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mer evening,

the savage majesty of a wintry

storm, or the wild magnificence of the tempestuous ocean, we are conscious of a variety of images in our minds, very different from those which the objects themselves present to the eye. Trains of pleasing or of solemn thought arise spontaneously within our minds; our hearts swell with emotions, of which the objects before us seem to afford no adequate cause; and we are never so much satiated with delight, as when, in recalling our attention, we are unable (little able perhaps, and less disposed) to trace either the progress or the connexion of those thoughts, which have passed with so much rapidity through our imagination.

"The effect of the different arts of taste is similar. The landscapes of Claude Lorraine, the poetry of Milton, the music of the greatest masters, excite feeble emotions in our minds when our attention is confined to the qualities they present to our senses, or when it is to such qualities of their composition that we turn our regard. It is then only we feel the sublimity or beauty of their productions, when our imaginations are kindled by their power, when we lose ourselves amid the number of images that pass before our minds, and when we waken at last from this play of fancy, as from the charm of a romantic dream.

"The degree in which the emotions of sublimity or beauty are felt, is in general proportioned to the prevalence of those relations of thought in the mind, upon which this exercise of imagination depends. The principal relation which seems to take place in those trains of thought that are produced by objects of taste, is that of resemblance; the relation, of all others the most loose and general, and which affords the greatest range of thought for our imagination to pursue. Wherever, accordingly, these emotions are felt, it will be found, not only that this is the relation which principally prevails among our ideas, but that the emotion itself is proportioned to the degree in which it prevails.

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What, for instance, is the impression we feel from the scenery of spring? The soft and gentle green with which the earth is spread, the feeble texture of the plants and flowers, the young of animals just entering into life, and the remains of winter yet lingering among the woods and hills, —all conspire to infuse into our minds somewhat of that fearful tenderness with which infancy is usually beheld. With such a sentiment, how innumerable are the ideas which present themselves to our imagination! ideas, it is apparent, by no means confined to the scene before our eyes, or to the possible desolation which may yet await

its infant beauty, but which almost involuntarily extend themselves to analogies with the life of man, and bring before us all those images of hope or fear, which, according to our peculiar situations, have the dominion of our heart! - The beauty of autumn is accompanied with a similar exercise of thought.

"Whatever increases this exercise or employment of imagination, increases also the emotion of beauty or sublimity.

"This is very obviously the effect of all associations. There is no man who has not some interesting associations with particular scenes, or airs, or books, and who does not feel their beauty or sublimity enhanced to him by such connexions. The view of the house where one was born, of the school where one was educated, and where the gay years of infancy were passed, is indifferent to

no man.

"In the case of those trains of thought, which are suggested by objects either of sublimity or beauty, it will be found, that they are in all cases composed of ideas capable of exciting some affection or emotion; and that not only the whole succession is accompanied with that peculiar emotion which we call the emotion of beauty or sublimity, but that every individual idea of such a succession is in itself productive of some simple emotion or other.

"Thus the ideas suggested by the scenery of spring, are ideas productive of emotions of cheerfulness, of gladness, and of tenderness. The images suggested by the prospect of ruins, are images belonging to pity, to melancholy, and to admiration. The ideas, in the same manner, awakened by the view of the ocean in a storm, are ideas of power, of majesty, and of terror."

To prevent circumlocution, such ideas may be termed ideas of emotion; and the effect which is produced upon the mind, by objects of taste, may be considered as consisting in the production of a regular or consistent train of ideas of emotion.

"In those trains which are suggested by objects of sublimity or beauty, however slight the connexion between individual thoughts may be, it will be found, that there is always some general principle of connexion which pervades the whole, and gives them some certain definite character. They are either gay, or pathetic, or melancholy, or solemn, or awful, or elevating, &c. according to the nature of the emotion which is first excited. Thus the prospect of a serene evening in summer, produces first an emotion of peacefulness and tranquillity, and then suggests a variety of images corresponding to this primary impression. The sight of a torrent, or of a storm, in the same manner, impresses us first with sentiments of awe or solemnity,

or terror, and then awakens in our minds a series of conceptions allied to this peculiar emotion."

The intellectual, or fine arts, are those whose objects are thus addressed to the imagination; and the pleasures they afford are described, by way of distinction, as the pleasures of the imagination.

SUMMARY OF THIS CHAPTER.

Thus, by analysis, generalization and systematization of the materials which the best writers present, I have, in this chapter, endeavoured to take new and larger views; and, by an examination of the elements of beauty, I have endeavoured to fix its doctrines upon an immoveable basis.

I have shown that there exist elements of beauty equally invariable in themselves, and in the kind. of effect they produce upon the mind; that these elements are modified, varied and complicated, as we advance from the most simple to the most complex class of natural beings, or of the arts which relate to these respectively; that the elements of beauty in inanimate beings, consist in the simplicity, regularity, uniformity, proportion, order, &c., of those geometrical forms which are so intimately connected with mere existence; that the elements of beauty in living beings, consist in adding to the preceding the delicacy, bending,

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