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CHAP. I.

the particular character, which the artist means PART II. to give it; and are not variable with the transient fluctuations of fashion. The Grecian of improved painter, who altered the shoe of his figure at Perception. the suggestion of a cobbler, showed, perhaps, a superfluous degree of attention to exactitude: but the criticism of the Turkish emperor upon the work of the Venetian artist was as reasonable as it was just; for the shrinking of the skin. from the wounded part of the neck, in a decollated head, is the peculiar circumstance, which shows the head to have been cut from a living body; and the omission of it, in a picture of the decollation of St. John the Baptist, entirely breaks that association of ideas, by which the story is connected with the representation of it, and the subject of the picture made known.

13. Exactitude of imitation is much more requisite in sculpture than in painting: but, nevertheless, even in this art, if it displays itself in ostentatious trick or artifice, such as colouring statues to imitate life, it becomes offensive and disgusting to all experienced and intelligent persons: for such persons never look for deception; which they know to be mere trick, the pleasure of which ends with the surprise that it has once occasioned. To attempt to produce it, therefore, by mixing two separate arts, is to weaken

CHAP. I.

PART II. the proper effects of both; as the trains of ideas, which severally belong to each, have arisen sepaOf improved rately in the mind, and do not therefore readily Perception. or properly unite. The great sculptors of Greece, however, often composed one figure of different splendid materials; such as ivory and gold, marble and brass, &c.; but this was not for the purpose of any deception, or greater exactitude of imitation; but to produce an imposing effect of splendor and magnificence in the ideal or allegorical images of supernatural beings. They also frequently made the eyes of silver, gems, or some other shining material; but never, I believe, exactly to resemble the life; and, certainly, not for the purpose of deception; but merely to keep up that energy and vivacity of expression, which characterized the other features, in which it could be exhibited in forms; whereas, in the eyes, it could only arise from brightness or colours. The effect is, accordingly, the most animated and striking, that can be conceived, in the instances which we have remaining of bronze statues with silver eyes; of which there are many, and some of exquisite. work, but all of a small size. From these, nevertheless, we may form some ideas of the imposing and commanding effects, which those of heroic or colossal dimensions must have had,when

CHAP. I.

exhibited as objects of devotion in the temples. PART II. Those of Phidias and Lysippus must have been sufficient to reconcile even a Jew or a Maho- Of improved metan to idolatry.

14. Sculpture, being properly a simple imitation of form, does not seem intended to afford any merely sensual pleasure to the eye for such pleasure can only arise from colour, or variation of light and shadow; whereas sculpture, considered abstractedly, has no colour, and the lights and shadows, in which it most delights, are regular, feeble, or harsh; so as to be always either too much, or too little broken to suit painting; and, therefore, certainly not in themselves pleasing to the eye. Rembrandt laughed at those artists, who talked of improving themselves in painting by studying the antique sculptures; and showed, as his cabinet of antiques, a room furnished with cloaks, hats, turbans, &c. of various stuffs and tissues. As a mere painter, whose object was to please the eye, Rembrandt was quite right; and, indeed, no man ever understood that branch of the imitative art better, or practised it with more delicacy and success; his works arriving nearer to abstract perfection, in what they pretend to, than those of any other modern artist in any branch of art.

15. As sculpture is to painting, so, in some

Perception.

CHAP. 1.

PART II. respects at least, is the melody of poetry compared with that of music. Sculpture and poetry Of improved require order and regularity: painting and music Perception. delight in wild and irregular variety: sculpture

and poetry, too, are addressed entirely to the imagination and the passions; while painting and music are, in a degree, addressed to the organs of sight and hearing, and calculated to produce pleasures merely sensual.

16. Articulate language is entirely artificial and acquired; as appears from the case of deaf persons, who never learn to speak; and as has been further proved by the learned author, who has written expressly upon the subject *. But, nevertheless, inarticulate notes are natural to men, as well as to other animals; wherefore music is, in its principle, natural, while poetry is wholly artificial: for though the tones of the voice be from nature, the division of them into syllables and words is from acquired habit †.

17. In the habitual modes of distribution and combination of words into sentences, in order to express the sentiments and operations of the mind, the idiom of language consists; which thus depending upon accidental habit, is differ

* Lord Monboddo.

† See Origin and Progress of Language, by Lord Monboddo.

ent in every different tongue. Rhythm is the PART II. disposition and arrangement of the long and CHAP. I. short syllables in the order most easy and plea- Of improved sant to the speaker, and most grateful and har- Perception. monious to the hearer; while prosody is a similar disposition and arrangement of the high and low syllables; that is, of those which the habitual idiom of the language has decreed to be respectively pronounced in a high or low tone of voice; which words high and low may mean either acute and base, as in the Greek prosody; or loud and its contrary, as in the modern.

18. In a just and skilful application of the variations of rhythm and prosody, such as arises from just feeling only, does the melody of language consist: but, nevertheless, this melody affords no gratification to the mere organs of hearing; but is solely perceived and felt by mental sympathy, as appears from our feeling it, when we read inwardly, and without any utterance of sound; and also from its varying with the habitual variations of idiom in different languages: for, if it were a pleasure of organic sensation, it must necessarily, as before observed, be the same in all languages.

19. Articulation is merely division of tone; which division may be either entire interruption, or only partial suppression, accordingly as the

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