แ causes conspire to mislead our judgment in this point, "and to induce us to attribute to one quality, in such

objects, that beauty which, in truth, results from แ many united qualities.'

In my next lecture I shall conclude this subject of the beautiful, and sum up all that I have said upon it. If any man feel himself inclined to think that I have pushed this subject of the beautiful too far, and that its importance does not merit such long discussion, I would desire him to reflect upon the immense effect which it produces on human life. What are half the crimes in

the world committed for? What brings into action the best virtues? The desire of possessing. Of possessing what?—not mere money, but every species of the beautiful which money can purchase. A man lies hid in a little, dirty, smoky room for twenty years of his life, and sums up as many columns of figures as would reach round half the earth, if they were laid at length; — he gets rich: what does he do with his riches? He buys a large well-proportioned house: in the arrangement of his furniture, he gratifies himself with all the beauty which splendid colours, regular figures, and smooth surfaces, can convey; he has the beauties of variety and association in his grounds; the cup out of which he drinks his tea is adorned with beautiful figures; the chair in which he sits is covered with smooth shining leather; his table-cloth is of the most beautiful damask; mirrors reflect the lights from every quarter of the room; pictures of the best masters feed his eye with all the beauties of imitation. A million of human creatures are employed in this country in ministering to this feeling of the beautiful. It is only a barbarous, ignorant people that can ever be occupied by the necessaries of life alone. If to eat, and to drink, and to be warm, were the only passions of our minds, we should all be what the lowest

* Alison, pp. 367-869.

of us all are at this day. The love of the beautiful calls man to fresh exertions, and awakens him to a more noble life; and the glory of it is, that as painters imitate, and poets sing, and statuaries carve, and architects rear up the gorgeous trophies of their skill, as everything becomes beautiful, and orderly, and magnificent, — the activity of the mind rises to still greater, and to better, objects. The principles of justice are sought out; the powers of the ruler, and the rights of the subject, are fixt; man advances to the enjoyment of rational liberty, and to the establishment of those great moral laws, which God has written in our hearts, to regulate the destinies of the world.

LECTURE XV.

ON THE BEAUTIFUL. -PART III.

I WISH, for the completion of the subject on which I have been engaged, to consider what causes produce the feeling of the beautiful in poetry. I must observe here, as I observed before, that there is a lax and general usage of the word beautiful, to which I am not now referring. We might say of Milton's Paradise Lost, that it is a beautiful poem, though its characteristic is rather grandeur and sublimity, than beauty. It is a general term, standing for every species of excellence; but I am speaking now of that which is properly beautiful, as distinguished from what is sublime or excellent in any other kind.

The first reason, then, why poetry is beautiful, is, because it describes natural objects, or moral feelings, which are themselves beautiful. For an example, I will read to you a beautiful sonnet of Dr. Leyden's upon the Sabbath morning, which has never been printed:

"With silent awe I hail the sacred morn,

Which slowly wakes while all the fields are still;
A soothing calm on every breeze is borne,
A graver murmur gurgles from the rill,
And Echo answers softer from the hill,
And softer sings the linnet from the thorn,

The skylark warbles in a tone less shrill.
Hail, light serene! hail, sacred Sabbath morn!
The rooks float silent by, in airy drove;
The sun, a placid yellow lustre shows;

The gales, that lately sigh'd along the grove,
Have hush'd their downy wings in dead repose;
The hov'ring rack of clouds forget to move :-

So smiled the day when the first morn arose ! Now, there is not a single image introduced into this very beautiful sonnet, which is not of itself beautiful; the soothing calm of the breeze, the noise of the rill, the song of the linnet, the hovering rack of clouds, and the airy drove of rooks floating by, are all objects that would be beautiful in nature, and of course are so in poetry. The notion that the whole appearance of the world is more calm and composed on the Sabbath, and that its sanctity is felt in the whole creation, is unusually beautiful and poetical. There is a pleasure in imitation, this is exactly a picture of what a beautiful placid morning is, and we are delighted to see it so well represented.

There is also a certain degree of pleasure from the measure of the poetry,- from the recurrence of certain cadences at certain intervals; this makes the distinction between the language of prose and poetry. Now, in which of these two passages are the sounds most agreeably arranged:-"The master saw the madness rising, took notice of his glowing cheeks and his ardent eyes, and, while he defied heaven and earth, changed his own hand, and checked the pride of Alexander. He chose a mournful song, in order to infuse into him soft pity; he sung of Darius, a very great and good man," and so on.

"The master saw the madness rise;

His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;
And, while he Heaven and Earth defied,
Changed his hand, and check'd his pride.
He chose a mournful muse

Soft pity to infuse :

He sung Darius great and good,

By too severe a fate,

Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,

Fallen from his high estate,

And welt'ring in his blood;

Deserted, at his utmost need,
By those his former bounty fed:
On the bare earth exposed he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.

With downcast looks the joyless victor sate,
Revolving in his alter'd soul

The various turns of Chance below;
And, now and then, a sigh he stole;
And tears began to flow."

Now, the ideas are precisely the same in the two arrangements of sounds; but I think no one can doubt of the superior pleasure of that order of sounds, in which there appears to be arrangement and design.

Part of the pleasure proceeds also from the rhymes. Children will go on for ten minutes together, repeating a rhyme, merely delighted with the sameness of the sound: so will mad people. I have seen labourers and common people in the country, quite delighted with the accidental discovery of a rhyme; it has appeared to have very much the same effect upon them as wit. I mention these things very cursorily, because they are connected with my subject of the beautiful, though they are facts of great curiosity, and which may lead to very interesting speculations, which I have no doubt they will do, in the very able hands in which they are at present placed by the managers of this Institution.

To these causes may be added a strong admiration of the skill of the poet, whether exemplified in his selection of words, or his choice of the most striking objects and incidents in description. These, I apprehend to be the causes which excite the feeling of the beautiful in poetry, where the subject itself is beautiful. But what is the reason that poetry is called beautiful, where the subject is quite the reverse? There might be a very beautiful description of the flat, dreary fens of Holland, which are themselves as far from being beautiful as any natural scenery can be. Now, here is a passage out of Thomson, in which there is not a single image naturally beautiful, and yet the whole passage certainly must be so called: