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If, having walked with Nature,
And offered, far as frailty would allow,
My heart a daily sacrifice to Truth,
I now affirm of Nature and of Truth,
Whom I have served, that their Divinity
Revolts, oflTended at the ways of men,
Philosophers, who, though the human soul
Be of a thousand faculties composed,
And twice ten thousand interests, do yet prize
This soul, and the transcendent universe,
No more than as a mirror that reflects
To prOud Self-love her own intelligence."

As this preface is nearly all about myself, no one need
take the trouble of reading it, unless he happens to be
desirous of knowing—what I, at least, am bound to state,
— the circumstances which have caused the long delay
of the work, as well as the alterations which will be
noticed in its form.

The first and second volumes were written to check,
as far as I could, the attacks upon Turner which pre-
vented the public from honouring his genius, at the
time when his power was greatest. The check was
partially given, but too late ; Turner was seized by
painful illness not long after the second volume ap-
peared ; his works, towards the close of the year 1845,
showed a conclusive failure of power; and I saw that
nothing remained for me to write, but his epitaph.

The critics had done their proper and appointed work ;
they had embittered, more than those who did not know
Turner intim.ately could have believed possible, the
closing years of his life ; and had blinded the world in
general (as it appears ordained by Fate that the world

always shall be blinded) to the presence of a great
spirit among tliem, till the hour of its departure. With
them, and their successful work, I had nothing more
to do; the account of gain and loss, of gifts and gra-
titude, between Turner and his countrymen, was for
ever closed. He could only be left to his quiet death
at Chelsea, — the sun upon his face; they to dispose a
length of funeral through Ludgate, and bury, with
threefold honour, his body in St. Paul's, his pictures at
Charing Cross, and his purposes in Chancery. But
with respect to the illustration and preservation of those
of his works which remained unburied, I felt that
much might yet be done, if I could at all succeed in
proving that these works had some nobleness in them,
and were worth preservation. I pursued my task, there-
fore, as I had at first proposed, with this only difference
in method, — that instead of writing in continued haste,
such as I had been forced into at first by the urgency
of the occasion, I set myself to do the work as well
as I could, and to collect materials for the complete ex-
amination of the canons of art received among us.

I have now given ten years of my life to the single
purpose of enabling myself to judge rightly of art, and
spent them in labour as earnest and continuous as men
usually undertake to gain position, or accumulate for-
tune. It is true, that the public still call me an " ama-
teur nor have I ever been able to persuade them that
it was possible to work steadily and hard with any other
motive than that of gaining bread, or to give up a
fixed number of hours every day to the furtherance of
an object unconnected with personal interests. I have,

however, given up so much of life to this object ; ear-
nestly desiring to ascertain, and be able to teach, the
truth respecting art; and also knowing that this truth
was, by time and labour, definitely ascertainable.

It is an idea too frequently entertained, by persons
who are not much interested in art, that there are no
laws of right or wrong concerning it; and that the
best art is that which pleases most widely. Hence the
constant allegation of " dogmatism " against any one
who states unhesitatingly either preference or principle,
respecting pictures. There are, however, laws of truth
and right in painting, just as fixed as those of harmony
in music, or of affinity in chemistry. Those laws are
perfectly ascertainable by labour, and ascertainable no
otherwise. It is as ridiculous for any one to speak
positively about painting who has not given a great part
of his life to its study, as it would be for a person
who had never studied chemistry to give a lecture on
affinities of elements; but it is also as ridiculous for
a person to speak hesitatingly about laws of painting
who has conscientiously given his time to their ascer-
tainment, as it would be for Mr. Faraday to announce
in a dubious manner that iron had an affinity for oxy-
gen, and to put the question to the vote of his audience
whether it had or not. Of course there are many
things, in all stages of knowledge, which cannot be
dogmatically stated ; and it will be found, by any candid
reader, either of what I have before written, or of this
book, that, in many cases, I am not dogmatic. The
phrase, " I think so," or, " it seems so to me," will be
met with continually ; and I pray the reader to believe

It may perhaps be thought that, considering the not
very elaborate structure of the following volumes, they
might have been finished sooner. But it will be found,
on reflection, that the ranges of inquiry engaged in
demanded, even for their slight investigation, time and
pains which are quite unrepresented in the result. It
often required a week or . two's hard walking to deter-
mine some geological problem, now dismissed in an un-
noticed sentence; and it constantly needed examination
and thought, prolonged during many days in the picture
gallery, to form opinions which the reader may suppose to
be dictated by caprice, and will hear only to dispute.

A more serious disadvantage, resulting from the ne-
cessary breadth of subject, was the chance of making
mistakes in minor and accessory points. For the labour
of a critic who sincerely desires to be just, extends
into more fields than it is possible for any single hand
to furrow straightly. / He has to take some note of
many physical sciences ; of optics, geometry, geology,
botany, and anatomy; he must acquaint himself with
the works of all great artists, and with the temper and
history of the times in which they lived; he must be
a fair metaphysician, and a careful observer of the
phenomena of natural scenery. It is not possible to
extend the range of work thus widely, without running
the chance of occasionally making mistakes; and if I
carefully guarded against that chance, I should be com-
pelled both to shorten my powers of usefulness in many
directions, and to lose much time over what work I

undertook. All that I can secure, therefore, is rightness
in main points and main tendencies; for it is perfectly
possible to protect oneself against small errors, and yet
to make great and final error in the sum of work: on
the other hand, it is equally possible to fall into many
small errors, and yet be right in tendency all the while,
and entirely right in the end. In this respect, some
men may be compared to careful travellers, who neither
stumble at stones, nor slip in sloughs, but have, from
the beginning of their journey to its close, chosen the
wrong road ; and others to those who, however slipping
or stumbling at the wayside, have yet their eyes fixed
on the true gate and goal (stumbling, perhaps, even the
more because they have), and will not fail of reaching
them. Such are assuredly the safer guides : he who
follows them may avoid their slips, and be their com-
panion in attainment.

Although, therefore, it is not possible but that, in the
discussion of so many subjects as are necessarily intro-
duced in the following pages, here and there a chance
should arise of minor mistake or misconception, the reader
need not be disturbed by the detection of any such. He
will find always that they do not afi'ect the matter mainly
in hand.

I refer especially in these remarks to the chapters on
Classical and Mediaeval Landscape. It is certain, that in
many respects, the views there stated must be inaccurate
or incomplete; for how should it be otherwise when the
subject is one whose proper discussion would require
knowledge of the entire history of two great ages of
the world? But I am well assured that the suggestions

in those chapters are useful; and that even if, after
farther study of the subject, the reader should find cause
to differ with me in this or the other speciality, he will
yet thank me for helping him to a certain length in
the investigation, and confess, perhaps, that he could
not at last have been right, if I had not first ventured
to be wrong.

And of one thing he may be certified, that any error I
fall into will not be in an illogical deduction: I may mis-
take the meaning of a symbol, or the angle of a rock-
cleavage, but not draw an inconsequent conclusion. I
state this, because it has often been said that I am not
logical, by persons who do not so much as know what
logic means. Next to imagination, the power of per-
ceiving logical relation is one of the rarest among men :
certainly, of those with whom I have conversed, 1 have
found always ten who had deep feeling, quick wit, or
extended knowledge, for one who could set down a syllo-
gism without a flaw; and for ten who could set down a
syllogism, only one who could entirely understand that
a square has four sides. Even as I am sending these
sheets to press, a work is put into my hand, written to
prove (I would, from the depth of my heart, it could
prove) that there was no ground for what I said in
' the. Stones of Venice respecting the logical probability
of the continuity of evil. It seems learned, temperate,
thoughtful, ever3''thing in feeling and aim that a book
should be, and yet it begins with this sentence ;

" The question cited in our preface, ' Why not infinite good out of
infinite evil?' must be taken to imply—for it else can have no weight,
— that in order to the production of infinite good, the existence of
infinite evil is indispensable."

So, if I had said that there was no reason why honey
should not be sucked out of a rock, and oil out of a flinty
rock, the writer would have told me this sentence must
be taken to imply—for it else could have no weight,—that
in order to the production of honey, the existence of rocks
is indispensable. No less intense and marvellous are the
logical errors into which our best writers are continually
falling, owing to the notion that laws of logic will help
them better than common sense. Whereas any man who
can reason at all, does it instinctively, and takes leaps
over intermediate syllogisms by the score, yet never
misses his footing at the end of the leap; but he who
cannot instinctively argue, might as well, with the gout
in both feet, try to follow a chamois hunter by the help
of crutches, as to follow, by the help of syllogism, a person
who has the right use of his reason. I should not, how-
ever, have thought it necessary to allude to this common
charge against my writings, but that it happens to con-
firm some views I have long entertained, and which the
reader will find glanced at in their proper place, respecting
the necessity of a more practically logical education for our
youth. Of other various charges I need take no note,
because they are always answered the one by the other.
The complaint made against me to-day for being narrow
and exclusive, is met to-morrow by indignation that I
should admire schools whose characters cannot be re-
conciled ; and the assertion of one critic, that I am always
contradicting myself, is balanced by the vexation of
another, at my ten years' obstinacies in error.

I once intended the illustrations to these volumes to be
more numerous and elaborate, but the art of photography

now enables any reader to obtain as many memoranda of
the facts of nature as he needs; and, in the course of my
ten years' pause, I have formed plans for the representa-
tion of some of the works of Turner on their own scale;
so that it would have been quite useless to spend time in
reducing drawings to the size of this page, which were
afterwards to be engraved of their own size.^ I have
therefore here only given illustrations enough to enable
the reader, who has not access to the works of Turner, to
understand the principles laid down in the text, and
apply them to such art as may be within his reach. And
I owe sincere thanks to the various engravers who have
worked with me, for the zeal and care with which they
have carried out the requirements in each case, and over-
come difficulties of a nature often widely differing from
those involved by their habitual practice. I would not
make invidious distinction, where all have done well; but
may perhaps be permitted to point, as examples of what
I mean, to the 3rd and 6th Plates in this volume (the
6th being left unlettered in order not to injure the effect
of its ground), in which Mr. Le Keux and Mr. Armytage
have exactly facsimiled, in line engraving, drawings of
mine made on a grey ground touched with white, and
have given even the loaded look of the body colour. The
power of thus imitating actual touches of colour with
pure lines will be, I believe, of great future importance in
rendering Turner's work on a large scale. As for the
merit or demerit of these or other drawings of my own,

' I should be very grateftil to proprietors of pictures or drawings by Turner, if they
would send me lists of the works in their possession j as I am desirous of forming a
systematic catalogue of all his works.

which I am obliged now for. the sake of illustration often
to engrave, I believe I could speak of it impartially,
and should unreluctantly do so; but I leave, as most
readers will think I ought, such judgment to them,
merely begging them to remember that there are two
general principles to be kept in mind in examining
the drawings of any writer on art: the first, that they
ought at least to show such ordinary skill in draughts-
manship, as to prove that the writer knows what the
good qualities of drawing are; the second, that they are
never to be expected to equal, in either execution or
conception, the work of accomplished artists, — for the
simple reason, that in order to do anythmg thoroughly
well, the whole mind, and the whole available time, must
be given to that single art. It is probable, for reasons
which will be noted in the following pages, that the
critical and executive faculties are in great part inde-
pendent of each other; so that it is nearly as great an
absurdity to require of any critic that he should equal
in execution even the work which he condemns, as to
require of the audience which hisses a piece of vocal
music that they should instantly chant it in truer har-
mony themselves. But whether this be true or not (it
is at least untrue to this extent, that a certain power
of drawing is indispensable to the critic of art), and
supposing that the executive and critical powers always
exist in some correspondent degree in the same person,
still they cannot be cultivated to the same extent. The
attention required for the development of a theory is
necessarily withdrawn from the design of a drawing, and
the time devoted to the realization of a form is lost to

the solution of a problem. Choice must at last be made
between one and the other power, as the principal aim of
life; and if the painter should find it necessary some-
times to explain one of his pictures in words, or the
writer to illustrate his meaning with a drawing, the skill
of the one need not be doubted because his logic is
feeble, nor the sense of the other because his pencil is
listless.

As, however, it is sometimes alleged by the opponents
of my principles, that I have never done an^/thing, it is
proper that the reader should know exactly the amount
of work for which I am answerable in these illustrations.
When an example is given from any of the works of
Turner, it is either etched by myself from the original
drawing, or engraved from a drawing of mine, translating
Turner's work out of colour into black and white, as,
for instance, the frontispiece to the fourth volume.
When a plate is inscribed as " after " such and such
a master, I have always myself made the drawing, in
black and white, from the original picture; as, for in-
stance, Plate 11. in this volume. If it has been made
from a previously existing engraving, it is inscribed with

corner; as, for instance, Plate 18. in Yol. IV. Outline
etchings are either by my own hand on the steel, as
Plate 12. here, and 20, 21. in Yol. IV.; or copies
from my pen drawings, etched by Mr. Boys, with a
fidelity for which I sincerely thank him; one, Plate 22.
Vol. IV., is both drawn and etched by Mr. Boys from
an old engraving. Most of the other illustrations are
engraved from my own studies from nature. The co-

loured Plate (7. in this volume) is from a drawing exe-
cuted with great skill by my assistant, Mr. J. J. Laing,
from MSS. in the British Museum ; and the litho-
graphy of it has been kindly superintended by Mr.
Henry Shaw, whose renderings of mediaaval ornaments
stand, as far as I know, quite unrivalled in modern
art. The two woodcuts of mediaeval design, Figs. 1.
and 3., are also from drawings by Mr. Laing, admirably
cut by Miss Byfield. I use this word " admirably,"
not with reference to mere delicacy of execution, which
can usually be had for money, but to the perfect fidelity
of facsimile, which is in general 7iot to be had for
money, and by which Miss Byfield has saved me all
trouble with respect to the numerous woodcuts in the
fourth volume; first, by her excellent renderings of vari-
ous portions of Albert Durer's woodcuts; and, secondly,
by reproducing, to their last dot or scratch, my own
pen diagrams, drawn in general so roughly that few
wood-engravers would have condescended to cut them
with care, and yet always involving some points in which
care was indispensable. One or two changes have been
permitted in the arrangement of the book, which make
the text in these volumes not altogether a symmetrical
continuation of that in former ones. Thus, I thought it
better to put the numbers of paragraphs always at the
left-hand side of the page ; and as the summaries, in
small type, appeared to me for the most part cumbrous
and useless, I have banished them, except where there
were complicated divisions of subject which it seemed
convenient to indicate at the margin. I am not sorry
thus to carry out my own principle of the sacrifice

of architectural or constructive symmetry to practical
service. The plates are, in a somewhat unusual way,
numbered consecutively through the two volumes, as I
intend them to be also through the fifth. This plan
saves much trouble in references.

I have only to express, in conclusion, my regret that
it has been impossible to finish the work within the
limits first proposed. Having, of late, found my designs
always requiring enlargement in process of execution, I
will take care, in future, to set no limits whatsoever to
any good intentions. In the present instance I trust the
reader will pardon me, as the later efibrts of our schools
of art have necessarily introduced many new topics of
discussion.

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§ I. In taking up the clue of an inquiry, now intermitted for nearly
ten years, it may be well to do as a traveller would, who had to
recommence an interrupted journey in a guideless country; and,
ascending, as it were, some little hill beside our road, note how far
we have already advanced, and what pleasantest ways we may
choose for farther progress.

I endeavoured, in the beginning of the first volume, to divide
the sources of pleasure open to us in Art into certain groups,
which might conveniently be studied in succession. After some
preliminary discussion, it was concluded (Part I. Chap. iii. § 86.)
that these groups were, in the main, three; consisting, first, of the
pleasures taken in perceiving simple resemblance to Nature (Ideas
of Truth); secondly, of the pleasures taken in the beauty of tlie
things chosen to be painted (Ideas of Beauty); and, lastly, of
pleasures taken in the meanings and relations of these things (Ideas
of Relation).

The first volume, treating of the ideas of Truth, was chiefly
occupied with an inquiry into the various success with which dif-
ferent artists had represented the facts of Nature,— an inquiry

necessarily conducted very imperfectly, owing to the want of pic-
torial illustration.

The second volume merely opened the inquiry into the nature
of ideas of Beauty and Relation, by analysing (as far as I was able
to do so) the two faculties of the human mind which mainly seized
such ideas; namely, the contemplative and imaginative faculties.

It remains for us to examine the various success of artists,
especially of the great landscape-painter whose works have been
throughout our principal subject, in addressing these faculties of
the human mind, and to consider who among them has conveyed
the noblest ideas of beauty, and touched the deepest sources of
thought.

§ 2. I do not intend, however, now to pursue the inquiry in a
method so laboriously systematic; for the subject may, it seems to
me, be more usefully treated by pursuing the different questions
which rise out of it just as they occur to us, without too great
scrupulousness in marking connections, or insisting on sequences.
Much time is wasted by human beings, in general, on establish-
ment of systems; and it often takes more labour to master the in-
tricacies of an artificial connection, than to remember the separate
facts which are so carefully connected. I suspect that system-
makers, in general, are not of much more use, each in his own
domain, than, in that of Pomona, the old women who tie cherries
upon sticks, for the more convenient portableness of the same. To
cultivate well, and choose well, your cherries, is of some import-
ance ; but if they can be had in their own wild way of clustering
about their crabbed stalk, it is a better connection for them than
any other; and, if they cannot, then, so that they be not bruised,
it makes to a boy of a practical disposition, not much difference
whether he gets them by handfuls, or in beaded symmetry on the
exalting stick. I purpose, therefore, henceforward to trouble my-
self little with sticks or twine, but to arrange my chapters with
a view to convenient reference, rather than to any careful division
of subjects, and to folloAV out, in any by-ways that may open,
on right hand or left, whatever question it seems useful at any
moment to settle.

have touched upon before—one of especial interest in the present
state of the Arts. I have said that the art is greatest which in-
cludes the greatest ideas; but I have not endeavoured to define
the nature of this greatness in the ideas themselves. We speak
of great truths, of great beauties, great thoughts. What is it
which makes one truth greater than another, one thought greater
than another ? This question is, I repeat, of peculiar importance at
the present time ; for, during a period now of some hundred and
fifty years, all writers on Art who have pretended to eminence,
have insisted much on a supposed distinction between what they call
the Great and the Low Schools; using the terms " High Art,"
" Great or Ideal Style," and other such, as descriptive of a certain
noble manner of painting, which it was desirable that all students
of Art should be early led to reverence and adopt; and charac-
terising as " vulgar," or " low," or " realist," another manner of
painting and conceiving, which it was equally necessary that all
students should be taught to avoid.

But lately this established teaching, never very intelligible, has
been gravely called in question. The advocates and self-supposed
practisers of ^'High Art" are beginning to be looked upon with
doubt, and their peculiar phraseology to be treated with even a
certain degree of ridicule. And other forms of Art are partly
developed among us, which do not pretend to be high, but rather
to be strong, healthy, and humble. This matter of "highness" in
Art, therefore deserves our most careful consideration. Has it
been, or is it, a true highness, a true princeliness, or only a show
of it, consisting in courtly manners and robes of state ? Is it rocky
height or cloudy height, adamant or vapour, on which the sun
of praise so long has risen and set ? It will be well at once to
consider this.

And first, let us get, as quickly as may be, at the exact mean-
ing Avith which the advocates of " High Art" use that somewhat
obscure and figurative term.

I do not know that the principles in question are anywhere
more distinctly expressed than in two papers in the Idler,
written by Sir Joshua Reynolds, of course under the immediate
sanction of Johnson; and which may thus be considered as the

utterance of the views then held upon the subject by the artists
of chief skill, and critics of most sense, arranged in a form so
brief and clear, as to admit of their being brought before the
public for a morning's entertainment. I cannot, therefore, it
seems to me, do better than quote these two letters, or at least
the important parts of them, examining the exact meaning of each
passage as it occurs. There are, in all, in the Idler three letters
on painting, Nos. 76. 79. and 82.; of these, the first is directed
only against the impertinences of pretended connoisseurs, and is
as notable for its faithfulness, as for its wit, in the description of
the several modes of criticism in an artificial and ignorant state of
society : it is only, therefore, in the two last papers that we find
the expression of the doctrines which it is our business to examine.

No. 79. (Saturday, Oct. 20th, 1759) begins, after a short pre-
amble, with the following passage : —

Amongst the painters, and the writers on painting, there is
one maxim universally admitted and continually inculcated. Imi-
tate nature is the invariable rule; but I know none who have
explained in what manner this rule is to be understood; the
sequence of which is, that every one takes it in the most obvious
sense, that objects are represented naturally when they have such
relief that they seem real. It may appear strange, perhaps, to
hear this sense of the rule disputed; but it must be considered,
that, if the excellency of a painter consisted only in this kind of
imitation, Painting must lose its rank, and be no longer considered
as a liberal art, and sister to Poetry, this Imitation being merely
mechanical, in which the slowest intellect is always sure to succeed
best; for the painter of genius cannot stoop to drudgery, in which
the understanding has no part; and what pretence has the art to
claim kindred with poetry but by its power over the imagination ?
To this power the painter of genius directs him ; in this sense he
studies nature, and often arrives at his end, even by being un-
natural in the confined sense of the word."

" The grand style of painting requires this minute attention to
be carefully avoided, and must be kept as separate from it as the
style of poetry from that of history. (Poetical ornaments destroy

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that air of truth and plainness which ought to characterise history ;
but the very being of poetry consists in departing from this plain
narrative, and adopting every ornament that will warm the imagi-
nation.') To desire to see the excellencies of each style united—to
mingle the Dutch with the Italian school, is to join contrarieties,
which cannot subsist together, and which destroy the efficacy of
each other."

§ 5. We find, first, from this interesting passage, that the writer
considers the Dutch and Italian masters as severally representative
of the low and high schools; next, that he considers the Dutch
painters as excelling in a mechanical imitation, " in which the
slowest intellect is always sure to succeed best;" and, thirdly,
that he considers the Italian painters as excelling in a style
which corresponds to that of imaginative poetry in literature, and
which has an exclusive right to be called the grand style.

I wish that it were in my power entirely to concur with the
writer, and to enforce this opinion thus distinctly stated. I have
never been a zealous partisan of the Dutch School, and should
rejoice in claiming Reynolds's authority for the assertion, that their
manner was one " in which the slowest intellect is always sure to
succeed best." But before his authority can be so claimed, we
must observe exactly the meaning of the assertion itself, and sepa-
rate it from the company of some others not perhaps so admissible.
First, I say we must observe Reynolds's exact meaning, for
(though the assertion may at first appear singular) a man who
uses accurate language is always more liable to misinterpreta-
tion than one who is careless in his expressions. We may assume
that the latter means very nearly what we at first suppose him to
mean, for words which have been uttered without thought may be
received without examination. But when a writer or speaker
may be fairly supposed to have considered his expressions care-
fully, and, after having revolved a number of terms in his mind.

' I have put this sentence in a parenthesis, because it is inconsistent with the
rest of the statement, and with the general teaching of the paper; since that which
" attends only to the invariable " cannot certainly adopt " every ornament that will
warm the imagination."

to have chosen the one which exactly means the thing he intends
to say, we may be assured that what costs him time to select, will
require from us time to understand, and that we shall do him
wrong, unless we pause to reflect how the word which he has
actually employed differs from other words which it seems he
might have employed. It thus constantly happens that persons
themselves unaccustomed to think clearly, or speak correctly,
misunderstand a logical and careful writer, and are actually in
more danger of being misled by language which is measured and
precise, than by that which is loose and inaccurate.

§ 6, Now, in the instance before us, a person not accustomed to
good writing might very rashly conclude, that when Reynolds
spoke of the Dutch School as one " in which the slowest intellect
was sure to succeed best," he meant to say that every successful
Dutch painter was a fool. "We have no right to take his assertion
in that sense. He says, the slowest intellect. We have no right
to assume that he meant the weakest. For it is true, that in order
to succeed in the Dutch style, a man has need of qualities of mind
eminently deliberate and sustained. He must be possessed of
patience rather than of power; and must feel no weariness in con-
templating the expression of a single thought for several months
together. As opposed to the changeful energies of the imagina-
tion, these mental characters may be properly spoken of as under
the general term—slowness of intellect. But it by no means
follows that they are necessarily those of weak or foolish men.

We observe however, farther, that the imitation which Rey-
nolds supposes to be characteristic of the Dutch School is that
which gives to objects such relief that they seem real, and that he
then speaks of this art of realistic imitation as corresponding to
history in literature.

§ 7. Reynolds, therefore, seems to class these dull works of the
Dutch School under a general head, to which they are not com-
monly referred — that of Historical painting; while he speaks of
the works of the Italian school not as historical, but as poetical
painting. His next sentence will farther manifest his meaning.

general ideas which are fixed and inherent in universal nature;
the Dutch, on the contrary, to literal truth and minute exactness
in the detail, as I may say, of nature modified by accident. The
attention to these petty peculiarities is the very cause of this
naturalness so much admired in the Dutch pictures, which, if we
suppose it to be a beauty, is certainly of a lower order, which
ought to give place to a beauty of a superior kind, since one cannot
be obtained but by departing from the other.

" If my opinion was asked concerning the works of Michael
Angelo, whether they would receive any advantage from possess-
ing this mechanical merit, I should not scruple to say, they would
not only receive no advantage, but would lose, in a great measure,
the effect which.they now have on every mind susceptible of great
and noble ideas. His works may be said to be all genius and
soul; and why should they be loaded with heavy matter, which
can only counteract his purpose by retarding th'e progress of the
imagination ? "

Examining carefully this and the preceding passage, we find
the author's unmistakable meaning to be, that Dutch painting is
history ; attending to literal truth and minute exactness in the
details of nature modified by accident." That Italian painting is
poetry, attending only to the invariable; and that works which
attend only to the invariable are full of genius and soul; but that
literal truth and exact detail are ^^ heavy matter which retards the
progress of the imagination."

§ 8. This being then indisputably what Reynolds means to tell us,
let us think a little Avhether he is in all respects right. And first,
as he compares his two kinds of painting to history and poetry, let
us see how poetry and history themselves differ, in their use of
variable and invariable details. I am writing at a window which
commands a view of the head of the Lake of Geneva; and as I
look up from my paper, to consider this point, I see, beyond it, a
blue breadth of softly moving water, and the outline of the moun-
tains above Chillon, bathed in morning mist. The first verses
which naturally come into my mind are —

" A thousand feet in depth below
The massy waters meet and flow ;
So far the fathom line was sent
From Chillon's snow-white battlement." -

Let us see in what manner this poetical statement is distin-
guished from a historical one.

It is distinguished from a truly historical statement, first, in be-
ing simply false. The water under the castle of Chillon is not a
thousand feet deep, nor anything like it.^ Herein, certainly, these
lines fulfil Reynolds's first requirement in poetry, " that it should
be inattentive to literal truth and minute exactness in detail." In
order, hoAvever, to make our comparison more closely in other
points, let us assume that what is stated is indeed a fact, and that
it was to be recorded, first historically, and then poetically.

Historically stating it, then, we should say: " The lake was
sounded from the walls of the castle of Chillon, and found to be a
thousand feet deep."

Now, if Reynolds be right in his idea of the difference between
history and poetry, we shall find that Byron leaves out of this
statement certain M?2necessary details, and retains only the inva-
riable, — that is to say, the points which the Lake of Geneva and
castle of Chillon have in common with all other lakes and castles.

" Below?" Here is, at all events, a word added (instead of
anything being taken away); invariable, certainly in the case of
lakes, but not absolutely necessary.

" Massy !" why massy ? Because deep water is heavy. The
word is a good word, but it is assuredly an added detail, and ex-

> " MM. Mallet et Pictet, se trouvant sur le lac aupres du chateau de Chillon, le 6
Aoiit, 1774, plongerent a la profondeur de 312 pieds un thermom&tre," &c.—Saussure,
Voyages dans les Alpes, chap, ii. § 33. It appears from the next paragraph, that
the thermometer was " au fond du lac."

presses a character, not which the Lake of Geneva has in common
with all other lakes, but which it has in distinction from those
which are narrow, or shallow.

§ 9. " Meet and flow." Why meet and flow ? Partly to make up
a rhyme; partly to tell us that the waters are forceful as well as
massy, and changeful as well as deep. Observe, a farther ad-
dition of details, and of details more or less peculiar to the spot,
or, according to Reynolds's definition, of " heavy matter, retarding
the progress of the imagination."

Why fathom line ? All lines for sounding are not fathom
lines. If the lake was ever sounded from Chillon, it was probably
sounded in metres, not fathoms. This is an addition of another
particular detail, in which the only compliance with Reynolds's
requirement is, that there is some chance of its being an inac-
curate one.

Why snow-white ? Because castle battlements are not usually
snow-white. This is another added detail, and a detail quite
peculiar to Chillon, and therefore exactly the most striking word
in the whole passage.

" Battlement 1" why battlement ? Because all walls have not
battlements, and the addition of the term marks the castle to be
not merely a prison, but a fortress.

This is a curious result. Instead of finding, as we expected,
the poetry distinguished from the history by the omission of
details, we find it consist entirely in the addition of details; and
instead of being characterised by regard only of the invariable,
we find its whole power to consist in the clear expression of what
is singular and particular!

§ 10. The reader may pursue the investigation for himself in other
instances. He will find in every case that a poetical is distin-
guished from a merely historical statement, not by being more
vague, but more specific, and it might, therefore, at first appear

that our author's comparison should be simply reversed, and that
the Dutch school should be called poetical, and the Italian his-
torical. But the term poetical does not appear very applicable
to the generality of Dutch painting; and a little reflection will
show us, that if the Italians represent only the invariable, they
cannot be properly compared even to historians. For that which
is incapable of change has no history, and records which state
only the invariable need not be written, and could not be
read.

§ 11 It is evident, therefore, that our author has entangled himself in
some grave fallacy, by introducing this idea of invariableness as
forming a distinction between poetical and historical art. What
the fallacy is, we shall discover as we proceed; but as an invading
army should not leave an untaken fortress in its rear, we must not
go on with our inquiry into the views of Reynolds until we have
settled satisfactorily the question already suggested to us, in what
the essence of poetical treatment really consists. For though, as
we have seen, it certainly involves the addition of specific details,
it cannot be simply that addition which turns the history into
poetry. For it is perfectly possible to add any number of details
to a historical statement, and to make it more prosaic with every
added word. As, for instance, " The lake was sounded out of a
flat-bottomed boat, near the crab tree at the corner of the kitchen-
garden, and was found to be a thousand feet nine inches deep,
with a muddy bottom." It thus appears that it is not the multi-
plication of details which constitutes poetry; nor their subtrac-
tion which constitutes history, but that there must be something
either in the nature of the details themselves, or the method of
using them, which invests them with poetical power or historical
propriety.

§ 12. It seems to me, and may seem to the reader, strange that we
should need to ask the question, " What is poetry ? " Here is a
word we have been using all our lives, and, I suppose, with a very
distinct idea attached to it; and when I am now called upon to give
a definition of this idea, I find myself at a pause. What is more
singular, I do not at present recollect hearing the question often
asked, though surely it is a very natural one; and I never recol-

lect hearing it answered, or even attempted to be answered. In
general, people slielter themselves under metaphors, and while
we hear poetry described as an utterance of the soul, an effu-
sion of Divinity, or voice of nature, or in other terms equally
elevated and obscure, we never attain anything like a definite
explanation of the character which actually distinguishes it from
prose.

§ 13. I come, after some embarrassment, to the conclusion, that poetry
is " the suggestion, by the imagination, of noble grounds for the
noble emotions." I mean, by the noble emotions, those four prin-
cipal sacred passions — Love, Veneration, Admiration, and Joy
(this latter especially, if unselfish); and their opposites — Hatred,
Indignation (or Scorn), Horror, and Grief, — this last, when un-
selfish, becoming Compassion. These passions in their various
combinations constitute what is called " poetical feeling," when
they are felt on noble grounds, that is, on great and true grounds.
Indignation, for instance, is a poetical feeling, if excited by serious
injury; but it is not a poetical feeling if entertained on being
cheated out of a small sum of money. It is very possible the
manner of the cheat may have been such as to justify con-
siderable indignation; but the feeling is nevertheless not poetical
unless the grounds of it be large as well as just. In like manner,
energetic admiration may be excited in certain minds by a dis-
play of fireworks, or a street of handsome shops; but the feeling
is not poetical, because the grounds of it are false, and therefore
ignoble. There is in reality nothing to deserve admiration either
in the firing of packets of gunpowder, or in the display of the
stocks of warehouses. But admiration excited by the budding
of a flower is a poetical feeling, because it is impossible that this
manifestation of spiritual power and vital beauty can ever be
enough admired.

§14. Farther, it is necessary to the existence of poetry that the
grounds of these feelings should be furnished hy the imagination.
Poetical feeling, that is to say, mere noble emotion, is not poetry.
It is happily inherent in all human nature deserving the name, and
is found often to be purest in the least sophisticated. But the
power of assembling, by the help of the imagination, such images as

will excite these feelings^ is the power of the poet or literally of
the " Maker."!

Now this power of exciting the emotions depends of course on
the richness of the imagination, and on its choice of those images
which, in combination, will be most effective, or, for the particular
work to be done, most fit. And it is altogether impossible for a
writer not endowed with invention to conceive what tools a true
poet will make use of, or in what way he will apply them, or what
unexpected results he will bring out by them; so that it is vain to
say that the details of poetry ought to possess, or ever do possess,
any definite character. Generally speaking, poetry runs into finer
and more delicate details than prose; but the details are not
poetical because they are more delicate, but because they are em-

" I look for ghosts, but none will force
Their way to me. 'Tis falsely said
That ever there was intercourse

Between the living and the dead ;
Eor, surely then, I should have sight
Of him I wait for, day and night,
With love and longing infinite."

This we call Poetry, because it is invented or made by the writer, entering into the
mind of a supposed person. Next, take an instance of the actual feeling truly ex-
perienced and simply expressed by a real person.

" Nothing surprised me more than a woman of Argentiere, whose cottage I went
into to ask for milk, as I came down from the glacier of Argentiere, in the month of
March, 1764. An epidemic dysentery had prevailed in the village, and, a few
months before, had taken away from her, her father, her husband, and her brothers, so
that she was left alone, with three children in the cradle. Her face had something
noble in it, and its expression bore the seal of a calm and profound sorrow. After
having given me milk, she asked me whence I came, and what I came there to do, so
early in the year. "When she knew that I was of Geneva, she said to me, ' she could
not believe that all Protestants were lost souls ; that there were many honest people
among us, and that God was too good and too great to condemn all without distinc-
tion.' Then, after a moment of reflection, she added, in shaking her head, ' But, that
which is very strange, is that of so many who have gone away, none have ever
returned. I,' she added, with an expression of grief, ' who have so mourned my
husband and my brothers, who have never ceased to think of them, who every night
conjure them with beseechings to tell me where they are, and in what state they are!
Ah, surely, if they lived anywhere, they would not leave me thus ! But, perhaps,' she
added, ' I am not worthy of this kindness, perhaps the pure and innocent spirits of
these children,' and she looked at the cradle, ' may have their presence, and the joy
which is denied to me.' — Saussuee, Voyages dans les Alpes, chap. xxiv.

This we do not call Poetry, merely because it is not invented, but the true utterance
of a real person.

ployed so as to bring out an affecting result. For instance,
no one but a true poet would have thought of exciting our pity
for a bereaved father by describing his way of locking the door
of his house :

" Perhaps to himself, at that moment he said,
The key I must take, for my Ellen is dead ;
But of this in my ears not a word did he speak,
And he went to the chase with a tear on his cheek."

In like manner, in painting, it is altogether impossible to say
beforehand what details a great painter may make poetical by his
use of them to excite noble emotions: and we shall, therefore, find
presently that a painting is to be classed in the great or inferior
schools, not according to the kind of details which it represents,
but according to the uses for which it employs them.

§ 15. It is only farther to be noticed, that infinite confusion has been
introduced into this subject by the careless and illogical custom of
opposing painting to poetry, instead of regarding poetry as con-
sisting in a noble use, whether of colours or words. Painting is
properly to be opposed to speaking or writing, but not to poetry.
Both painting and speaking are methods of expression. Poetry is
the employment of either for the noblest purposes.

§ 16. This question being thus far determined, we may proceed with
our paper in the Idler.

" It is very difficult to determine the exact degree of enthu-
siasm that the arts of painting and poetry may admit. There
may, perhaps, be too great indulgence as well as too great a
restraint of imagination; if the one produces incoherent mon-
sters, the other produces what is full as bad, lifeless insipidity.
An intimate knowledge of the passions, and good sense, but not
common sense, must at last determine its limits. It has been
thought, and I believe with reason, that Michael Angelo some-
times transgressed those limits; and, I think, I have seen figures
of him of which it was very difficult to determine whether they
were in the highest degree sublime or extremely ridiculous.
Such faults may be said to be the ebullitions of genius; but at
least he had this merit, that he never was insipid, and whatever
passion his works may excite, they will always escape contempt.

" What I have had under consideration is the subllmest style,
particularly that of Michael Angelo, the Homer of painting.
Other kinds may admit of this naturalness, which of the lowest
kind is the chief merit; but in painting, as in poetry, the highest
style has the least of common nature."

From this passage we gather three important indications of the
supposed nature of the Great Style. That it is the work of men
in a state of enthusiasm. That it is like the writing of Homer;
and that it has as little as possible of " common nature " in it.

§ 17. First, it is produced by men in a state of enthusiasm. That is,
by men who feel strongly and nobly; for we do not call a strong
feeling of envy, jealousy, or ambition, enthusiasm. That is,
therefore, by men who feel poetically. This much we may admit,
I think, with perfect safety. Great art is produced by men who
feel acutely and nobly; and it is in some sort an expression of
this personal feeling. "We can easily conceive that there may be
a sufficiently marked distinction between such art, and that which
is produced by men who do not feel at all, but who reproduce,
though ever so accurately, yet coldly, like human mirrors, the
scenes which pass before their eyes.

§ 18. Secondly, Great Art is like the writing of Homer, and this
chiefly because it has little of " common nature" in it. We are
not clearly informed what is meant by common nature in this
passage. Homer seems to describe a great deal of what is
common; — cookery, for instance, very carefully in all its pro-
cesses. I suppose the passage in the Iliad which, on the whole,
has excited most admiration, is that which describes a wife's
sorrow at parting from her husband, and a child's fright at its
father's helmet; and I hope, at least, the former feeling may
be considered " common nature." But the true greatness of
Homer's style is, doubtless, held by our author to consist in his
imaginations of things not only uncommon but impossible (such
as spirits in brazen armour, or monsters with heads of men and
bodies of beasts), and in his occasional delineations of the human
character and form in their utmost, or heroic, strength, and
beauty. We gather then on the whole, that a painter in the

Great Style must be enthusiastic, or full of emotion, and must
paint the human form in its utmost strength and beauty, and
perhaps certain impossible forms besides, liable by persons not in
an equally enthusiastic state of mind to be looked upon as in some
degree absurd. This I presume to be Reynolds's meaning, and
to be all that he intends us to gather from his comparison of the
Great Style with the writings of Homer. But if that comparison
be a just one in all respects, surely two other corollaries ought to
be drawn from it, namely,—first, that these Heroic or Impossible
images are to be mingled with others very unheroic and very
possible; and, secondly, that in the representation of the Heroic
or Impossible forms, the greatest care must be taken in finishing
the details^ so that a painter must not be satisfied with painting
well the countenance and the body of his hero, but ought to spend
the greatest part of his time (as Homer the greatest number of
verses) in elaborating the sculptured pattern on his shield.

" One may very safely recommend a little more enthusiasm to
the modern painters; too much is certainly not the vice of the
present age. The Italians seem to have been continually de-
clining in this respect, from the time of Michael Angelo to that of
Carlo Maratti, and from thence to the very bathos of insipidity to
which they are now sunk, so that there is no need of remarking,
that where I mentioned the Italian painters in opposition to the
Dutch, I mean not the moderns, but the heads of the old Roman
and Bolognian schools; nor did I mean to include, in my idea of
an Italian painter, the Venetian school, which may he said to he
the Dutch part of the Italian genius. I have only to add a word
of advice to the painters, that, however excellent they may be in
painting naturally, they would not flatter themselves very much
upon it; and to the connoisseurs, that when they see a cat or a
fiddle painted so finely, that, as the phrase is, it looks as if you
could take it up, they would not for that reason immediately
compare the painter to Raffaelle and Michael Angelo."

The first, that in the year 1759, the Italian painters were, in our
author's opinion, sunk in the very bathos of insipidity. The
second, that the Venetian painters, i.e. Titian, Tintoret, and
Veronese, are, in our author's opinion, to be classed with the
Dutch; that is to say, are painters in a style " in which the
slowest intellect is always sure to succeed best." Thirdly, that
painting naturally is not a difficult thing, nor one on which a
painter should pride himself. And, finally, that connoisseurs,
seeing a cat or a fiddle successfully painted, ought not therefore
immediately to compare the painter to Raphael or Michael
Angelo.

Yet Raphael painted fiddles very carefully in the foreground of
his St. Cecilia,—so carefully, that they quite look as if they might
be taken up. So carefully, that I never yet looked at the picture
without wishing that somebody would take them up, and out of
the way. And I am under a very strong persuasion that Raphael
did not think painting " naturally " an easy thing. It will be well
to examine into this point a little; and for the present, with the
reader's permission, we will pass over the first two statements in
this passage (touching the character of Italian art in 1759, and of
Venetian art in general), and immediately examine some of the
evidence existing as to the real dignity of '' natural" painting —
that is to say, of painting carried to the point at which it reaches
a deceptive apj)earance of reality.

§ L In tlie outset of this inquiry, the reader must thoroughly under-
stand that we are not now considering what is to be painted, hut
how far it is to he painted. Not whether Raphael does right in
representing angels playing upon violins, or whether Veronese
does right in allowing cats and monkeys to join the company of
kings: but whether, supposing the subjects rightly chosen, they
ought on the canvass to look like real angels with real violins,
and substantial cats looking at veritable kings; or only like
imaginary angels with soundless violins, ideal cats, and unsub-
stantial kings.

Now, from the first moment when painting began to be a subject
of literary inquiry and general criticism, I cannot remember any
writer, not professedly artistical, who has not, more or less, in one
part of his book or another, countenanced the idea that the great
end of art is to produce a deceptive resemblance of reality. It
may be, indeed, that we shall find the writers, through many pages,
explaining principles of ideal beauty, and professing great delight
in the evidences of imagination. But whenever a picture is to be
definitely described,—whenever the writer desires to convey to
others some impression of an extraordinary excellence, all praise
is wound up with some such statements as these : " It was so ex-
quisitely painted that you expected the figures to move and speak;
you approached the flowers to enjoy their smell, and stretched
your hand towards the fruit which had fallen from the branches.
You shrunk back lest the sword of the warrior should indeed
descend, and turned away your head that you might not witness
the agonies of the expiring martyr 1"

§ 2. In. a large number of instances, language such as this will be
found to be merely a clumsy effort to convey to others a sense
of the admiration, of which the writer does not understand the
real cause in himself. A person is attracted to a picture by the
beauty of its colour, interested by the liveliness of its story, and
touched by certain countenances or details which remind him of
friends whom he loved, or scenes in which he delighted. He natu-
rally supposes that what gives him so much pleasure must be a
notable example of the painter's skill; but he is ashamed to con-
fess, or perhaps does not know, that he is so much a child as to be
fond of bright colours and amusing incidents; and he is quite un-
conscious of the associations which have so secret and inevitable
a power over his heart. He casts about for the cause of his
delight, and can discover no other than that he thought the picture
like reality.

§ 3. In another, perhaps a still larger number of cases, such lan-
guage will be found to be that of simple ignorance — the ignorance
of persons whose position in life compels them to speak of art,
without having any real enjoyment of it. It is inexcusably re-
quired from people of the world, that they should see merit in
Claudes and Titians; and the only merit which many persons can
either see or conceive in them is, that they must be " like nature."

§ 4. In other cases, the deceptive power of the art is really felt to be
a source of interest and amusement. This is the case with a large
number of the collectors of Dutch pictures. They enjoy seeing
what is flat made to look round, exactly as a child enjoys a trick
of legerdemain; they rejoice in flies which the spectator vainly
attempts to brush away, and in dew which he endeavours to dry
by putting the picture in the sun. They take it for the greatest
compliment to their treasures that they should be mistaken for
windows; and think the parting of Abraham and Hagar adequately
represented, if Hagar seems to be really crying.

It is against critics and connoisseurs of this latter stamp (of
whom, in the year 1759, the juries of art were for the most part
composed) that the essay of Reynolds, which we have been
examining, was justly directed. But Reynolds had not sufficiently
considered that neither the men of this class, nor of the two other

classes above described, constitute tlie entire body of tbose who
praise Art for its realization; and that the holding of this
apparently shallow and vulgar opinion cannot, in all cases, be
attributed to the want either of penetration, sincerity, or sense.
The collectors of Gerard Dows and Hobbimas may be passed by
with a smile; and the affectations of Walpole and simplicities
of Vasari dismissed with contempt or with compassion. But very
different men from these have held precisely the same language;
and, one amongst the rest, whose authority is absolutely, and in
all points, overwhelming.

§ 5. There was probably never a period in which the influence of art
over the minds of men seemed to depend less on its merely imita-
tive power, than the close of the thirteenth century. No painting
or sculpture at that time reached more than a rude resemblance
of reality. Its despised persj)ective, imperfect chiaroscuro, and
unrestrained flights of fantastic imagination, separated the artist's
work from nature by an interval which there was no attempt
to disguise, and little to diminish. And yet, at this very period,
the greatest poet of that, or perhaps of any other age, and the
attached friend of its greatest painter, who must over and over
again have held full and free conversation with him respecting
the objects of his art, speaks in the following terms of painting,
supposed to be carried to,its highest perfection: —

" Qual di pennel fu maestro, e di stile
Che ritraesse 1' ombre, e i tratti, ch' ivi
Mirar farieno uno ingegno sottile.
Morti li morti, e i vivi parean vivi:
Non vide me' di me, cbi vide il vero,
Quant' io calcai, fin che chinato givi,"

" What master of the pencil, or the style,
Had traced the shades and lines that might have made
The subtlest workman wonder ? Dead, the dead,
The living seemed alive; with clearer view
His eye beheld not, who beheld the truth.
Than mine what I did tread on, while I went,
Low bending." Caket.

Dante has here clearly no other idea of the highest art than that
it should bring back, as in a mirror or vision, the aspect of things

passed or absent. The scenes of which he speaks are, on the
pavement, for ever represented by angelic power, so that the souls
which traverse this circle of the rock may see them, as if the
years of the world had been rolled back, and they again stood
beside the actors in the moment of action. Nor do I think that
Dante's authority is absolutely necessary to compel us to admit
that such art as this might indeed be the highest possible. "What-
ever delight we may have been in the habit of taking in pictures,
if it were but truly offered to us, to remove at our will the can-
vass from the frame, and in lieu of it to behold, fixed for ever,
the image of some of those mighty scenes which it has been
our way to make mere themes for the artist's fancy; if, for
instance, we could again behold the Magdalene receiving her
pardon at Christ's feet, or the disciples sitting with Him at the
table of Emmaus; and this not feebly nor fancifully, but as if
some silver mirror, that had leaned against the wall of the
chamber, had been miraculously commanded to retain for ever
the colours that had flashed upon it for an instant,—would we
not part with our picture — Titian's or Veronese's though it
might be ?

Yes, the reader answers, in the instance of such scenes as these,
but not if the scene represented were uninteresting. Not, indeed,
if it were utterly vulgar or painful; but we are not yet certain that
the art which represents what is vulgar or painful is itself of much
value; and with respect to the art whose aim is beauty, even of an
inferior order, it seems that Dante's idea of its perfection has still
much evidence in its favour. For among persons of native good
sense, and courage enough to speak their minds, we shall often find
a considerable degree of doubt as to the use of art, in consequence
of their habitual comparison of it with reality. " What is the use,
to me, of the painted landscape ?" they will ask: " I see more
beautiful and perfect landscapes every day of my life in my fore-
noon walk." " What is the use, to me, of the painted effigy of
hero or beauty ? I can see a stamp of higher heroism, and light
of purer beauty, on the faces round me, utterly inexpressible by
the highest human skill." Now, it is evident that to persons of
this temper the only valuable pictures would indeed be mirrorsy

reflecting permanently the images of the things in which they took
delight, and of the faces that they loved. " Nay," but the reader
interrupts (if he is of the Idealist school), " I deny that more
beautiful things are to be seen in nature than in art; on the con-
trary, everything in nature is faulty, and art represents nature as
perfected." Be it so. Must, therefore, this perfected nature be
imperfectly represented ? Is it absolutely required of the painter,
who has conceived perfection, that he should so paint it as to look
only like a picture ? Or is not Dante's view of the matter right
even here, and would it not be well that the perfect conception of
Pallas should be so given as to look like Pallas herself, rather
than merely like the picture of Pallas ?

