different actions of his hero an interest and a capacity which makes them notable. In creative art the Flemish painters have an ordinary taste: the Italians, but still more, the Greeks, a great and noble taste. The latter continually sought the ideal, rejected every common trait, and selected too no common material.

A portrait painter can treat his subject in a style both Common and Great; Common, if he sets forth the contingent as carefully as the necessary, if he neglects the great, and solicitously brings out the little; Great, if he knows how to discover the most interesting traits, separating the accidental from the necessary, bringing out the great and only indicating the little. But nothing is Great, except the expression of soul in actions, features and positions.

A poet treats his subject in a common way, if he brings out unimportant actions and passes hastily over the important. He treats it in a great way, if he unites it with the Great. Homer knew how to give a spirited treatment to the shield of Achilles, although the material fabrication of a shield is something very com

mon.

The Low stands yet one degree below the Common, and is distinguished from it by the fact, that it indicates not only something negative, not only a want of the spiritual and noble, but something positive, namely rudeness of feeling, bad manners and degraded sentiments. The Common only springs from an absent superiority which is desirable, the Low from the deficiency of a quality, which may be required of both. For example, revenge, wherever it is to be found, and however it may be displayed, is in itself something common, since it manifests a want of magnanimity.

But we make a particular distinction of a low revenge, if the man who exercises it, uses disgraceful means to satisfy it. The low always indicates something coarse and clownish, but even a man of birth and better manners, may think and act in a common way, if he possesses moderate gifts. A man acts in a common way who only thinks of his own interest, and so far he is the opposite of the noble man, who can forget himself, in order to create enjoyment for another. But the former would act in a low way, if he prosecuted his interest at the expense of his honor, without ever respecting the laws of propriety. The common, then, is opposed to the noble; the low, at the same time to the noble and the proper. To yield to every passion unresistingly, to satisfy every impulse, without even acknowledging the restraint of decorum, much less of morality, is low, and betrays an abject soul.

In works of art also, the low may be apparent, not only by selecting low objects, which a sense of fitness and propriety forbids, but also by treating them in a low way. We so treat an object, either if we render that side conspicuous which propriety demands should be concealed, or if we give it an expression which suggests low, accessory representations. Low incidents occur in the life of the greatest man, but only. a low taste would select and portray them.

We find scriptural paintings, where the apostle, the

Virgin and Christ himself have an expression, as if they had been selected from the commonest rabble. All such productions evince a low taste, which justifies us in inferring a rude and vulgar mind in the artist himself.

There are cases, it is true, where even in art the low may be allowed; there, namely, where its object is to excite laughter. Even a man of refinement may sometimes divert himself with the rude but true expressions of nature, and with the contrast between the manners of the polite and vulgar, without betraying a depraved taste. The intoxication of a man of rank, wherever it occurred, would excite disgust; but we laugh at drunken postilions, sailors, and barrow-men. Jests, which would be insupportable in an educated man, divert us in the mouth of the rabble. Many scenes of Aristophanes are of this kind, which however sometimes transgress these limits, and become utterly despicable. For this reason we are amused with Parodies, in which sentiments, expressions and exploits of the common people are palmed off upon people of quality, and treated by the poet with all possible propriety and dignity. As soon as the poet only aims at creating a laughing-stock, and only wishes to divert us, we may overlook all that is low, but he must not excite aversion or disgust.

He excites aversion, if he introduces the low where we cannot possibly tolerate it in men namely, from whom we are justified in expecting better manners. If he treats his subject not in accordance with this, he offends either the truth, since we should prefer to esteem him a deceiver, than believe that men of culture could really act in so low a way; or his men offend our moral feeling, and what is still worse, excite our indignation. It is quite another thing in Farce, as there is an implied agreement between the author and the audience, so that no one has any expectation of truth. In a Farce we absolve the author from all fidelity in delineation, and he gets, as it were, a privilege to deceive us. For the Comic is founded upon its very contrast with truth; but it could not possibly exist at the same time as truth and as contrast.

But there are a few cases even in the serious and tragic, where the low may be introduced. Yet then it must pass over into the fearful, and the momentary offence of taste must be counteracted by a powerful employment of emotion, and become as it were, swallowed up by a deeply tragical effect. Theft, for example, is something absolutely low, and whatever apology for the thief our heart may suggest, however much he may have been impelled by the force of circumstances, still an indelible mark is stamped upon him, and æsthetically considered, he always remains a low object. Here taste pardons still less than morality, and its tribunal is more severe, since an æsthetic object is answerable also for all the accessory ideas which it suggests to us; as on the other hand, everything contingent is abstracted by a moral criticism. Therefore a man who steals, will be a most despicable object for any poetical representation with a serious content. But if the man is a murderer at the same time, he is to be sure, still more despicable morally, but he is a degree more tolerable æsthetically. He who debases himself by a deed of infamy (I only speak now of things æsthetically considered) may be somewhat reëlevated and reëstablished in our asthetic regard, by a crime. This divergence of the moral from the æsthetic judgment is remarkable, and merits attention. We might adduce many causes for it. In the first place, I have already said, that since the æsthetic judgment depends upon the fancy, all accessory representations also, which are excited by an object, and stand in natural connexion with it, influence this judgment. If now these accessory representations are of a low kind, they inevitably degrade the principal object whence they result.

Secondly, in an æsthetic criticism we regard power, in a moral criticism, conformity to law. Want of power is something contemptible, and equally so is every action, which leaves us to infer it. Every base and cowardly deed is repugnant to us by the want of power which it betrays; and inversely a diabolical act may please us æsthetically, as soon as it only evinces power. But a theft shows a base and cowardly disposition, - a murder has at least the show of power; and that degree of interest which, æsthetically, we take in the act, corresponds to the degree of power developed by it.

Thirdly, a heinous and terrible crime diverts our attention from its quality, and directs it to its fearful result. The stronger mental emotion suppresses then