attention is fo little occupied by any private or particular object of thought, as to leave us open to all the impreffions, which the objects that are before us, can create. It is upon the vacant and the unemployed, accordingly, that the objects of Tafte make the ftrongest impreffion. It is in fuch hours alone, that we turn to the compofitions of mufic, or of poetry, for amufement. The feafons of care, of grief, or of business, have other occupations, and destroy, for the time at least, our fenfibility to the beautiful or the fublime, in the fame proportion that they produce a ftate of mind unfavourable to the indulgence of imagination.'

In the 3d fection of this chapter, Mr. A. fhews, that whatever increafes this excrcife or employment of imagination, increases alfo the emotion of beauty or fublimity; and he endeavours to establish this point by a great number of illuftrations, chiefly from the effect of affociation and picturefque imagery in poetical compofition. We fhall infert only the laft of his illuftrations, because it forms a whole:

The influence of fuch additional trains of imagery, in increasing the emotions of fublimity or beauty, might be illuftrated from many other circumstances, equally familiar. I am induced to mention only the following, because it is one of the most striking that I know, and because it is probable that most men of education have at least in fome degree been confcious of it: the influence I mean, of an acquaintance with poetry in our earlier years, in increafing our fenfibility to the beauties of nature.

The generality of mankind live in the world, without receiv ing any kind of delight, from the various fcenes of beauty which its order difplays. The rifing and fetting of the fun, the varying afpect of the moon, the viciffitude of feafous, the revolution of the planets, and all the ftupendous fcenery that they produce, are to them only common occurrences, like the ordinary events of every day. They have been fo long familiar, that they cease to ftrike them with any appearance either of magnificence or beauty, and are regarded by them, with no other fentiments than as being useful for the purposes of human life. We may all remember a period in our lives, when this was the state of our own minds; and it is probable moft men will recollect, that the time when nature began to appear to them in another view, was, when they were engaged in the study of claffical literature. In moft men, at least, the first appearance of poetical imagination is at fchool, when their imaginations begin to be warmed by the defcriptions of ancient poetry, and when they have acquired a new fenfe as it were, with which they can behold the face of nature.

How different, from this period, become the fentiments with which the fcenery of nature is contemplated, by thofe who have any imagination! The beautiful forms of ancient mythology, with which the fancy of poets peopled every element, are now ready to appear to their minds, upon the profpect of every scene. The defcriptions of ancient authors, fo long admired, and fo deferving of admiration, occur to them at every moment, and with them, all

those

thofe enthufiaftic ideas of ancient genius and glory, which the ftudy of fo many years of youth, fo naturally leads them to form. Or, if the ftudy of modern poetry has fucceeded to that of the ancient, a thousand other beautiful affociations are acquired, which, instead of deftroying, ferve eafily to unite with the former, and to afford a new fource of delight. The awful forms of Gothic fuperftition, the wild and romantic imagery, which the turbulence of the middle ages, the Crufades, and the inflitution of chivalry have spread over every country of Europe, arife to the imagination in every scenes accompanied with all thofe pleafing recollections of prowess, and adventure, and courteous manners, which diftinguished thofe memorable times. With fuch images in their minds, it is not common nature that appears to furround them. It is nature embellished and made facred by the memory of Theocritus and Virgil, and Milton and Taffo; their genius feems ftill to linger among the fcenes which infpired it, and to irradiate every object where it dwells; and the creations of their fancy, feem the fit inhabitants of that nature, which their defcriptions have clothed with beauty.

Nor is it only in providing fo many fources of affociation, that the influence of an acquaintance with poetry confifts. It is yet fill more powerful in giving character to the different appearances of nature, in connecting them with various emotions and affections of our hearts, and in thus providing an almost inexhaustible fource either of folemn or of cheerful meditation. What to ordinary men is but common occurrence, or common scenery, to thofe who have fuch affociations, is full of beauty. The feafons of the year which are marked only by the generality of mankind, by the different Occupations or amufements they bring, have each of them, to fuch men, peculiar expreffions, and awaken them to an exercise either of pleafing or of awful thought. The feafons of the day, which are regarded only by the common fpectator, as the call to labour, or to reft, are to them characteristic either of cheerfulness or folemnity, and connected with all the various emotions which these characters excite. Even the familiar circumstances of general nature, which pafs unheeded by a common eye, the cottage, the fheepfold, the curfew, all have expreffions to them, because, in the compofitions to which they have been accuftomed, thefe all are affociated with peculiar characters, or rendered expreffive of them, and leading them to the remembrance of fuch affociations, enable them to behold with corresponding difpofitions, the fcenes which are before them, and to feel from their profpect, the fame powerful influence, which the eloquence of poetry has afcribed to them.