§ 7. It is not easy for us to answer this question rightly, owing to
the difficulty of imagining any art which should reach the perfec-
tion supposed. Our actual powers of imitation are so feeble that
wherever deception is attempted, a subject of a comparatively low
or confined order must be chosen. I do not enter at present into
the inquiry how far the powers of imitation extend; but assuredly
up to the present period they have been so limited that it is
hardly possible for us to conceive a deceptive art embracing a
high range of subject. But let the reader make the effort, and
consider seriously what he would give at any moment to have
the power of arresting the fairest scenes, those which so often
rise before him only to vanish; to stay the cloud in its fading, the
leaf in its trembling, and the shadows in their changing; to bid
the fitful foam be fixed upon the river, and the ripples be ever-
lasting upon the lake; and then to bear away with him no dark-
ened or feeble sun-stain (though even that is beautiful), but a
counterfeit which should seem no counterfeit—the true and per-
fect image of life indeed. Or rather (for the full majesty of such
a power is not thus sufficiently expressed) let him consider that it
would be in effect nothing else than a capacity of transporting
himself at any moment into any scene — a gift as great as can be
possessed by a disembodied spirit: and suppose, also, this necro-
mancy embracing not only the present but the past, and enabling
us seemingly to enter into the very bodily presence of men long
since gathered to the dust; to behold them in act as they lived.

but—with greater privilege than ever was granted to the com-
panions of those transient acts of life,—to see them fastened at
our will in the gesture and expression of an instant, and stayed,
on the eve of some great deed, in immortality of burning purpose.
Conceive, so far as it is possible, such power as this, and then
say whether the art which conferred it is to be spoken lightly of,
or whether we should not rather reverence, as half divine, a gift
which would go so far as to raise us into the rank, and invest
us with the felicities, of angels ?

Yet such would imitative art be in its perfection. Not by any
means an easy thing, as Reynolds supposes it. Far from being
easy, it is so utterly beyond all human power that we have
difficulty even in conceiving its nature or results—the best art we
as yet possess comes so far short of it.

§ 8. But we must not rashly come to the conclusion that such art
would, indeed, be the highest possible. There is much to be con-
sidered hereafter on the other side: the only conclusion we are as
yet warranted in forming is, that Eeynolds had no right to speak
lightly or contemptuously of imitative art; that in fact, when he
did so, he had not conceived its entire nature, but was thinking of
some vulgar conditions of it, which were the only ones known to
him, and that, therefore, his whole endeavour to explain the
difference between great and mean art has been disappointed;
that he has involved himself in a crowd of theories, whose issue
he had not foreseen, and committed himself to conclusions which
he never intended. There is an instinctive consciousness in his
own mind of the difference between high and low art; but he
is utterly incapable of explaining it, and every effort which he
makes to do so involves him in unexpected fallacy and absurdity.
It is not true that Poetry does not concern herself with minute
details. It is not true that high art seeks only the Invariable.
It is not true that imitative art is an easy thing. It is not true
that the faithful rendering of nature is an employment in which
" the slowest intellect is likely to succeed best" All these suc-
cessive assertions are utterly false and untenable, while the plain
truth, a truth lying at the very door, has all the while escaped
him, — that which was incidentally stated in the preceding chapter,

—namely, that the difference between great and mean art lies,
not in definable methods of handling, or styles of representation,
or choices of subjects, but wholly in the nobleness of the end to
which the effort of the painter is addressed. "We cannot say that
a painter is great because he paints boldly, or paints delicately;
because he generalizes or particularizes ; because he loves detail,
or because he disdains it. He is great if, by any of these means,
he has laid open noble truths, or aroused noble emotions. It does
not matter whether he paint the petal of a rose, or the chasms of
a precipice, so that Love and Admiration attend him as he labours,
and wait for ever upon his work. It does not matter whether he
toil for months upon a few inches of his canvass, or cover a palace
front with colour in a day, so only that it be with a solemn
purpose that he has filled his heart with patience, or urged his hand
to haste. And it does not matter whether he seek for his subjects
among peasants or nobles, among the heroic or the simple, in
courts or in fields, so only that he behold all things with a thirst
for beauty, and a hatred of meanness and vice. There are, indeed,
certain methods of representation which are usually adopted by
the most active minds, and certain characters of subject usually
delighted in by the noblest hearts ; but it is quite possible, quite
easy, to adopt the manner of painting without sharing the activity
of mind, and to imitate the choice of subject without possessing
the nobility of spirit; while, on the other hand, it is altogether
impossible to foretell on what strange objects the strength of a
great man will sometimes be concentrated, or by what strange
means he will sometimes express himself. So that true criticism
of art never can consist in the mere application of rules; it can
be just only when it is founded on quick sympathy with the
innumerable instincts and changeful efforts of human nature,
chastened and guided by unchanging love of all things that God
has created to be beautiful, and pronounced to be good.

§ 1. I doubt not that the reader was ill-satisfied with the conclusion
arrived at in the last chapter. That " great art" is art Avhich
represents what is beautiful and good, may not seem a very pro-
found discovery; and the main question may be thought to have
been all the time lost sight of, namely, What is beautiful, and
what is good ?" No; those are not the main, at least not the first
questions; on the contrary, our subject becomes at once opened
and simplified as soon as we have left those the only questions.
For observe, our present task, according to our old plan, is
merely to investigate the relative degrees of the beautiful in the
art of different masters; and it is an encouragement to be con-
vinced, first of all, that what is Jovely will also be great, and
what is pleasing, noble. Nor is the conclusion so much a matter
of course as it at nrst appears, for, surprising as the statement
may seem, all the confusion into which Reynolds has plunged
both himself and his readers, in the essay we have been ex-
amining, results primarily from a doubt in his own mind as to
the existence of beauty at all. In the next paper I alluded to.
No. 82. (which needs not, however, to be examined at so great
length), he calmly attribvites the whole influence of beauty to
custom, saying, that " he has no doubt, if we were more used to
deformity than to beauty, deformity would then lose the idea now
annexed to it, and take that of beauty; as if the whole world
shall agree that Yes and No should change their meanings. Yes
would then deny, and No would affirm ! "
§ 2. The world does, indeed, succeed—oftener than is, perhaps, alto-

gether well for the world—in making Yes mean No, and No mean
Yes.^ But the world has never succeeded, nor ever will, in
making itself delight in black clouds more than in blue sky, or
love the dark earth better than the rose that grows from it. Hap-
pily for mankind, beauty and ugliness are as positive in their
nature as physical pain and pleasure, as light and darkness, or
as life and death; and, though they may be denied or misun-
derstood in many fantastic ways, the most subtle reasoner will at
last find that colour and sweetness are still attractive to him, and
that no logic will enable him to think the rainbow sombre, or the
violet scentless. But the theory that beauty was merely a result
of custom was very common in Johnson's time. Goldsmith has, I
think, expressed it with more force and wit than any other writer,
in various j)assages of the Citizen of the World. And it was,
indeed, a curious retribution of the folly of the world of art, which
for some three centuries had given itself recklessly to the pursuit
of beauty, that at last it should be led to deny the very existence
of what it had so morbidly and passionately sought. It was as if
a cliild should leave its home to pursue the rainbow, and then,
breathless and hopeless, declare that it did not exist. Nor is the
lesson less useful which may be gained in observing the adoption of
such a theory by Reynolds himself. It shows how completely an
artist may be unconscious of the principles of his own work, and
how he may be led by instinct to do all that is right, while he is
misled by false logic to say all that is wrong. For nearly every
word that Reynolds wrote was contrary to his own practice; he
seems to have been born to teach all error by his precept, and all
excellence by his example; he enforced with his lips generaliza-
tion and idealism, while with his pencil he was tracing the
patterns of the dresses of the belles of his day; he exhorted his
pupils to attend only to the invariable, while he himself was
occupied in distinguishing every variation of womanly temper;
and he denied the existence of the beautiful, at the same instant
that he arrested it as it passed, and perpetuated it for ever.

§ 3. But we must not quit the subject here. However inconsistently
or dimly expressed, there is, indeed, some truth in that commonly

accepted distinction between high and low art. That a thing
should be beautiful is not enough; there is, as we said in the out-
set, a higher and lower range of beauty, and some ground for
separating- into various and unequal ranks painters who have,
nevertheless, each in his several way, represented something that
was beautiful or good.

Nor, if we would, can we get rid of this conviction. We have
at all times some instinctive sense that the function of one painter
is greater than that of another, even supposing each equally suc-
cessful in his own way; and we feel that, if it were possible to
conquer prejudice, and do away with the iniquities of personal
feeling, and the insufficiencies of limited knowledge, we should all
agree in this estimate, and be able to place each painter in his
right rank, measuring them by a true scale of nobleness. We
feel that the men in the higher classes of the scale would be, in
the full sense of the word. Great,—men whom one would give
much to see the faces of but for an instant; and that those in
the lower classes of the scale (though none were admitted but
who had true merit of some kind) would be very small men, not
greatly exciting either reverence or curiosity. And with this
fixed instinct in our minds, we permit our teachers daily to ex-
hort their pupils to the cultivation of " great art"—neither they
nor we having any very clear notion as to what the greatness
consists in: but sometimes inclining to think it must depend on
the space of the canvass, and that art on a scale of 6 feet by 10
is something spiritually separated from that on a scale of 3 feet
by 5; — sometimes holding it to consist in painting the nude
body, rather than the body decently clothed; — sometimes being
convinced that it is connected with the study of past history,
and that the art is only great which represents what the painter
never saw, and about which he knows nothing; — and sometimes
being firmly persuaded that it consists in generally finding fault
with, and endeavouring to mend, whatsoever the Divine Wisdom
has made. All which various errors, having yet some motes and
atoms of truth in the make of each of them, deserve some atten-
tive analysis, for they come under that general law,—that "the
corruption of the best is the worst." There are not worse errors

•J

going than these four; and yet the truth they contain, and the
instinct which urges many to preach them, are at the root of all
healthy growth in art. We ruin one young painter after another
by telling him to follow great art, without knowing, ourselves,
what greatness is; and yet the feeling that it verily is something,
and that there are depths and breadths, shallows and narrows, in
the matter, is all that we have to look to, if Ave would ever make
our art serviceable to ourselves or others. To follow art for the
sake of being a great man, and therefore to cast about continually
for some means of achieving position or attracting admiration, ia
the surest way of ending in total extinction. And yet it is only
by honest reverence for art itself, and by great self-respect in the
practice of it, that it can be rescued from dilettantism, raised to
approved honourableness, and brought to the proper work it has
to accomplish in the service of man.

§ 4. Let us therefore look into the facts of the thing, not with any
metaphysical, or otherwise vain and troublesome effort at acute-
ness, but in a plain way; for the facts themselves are plain enough,
and may be plainly stated, only the difficulty is that out of
these facts, right and left, the different forms of misapprehension
branch into grievous complexity, and branch so far and wide, that
if once we try to follow them, they will lead us quite from our
mark into other separate, though not less Interesting discussions.
The best way will be therefore, I think, to sketch out at once
in this chapter, the different characters which really constitute
"greatness" of style, and to indicate the principal directions of
the outbranching misapprehensions of them; then, in the suc-
ceeding chapters, to take up in succession those which need more
talk about them, and follow out at leisure whatever inquiries
they may suggest.

§ 5. I. Choice or Noble Subject. — Greatness of style consists,
then: first, in the habitual choice of subjects of thought which
involve wide interests and profound passions, as opposed to those
which involve narrow interests and slight passions. The style is
greater or less in exact proportion to the nobleness of the inte-
rests and passions involved in the subject. The habitual choice of
sacred subjects, such as the Nativity, Transfiguration, Crucifixion

(if the choice be sincere), implies that the painter has a natural
disposition to dwell on the highest thoughts of which humanity is
capable; it constitutes him so far forth a painter of the highest
order, as, for instance, Leonardo, in his painting of the Last
Supper: he who delights in representing the acts or meditations
of great men, as, for instance, Raphael painting the School of
Athens, is, so far forth, a painter of the second order: he who
represents the passions and events of ordinary life, of the third.
And in this ordinary life, he who represents deep thoughts and
sorrows, as, for instance. Hunt, in his Claudio and Isabella, and
such other works, is of the highest rank in his sphere; and he
who represents the slight malignities and passions of the draw-
ingroom, as, for instance, Leslie, of the second rank; he who
represents the sports of boys or simplicities of clowns, as Webster
or Teniers, of the third rank; and he who represents brutalities
and vices (for delight in them, and not for rebuke of them), of no
rank at all, or rather of a negative rank, holding a certain order
in the abyss.

§ 6. The reader will, I hope, understand how much importance is to
be attached to the sentence in the first parenthesis, " if the choice
be sincere;" for choice of subject is, of course, only available as
a criterion of the rank of the painter, when it is made from the
heart. Indeed, in the lower orders of painting, the choice is
always made from such heart as the painter has; for his selection
of the brawls of peasants or sports of children can, of course, pro-
ceed only from the fact that he has more sympathy with such
brawls or pastimes than with nobler subjects. But the choice of
the higher kind of subjects is often insincere; and may, therefore,
afford no real criterion of the painter's rank. The greater number
of men who have lately painted religious or heroic subjects have
done so in mere ambition, because they had been taught that it
was a good thing to be a " high art" painter ; and the fact is that,
in nine cases out of ten, the so-called historical or "high art"
painter is a person infinitely inferior to the painter of flowers
or still life. He is, in modern times, nearly always a man who
has great vanity without pictorial capacity, and differs from the
landscape or fruit painter merely in misunderstanding and over-

estimating his own powers. He mistakes his vanity for inspi-
ration, his ambition for greatness of soul, and takes pleasure in
what he calls " the ideal," merely because he has neither humi-
lity nor capacity enough to comprehend the real.

§ 7. But also observe, it is not enough even that the choice be
sincere. It must also be wise. It happens very often that a man
of weak intellect, sincerely desiring to do what is good and useful,
will devote himself to high art subjects because he thinks them
the only ones on which time and toil can be usefully spent, or,
sometimes, because they are really the only ones he has pleasure
in contemplating. But not having intellect enough to enter into
the minds of truly great men, or to imagine great events as they
really happened, he cannot become a great painter; he degrades
the subjects he intended to honour, and his work is more utterly
thrown away, and his rank as an artist in reality loAver, than if he
had devoted himself to the imitation of the simplest objects of
natural history. The works of Overbeck are a most notable
instance of this form of error.

§ 8. It must also be remembered, that in nearly all the great periods
of art the choice of subject has not been left to the painter. His
employer,—abbot, baron, or monarch,—determined for him whether
he should earn his bread by making cloisters bright with choirs of
saints, painting coats of arms on leaves of romances, or decorating
presence-chambers with complimentary mythology: and his own
personal feelings are ascertainable only by watching, in the themes
assigned to him, what are the points in which he seems to take
most pleasure. Thus, in the prolonged ranges of varied subjects
with which Benozzo Gozzoli decorated the cloisters of Pisa, it is
easy to see that love of simple domestic incident, sweet landscape,
and glittering ornament, prevails slightly over the solemn elements
of religious feeling, which, nevertheless, the spirit of the age in-
stilled into him in such measure as to form a very lovely and
noble mind, though still one of the second order. In the work of
Orcagna, an intense solemnity and energy in the sublimest groups
of his figures, fading away as he touches inferior subjects, indicates
that his home was among the archangels, and his rank among the
first of the sons of men; while Correggio, in the sidelong grace,

artificial smiles, and purple languors of his saints, Indicates the in-
ferior instinct which would have guided his choice in quite other
directions, had it not been for the fashion of the age, and the
need of the day.

§ 9. It will follow, of course, from the above considerations, that the
choice which characterises the school of high art is seen as much
in the treatment of a subject as in its selection, and that the ex-
pression of the thoughts of the persons represented will always
be the first thing considered by the painter who worthily enters
that highest school. For the artist who sincerely chooses the
noblest subject will also choose chiefly to represent what makes
that subject noble, namely, the various heroism or other noble
emotions of the persons represented. If, instead of this, the
artist seeks only to make his picture agreeable by the composi-
tion of its masses and colours, or by any other merely pictorial
merit, as fine draAvlng of limbs, it is evident, not only that any
other subject would have answered his purpose as well, but that
he is unfit to approach the subject he has chosen, because he
cannot enter into Its deepest meaning, and therefore cannot in
reality have chosen it for that meaning. Nevertheless, while the
expression is always to be the first thing considered, all other
merits must be added to the utmost of the painter's power; for
until he can both colour and draw beautifully he has no business
to consider himself a painter at all, far less to attempt the noblest
subjects of painting; and, when he has once possessed himself
of these powers, he will naturally and fitly employ them to
deepen and perfect the impression made by the sentiment of his
subject.

