that in which he finds himself, on the view of a beautiful object, will perceive a very striking analogy in the effects of both; and which may go a good way towards discovering their common caufe. Feeling and fight, in this respect, differ in but a few points. The touch takes in the pleas fure of foftnefs, which is not primarily an object of fight; the fight, on the other hand, compres hends colour, which can hardly be made perceptible to the touch: the touch again has the advan tage in a new idea of pleasure refulting from a moderate degree of warmth; but the eye triumphs in the infinite extent and multiplicity of its objects. But there is fuch a fimilitude in the pleasures of thefe fenfes, that I am apt to fancy, if it were poffible that one might difcern colour by feeling (as it is faid fome blind men have done,) that the fame colours, and the fame difpofition of colouring, which are found beautiful to the fight, would be found likewise moft grateful to the touch. But, fetting afide conjectures, let us pass to the other fenfe; of hearing. SECT. XXV. THE BEAUTIFUL IN SOUNDS. IN this fenfe we find an equal aptitude to be affected in a foft and delicate manner; and how far fweet or beautiful founds agree with our defcriptions fcriptions of beauty in other fenfes, the experience of every one muft decide. Milton has defcribed this fpecies of mufick in one of his juvenile poems.* I need not fay that Milton was perfectly well verfed in that art; and that no man had a finer ear, with a happier manner of expreffing the affections of one sense by metaphors taken from another. The defcription is as follows; And ever against eating cares, Lap me in foft Lydian airs; Let us parallel this with the foftnefs, the winding furface, the unbroken continuance, the eafy gradation of the beautiful in other things; and all the diverfities of the feveral fenfes, with all their feveral affections, will rather help to throw lights from one another to finish one clear, consistent idea of the whole, than to obscure it by their intricacy and variety. To the above-mentioned defcription I shall add one or two remarks. The firft is; that the beau * L'allegro. tiful in mufick will not bear that loudness and ftrength of founds, which may be used to raise other paffions; nor notes which are shrill or harfh, or deep; it agrees best with fuch as are clear, even, fmooth, and weak. The fecond is; that great variety, and quick tranfitions from one measure or tone to another, are contrary to the genius of the beautiful in mufick. Such* tranfitions often excite mirth, or other fudden and tumultuous paffions; but not that finking, that melting, that languor, which is the characteriftical effect of the beautiful as it regards every fenfe. The paffion excited by beauty is in fact nearer to a fpecies of melancholy, than to jollity and mirth. I do not here mean to confine mufick to any one fpecies of notes, or tones, neither is it an art in which I can fay have any great fkill. My fole defign in this remark is, to fettle a confiftent idea of beauty. The infi, nite variety of the affections of the foul will fuggeft to a good head, and skilful ear, a variety of fuch founds as are fitted to raife them. It can be no prejudice to this, to clear and diftinguish fome few particulars, that belong to the fame class, and are confiftent with each other, from the immense crowd of different, and fometimes contradictory ideas, that rank vulgarly under the standard of beauty. And of these it is my intention to mark * I ne'er am merry, when I hear sweet mufick. SHAKESPEAR. fuch fuch only of the leading points as fhew the conformity of the sense of hearing, with all the other fenfes in the article of their pleasures. THIS general agreement of the fenfes is yet more evident on minutely confidering thofe of taste and smell. We metaphorically apply the idea of sweetness to fights and founds; but as the qualities of bodies by which they are fitted to excite either pleasure or pain in these fenfes, are not fo obvious as they are in the others, we fhall refer an explanation of their analogy, which is a very clofe one, to that part, wherein we come to confider the common efficient cause of beauty, as it regards all the fenfes. I do not think any thing better fitted to establish a clear and fettled idea of visual beauty, than this way of examining the fimilar pleasures of other fenfes; for one part is fometimes clear in one of the fenfes, that is more obfcure in another; and where there is a clear concurrence of all, we may with more certainty speak of any one of them. By this means, they bear witness to each other; nature is, as it were, fcrutinized; and we report nothing of her but what we receive from her own information. SECT. SECT. XXVII. THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL COMPARED. ON clofing this general view of beauty, it naturally occurs, that we fhould compare it with the fublime; and in this comparifon there appears a remarkable contraft. For fublime objects are vaft in their dimensions, beautiful ones comparatively fmall beauty fhould be fimooth and polifhed; the great, rugged and negligent; beauty fhould fhun the right line, yet deviate from it infenfibly; the great in many cafes loves the right line; and when it deviates, it often makes a ftrong deviation beauty fhould not be obfcure; the great ought to be dark and gloomy: beauty fhould be light and delicate; the great ought to be folid, and even maffive. They are indeed ideas of a very different nature, one being founded on pain, the other on pleafure; and however they may vary afterwards from the direct nature of their caufes, yet these causes keep up an eternal diftinction between them, a diftinction never to be forgotten by any whose business it is to affect the paffions. In the infinite variety of natural combinations, we must expect to find the qualities of things the moft remote imaginable from each other united in the fame object. We muft expect also to find combinations of the fame kind in the works of art. |