Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

be traced, in a satisfactory manner, to the Saxon or to the Icelandic. The delight which all men, however unlettered, take in indulging their crude conjectures on the etymological questions which are occasionally started in conversation, is founded on the same circumstance ;-their experimental knowledge of the difficulty of introducing into popular speech a new sound, entirely arbitrary in its selection, and coined out of materials unemployed before. Another illustration of this occurs in the reluctance with which we adopt the idiomatical turns of expression in a foreign tongue, or even the cant words and phrases which, from time to time, are springing up in our own, till we have succeeded in forming some theory or conjecture to reconcile the apparent anomaly with the ordinary laws of human thought.—Essay on the Tendency of some late Philological Speculations.

4. The Idea of Beauty.

NOTWITHSTANDING the great variety of qualities, physical, intellectual, and moral, to which the word beauty is applicable, I believe it will be admitted, that, in its primitive and most general acceptation, it refers to objects of sight. As the epithets sweet and delicious literally denote what is pleasing to the palate, and harmonious what is pleasing to the ear; as the epithets soft and warm denote certain qualities that are pleasing in objects of touch or of feeling;-so the epithet beautiful literally denotes what is pleasing to the eye. All these epithets, too, it is worthy of remark, are applied transitively to the perceptions of other senses. We speak of sweet and of soft sounds; of warm, of delicious, and of harmonious colouring, with as little impropriety, as of a beautiful voice, or of a beautiful piece of music. Mr. Burke, himself, has somewhere spoken of the soft green of the soul. If the

transitive applications of the word beauty be more numerous and more heterogeneous than those of the words sweetness, softness, and harmony, is it not probable that some account of this peculiarity may be derived from the comparative multiplicity of those perceptions of which the eye is the common organ? Such, accordingly, is the very simple principle on which the following speculations proceed; and which it is the chief aim of these speculations to establish. . . . .

The first ideas of beauty formed by the mind, are, in all probability, derived from colours. Long before infants receive any pleasures from the beauties of form or of motion, (both of which require, for their perception, a certain effort of attention and of thought) their eye may be caught and delighted with brilliant colouring, or with splendid illumination. I am inclined, too, to suspect, that in the judgment of a peasant, this ingredient of beauty predominates over every other, even in his estimate of the perfections of the female form; and, in the inanimate creation, there seems to be little else which he beholds with any rapture. . .

From the admiration of colours, the eye gradually advances to that of forms; beginning first with such as are most obviously regular. Hence the pleasure which children, almost without exception, express, when they see gardens laid out after the Dutch manner; and hence the justness of the epithet childish, or puerile, which is commonly employed to characterize this species of taste;—one of the earliest stages of its progress both in individuals and in nations.

When, in addition to the pleasures connected with colours, external objects present those which arise from certain modifications of form, the same name will be naturally applied to both the causes of the mixed emotion. The emotion appears, in point of fact, to our consciousness, simple and

uncompounded, no person being able to say, while it is felt, how much of the effect is to be ascribed to either cause, in preference to the other; and it is the philosopher alone, who ever thinks of attempting, by a series of observations and experiments, to accomplish such an analysis. The following expressions of Virgil shew how easily the fancy confounds these two ingredients of the beautiful under one common epithet. 'Edera formosior alba.' 'O formose puer, nimium ne crede colori.' That the adjective formosus originally referred to the beauty of form alone, is manifest from its etymology; and yet it would appear that, even to the correct taste of Virgil, it seemed no less applicable to the beauty of colour. . . . .

Similar remarks may be extended to the word Beauty, when applied to motion, a species of beauty which may be considered as in part a modification of that of form; being perceived when a pleasing outline is thus sketched, or traced out to the spectator's fancy. The beauty of motion has, however, beside this, a charm peculiar to itself; more particularly, when exhibited by an animated being;—above all, when exhibited by an individual of our own species. In these cases, it produces that powerful effect, to the unknown. cause of which we give the name of grace ;--an effect which seems to depend, in no inconsiderable degree, on the additional interest which the pleasing form derives from its fugitive and evanescent existence; the memory dwelling fondly on the charm which has fled, while the eye is fascinated with the expectation of what is to follow. A fascination, somewhat analogous to this, is experienced when we look at the undulations of a flag streaming to the wind;—at the wreathings and convolutions of a column of smoke;—or at the momentary beauties and splendours of fireworks, amid the darkness of night. In the human figure, however, the

enchanting power of graceful motion is probably owing chiefly to the living expression which it exhibits;-an expression ever renewed and ever varied,-of taste and of mental elegance.

From the combination of these three elements (of colours, of forms, and of motion) what a variety of complicated results may be conceived! And in any one of these results, who can ascertain the respective share of each element in its production? Is it wonderful, then, that the word Beauty, supposing it at first to have been applied to colours alone, should gradually and insensibly acquire a more extensive meaning?

In this enlargement, too, of the signification of the word, it is particularly worthy of remark, that it is not in consequence of the discovery of any quality belonging in common to colours, to forms, and to motion, considered abstractly, that the same word is now applied to them indiscriminately. They all indeed agree in this, that they give pleasure to the spectator; but there cannot, I think, be a doubt, that they please on principles essentially different; and that the transference of the word Beauty, from the first to the last, arises solely from their undistinguishable co-operation in producing the same agreeable effect, in consequence of their being all perceived by the same organ, and at the same instant.Essay on the Beautiful.

5. On the Culture of the Imaginative Faculty.

It is reasonable also to believe, that there are numberless minds, in which the seeds of taste, though profusely sown, continue altogether dormant through life; either in consequence of a total want of opportunity to cultivate the habits by which it is to be matured, or of an attention completely

engrossed with other pursuits. In instances such as these, it is the province of education to lend her succour; to invigorate, by due exercise, those principles in which an original weakness may be suspected; and, by removing the obstacles which check the expansion of our powers in any of the directions in which nature disposes them to shoot, to enable her to accomplish and to perfect her own designs.

In what manner Imagination may be encouraged and cherished in a mind where it had previously made little appearance, may be easily conceived from what was stated in a former Essay, with respect to the peculiar charm which sometimes accompanies the pleasures produced by its ideal combinations, when compared with the corresponding realities in nature and in human life. The eager curiosity of childhood, and the boundless gratification which it is so easy to afford it by well-selected works of fiction, give, in fact, to education, a stronger purchase, if I may use the expression, over this faculty, than what it possesses over any other. The attention may be thus insensibly seduced from the present objects of the senses, and the thoughts accustomed to dwell on the past, the distant, or the future; and, in the same proportion in which this effect is in any instance accomplished, 'the man' (as Dr. Johnson has justly remarked) is exalted in the scale of intellectual being.' The tale of fiction will probably be soon laid aside with the toys and rattles of infancy; but the habits which it has contributed to fix, and the powers which it has brought into a state of activity, will remain with the possessor, permanent and inestimable treasures, to his latest hour. To myself, this appears the most solid advantage to be gained from fictitious composition, considered as an engine of early instruction; I mean, the attractions which it holds out for encouraging an intercourse with the authors best fitted to invigorate

« VorigeDoorgaan »