The perfect unison of expression, as the painter's main purpose,
with the full and natural exertion of his pictorial power in the
details of the work, is found only in the old Pre-Raphaelite periods,
and in the modern Pre-Raphaelite school. In the works of Giotto,
Angellco, Orcagna, John Bellini, and one or two more, these two
conditions of high art are entirely fulfilled, so far as the know-
ledge of those days enabled them to be fulfilled; and In the
modern Pre-Raphaelite school they are fulfilled nearly to the
uttermost. Hunt's Light of the World, Is, I believe, the most

perfect instance of expressional purpose with technical power,
which the world has yet produced.

§ 10. Now in the Post-Raphaelite period of ancient art, and in the
spurious high art of modern times, two broad forms of error
divide the schools; the one consisting in (A) the superseding of
expression by technical excellence, and the other in (B) the super-
seding of technical excellence by expression.

(A). Superseding expression by technical excellence. — This
takes place most frankly, and therefore most innocently, in the
work of the Venetians. They very nearly ignore expression
altogether, directing their aim exclusively to the rendering of
external truths of colour and form. Paul Veronese will make
the Magdalene wash the feet of Christ with a countenance
as absolutely unmoved as that of any ordinary servant bring-
ing a ewer to her master, and will introduce the supper at
Emmaus as a background to the portraits of two children
playing with a dog. Of the wrongness or rightness of such a
proceeding we shall reason in another place; at present we have
to note it merely as displacing the Venetian work from the
highest or expressional rank of art. But the error is generally
made in a more subtle and dangerous way. The artist deceives
himself into the idea that he is doing all he can to elevate his
subject by treating it under rules of art, introducing into it accu-
rate science, and collecting for it the beauties of (so called) ideal
form; whereas he may, in reality, be all the while sacrificing his
subject to his own vanity or pleasure, and losing truth, noble-
ness, and impressiveness for the sake of delightful lines or cre-
ditable pedantries.

§ n, (B). Superseding technical excellence by expression. — This is
usually done under the influence of another kind of vanity. The
artist desires that men should think he has an elevated soul,
affects to despise the ordinary excellence of art, contemplates with
separated egotism, the course of his own imaginations or sensa-
tions, and refuses to look at the real facts round about him, in
order that he may adore at leisure the shadow of himself. He
lives in an element of what he calls tender emotions and lofty
aspirations; which are, in fact, nothing more than very ordinary

weaknesses or Instincts, contemplated through a mist of pride.
A large range of modern German art comes under this head.

A more interesting and respectable form of this error is fallen
into by some truly earnest men, who, finding their powers not
adequate to the attainment of great artistical excellence, but
adequate to rendering, up to a certain point, the expression
of the human countenance, devote themselves to that object
alone, abandoning effort in other directions, and executing the
accessaries of their pictures feebly or carelessly. With these
are associated another group of philosophical painters, who sup-
pose the artistical merits of other parts adve7\<ie to the expres-
sion, as drawing the spectator's attention away from it, and who
paint in grey colour, and imperfect light and shade, by way of
enforcing the purity of their conceptions. Both these classes of
conscientious but narrow-minded artists labour under the same
grievous mistake of imagining that wilful fallacy can ever be
either pardonable or helpful. They forget that colour, if used at
all, must be either true or false, and that what the^ call chastity,
dignity, and reserve is, to the eye of any person accustomed to
nature, pure, bold, and impertinent falsehood. It does not in the
eyes of any soundly minded man, exalt the expression of a female
face that the cheeks should be painted of the colour of clay, nor
does it in the least enhance his reverence for a saint to find the
scenery around him deprived, by his presence, of sunshine. It is
an important consolation, however, to reflect that no artist ever
fell into any of these last three errors (under head B.) who had
really the capacity of becoming a great painter. No man ever
despised colour who could produce it; and the error of these
sentimentalists and philosophers is not so much in the choice
of their manner of painting, as in supposing themselves capable
of painting at all. Some of them might have made efficient
sculptors, but the greater number had their mission in some other
sphere than that of art, and would have found, in works of prac-
tical charity, better employment for their gentleness and senti-
mentalism, than in denying to human beauty its colour, and to
natural scenery its light; in depriving heaven of its blue, and
earth of its bloom, valour of its glow, and modesty of its blush.

§ 12. II. Love of Beauty. — The second characteristic of the
great school of art is, that it introduces in the conception of its
subject as much beauty as is possible, consistently with truth.^

For instance, in any subject consisting of a number of figures, it
will make as many of those figures beautiful as the faithful repre-

' As here, for the first time, I am obliged to use the terms Truth and Beauty
in a kind of opposition. I must therefore stop for a moment to state clearly the
relation of these two qualities of art; and to protest against the vulgar and
foolish habit of confusing truth and beauty with each other. People with shallow
powers of thought, desiring to flatter themselves with the sensation of having
attained profundity, are continually doing the most serious mischief by intro-
ducing confusion into plain matters, and then valuing themselves on being con-
founded. Nothing is more common than to hear people who desire to be thought
philosophical, declare that " beauty is truth," and "truth is beauty." I would most
earnestly beg every sensible person who hears such an assertion made, to nip the
germinating philosopher in his ambiguous bud ; and beg him, if he really believes his
own assertion, never thenceforward to use two words for the same thing. The fact
is, truth and beauty are entirely distinct, though often related, things. One is a
property of statements, the other of objects. The statement that " two and two make
four " is true, but it is neither beautiful nor ugly, for it is invisible ; a rose is lovely,
but it is neither true nor false, for it is silent. That which shows nothing cannot bo
fair, and that which asserts nothing cannot be false. Even the ordinary use of the
words false and true, as applied to artificial and real things, is inaccurate. An
artificial rose is not a " false " rose, it is not a rose at all. The falseness is in the
person who states, or induces the belief, that it is a rose.

Now, therefore, in things concerning art, the words true and false are only to be
rightly used while the picture is considered as a statement of facts. The painter
asserts that this which he has painted is the form of a dog, a man, or a tree. If it bo
not the form of a dog, a man, or a tree, the painter's statement is false ; and, therefore,
we justly speak of a false line, or false colour; not that any line or colour can in
themselves be false, but they become so when they convey a statement that they re-
semble something which they do not resemble. But the beauty of the lines or colours
is wholly independent of any such statement. They may be beautiful lines, though
quite inaccurate, and ugly lines though quite faithful. A picture may be frightfully
ugly, which represents with fidelity some base circumstance of daily life; and a
painted window may be exquisitely beautiful, which represents men with eagles'
faces, and dogs with blue heads and crimson tails (though, by the way, this is not in
the strict sense/ctfee art, as we shall see hereafter, inasmuch as it means no assertion
that men ever had eagles' faces). If this were not so, it would be impossible to
sacrifice truth to beauty; for to attain the one would always be to attain the other.
But, unfortunately, this sacrifice is exceedingly possible, and it is chiefly this which
characterises the false schools of high art, so far as high art consists in the pursuit of
beauty. For although truth and beauty are independent of each other, it does not
follow that we are at liberty to pursue whichever we please. They are indeed sepa-
rable, but it is wrong to separate them ; they arc to be sought together in the order of
their worthiness; that is to say, truth first, and beauty afterwards. High art differs
from low art in possessing an excess of beauty in addition to its truth, not in possessing
excess of beauty inconsistent with truth.

sentation of humanity will admit. It will not deny the facts of
ugliness or decrepitude, or relative inferiority and superiority of
feature as necessarily manifested in a crowd, but it will, so far as
it is in its power, seek for and dwell upon the fairest forms, and
in all things insist on the beauty that is in them, not on the ugli-
ness. In this respect, schools of art become higher in exact
proportion to the degree in which they apprehend and love the
beautiful. Thus, Angelico, intensely loving all spiritual beauty,
will be of the highest rank; and Paul Yeronese and Correggio,
intensely loving physical and corporeal beauty, of the second
rank; and Albert Durer, Rubens, and in general the Northern
artists, apparently insensible to beauty, and caring only for truth,
whether shapely or not, of the third rank; and Teniers and
Salvator, Caravaggio, and other such worshippers of the depraved,
of no rank, or, as we said before, of a certain order in the abyss.

The corruptions of the schools of high art, so far as this par-
ticular quality is concerned, consists in the sacrifice of truth to
beauty. Great art dwells on all that is beautiful; but false art
omits or changes all that is ugly. Great art accepts Nature as
she is, but directs the eyes and thoughts to what is most per-
fect in her; false art saves itself the trouble of direction by
removing or altering whatever it thinks objectionable. The evil
results of which proceeding are twofold.

/orce of beauty, shadow ceases to be enjoyed as light. A'white canvass cannot
produce an effect of sunshine; the painter must darken it in
some places before he can make it look luminous in others;
nor can an uninterrupted succession of beauty produce the
true effect of beauty; it must be foiled by inferiority before
its own power can be developed. Nature has for the most
part mingled her inferior and nobler elements as she mingles
sunshine with shade, giving due use and influence to both, and
the painter who chooses to remove the shadow, perishes in the
burning desert he has created. The truly high and beautiful
art of Angelico is continually refreshed and strengthened by his
frank portraiture of the most ordinary features of his brother

monks, and of the recorded peculiarities of ungainly sanctity;
but tlie modern German and Raphaelesque schools lose all
honour and nobleness in barber-like admiration of handsome
faces, and have, in fact, no real faith except in straight noses,
and curled hair. Paul Veronese opposes the dwarf to the soldier,
and the negress to the queen; Shakspere places Caliban beside
Miranda, and Autolycus beside Perdita; but the vulgar idealist
withdraws his beauty to the safety of the saloon, and his inno-
cence to the seclusion of the cloister; he pretends that he does
this in delicacy of choice and purity of sentiment, while in truth
he has neither courage to front the monster, nor wit enough
to furnish the knave.

§15. It is only by the habit of representing faithfully all things, Evil second,—
that we can truly learn what is beautiful, and what is not. true quantity of
The ugliest objects contain some element of beauty; and in all,
it is an element peculiar to themselves, which cannot be sepa-
rated from their ugliness, but must either be enjoyed together
with it, or not at all. The more a painter accepts nature as he
finds it, the more unexpected beauty he discovers in what he
at first despised; but once let him arrogate the right of rejec-
tion, and he will gradually contract his circle of enjoyment, until
what he supposed to be nobleness of selection ends in narrow-
ness of perception. Dwelling perpetually upon one class of ideas,
his art becomes at once monstrous and morbid; until at last he
cannot faithfully represent even what he chooses to retain; his
discrimination contracts into darkness, and his fastidiousness fades
into fatuity.

High art, therefore, consists neither in altering, nor in im-
proving nature; but in seeking throughout nature for " whatsoever
things are lovely, and whatsoever things are pure;" in loving
these, in displaying to the utmost of the painter's power such
loveliness as is in them, and directing the thoughts of others to
them by winning art, or gentle emphasis. Of the degree in
which this can be done, and in which it may be permitted to
gather together, without falsifying, the finest forms or thoughts,
so as to create a sort of perfect vision, we shall have to speak
hereafter: at present, it is enough to remember that art {ceteris

paribus^ is great in exact proportion to the love of beauty shown
by the painter, provided that love of beauty forfeit no atom of
truth.

§ 16. III. Sincerity.—The next' characteristic of great art is that
it includes the largest possible quantity of Truth in the most
perfect possible harmony. If it were possible for art to give all
the truths of nature, it ought to do it. But this is not possible.
Choice must always be made of some facts which can be repre-
sented, from among others which must be passed by in silence, or
even, in some respects, misrepresented. The inferior artist chooses
unimportant and scattered truths; the great artist chooses the
most necessary first, and afterwards the most consistent with
these, so as to obtain the greatest possible and most harmonious
sum. For instance, Rembrandt always chooses to represent the
exact force with which the light on the most illumined part of an
object is opposed to its obscurer portions. In order to obtain this,
in most cases, not very important truth, he sacrifices the light and
colour of five sixths of his picture; and the expression of every
character of objects which depends on tenderness of shape or tint.
But he obtains his single truth, and what picturesque and for-
cible expression is dependent upon it, with magnificent skill and
subtlety. Veronese, on the contrary, chooses to represent the
great relations of visible things to each other, to the heaven
above, and to the earth beneath them. He holds it more im-
portant to show how a figure stands relieved from delicate air, or
marble wall; how as a red, or purple, or white figure, it separates
itself, in clear discernibility, from things not red, nor purple, nor
white; how infinite daylight shines round it; how innumerable
veils of faint shadow invest it; how its blackness and darkness
are, in the excess of their nature, just as limited and local as its
intensity of light: all this, I say, he feels to be more important
than showing merely the exact measure of the spark of sunshine
that gleams on a dagger-hilt, or glows on a jewel. All this,
moreover, he feels to be harmonious, — capable of being joined
in one great system of spacious truth. And with inevitable

watchfulness, inestimable subtlety, he unites all this in tenderest
balance, noting in each hair's-breadth of colour, not merely what
its rightness or wrongness is in itself, but what its relation is to
every other on his canvass; restraining, for truth's sake, his ex-
haust! ess energy, reining back, for truth's sake, his fiery strength;
veiling, before truth, the vanity of brightness; penetrating, for
truth, the discouragement of gloom; ruling his restless invention
with a rod of iron; pardoning no error, no thoughtlessness, no
forgetfulness; and subduing all his powers, impulses, and imagi-
nations, to the arbitrement of a merciless justice, and the obe-
dience of an incorruptible verity.

I give this instance with respect to colour and shade; but, in
the whole field of art, the difference between the great and in-
ferior artists is of the same kind, and may be determined at once
by the question, which of them conveys the largest sum of
truth ?

§17. It follows from this principle, that in general all great draw- Corollary 1st:
ing is distinct drawing; for truths which are rendered indis- generally dis-
tinctly might, for the most part, as well not be rendered at all.
There are, indeed, certain facts of mystery, and facts of indis-
tinctness, in all objects, which must have their proper place in
the general harmony, and the reader will presently find me,
when we come to that part of our investigation, telling him that
all good drawing must in some sort be mdistinct. We may, how-
ever, understand this apparent contradiction, by reflecting that
the highest knowledge always involves a more advanced per-
ception of the fields of the unknown; and, therefore, it may most
truly be said, that to know anything well involves a profound
sensation of ignorance, while yet it is equally true that good
and noble knowledge is distinguished from vain and useless
knowledge chiefly by its clearness and distinctness, and by the
vigorous consciousness of what is known and what is not.

So in art. The best drawing involves a wonderful percep-
tion and expression of indistinctness; and yet all noble drawing
is separated from the ignoble by its distinctness, by its fine
expression and firm assertion of Something; whereas the bad
drawing, without either firmness or fineness, expresses and

asserts Nothing. The first thing, therefore, to be looked for as a
sign of noble art, is a clear consciousness of what is drawn and
what is not; the bold statement, and frank confession —" This
I know," " that I know not;" and, generally speaking, all haste,
slurring, obscurity, indecision, are signs of low art, and all
calmness, distinctness, luminousness, and positiveness, of high
art.

§ 18. It follows, secondly, from this principle, that as the great
Great an ' always attending to the sum and harmony of his truths

generally large rather than to One or the other of any group, a quality of Grasp
is visible in his work, like the power of a great reasoner over his
subject, or a great poet over his conception, manifesting itself
very often in missing out certain details or less truths (which,
though good in themselves, he finds are in the way of others), and
in a sweeping manner of getting the beginnings and ends of things
shown at once, and the squares and depths rather than the sur-
faces : hence, on the whole, a habit of looking at large masses
rather than small ones; and even a physical largeness of handling,
and love of working, if possible, on a large scale; and various
other qualities, more or less imperfectly expressed by such tech-
nical terms as breadth, massing, unity, boldness, &c., all of which
are, indeed, great qualities when they mean breadth of truth,
weight of truth, unity of truth, and courageous assertion of
truth ; but which have all their correlative errors and mockeries,
almost universally mistaken for them,—the breadth which has
no contents, the weight which has no value, the unity which plots
deception, and the boldness which faces out fallacy.
§ 19. And it is to be noted especially respecting largeness of scale,
that though for the most part it is characteristic of the more
powerful masters, they having both more invention wherewith to
fill space (as Ghirlandajo wished that he might paint all the walls
of Florence), and, often, an impetuosity of mind which makes
them like free play for hand and arm (besides that they usually
desire to paint everything in the foreground of their picture of
the natural size), yet, as this largeness of scale involves the placing
of the picture at a considerable distance from the eye, and this
distance involves the loss of many delicate details, and especially

of the subtle lines of expression in features, it follows that the
masters of refined detail and human expression are apt to prefer
a small scale to work upon; so that the chief masterpieces of
expression which the world possesses are small pictures by Ange-
lico, in which the figures are rarely more than six or seven
inches high; in the best works of Raphael and Leonardo the
figures are almost always less than life, and the best works of
Turner do not exceed the size of 18 inches by 12.

