and by the orderly and symmetrical construction of their whole work, whether longer or shorter. They must avail themselves of variety, by the different lengths of their tones; if the work be long, by different rhythms introduced into it, by passing from scale to scale in modulation, and by different expressions, as the pathetic, or the joyful, or the excited; even by an admixture of tamer and more discordant passages, to give relief and effect to passages of feeling and brilliancy. Painters must avail themselves of light and shade, and also of harmony of colouring; that is, of a due mixture of red, blue and yellow, either pure or mixed with one another. The picture must not be too blue, or too red, or too yellow. The light and shade, and also the colours, must be distributed in some order, and symmetrically. One side of the picture must not be all light, and the other all dark; one side must not be of a reddish or brownish tinge, and the other side blue or purple. But the lights and shades, and also the colours, must be arranged somewhat in kaleidoscope fashion; a central light and central colour, with secondary lights and similar colours appearing in different parts of the picture around the centre. Variety also must be studied in the objects introduced, in forms, in colours, in countenances, in attitudes, in expressions. Yet that variety must be in subordination to order and symmetry. The statuary having nothing to do with sound or colour, must attend to those sources of beauty which remain. His chief aim must be the expression of mental beauty, as ease, dignity, calmness, benevolence; but he must study symmetry in the attitudes of his figures, and in grouping them. And here we find the same fundamental principle of a central principal object, and inferior objects grouped in subordination to it. Variety also must be attended to. In a single figure, the limbs on the same side must not be both extended forward, and on the other side drawn back; but there or must be variety in the positions of the head and the body, and the limbs. In groups of figures, they must not be all looking one way, or in the same attitude, of the same height, like the Egyptian pictures and engravings on stone; but variety must be exhibited in the attitudes, positions, heights, &c., in combination with order and symmetry. The architect's art depends almost entirely on order, symmetry, and proportion of parts. He must indeed adapt the style of his building to the purposes of it, as we shall have occasion to notice more distinctly immediately; but whatever style he may adopt, so far as the producing of the pleasure of beauty is concerned, he has chiefly to do with order and symmetry. And the nature of the symmetry, especially of Grecian and Roman architecture, is of the same nature with that of the human body, a central perpendicular line, on each side of which, the one half of the building is the exact counterpart of the other, like two of the reflections in a kaleidoscope. In tracing the building from the base to the summit, there is, as in tracing the human figure from the feet to the head, an unceasing variety of form; in tracing any part of the building from side to side on the same level, there is, in most specimens, an exact uniformity. When variety is introduced, latitudinally, on the same level, it is minute, and it must be repeated at the corresponding position on the opposite side of the perpendicular central line. The Gothic, or more early middle-age architecture, follows nearly the same rules. In more modern architecture of the same kind, more variety of form is introduced; the greater variety in some measure compensating for the deficiency of uniformity. But even that variety must have its limits, and must be subordinate to order and symmetry. A building patched up of Grecian, Gothic, Saracenic and Chinese architectures, would be a mass of deformity. Poets must act on the same principles. They must convey ideas and feelings of order and symmetry in their rhythm, the structure of their stanzas or periods, or their rhyme; also in the general structure of their poems. Whether longer or shorter, they must, to be beautiful, have a certain symmetry of parts. There must not be a long elaborate exordium to a short poem, nor episodes out of proportion to it; but its various parts must be in keeping with a central aim or principal subject. It must also have variety, as much variety as the structure of the verse and the nature of the subject will admit of. The poet, therefore, is not confined to the rigid order of the historian, or the essayist, whose chief object is truth, and not beauty; but may take a more excursive range, with more abrupt transitions. The relation which the Iliad, the Æneid, and Paradise Lost, bear to history, and which Pope's Essay on Man or Cowper's poems bear to prose essays, will show what liberties must be taken with narrative or discussion, to make it poetically beautiful. The artificial production of the sublime. In producing feelings of sublimity, as of beauty, the artist has a wider range than merely suggesting objects which are sublime in themselves. Objects and scenes which, seen immediately, would be simply horrible and terrific, may, when brought before the mind, in the mitigated form of painting, or music, or poetical description, produce the feeling of sublimity. The consciousness of perfect safety, while contemplating a terrific scene, leaves the mind at liberty to appreciate the sublimity of it. Bonaparte is said to have declared that the view of the conflagration of Moscow from the Kremlin, was the sublimest sight he had ever seen. In a mind less inured to scenes of human misery, the mass of wretchedness involved in that catastrophe, the deeds of rapine, and cruelty, and lawless lust, which he well knew were being perpetrated, and the danger of intense suffering to which his own army was exposed by it, would have left room for no feeling but intense distress and anxiety. But he was personally safe himself, and the sufferings of others, or the perpetration of the most enormous crimes, gave him little concern; so that he had composure sufficient to note and appreciate the sublimity of the scene, notwithstanding the unexampled horrors with which it was accompanied. The feeling of sublimity is produced by means totally different from the feeling of beauty. Clearness of sound or of colour, harmony, symmetry, variety, are rather unfavourable to it than otherwise. Whatever calls up thoughts of vastness and power, obscurity or mystery, contributes to it. In music, sublimity is attained chiefly by conveying the conceptions of great multitudes under the influence of various strong emotions. Many of Handel's choruses are eminently so. In one passage in Haydn's Creation, the idea of a shriek arising out of some dark and troubled scene, is conveyed with great effect, and is terrifically sublime. The painter's power of awakening sublimity lies chiefly in calling up thoughts of vastness or power:huge objects looming through twilight or mist, tempests by sea or land, dark and furious passions in operation, and the avoiding of too distinct lights and outlines, and high finishing. The architect's sublimity lies chiefly in the greatness, massiveness, and simplicity of his structures. The pyramids of Egypt and its colossal statues are sublime from their vast bulk. The high finish and beautiful proportions of the Grecian temples were unfavourable to sublimity. St. Peter's, at Rome, St. Sophia's, at Constantinople, and St. Paul's, in London, and other similar structures, are sublime from the power that is suggested in sustaining their vast domes at so great a height. The Colosseum is sublime from its prodigious extent, and the simplicity of its structure. It is incomparably more so in the obscurity of the twilight or moonlight, than in the blaze of an Italian day. Its architectural ornaments add little to its beauty, and they detract from its sublimity. St, Peter's is less beautiful, but more sublime, than St. Paul's, not only from its greater bulk, but from its being more simple in its ground plan, and less ornamented. The sublimity of the statuary consists chiefly in his conveying ideas of great strength of body, or great power of thought, or of character. There is a pro digious massiveness in some of the figures of Michael Angelo, and a kind of obscurity produced by their postures, and the positions in which they are placed with respect to light and shadow, which contribute much to their sublimity. The poet has a wider range for the production of sublimity than any of the other artists. The whole range of nature, material and mental, and the whole illimitable range of actual or possible events, are at his command to cull from; and to produce sublimity, he must seek to call up the same conceptions with his fellow artists, vastness, power, scenes of terror veiled in obscurity and indistinctness, yet sufficiently distinct to convey vividly the general features of them. Blank verse seems more favourable to the sublime than rhyme. It would seem scarcely possible to excite feelings of sublimity by the smooth and polished couplets of Pope, or even by the rougher and more manly couplets of Dryden. Irregular versification seems also more fitted for awakening feelings of sublimity than of beauty. Although, perhaps, the sublime has never been more perfectly attained than in some of the stanzas of Campbell: "As we drifted on our path, There was silence deep as death, |