no less convincingly prove. One misapprehension I would wish to guard against; I do not mean to infer from the instances I have given, that an object to be picturesque, must be old and decayed; but that the most beautiful objects will become so from the effects of age, and decay: and I believe it is equally true, that those which are naturally of a strongly marked and peculiar character, are likely to become still more picturesque by the process I have mentioned. I have now very fully stated the principal circumstances by which the picturesque is separated from the beautiful. It is equally distinct from the sublime; for though there are some qualities common to them both, yet they differ in many es sential points, and proceed from very dif ferent causes. In the first place, greatness of dimension* is a powerful cause of the sublime; the picturesque has no connection with dimension of any kind, and is as often found in the smallest as in the largest objects. The sublime, being found * I would by no means lay too much stress on great. ness of dimension; but what Mr. Burke has observed with regard to buildings, is true of many natural objects, such as rocks, cascades, &c. Where the scale is too diminutive, no greatness of manner will give them grandeur. ed on principles of awe and terror, never descends to any thing light or playful; the picturesque, whose characteristics are intricacy and variety, is equally adapted to the grandest, and to the gayest scenery. Infinity is one of the most efficient causes of the sublime; the boundless ocean, for that reason, inspires awful sensations: to give it picturesqueness, you must destroy that cause of its sublimity; for it is on the shape and disposition of its boundaries, that the picturesque must in great measure depend. Uniformity, which is so great an enemy to the picturesque, is not only compatible with the sublime, but often the cause of it. That general, equal gloom which is spread over all nature before a storm, with the stillness, so nobly described by Shakspeare, is in the highest degree sublime*. The picturesque requires greater *And as we often see against a storm A silence in the heavens, the wrack stand still, variety, and does not shew itself till the dreadful thunder has rent the region, has tossed the clouds into a thousand towering forms, and opened, as it were, the recesses of the sky. A blaze of light unmixed with shade, on the same principles tends to the sublime only: Milton has placed light in its most glorious brightness, as an inaccessible barrier round the throne of the Almighty: For God is light, And never but in unapproached light Dwelt from eternity. And such is the power he has given even to its diminished splendor, That the brightest seraphim Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes. In one place, indeed, he has introduced very picturesque circumstances in his sublime representation of the deity: but it is of the deity in wrath; it is when from the weakness and narrowness of our conceptions, we give the names and the effects of our passions, to the all-perfect Creator: And clouds began To darken all the hill, and smoke to roll |