§ 20. As its greatness depends on the sum of truth, and this sum of Corollary 3rd:
truth can alv^ays be increased by delicacy of handling, it follows aiways^deilLte.
that all great art must have this delicacy to the utmost possible
degree. This rule is infallible and inflexible. All coarse work
is the sign of low art. Only, it is to be remembered, that coarse-
ness must be estimated by the distance from the eye; it being
necessary to consult this distance, when great, by laying on
touches which appear coarse when seen near; but which, so far
from being coarse, are, in reality, more delicate in a master's
work than the finest close handling, for they involve a calcula-
tion of result, and are laid on with a subtlety of sense precisely
correspondent to that with which a good archer draws his bow;
the spectator seeing in the action nothing but the strain of the
strong arm, while there is, in reality, in the finger and eye, an
ineffably delicate estimate of distance, and touch on the arrow
plume. And, indeed, this delicacy is generally quite perceptible
to those who know what the truth is, for strokes by Tintoret
or Paul Veronese, which were done in an instant, and look to an
ignorant spectator merely like a violent dash of loaded colour,
(and are, as such, imitated by blundering artists,) are, in fact,
modulated by the brush and finger to that degree of delicacy that
no single grain of the colour could be taken from the touch
without injury; and little golden particles of it, not the size of
a gnat's head, have important share and function in the balances
of light in a picture perhaps fifty feet long. Nearly every other
rule applicable to art has some exception but this. This has
absolutely none. All great art is delicate art, and all coarse art
is bad art. Nay, even to a certain extent, all hold art is bad art;
for boldness is not the proper word to apply to the courage and

swiftness of a great master, based on knowledge, and coupled
witli fear and love. There is as mucli difference between the
boldness of the true and the false masters, as there is between
the courage of a pure woman and the shamelessness of a lost
one.

§21. IV. Invention. — The last characteristic of great art is that
it must be inventive, that is, be produced by the imagination.
In this respect, it must precisely fulfil the definition already given
of poetry; and not only present grounds for noble emotion, but
furnish these grounds by imaginative power. Hence there is at
once a great bar fixed between the two schools of Ijower and
Higher Art. The lower merely copies what is set before it,
whether in portrait, landscape, or still-life; the higher either en-
tirely imagines its subject, or arranges the materials presented to
it, so as to manifest the imaginative power in all the three phases
which have been already explained in the second volume.

And this was the truth which was confusedly present in Rey-
nolds's mind when he spoke, as above quoted, of the difference
between Historical and Poetical Painting. Every relation of the
plain facts which the painter sate is proper historical painting.^
If those facts are unimportant (as that he saw a gambler quarrel
with another gambler, or a sot enjoying himself with another sot),
then the history is trivial; if the facts are important (as that he
saw such and such a great man look thus, or act thus, at such a
time), then the history is noble: in each case perfect truth of nar-
rative being supposed, otherwise the whole thing is worthless,
being neither history nor poetry, but plain falsehood. And
fai'ther, as greater or less elegance and precision are manifested
in the relation or painting of the incidents, the merit of the work
varies; so that, what with difference of subject, and what with
difference of treatment, historical painting falls or rises in change-
ful eminence, from Dutch trivialities to a Velasquez portrait, just
as historical talking or writing varies in eminence, from an old
woman's story-telling up to Herodotus. Besides which, certain
operations of the imagination come into play inevitably, here and

there, so as to touch the history with some light of poetry, that
is, with some light shot forth of the narrator's mind, or brought
out by the way he has put the accidents together: and wherever
the imagination has thus had anything to do with the matter at
all (and it must be somewhat cold work where it has not), then,
the confines of the lower and higher schools touching each other,
the work is coloured by both; but there is no reason why, there-
fore, we should in the least confuse the historical and poetical
characters, any more than that we should confuse ,blue with crim-
son, because they may overlap each other, and produce purple.

§ 22. Now, historical or simply narrative art is very precious in its
proper place and way, but it is never great art until the poetical
or imaginative power touches it; and in proportion to the stronger
manifestation of this power, it becomes greater and greater, while
the highest art is purely imaginative, all its materials being
wrought into their form by invention; and it differs, therefore,
from the simple historical painting, exactly as "Wordsworth's
stanza, above quoted, differs from Saussure's plain narrative of the
parallel fact; and the imaginative painter differs from the histori-
cal painter in the manner that Wordsworth differs from Saussure,

§ 23. Farther, imaginative art always includes historical art; so that,
strictly speaking, according to the analogy above used, we meet
Avith the pure blue, and with the crimson ruling the blue and
changing it into kingly purple, but not with the pure crimson:
for all imagination must deal with the knowledge it has before
accumulated; it never produces anything but by combination or
contemplation. Creation, in the full sense, is impossible to it.
And the mode in which the historical faculties are included by it
is often quite simple, and easily seen. Thus, in Hunt's great
poetical picture of the Light of the World, the whole thought
and arrangement of the picture being imaginative, the several
details of it are wrought out with simple portraiture; the ivy,
the jewels, the creeping plants, and the moonlight being calmly
studied or remembered from the things themselves. But of all
these special ways in which the invention works with plain facts,
we shall have to treat farther afterwards.

cal, if we glance back to the other qualities required in great art,
and put all together, we find that the sum of them is simply the
sum of all the powers of man. For as (1) the choice of the high
subject involves all conditions of right moral choice, and as (2) the
love of beauty involves all conditions of right admiration, and as
(3) the grasp of truth involves all strength of sense, evenness of
judgment, and honesty of purpose, and as (4) the poetical power
involves all swiftness of invention, and accuracy of historical
memory, the sum of all these powers is the sum of the human
soul. Hence we see why the word " Great" is used of this art.
It is literally great. It compasses and calls forth the entire
human spirit, whereas any other kind of art, being more or less
small or narrow, compasses and calls forth only part of the human
spirit. Hence the idea of its magnitude is a literal and just one,
the art being simply less or greater in proportion to the number of
faculties it exercises and addresses. And this is the ultimate
meaning of the definition I gave of it long ago, as containing the
" greatest number of the greatest ideas."

Such, then, being the characters required in order to constitute
high art, if the reader will think over them a little, and over the
various ways in which they may be falsely assumed, he will easily
perceive how spacious and dangerous a field of discussion they
open to the ambitious critic, and of error to the ambitious artist;
he will see how dlfl&cult it must be, either to distinguish what is
truly great art from the mockeries of it, or to rank the real artists
in any thing like a progressive system of greater and less. For
it will have been observed that the various qualities which form
greatness are partly inconsistent with each other (as some virtues
are, docility and firmness for instance), and partly independent
of each other; and the fact is, that artists differ not more by mere
capacity, than by the component elements of their capacity, each
possessing in very different proportions the several attributes of
greatness; so that, classed by one kind of merit, as, for instance,
purity of expression, Angelico will stand highest; classed by
another, sincerity of manner, Veronese will stand highest; classed

by another, love of beauty, Leonardo will stand highest; and
so on: hence arise continual disputes and misunderstandings
among those who think that high art must always be one and the
same, and that great artists ought to unite all great attributes in
an equal degree.

§ 26. In one of the exquisitely finished tales of Marmontel, a company
of critics are received at dinner by the hero of the story, an old
gentleman, someAvhat vain of his acquired taste, and his niece, by
whose incorrigible natural taste, he is seriously disturbed and tor-
mented. During the entertainment, " On parcourut tous les genres
de litterature, et pour donner plus d'essor a I'erudition et ^ la cri-
tique, on mit sur le tapis cette question toute neuve, s9avoir,
lequel mdritoit la preference de Corneille ou de Racine. L'on
disoit meme la-dessus les plus belles choses du monde, lorsque la
petite ni^ce, qui n'avoit pas dit un mot, s'avisa de demander na'ive-
ment lequel des deux fruits, de I'orange ou de la p^che, avoit le
gout le plus exquis et meritoit le plus d'eloges. Son oncle rougit
de sa simplicite, et les convives baisserent tous les yeux sans
daigner r^pondre a cette betise. Ma niece, dit Fintac, a votre
age, il faut s^avoir ecouter, et se taire."

I cannot close this chapter with shorter or better advice to the
reader, than merely, whenever he hears discussions about the rela-
tive merits of great masters, to remember the young lady's ques-
tion. It is, indeed, true that there is a relative merit, that a peach
is nobler than a hawthorn berry, and still more a hawthorn berry
than a bead of the nightshade; but in each rank of fruits, as in
each rank of masters, one is endowed with one virtue, and another
with another: their glory is their dissimilarity, and tliey who pro-
pose to themselves in the training of an artist that he should
unite the colouring of Tintoret, the finish of Albert Durer, and
the tenderness of Correggio, are no wiser than a horticulturist
would be, who made it the object of his labour to produce a
fruit which should unite In itself the lusciousness of the grape,
the crispness of the nut, and the fragrance of the pine.

§ 27. And from these considerations one most important practical
corollary is to be deduced, with the good help of Mademoiselle
Agathe's simile, namely, that the greatness or smallness of a man

is. In the most conclusive sense, determined for him at his birth,
as strictly as it is determined for a fruit whether it is to be a cur-
rant or an apricot. Education, favourable circumstances, resolu-
tion, and industry can do 'much; in a certain sense they do every
thing I that is to say, they determine whether the poor apricot
shall fall in the form of a green bead, blighted by the east wind,
and be trodden under foot, or whether it shall expand into tender
pride, and sweet brightness of golden velvet. But apricot out of
currant,—great man out of small,—did never yet art or elFort
make; and, in a general way, men have their excellence nearly
fixed for them when they are born; a little cramped and frost-
bitten on one side, a little sun-burnt and fortune-spotted on the
other, they reach, between good and evil chances, such size and
taste as generally belong to the men of their calibre, and, the
small in their serviceable bunches, the great in their golden isola-
tion, have, these no cause for regret, nor those for disdain.

Therefore it is, that every system of teaching is false which
holds forth " great art" as in any wise to be taught to students,
or even to be aimed at by them. Great art is precisely that
which never was, nor will be taught, it is preeminently and
finally the expression of the spirits of great men; so that the
only wholesome teaching is that which simply endeavours to fix
those characters of nobleness in the pupil's mind, of which it
seems easily susceptible; and without holding out to him, as a
possible or even probable result, that he should ever paint like
Titian, or carve like Michael Angelo, enforces upon him the
manifest possibility, and assured duty, of endeavouring to draw
in a manner at least honest and intelligible ; and cultivates in
him those general charities of heart, sincerities of thought, and
graces of habit which are likely to lead him, throughout life, to
prefer openness to aifectation, realities to shadows, and beauty to
corruption.

§ Having now gained some general notion of the meaning of
" great art," we may, without risk of confusing ourselves, take
up the questions suggested incidentally in the preceding chapter,
and pursue them at leisure. Of these, two principal ones are
closely connected with each other, to wit, that put in the 12th
paragraph — How may beauty be sought in defiance of truth ?
and that in the 23rd paragraph—How does the imagination show
itself in dealing with truth ? These two, therefore, which are,
besides, the most important of all, and, if well answered, will
answer many others inclusively, we shall find it most convenient
to deal with at once.

§ 2. The pursuit, by the imagination, of beautiful and strange
thoughts or subjects, to the exclusion of painful or common ones,
is called among us, in these modern days, the pursuit of " the
idealnor does any subject deserve more attentive examination
than the manner in which this pursuit is entered upon by the
modern mind. The reader must pardon me for making in the
outset one or two statements which may appear to him somewhat
wide of the matter, but which, (if he admits their truth,) he will,
I think, presently perceive to reach to the root of it. Namely,

♦First, to know themselves, and the existing state of the things
they have to do with.

Thirdly, to mend themselves, and the existing state of things,
as far as either are marred and mendable.

These, I say, are the three plain divisions of proper human
business on this earth. For these three, the following are usually
substituted and adopted by human creatures:

Thirdly, to let themselves, and the existing state of things,
alone (at least, in the way of correction).

§ 3. The dispositions which induce us to manage, thus wisely, the
affairs of this life seem to be :

First, a fear of disagreeable facts, and conscious shrinking
from clearness of light, which keep us from examining ourselves,
and increase gradually into a species of instinctive terror at
all truth, and love of glosses, veils, and decorative lies of every
sort.

Secondly, a general readiness to take delight in anything past,
future, far off, or somewhere else, rather than in things now, near,
and here; leading us gradually to place our pleasure principally
in the exercise of the imagination, and to build all our satisfaction
on things as they are not. Which power being one not accorded
to the lower animals, and having indeed, when disciplined, a very
noble use, we pride ourselves upon it, whether disciplined or not,
and pass our lives complacently, in substantial discontent, and
visionary satisfaction.

§ 4. Now nearly all artistical and poetical seeking after the ideal is
only one branch of this base habit—the abuse of the imagination,
in allowing it to find its whole delight in the impossible and
untrue; while the faithful pursuit of the ideal is an honest use of
the imagination, giving full power and presence to the possible
and true.

§ 5. And, first, consider wbat are the legitimate uses of the imagi-
nation, that is to say, of the power of perceiving, or conceiving
with the mind, things which cannot be perceived by the senses.

Its first and noblest use is, to enable us to bring sensibly to our
sight the things which are recorded as belonging to our future
state, or as invisibly surrounding us in this. It is given us, that
we may imagine the cloud of witnesses in heaven and earth, and
see, as if they were now present, the souls of the righteous waiting
for us; that we may conceive the great army of the inhabitants of
heaven, and discover among them those whom we most desire
to be with for ever; that we may be able to vision forth the
ministry of angels beside ub, and see the chariots of fire on the
mountains that gird us round; but, above all, to call up the scenes
and facts in which we are commanded to believe, and be present,
as if in the body, at every recorded event of the history of the
Redeemer. Its second and ordinary use is to empower us to
traverse the scenes of all other history, and force the facts to
become again visible, so as to make upon us the same impression
which they would have made if we had witnessed them : and in
the minor necessities of life, to enable us, out of any present good,
to gather the utmost measure of enjoyment by investing it with
happy associations, and, in any present evil, to lighten it, by
summoning back the images of other hours; and, also, to give to
all mental truths some visible type in allegory, simile, or personifi-
cation, which shall more deeply enforce them; and, finally, when
the mind is utterly outwearied, to refresh it with such innocent
play as shall be most in harmony with the suggestive voices of
natural things, permitting it to possess living companionship in-
stead of silent beauty, and create for itself fairies in the grass, and
naiads in the wave.

§ 6. These being the uses of imagination, its abuses are either in
creating, for mere pleasure, false images, where it is its duty to
create true ones; or in turning what was intended for the mere
refreshment of the heart into its daily food, and changing the
innocent pastime of an hour into the guilty occupation of a life.

§ 7. Firsts then, the imagination is chiefly warped and dishonoured
by being allowed to create false images, where it is its duty to
create true ones. And this most dangerously in matters of re-
ligion. For a long time, when art was in its infancy, it remained
unexposed to this danger, because it could not, with any power,
realize or create any thing. It consisted merely in simple out-
lines and pleasant colours ; which were understood to be nothing
more than signs of the thing thought of, a sort of pictorial letter
for it, no more pretending to represent it than the written
characters of its name. Such art excited the imagination, while it
pleased the eye. But it asserted nothing, for it could realize
nothing. The reader glanced at it as a glittering symbol, and
went on to form truer images for himself. This act of the mind
may be still seen in daily operation in children, as they look at
brightly coloured pictures in their story-books. Such pictures
neither deceive them nor satisfy them; they only set their own
inventive powers to work in the directions required.

§ But as soon as art obtained the power of realization, it obtained
also that of assertion. As fast as the painter advanced in skill he
gained also in credibility, and that which he perfectly represented
was perfectly believed, or could be disbelieved only by an actual
eflPort of the beholder to escape from the fascinating deception.
What had been faintly declared, might be painlessly denied; but
it was difficult to discredit things forcibly alleged; and repre-
sentations, which had been innocent in discrepancy, became guilty
in consistency.

