best way of producing the grand not in nature at all. To say that style, because it does this without either affectation or slovenliness. 6. The sixth rule we proposed to lay down was, that as grandeur is the principle of connexion between different parts; beauty is the principle of affinity between different forms, their gradual conversion into each other. The one harmonizes, the other aggrandizes, our impressions of things. or There is a harmony of colours and a harmony of sounds, unquestionably: why then there should be all this squeamishness about admitting an original harmony of forms as the principle of beauty and source of pleasure there we cannot understand. It is true, that there is in organized bodies a certain standard of form to which they approximate more or less, and from which they cannot very widely deviate without shocking the sense of custom, or our settled expectations of what they ought to be. And hence it has been pretended, that there is in all such cases a middle central form, obtained by leaving out the peculiarities of all the others, which alone is the pure standard of truth and beauty. A conformity to custom is, we grant, one condition of beauty or source of satisfaction to the eye, because an abrupt transition shocks; but there is a conformity (or correspondence) of colours, sounds, lines, among themselves, which is soft and pleasing for the same reason. The average or customary form merely determines what is natural. A thing cannot please, unless it is to be found in nature; but that which is natural is most pleasing, according as it has other properties which in themselves please. Thus the colour of a cheek must be the natural complexion of a human face;-it would not do to make it the colour of a flower or a precious stone;-but among complexions ordinarily to be found in nature, that is most beautiful which would be thought so abstractedly, or in itself. Yellow hair is not the most common, nor is it a mean proportion between the different colours of women's hair. Yet, who will say that it is not the most beautiful? Blue or green hair would be a defect and an anomaly, not because it is not the medium of nature, but because it is there is no difference in the sense of form except from custom, is like saying that there is no difference in the sensation of smooth or rough. Judging by analogy, a gradation or symmetry of form must affect the mind in the same manner as a gradation of recurrence at given intervals of tones or sounds; and if it does so in fact, we need not inquire further for the principle. Sir Joshua, (who is the arch-heretic on this subject) makes grandeur or sublimity consist in the middle form, or abstraction of all peculiarities; which is evidently false, for grandeur and sublimity arise from extraordinary strength, magnitude, &c. or in a word, from an excess of power, so as to startle and overawe the mind. But as sublimity is an excess of power, beauty is, we conceive, the blending and harmonizing different powers or qualities together, so as to produce a soft and pleasurable sensation. That it is not the middle form of the species seems proved in various ways. First, because one species is more beautiful than another, according to common sense. A rose is the queen of flowers, in poetry at least; but in this philosophy any other flower is as good. A swan is more beautiful than a goose; a stag, than a goat. Yet if custom were the test of beauty, either we should give no preference, or our preference would be reversed. Again, let us go back to the human face and figure. A straight nose is allowed to be handsome, that is, one that presents nearly a continuation of the line of the forehead, and the sides of which are nearly parallel. Now this cannot be the mean proportion of the form of noses. For, first, most noses are broader at the bottom than at the top, inclining to the negro head, but none are broader at top than at the bottom, to produce the Greek form as a balance between both. Almost all noses sink in immediately under the forehead bone, none ever project there; so that the nearly straight line continued from the forehead cannot be a mean proportion struck between the two extremes of convex and concave form in this feature of the face. There must, therefore, be some other principle of symmetry, continuity, &c. to account for the variation from the prescribed rule. Once more (not to multiply instances tediously), a double calf is undoubtedly the perfection of beauty in the form of the leg. But this is a rare thing. Nor is it the medium between two common extremes. For the muscles seldom swell enough to produce this excrescence, if it may be so called, and never run to an excess there, so as, by diminishing the quantity, to subside into proportion and beauty. But this second or lower calf is a connecting link between the upper calf and the small of the leg, and is just like a second chord or half-note in music. We conceive that any one who does not perceive the beauty of the Venus de Medicis, for instance, in this respect, has not the proper perception of form in his mind. As this is the most disputable, or at least the most disputed part of our theory, we may, perhaps, have to recur to it again, and shall leave an opening for that purpose. 