• Affociations of this kind, when acquired in early life, are feldom altogether loft; and whatever inconveniencies they may fometimes have with regard to the general character, or however much they may be ridiculed by thofe who do not experience them, they are yet productive to thofe who poffefs them, of a perpetual and innocent delight. Nature herself is their friend; in her most dreadful, as well as her moft lovely fcenes, they can discover fomething either to elevate their imaginations, or to move their hearts;

Cc 4

and

and amid every change of fcenery, or of climate, can fill find them felves, among the early objects of their admiration, or their love.'

In chapter 2. of this effay, he proceeds to an analysis of this exercife of imagination:

The illuftrations in the preceding chapter, (fays he,) feem to fhew, that whenever the emotions of fublimity are felt, that exercise of imagination is produced, which confifts in the indulgence of a train of thought; that when this exercife is prevented, thefe emotions are unfelt and unperceived; and whatever tends to increase this exercife of mind, tends in the fame proportion to increase these emotions. If these illuftrations are juft, it seems reasonable to conclude, that the effect produced upon the mind, by objects of fublimity and beauty, confifts in the production of this exercise of imagination.

Although, however, this conclufion feems to me both just and confonant to experience, yet it is in itself too general, to be confidered as a fufficient account of the nature of that operation of mind which takes place in the cafe of fuch emotions. There are many trains of ideas of which we are confcious, which are unattended with any kind of pleafore. There are other operations of mind, in which fuch trains of thought are neceffarily produced, without exciting any fimilar emotion."

After ftating, at length, the difference which fubfifts between. fuch trains of thought, and thofe which take place when the emotions of taste are felt, he concludes that these laft are diftinguifhed from all others, 1ft, in refpect of the nature of the ideas of which they are compofed, by their being, in all cafes, ideas produ&ive of fome fimple emotion: 2dly, in respect of their fucceffion, by their being diftinguifhed by fome general principle of connection which fubfifts through the whole extent of the train. The train of thought, therefore, which takes place when the emotions of tafte are felt, he thinks may be confidered as confifting in a regular train of ideas of emotion.

As thefe principles appear to him important in the philofophy of tafte, he conceives that they ought to be fully and clearly illuftrated. The truth of them, he fuppofes, may be inveftigated by the following method:

1. If it be true that the ideas which compofe these trains are uniformly ideas of emotion, then it ought to be found in fact, that no objects or qualities are experienced to be beautiful or fublime, but fuch as are productive of fome fimple emotion.

2. If it be true, that fuch trains of thought are uniformly diftinguished by fome general principle of connection, then it ought alfo to be found, that no compofition of objects, or qualities, produces fuch emotions, in which this unity of character or of emotion is not perceived. The two remaining fections

of

of this chapter he devotes to the illuftration of these propofi

tions.

Mr. Alifon illuftrates the first of these points by fhewing, that, whenever the emotion of beauty or fublimity is felt, fome affection is uniformly excited; that where the fimple emotion, which the object is fitted to raife, is not produced, the emotion of beauty is alfo unfelt; that where the original disposition, or the habits of life, have rendered men infenfible to any particular clafs of emotions, they are alfo infenfible to all the beauty or fublimity which other men difcover in fuch claffes of objects; that the feeling of beauty depends on the temporary fenfibility of our minds; and that when we confider any beautiful object on the fide of any of its uninterefting qualities, we do not feel the fame emotion which we do when we confider it in the light in which it is interesting or affecting, &c. From thefe illuftrations, we muft fatisfy ourfelves with a fingle extract.