§ 9. For instance, when in the thirteenth century, the nativity was
habitually represented by such a symbol as that on the next page,
fig. 1., there was not the smallest possibility that such a picture
could disturb, in the mind of the reader of the New Testament,
the simple meaning of the words " wrapped him in swaddling
clothes, and laid him in a manger." That this manger was typi-
fied by a trefoiled arch ^ would no more prevent his distinct

' The curious inequality of the little trefoil is not a mistake; it is faithfully copied
by the draughtsman from the MS. Perhaps the actual date of the illumination may
be a year or two past the thirteenth centmy, i.e. 1300—1310 ; but it is quite charac-
teristic of the thirteenth century treatment in the figures.

understanding of the narrative, than the grotesque heads intro-
duced above it would interfere with his firm compre-
hension of the words " ox " or " ass;" while if there
were anything in the action of the principal figures
suggestive of real feeling, that suggestion he would
accept, together with the general pleasantness of the
lines and colours in the decorative letter; but with-
out having his faith in the unrepresented and actual
scene obscured for a moment. But it was far other-

Avise, when Francia
or Perugino, Avitli
exquisite power of
representing the hu-
man form, and high
knowledge of the
mysteries of art, de-
voted all their skill
to the delineation of
an impossible scene;
and painted, for their
subjects of the Nati-
vity, a beautiful and
queenly lady, her
dress embroidered

with gold, and with a crown of jewels
upon her hair, kneeling, on a floor of
inlaid and precious marble, before a
Jg^ crowned child, laid under a portico of
rig. 1. Lombardic^ architecture; with a sweet,
Verdurous, and vivid landscape in the distance, full of
winding rivers, village spires, and baronial tow^ers.^ It is
quite true that the frank absurdity of the thought pre-
vented its being; received as a deliberate contradiction

' Lorabardic, i. e. ia the style of Pietro and TuUio Lombardo, in the fifteenth
century (not Lombard).

= All this, it will be observed, is that seeking for beauty at the cost of truth which
we have generally noted in the last chapter,
VOL. III. E

of the truths of Scripture; but it is no less certain, that the
continual presentment to the mind of this beautiful and fully
realized imagery more and more chilled its power of apprehend-
ing the real truth; and that when pictures of this description
met the eye in every corner of every chapel, it was physically
Impossible to dwell distinctly upon facts the direct reverse ot
those represented. The word " Virgin " or " Madonna," instead
of calling up the vision of a simple Jewish girl, bearing the
calamities of poverty, and the dishonours of inferior station, sum-
moned instantly the idea of a graceful princess, crowned with
gems, and surrounded by obsequious ministry of kings and saints.
The fallacy which was presented to the imagination was indeed
discredited, but also the fact which was not presented to the
imagination was forgotten ; all true grounds of faith were gra-
dually undermined, and the beholder was either enticed into mere
luxury of fanciful enjoyment, believing nothing; or left, in his
confusion of mind, the prey of vain tales and traditions; while
in his best feelings he Avas unconsciously subject to the power
of the fallacious picture, and, with no sense of the real cause
of his error, bowed himself, in prayer or adoration, to the lovely
lady on her golden throne, when he would never have dreamed
of doing so to the Jewish girl in her outcast poverty, or, in her
simple household, to the carpenter's wife.

But a shadow of increasing darkness fell upon the human mind
as art proceeded to still more perfect realization. These fantasies
of the earlier painters, though they darkened faith, never hardened
feeling; on the contrary, the frankness of their unlikelihood pro-
ceeded mainly from the endeavour on the part of the painter to
express, not the actual fact, but the enthusiastic state of his own
feelings about the fact; he covers the Ylrgln's dress with gold, not
with any idea of representing the Virgin as she ever was, or ever
Avill be seen, but with a burning desire to show what his love and
reverence would think fittest for her. He erects for the stable a
Lombardic portico, not because he supposes the Lombard! to have
built stables in Palestine in the days of Tiberius, but to show that
the manger in which Christ was laid Is, In his eyes, nobler than
the greatest architecture in the world. He fills his landscape

Avitli church spires and silver streams, not because he supposes that
either were in sight at Bethlehem, but to remind the beholder of
the peaceful course and succeeding power of Christianity. And,
regarded with due sympathy and clear understanding of these
thoughts of the artist, such pictures remain most impressive and
touching, even to this day. I shall refer to them in future, in
general terms, as the pictures of the " Angelican Ideal"— Ange-
lico being the central master of the school.

§11. It was far otherwise in the next step of the Realistic progress.
The greater his poAvers became, the more the mind of the painter
was absorbed in their attainment, and complacent in their display.
The early arts of laying on bright colours smoothly, of burnishing
golden ornaments, or tracing, leaf by leaf, the outlines of flowers,
were not so difficult as that they should materially occujjy the
thoughts of the artist,' or furnish foundation for his conceit; he
learned these rudiments of his work without pain, and employed
them without pride, his spirit being left free to express, so far as
it was capable of them, the reaches of higher thought. But when
accurate shade, and subtle colour, and perfect anatomy, and com-
plicated perspective, became necessary to the work, the artist's
whole energy was employed in learning the laws of these, and his
Avhole pleasure consisted in exhibiting them. His life was devoted,
not to the objects of art, but to the cunning of it; and the sciences
of composition and light and shade were pursued as if there were
abstract good in them;—as if, like astronomy or mathematics,
they were ends in themselves, irrespective of anything to be
effected by them. And without perception, on the part of any
one, of the abyss to which all were hastening, a fatal change
of aim took i)lace throughout the whole world of art. In early
times art was employed for the display of religious facts; now,
religious facts were employed for the display of art. The transi-
tion, though imperceptible, was consummate; it involved the
entire destiny of painting. It was passing from the paths of
life to the paths of death.

§ 12. And this change was all the more fatal, because at first veiled
by an appearance of greater dignity and sincerity than were p.os-

sessed by the older art. One of the earliest results 'of the new
knowledge was the putting away the greater part of the unlikeli-
hoods and fineries of the ancient pictures, and an apparently closer
following of nature and probability. All the fantasy which I
have just been blaming as disturbant of the simplicity of faith,
was first subdued,—then despised and cast aside. The appear-
ances of nature were more closely followed in everything; and
the crowned Queen-Virgin of Perugino sank into a simple Italian
mother in Raphael's Madonna of the Chair.

§ 13. Was not this, then, a healthy change ? No. It loould have
been healthy if it had been effected with a pure motive, and the
new truths would have been precious if they had been sought for
truth's sake. But they were not sought for truth's sake, but for
pride's; and truth which is sought for display may be just as
harmful as truth which is spoken in malice. The glittering child-
ishness of the old art was rejected, not because it was false, but
because it was easy; and, still more, because the painter had no
longer any religious passion to express. He could think of the
Madonna now very calmly, with no desire to pour out the treasures
of earth at her feet, or crown her brows with the golden shafts of
heaven. He could think of her as an available subject for the
display of transparent shadows, skilful tints, and scientific fore-
shortenings, — as a fair woman, forming, if well painted, a pleasant
piece of furniture for the corner of a boudoir, and best imagined by
combination of the beauties of the prettiest contadinas. He could
think of her, in her last maternal agony, with academical discrimi-
nation ; sketch in first her skeleton, invest her, in serene science,
with the muscles of misery and the fibres of sorrow; then cast
the grace of antique drapery over the nakedness of her deso-
lation, and fulfil, with studious lustre of tears and delicately
painted pallor, the perfect type of the " Mater Dolorosa."

' This is one form of the sacrifice of expression to technical merit, generally noted
at the end of the 10th paragraph of the last chapter,

pleted, it became necessary, as we have just said, to tlie full dis-
play of all the power of the artist, that it should in many respects
be more faithfully imagined than it had been hitherto. " Keep-
ing," " Expression," " Historical Unity," and such other require-
ments, were enforced on the painter, in the same tone, and with
the same purpose, as the purity of his oil and the accuracy of his
perspective. He was told that the figure of Christ should be
" dignified," those of the Apostles " expressive," that of the
Virgin " modest," and those of children " innocent." All this
was perfectly true; and in obedience to such directions, the
painter proceeded to manufacture certain arrangements of aposto-
lic sublimity, virginal mildness, and infantine innocence, which,
being free from the quaint imperfection and contradictoriness of
the early art, were looked upon by the European public as true
things, and trustworthy I'epresentations of the events of religious
history. The pictures of Francia and Bellini had been received
as pleasant visions. But the cartoons of Raphael were received
as representations of historical fact.

§ 15. Now, neither they, nor any other work of the period, were
representations either of historical or of possible fact. They were,
in the strictest sense of the word, " compositions " — cold arrange-
ments of propriety and agreeableness, according to academical
formulas; the painter never in any case making the slightest effort
to conceive the thing as it really must have happened, but only to
gather together graceful lines and beautiful faces, in such com-
pliance with commonplace ideas of the subject as might obtain for
the whole an " epic unity," or some such other form of scholastic
perfectness.

I suppose there is no event in the whole life of Christ to which,
in hours of doubt or fear, men turn with more anxious thirst to
know the close facts of it, or with more earnest and passionate
dwelling upon every syllable of its recorded narrative, than Christ's
showing Himself to his disciples at the lake of Galilee, There is
something preeminently open, natural, full fronting our disbelief
in this manifestation. The others, recorded after the resurrection,

were sudden, phantom-like, occurring to men in profound sorrow
and wearied agitation of heart; not, it might seem, safe judges
of what they saw. But the agitation was now over. They had
gone back to their daily work, thinking still their business lay
net-wards, unmeshed from the literal rope and drag. " Simon
Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing.' They say unto him,
* We also go with thee.'" True words enough, and having
far echo beyond those Galilean hills. That night they caught
nothing; but when the morning came, in the clear light of it,
behold, a figure stood on the shore. They were not thinking
of anything but their fruitless hauls. They had no guess who
it was. It asked them simply if they had caught anything.
They said no. And it tells them to cast yet again. And John
shades his eyes from the morning sun with his hand, to look
who it is; and though the glinting of the sea, too, dazzles him,
he makes out who it is, at last; and poor Simon, not to be
outrun this time, tightens his fisher's coat about him, and dashes
in, over the nets. One would have liked to see him swim those
hundred yards, and stagger to his knees on the beach.

Well, the others get to the beach, too, in time, in such slow
way as men in general do get, in this world, to its true shore,
much impeded by that wonderful " dragging the net with fishes;"
but they get there — seven of them in all; — first the Denier,
and then the slowest believer, and then the quickest believer, and
then the two throne-seekers, and two more, we know not who.

They sit down on the shore face to face with Him, and eat their
broiled fish as He bids. And then, to Peter, all dripping still,
shivering, and amazed, staring at Christ in the sun, on the other
side of the coal fire, — thinking a little, perhaps, of what hap-
pened by another coal fire, when it was colder, and having had
no word once changed with him by his Master since that look of
His,—to him, so amazed, comes the question, " Simon, lovest
thou me ?" Try to feel that a little, and think of it till it is true
to you; and then, take up that infinite monstrosity and hypocrisy
—Kaphael's cartoon of the Charge to Peter. Note, first, the bold
fallacy — the putting all the Apostles there, a mere lie to serve the

Papal heresy of the Petric supremacy, by putting them all in the
background while Peter receives the charge, and making them all
witnesses to it. Note the handsomely curled hair and neatly tied
sandals of the men who had been out all night in the sea-mists
and on the slimy decks. Note their convenient dresses for going
a-fishing, with trains that lie a yard along the ground, and goodly
fringes, — all made to match, an apostolic fishing costume.^
Note how Peter especially (whose chief glory was in his wet
coat ffirt about him and naked limbs) is enveloped in folds and
fringes, so as to kneel and hold his keys with grace. No fire
of coals at all, nor lonely mountain shore, but a pleasant Italian
landscape, full of villas and churches, and a flock of sheep to
be pointed at; and the whole group of Apostles, not round
Christ, as they would have been naturally, but straggling away
in a line, that they may all be shown.

The simple truth is, that the moment we look at the picture we
feel our belief of the whole thing taken away. There is, visibly,
no possibility of that group ever having existed, in any place,
or on any occasion. It is all a mere mythic absurdity, and
faded concoction of fringes, muscular arms, and curly heads of
Greek philosophers.

Now, the evil consequences of the acceptance of this kind of
religious idealism for true, were instant and manifold. So far as it
was received and trusted in by thoughtful persons, it only served
to cliill all the conceptions of sacred history which they might
otherwise have obtained. Whatever they could have fancied for
themselves about the wild, strange, infinitely stern, infinitely
tender, infinitely varied veracities of the life of Christ, was blotted
out by the vapid fineries of Eaphael: the rough Galilean pilot,
the orderly custom receiver, and all the questioning wonder and
fire of uneducated apostleship, were obscured under an antique
mask of philosophical faces and long robes. The feeble, subtle,
suffering, ceaseless energy and humiliation of St. Paul were con-

' I suppose Eaphael intended a reference to Numbers xv. 38.; but if he did, the
blue riband, or " vitta," as it is in the Vulgate, should have been on the borders too.

fused with an idea of a meditative Hercules leaning on a sweep-
ing sword ^; and the mighty presences of Moses and Elias were
softened by introductions of delicate grace, adopted from dancing
nymphs and rising Auroras.^

Now, no vigorously minded religious person could possibly
receive pleasure or help from such art as this; and the necessary
result was the instant rejection of it by the healthy religion of the
world. Raphael ministered, with applause, to the impious luxury
of the Vatican, but was trampled under foot at once by every be-
lieving and advancing Christian of his own and subsequent times;
and thenceforward pure Christianity and "high art" took separate
roads, and fared on, as best they might, independently of each
other.

§ 18. But although Calvin, and Knox, and Luther, and their flocks,
with all the hardest-headed and truest-hearted faithful left in
Christendom, thus spurned away the spurious art, and all art
with it, (not without harm to themselves, such as a man must
needs sustain in cutting olF a decayed limb®,) certain conditions
of weaker Christianity suffered the false system to retain in-
fluence over them ; and to this day, the clear and tasteless poison
of the art of Raphael infects with sleep of infidelity the hearts
of millions of Christians. It is the first cause of all that pre-
eminent clulness which characterizes what Protestants call sacred
art; a dulness not merely baneful in making religion distasteful
to tlie young, but in sickening, as we have seen, all vital belief
of religion in the old. A dim sense of impossibility attaches
itself always to the graceful emi^tiness of the representation; we
feel instinctively that the painted Christ and painted apostle are

^ In the Transfiguration. Do but try to believe that Moses and Elias are really there
talking with Christ. Moses in the loveliest heart and midst of the land which once it
had been denied him to behold,—Elijah treading the earth again, from which he had
been swept to heaven in fire ; both now with a mightier message than ever they had
given in life, — mightier, in closing their own mission, — mightier, in speaking to
Christ " of His decease, which He should accomplish at Jerusalem." They, men of
like passions once with us, appointed to speak to the Redeemer of His death.

^ Luther had no dislike of religious art on principle. Even the stove in his
chamber was wrought with sacred subjects. See Jlrs. Stowe's Sunny Memories.

not beings that ever did or could exist; and this fatal sense of
fair fabulousness, and well-composed impossibility, steals gradually
from the picture into the history, until we find ourselves reading
St. Mark or St. Luke with the same admiring, but uninterested,
incredulity, with which we contemplate Raphael.

§ 19. On a certain class of minds, however, these Raphaelesque and
other sacred paintings of high order, have had, of late years,
another kind of influence, much resembling that which they had
at first on the most pious Romanists. They are used to excite
certain conditions of religious dream or reverie; being again,
as in earliest times, regarded not as representations of fact, but
as expressions of sentiment respecting the fact. In this way
the best of them have unquestionably much purifying and en-
chanting power; and they are helpful opjjonents to sinful passion
and weakness of every kind. A fit of unjust anger, petty malice,
unreasonable vexation, or dark passion, cannot certainly, in a
mind of ordinary sensibility, hold its own in the presence of
a good engraving from any work of Angelico, Memling, or
Perugino. But I nevertheless believe, that he who trusts much
to such helps Avill find them fail him at liis need; and that
the dependence, in any great degree, on the presence or power
of a picture, indicates a wonderfully feeble sense of the presence
and power of God. I do not think that any man, who is
thoroughly certain that Christ is in the room, will care what
sort of pictures of Christ he has on its walls ; and, in the plurality
of cases, the delight taken in art of this kind is, in reality,
nothing more than a form of graceful indulgence of those sensi-
bilities which the habits of a disciplined life restrain in other direc-
tions. Such art is, in a word, the opera and drama of the monk.
Sometimes it is worse than this, and the love of it is the mask
under which a general thirst for morbid excitement will pass itself
for religion. The young lady who rises in the middle of the day,
jaded by her last night's ball, and utterly incapable of any simple
or wholesome religious exercise, can still gaze into the dark eyes
of the Madonna di San Sisto, or dream over the whiteness of an
ivory crucifix, and returns to the course of her daily life in full
persuasion that her morning's feverishness has atoned for her even-

ing's folly. And all the while, the art which possesses these very
doubtful advantages is acting for undoubtful detriment, in the
various ways above examined, on the inmost fastnesses of faith; it
is throwing subtle endearments round foolish traditions, confusing
sweet fancies with sound doctrines, obscuring real events with un-
likely semblances, and enforcing false assertions with pleasant
circumstantiality, until, to the usual, and assuredly sufficient, dif-
ficulties standing in the way of belief, its votaries have added a
habit of sentimentally changing what they know to be true, and
of dearly loving what they confess to be false.