7. That grace is the beautiful or harmonious in what relates to position or motion. There needs not much be said on this point; as we apprehend it will be granted, that whatever beauty is as to the form, grace is the same thing in relation to the use that is made of it. Grace, in writing, relates to the transitions that are made from one subject to another, or to the movement that is given to a passage. If one thing leads to another, or an idea or illustration is brought in without effect, or without making a boggle in the mind, we call this a graceful style. Transitions must in general be gradual and pieced together. But sometimes the most violent are the most graceful, when the mind is fairly tired out and exhausted with a subject, and is glad to leap to another as a repose and relief from the first. Of these there are frequent instances in Mr. Burke's writings, which have something Pindaric in them. That which is not beautiful in itself, or in the mere form, may be made so by position or motion. A figure by no means elegant may be put in an elegant position. Mr. Kean's figure is not good; yet we have seen him throw himself into at titudes of infinite spirit, dignity, and grace. John Kemble's figure, on the contrary, is fine in itself; and he has only to show himself to be admired. The direction in which any thing is moved has evidently nothing to do with the shape of the thing moved. The one may be a circle and the other a square. Little and deformed people seem to be well aware of this distinction, who, in spite of their unpromising appearance, usually assume the most imposing attitudes, and give themselves the most extraordinary airs imaginable. 8. Grandeur of motion is unity of motion. This principle hardly needs illustration. Awkwardness is contradictory or disjointed motion. 9. Strength in art is giving the extremes, softness the uniting them. There is no incompatibility between strength and softness, as is sometimes supposed by frivolous people. Weakness is not refinement. A shadow may be twice as deep in a finely coloured picture as in another, and yet almost imperceptible, from the gradations that lead to it, and blend it with the light. Correggio had prodigious strength, and greater softness. Nature is strong and soft, beyond the reach of art to imitate. Softness then does not imply the absence of considerable extremes, but it is the interposing a third thing between them, to break the force of the contrast. Guido is more soft than strong. Rembrandt is more strong than soft. 10. And lastly. That truth is, to a certain degree, beauty and grandeur, since all things are connected, and all things modify one another in nature. Simplicity is also grand and beautiful for the same reason. Elegance is ease and lightness, with precision. This last head appears to contain a number of gratis dicta, got together for the sake of completing a decade of propositions. They have, however, some show of truth, and we should add little clearness to them by any reasoning upon the matter. So we will conclude here for the present. W.H. WAR SONG. THE original strain, of which the following stanzas are an imitation, was wont to be sung, with patriotic enthusiasm, by the German and Prussian soldiers, in their encampments, on their marches, and in the field of battle, during the last campaigns of the allies against Bonaparte. This Tyrtæan lyric, therefore, contributed, in its day and its degree, to the deliverance of Europe. 1 ! Quelque part que je me tourne, En quelque lieu que je soye Si pres des fleuves j'arrive Si quelque amy d'aventure, Unto whatever part I turn, A deadly sound is in mine ears, Whatever house I enter in, And if the people's haunts I shun, If to the river side I go, The bird upon the dry thorn sits, If any friend perchance do come A carking care, a woe extreme, And he himself thenceforth, poor man, This is natural and pathetic. Jan de la Peruse, from the few poems he has left, seems to have been an amiable man, warmly attached to his friends, and not very solicitous to court the notice of the powerful. I have learnt nothing more concerning him, than that he was born at Angoulême, and died there in 1555, in the prime of his life. The Twelve Tales of Lyddalcross. TALE THE FIFTH. THE MOTHER'S DREAM. She slept and there was vision'd to her eye A form that seiz'd her-blow, and shriek, and shout The Fifth Tale was related by a lady. Her voice was slow and gentle, and possessed that devotional Scottish melody of expression which gives so much antique richness and grace to speech. Under the shade of a long veil she sought to conceal a face where early grief had bleached the roses, and impressed a sedate and settled sorrow on a brow particularly white and high. But her eye still retained something of the light of early life, which darkened or brightened as the joys, the sufferings, or the sorrows, of wedded and maternal love, gave a deeper interest or passion to her story. When woman is young, said she, with a sigh, but not of regret, she loves to walk in the crowded streets, and near the dwellings of menwhen she becomes wiser, has the vanities, and drunk of the miseries and woes of life, she chooses her walks in more lonely places, and, seeking converse with her own spirit, seen Legend of Ladye Beatrice. shuns the joy and the mirth of the world. When sorrow, which misses few, had found me out, and made me a mateless bird, I once walked out to the margin of that beautiful sheet of water, the Ladye's Lowe. It was the heart of summer; the hills in which the lake lay embosomed were bright and green; sheep were scattered upon their sides; shepherds sat on their summits; while the grassy sward, descending to the quiet pure water, gave it so much of its own vernal hue, that the eye could not always distinguish where the land and lake met. Its long green water flags, and broad lilies, which lay so flat and so white along the surface, were unmoved, save by the course of a pair of wild swans, which for many years had grazed on the grassy margin, or found food in the bottom of the lake. This pastoral quietness pertained more to modern than to ancient times. When the summer heat was high, |