mankind, has a right to more than his forgiveness, when wild thickets are converted into scenes of plenty and industry, and when gypsies and vagrants give way to the less picturesque figures of husbandmen and their attendants.

I believe the idea that smoothness and verdure will make amends for the want of variety and picturesqueness, arises from our not distinguishing those qualities that are grateful to the mere organ of sight, from those various combinations, which through the progressive cultivation of that sense, have produced inexhaustible sources of delight and admiration. Mr. Mason observes, that green is to the eye, what harmony is to the ear; the comparison holds throughout; for a long continuance of either without some relief, is equally tiresome to both senses. Soft and smooth sounds, are those which are most grateful to the mere sense; the least artful combination, even that of a third below sung by another voice, at first distracts the attention from the tune; when that is got over, a Venetian duet appears

the perfection of melody and harmony. By degrees however the ear, like the eye, tires of a repetition of the same flowing strain; it requires some marks of invention, of ori ginal and striking character as well as of sweetness, in the melodies of a composer; it takes in more and more intricate combinations of harmony and opposition of parts, not only without confusion, but with delight; and with that delight (the only lasting one) which is produced both from the effect of the whole, and the detail of the parts*. At the same time, the having acquired a relish for such artful combinations, so far from excluding, except in narrow

* This I take to be the reason why those who are real connoisseurs in any art, can give the most unwearied attention to what the general lover is soon tired of. Both are struck, though not in the same manner or degree, with the whole of a scene; but the painter is also eagerly employed in examining the parts, and all the artifice of nature in composing such a whole. The general lover stops at the first gaze; and I have heard it said by those, who in other pursuits shewed the most discriminating taste, "Why should we look at these things any more---we have seen them."

Non ragionar di lor; ma guarda e passa.

pedantic minds, a taste for simple melodies, or simple scenes, heightens the enjoy ment of them. It is only by such acquirements, that we learn to distinguish what is simple, from what is bald and commonplace; what is varied and intricate, from what is only perplexed,

CHAPTER III.

Of all the effects in landscape, the most brilliant and captivating are those produced by water; on the management of which, as I have been told, Mr. Brown particularly piqued himself. If those beauties in natural rivers and lakes which are imitable by art, and the selections of them in the works of great painters, be the proper objects of imitation, Mr. Brown grossly mistook his talent; for among all his tame productions, his pieces of made water are perhaps the most so.

One striking property of water, and that which most distinguishes it from the grosser element of earth, is its being

a mirror; and a mirror which gives a peculiar freshness and tenderness to the colours it reflects: it softens the stronger lights, though the lucid veil it throws over them seems hardly to diminish their brilliancy; and gives breadth, and often depth, to the shadows, while from its glassy surface they gain a peculiar look of transparency. These beautiful and varied effects, however, are chiefly produced by the near objects by trees and bushes immediately on the banks; by those which hang over the water, and form dark coves beneath their branches; by various tints of the soil where the ground is broken; by roots, and old trunks of trees; by tussucks of rushes, and by large stones that are partly whitened by the air, and partly covered with mosses, lychens, and weather-stains; while the soft tufts of grass, and the smooth ver dure of meadows with which they are intermixed, appear a thousand times more soft, smooth, and werdant by such contrasts.

But to produce reflections there must be objects; for according to a maxim I