The difference of original character, or the natural tendency of our minds to particular kinds of emotion, produces a fimilar difference in our fentiments of beauty, and ferves, in a very obvious manner, to limit our tafte to a certain clafs or character of objects. There are men, for inftance, who, in all the varieties of external nature, find nothing beautiful but as it tends to awaken in them a fentiment of fad nefs, who meet the return of fpring with minds only prophetic of its decay, and who follow the decline of autumn with no other remembrance than that the beauties of the year are gone. There are men, on the contrary, to whom every appearance of nature is beautiful as awakening a fentiment of gaiety;-to whom fpring and autumn alike are welcome, because they bring to them only different images of joy;- and who, even in the most defolate and wintry fcenes, are yet able to difcover fomething in which their hearts may rejoice. It is not, furely, that nature herfelf is different, that fo different effects are produced upon the imaginations of these men; but it is because the original conftitution of their minds has led them to different habits of emotion,because their imaginations feize only thofe expreffions in nature, which are allied to their prevailing difpofitions, and because every other appearance is indifferent to them, but thofe which fall in with the peculiar fenfibility of their hearts. The gaiety of nature alone, is beautiful to the chearful man; its melancholy, to the man of fad nefs; becaufe thefe alone are the qualities which accord with the emotions they are accustomed to cherish, and in which their imaginations delight to indulge.

The fame observation is equally applicable to the different taftes of men in poetry, and the reft of the fine arts; and the produaions that all men peculiarly admire, are thofe which fuit that peculiar train of emotion, to which, from their original conftitution, they are moft ftrongly difpofed. The ardent and gallant mind fickens at the infipidity of paftoral, and the languor of elegiac

poetry,

poetry, and delights only in the great interefts of the Tragic and the Epic Mufe. The tender and romantic perufe, with indifference, the Iliad and the Paradife Loft, and return with gladness, to those favourite compofitions, which are defcriptive of the joys or forrows of love. The gay and the frivolous, on the contrary, alike infenfible to the fentiments either of tenderness or magnanimity, find their delight in that cold but lively ftyle of poetry, which has been produced by the gallantry of medern times, and which, in its principal features, is fo ftrongly charafleristic of the paffion itfelf. In general, thofe kinds of poetry only are delightful, or awaken us to any very fenfible emotions of fublimity or beauty, which fall in with our peculiar habits of fentiment or feeling; and if it rarely happens, that one fpecies of poetry is relished to the exclufion of every other, it arifes only from this, that it is equally rare, that one fpecies of emotion fhould have fo completely the dominion of the heart, as to exclude all emotions of any other kind. In proportion, however, as our fenfibility is weak, with regard to any clafs of objects, it is obfervable, that our fenfe of fublimity or beauty in fuch objects, is weak in the fame proportion; and wherever it happens, (for it fometimes does happen,) that men, from their original conftitution, are incapable of any one fpecies of emotion, I believe it will alfo be found, that they are equally infenfibie to all the fublimity or beauty which the rest of the world find in the objects of fuch emotion.'

The fecond propofition, That no compofition of objects or qualities produces the emotions of tafte in which an unity of character or of emotion is not produced,' the author illuftrates from a general review of compofition in the different fine arts. The following extract will fhew the nature of his reasoning:

The art of landfcape painting is yet fuperior in its effect, from the capacity which the artift enjoys, of giving both greater extent and greater unity to his compofition. In the art of gardening, the great materials of the fcene are provided by nature, and the artift muft fatisfy himself with that degree of expreffion which he has bestowed. In a landfcape, on the contrary, the painter has the choice of the circumftances he is to reprefent, and can give whatever force or extent he pleafes to the expreffion he wishes to convey. In gardening, the materials of the fcene are few, and those few unwieldy; and the artist must often content himself with the reflection, that he has given the beft difpofition in his power to the fcanty and intractable materials of nature. In a landscape, on the contrary, the whole range of fcenery is before the eye of the painter. He may felect from a thousand fcenes, the circumitances which are to characterife a fingle compofition, and may unite into one expreffion, the fcattered features with which nature has feebly marked a thousand fituations. The momentary effects of light or fhade, the fortunate incidents which chance fometimes throws in, to improve the expreffion of real fcenery, and which can never again be recalled, he has it in his power to perpetuate upon his canvas: above all, the occupations of men, fo important in determining,