§ 20. Has there, then (the reader asks emphatically), been no true
religious ideal? Has religious art never been of any service to
mankind ? I fear, on the whole, not. Of true religious ideal,
representing events historically recorded, with solemn eifort at a
sincere and unartificial conception, there exist, as yet, hardly any
examples. Nearly all good religious pictures fall into one or
other branch of the false ideal already examined, either into the
Angelican (passionate ideal) or the Raphaelesque (philosophical
ideal). But there is one true form of religious art, nevertheless,
in the pictures of the passionate ideal which represent imaginary
beings of another world. Since it is evidently right that we
should try to imagine the glories of the next world, and as this
imagination must be, in each separate mind, more or less different,
and unconfined by any laws of material fact, the passionate ideal
has not only full scope here, but it becomes our duty to urge its
powers to its utmost, so that every condition .of beautiful form and
colour may be employed to invest these scenes with greater
delightfulness (the whole being, of course, received as an assertion
of possibility, not of absolute fact). All the paradises imagined
by the religious painters—the choirs of glorified saints, angels, and
spiritual powers, when painted with full belief in this possibility
of their existence, are true ideals; and so far from our having
dwelt on these too much, I believe, rather, we have not trusted
them enough, nor accepted them enough, as possible statements of
most precious truth. Nothing but unmixed good can accrue to
any mind from the contemplation of Orcagna's Last Judgment or
his Triumph of Death, of Angelico's Last Judgment and Para-

dise, or any of the scenes laid in heaven by the other faithful
religious musters; and the more they are considered, not as works
of art, but as real visions of real things, more or less imperfectly
set down, the more good will be got by dwelling upon them.
The same is true of all representations of Christ as a living
presence among us now, as in Hunt's Light of the World.

§ 21. jTqj. ^Ijq there is a leality of conception in some of the
works of Benozzo Gozzoli, Ghirlandajo, and Giotto, which ap-
proaches to a true ideal, even of recorded facts. But the exami-
nation of the various degrees in which sacred art has reached
its proper power is not to our present purpose; still less, to
investigate the infinitely difficult question of its past operation on
the Christian mind. I hope to prosecute my inquiry into this
subject in another work; it being enough here to mark the forms
of ideal error, without historically tracing their extent, and to
state generally that my impression is, up to the present moment
that the best religious art has been hitherto rather a fruit, and
attendant sign, of sincere Christianity than a promoter of or help
to it. More, I think, has always been done for God by few
words than many pictures, and more by few acts than many
words.

§ 22. I must not, however, quit the subject without insisting on the
chief practical consequence of what we have observed, namely,
that sacred art, so far from being exhausted, has yet to attain the
development of its highest branches; and the task, or privilege,
yet remains for mankind, to produce an art which shall be at once
entirely skilful and entirely sincere. All the histories of the
Bible are, in my judgment, yet waiting to be painted. Moses has
never been painted; Elijah never ; David never (except as a mere
ruddy stripling); Deborah never; Gideon never; Isaiah never.
What single example does the reader remember of painting which
suggested so much as the faintest shadow of these people, or of
their deeds ? Strong men in armour, or aged men with flowing
beards, he may remember, who, when he looked at his Louvre or
Uffizii catalogue, he found were intended to stand for David or
for Moses. But does he suppose that, if these pictures had sug-
gested to him the feeblest image of the presence of such men, he

would have passed on, as he assuredly did, to the next picture, —
representing, doubtless, Diana and Actason, or Cupid and the
Graces, or a gambling quarrel in a pothouse,—with no sense of
pain, or surprise ? Let him meditate over the matter, and he
will find ultimately that what I say is true, and that religious
art, at once complete and sincere, never yet has existed.

§ 23. It will exist: nay, I believe the era of its birth has come, and
that those bright Turnerian imageries, which the European public
declared to be " dotage," and those calm Pre-Raphaelite studies
which, in like manner, it pronounced " puerility," form the first
foundation that has been ever laid for true sacred art. Of this
we shall presently reason farther. But, be it as it may, if we
would cherish the hope that sacred art may, indeed, arise for us,
two separate cautions are to be addressed to the two opposed
classes of religionists whose influence will chiefly retard that
hope's accomplishment. The group calling themselves Evangelical
ought no longer to render their religion an oJffence to men of the
world by associating it only with the most vulgar forms of art.
It is not necessary that they should admit either music or painting
into religious service ; but, if they admit either the one or the
other, let it not be bad music nor bad painting : it is certainly in
nowise more for Christ's honour that Ilis praise should be sung
discordantly, or His miracles painted discreditably, than that
His word should be preached ungrammatically. Some Evan-
gelicals, however, seem to take a morbid pride in the triple
degradation.^

§ 24. The opposite class of men, whose natural instincts lead them to
mingle the refinements of art with all the offices and practices of

' I do not know anything more humiliating to a man of common sense, than to
open what is called an " Illustrated Bible " of modern days. See, for instance, the
plates in Brown's Bible (octavo : Edinburgh, 1840), a standard evangelical edition.
Our habit of reducing the Psalms to doggrel before we will condescend to sing
them, is a parallel abuse. It is marvellous to think that human creatures witJi
tongues and souls should refuse to chant the verse : " Before Ephraim, Benjamin,
and Manasseh, stir up thy strength, and come and help us ;" preferring this : —

With Ephraim and Manasseh join'd,
In their deliverance, the effects
Of thy resistless strength to find !"

religion, are to be warned, on the contrary, how they mistake
their enjoyments for their duties, or confound poetry with faith.
I admit that it is impossible for one man to judge another in this
matter, and that it can never be said with certainty how far what
seems frivolity may be force, and what seems the indulgence of
the heart may be, indeed, its dedication. I am ready to believe
that Metastasio, expiring in a canzonet, may have died better than
if his prayer had been in unmeasured syllables.^ But, for the
most part, it is assuredly much to be feared lest we mistake
a surrender to the charms of art for one to the service of God;
and, in the art which we permit, lest we substitute sentiment
for sense, grace for utility. And for us all there is in this
matter even a deeper danger than that of indulgence. There is
the danger of Artistical Pharisaism. Of all the forms of pride and
vanity, as there are none more subtle, so I believe there are none
more sinful, than those which are manifested by the Pharisees of
art. To be proud of birth, of place, of wit, of bodily beauty, is
comparatively innocent, just because such pride is more natural,
and more easily detected. But to be proud of our sanctities; to
pour contempt upon our fellows, because, forsooth, we like to
look at Madonnas in bowers of roses, better than at plain pic-
tures of plain things; and to make this religious art of ours the
expression of our own perpetual self-complacency, — congratula-
ting ourselves, day by day, on our purities, proprieties, eleva-
tions, and inspirations, as above the reach of common mortals, —
this I believe to be one of the wickedest and foolishest forms of
human egotism; and, truly, I had rather, with great, thought-

' " En 1780, age de qaatre-vingt-deux ans, au moment do recevoir le viatique,
il rassembla ses forces, et chanta, a son Createur :

' Eterno Genitor
lo t' ofFro il proprio figlio
Che in pegno del tuo amot
Si vuole a me donar.
A lui rivolgi il ciglio,
Mira chi t' ofFro ; e poi,
Niega, Signor, se puoi,
Niega di perdonar.'"

less, humble Paul Veronese, make the Supper at Emmaus a
background for two children playing with a dog (as, God knows,
men do usually put it in the background to everything, if not
out of sight altogether), than join that school of modern Ger-
manism which wears its pieties for decoration as women wear
their diamonds, and flaunts the dry fleeces of its phylacteries
between its dust and the dew of heaven.

§ 1- Such having been the effects of the pursuit of ideal beauty on
the religious mind of Europe, we might be tempted next to con-
sider in what wav the same movement affected the art which
concerned itself with profane subject, and, through that art, the
whole temper of modern civilization.

I shall, however, merely glance at this question. It is a very
painful and a very wide one. Its discussion cannot come pro-
perly within the limits, or even within the aim, of a work like
this; it ought to be made the subject of a separate essay, and
that essay should be written by some one who had passed less
of his life than I have among mountains, and more of it among
men. But one or two points may be suggested for the reader
to reflect upon at his leisure.

§ 2. I said just now that we might be tempted to consider how this
pursuit of the ideal affected profane art. Strictly speaking, it
brought that art into existence. As long as men sought for truth
first, and beauty secondarily, they cared chiefly, of course, for the
chief truth, and all art Avas instinctively religious. But as soon as
they sought for beauty first, and truth secondarily, they were
punished by losing sight of spiritual truth altogether, and the
profane (properly so called) schools of art were instantly de-
veloped.

The perfect human beauty, which, to a large part of the com-
munity, was by far the most interesting feature in the work of the
rising school, might indeed be in some degree consistent with the
agony of Madonnas, and the repentance of Magdalenes; but could

not be exhibited in fulness, when the subjects, however irre-
verently treated, nevertheless demanded some decency in the
artist, and some gravity in the spectator. The newly acquired
powers of rounding limbs, and tinting lips, had too little scope in
the sanctities even of the softest womanhood; and the newly
acquired conceptions of the nobility of nakedness could in no wise
be expressed beneath the robes of the prelate or the sackcloth of
the recluse. But the source from which these ideas had been
received afforded also full field for their expression; the heathen
mythology, which had furnished the examples of these heights of
art, might again become the subject of the inspirations it had
kindled; — with the additional advantage that it could now be
delighted in, without being believed; that its errors might be
indulged, unrepressed by its awe; and those of its deities whose
function was temptation might be worshipped, in scorn of those
Avhose hands were charged with cliastisement.

So, at least, men dreamed in their foolishness, — to find, as the
ages wore on, that the returning Apollo bore not only his lyre,
but his arrows; and that at the instant of Cytherea's resurrection
to the sunshine, Persephone had reascended her throne in the
deep.

Little thinking this, they gave themselves up fearlessly to the
chase of the new delight, and exhausted themselves in the pursuit
of an ideal now doubly false. Formerly, though they attempted
to reach an unnatural beauty, it was yet in representing historical
facts and real persons; now they sought for the same unnatural
beauty in representing tales which they knew to be fictitious, and
personages who they knew had never existed. Such a state of
things had never before been found in any nation. Every people
till then had painted the acts of their kingSj the triumphs of their
armies, the beauty of their race, or the glory of their gods. They
showed the things they had seen or done; the beings they truly
loved or faithfully adored. But the ideal art of modern Europe
was the shadow of a shadow; and, with mechanism substituted
for perception, and bodily beauty for spiritual life, it set itself to
represent men it had never seen, customs it had never practised,
and sods in whom it had never believed.

§ 4. Such art could of course have no help from the virtues, nor,
claim on the energies of men. It necessarily rooted itself in their
vices and their idleness; and of their vices principally in two,
pride and sensuality. To the pride, was attached eminently the
art of architecture; to the sensuality, those of painting and sculp-
ture. Of the fall of architecture, as resultant from the formalist
pride of its patrons and designers, I have spoken elsewhere. The
sensualist ideal, as seen in painting and sculpture, remains to be
examined here. But one interesting circumstance is to be ob-
served with respect to the manner of the separation of these arts.
Pride, being wholly a vice, and in every phase inexcusable, wholly
betrayed and destroyed the art which was founded on it. But
passion, having some root and use in healthy nature, and only
becoming guilty in excess, did not altogether destroy the art
founded upon it. The architecture of Palladio is wholly virtuelesa
and despicable. Not so the Venus of Titian, nor the Antiope of
Correggio.

§ 5. "We find, then, at the close of the sixteenth century, the arts of
painting and sculpture wholly devoted to entertain the indolent
and satiate the luxurious. To effect these noble ends, they took
a thousand different forms; painting, however, of course being
the most complying, aiming sometimes at mere amusement by
deception in landscapes, or minute imitation of natural objects;
sometimes giving more piquant excitement in battle-pieces full of
slaughter, or revels deep in drunkenness; sometimes entering
upon serious subject, for the sake of grotesque fiends and pic-
turesque infernos, or that it might introduce pretty children as
cherubs, and handsome women as Magdalenes, and Maries of
Egypt, or portraits of patrons in the character of the more
decorous saints : but more frequently, for direct flatteries of this
kind, recurring to Pagan mythology, and painting frail ladies as
goddesses or graces, and foolish kings in radiant apotheosis;
while, for the earthly delight of the persons whom it honoured
as divine, it ransacked the records of luscious fable, and brought
back, in fullest depth of dye and flame of fancy, the impurest
dreams of the un-Christian ages.

to mere amusement, was more or less reserved for the affecta-
tions of taste; and the study of the classical statues introduced
various ideas on the subjects of " purity," " chastity," and
" dignity," such as it was possible for people to entertain who
were themselves impure, luxurious, and ridiculous. It is a
matter of extreme difficulty to explain the exact character of
this modern sculpturesque ideal; but its relation to the true
ideal may be best understood by considering it as in exact
parallelism with the relation of the word " taste " to the word
" love." Wherever the word " taste " is used with respect to
matters of art, it indicates either that the thing spoken of
belongs to some inferior class of objects, or that the person
speaking has a false conception of its nature. For, consider
the exact sense in which a work of art is said to be " in good
or bad taste." It does not mean that it is true, or false;
that it is beautiful, or ugly : but that it does or does not
comply either with the laws of choice, which are enforced by
certain modes of life; or the habits of mind produced by a
particular sort of education. It does not mean merely fashion-
able, that is, complying with a momentary caprice of the upper
classes; but it means agreeing with the habitual sense which
the most refined education, common to those upper classes at
the period, gives to their whole mind. Now, therefore, so far
as that education does indeed tend to make the senses delicate,
and the perceptions accurate, and thus enables people to be
pleased with quiet instead of gaudy colour, and with graceful
instead of coarse form; and, by long acquaintance with the
best tilings, to discern quickly what is fine from what is
common; — so far, acquired taste is an honourable faculty, and
it is true praise of anything to say it is " in good taste."
But so far as this higher education has a tendency to narrow
the sympathies and harden the heart, diminishing the interest
of all beautiful things by familiarity, until even what is best
can hardly please, and what is brightest hardly entertain; — so
far as it fosters pride, and leads men to found the pleasure they
take in anything, not on the worthiness of the thing, but on the
degree in which it indicates some greatness of their own (as

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people build marble porticos, and inlay marble floors, not so
much because they like the colours of marble, or find it pleasant
to the foot, as because such porches and floors are costly, and
separated in all human eyes from plain entrances of stone and
timber); — so far as it leads people to prefer gracefulness of dress,
manner, and aspect, to value of substance and heart, liking a
well said thing better than a true thing, and a well-trained
manner better than a sincere one, and a delicately formed face
better than a good-natured one, and in all other ways and things
setting custom and semblance above everlasting truth ; — so far,
finally, as it induces a sense of inherent distinction between class
and class, and causes everything to be more or less despised
which has no social rank, so that the affection, pleasure, or grief
of a clown are looked upon as of no interest compared with the
affection and grief of a well-bred man; —just so far, in all these
several ways, the feeling induced by what is called a " liberal
education " is utterly adverse to the understanding of noble art;
and the name which is given to the feeling, — Taste, Goilt,
Gusto, — in all languages, indicates the baseness of it, for it
implies that art gives only a kind of pleasure analogous to that
derived from eating by the palate.

§ 7. Modern education, not in art only, but in all other things
referable to the same standard, has invariably given taste in
this bad sense; it has given fastidiousness of choice without
judgment, superciliousness of manner without dignity, refinement
of habit without purity, grace of expression without sincerity,
and desire of loveliness without love; and the modern " ideal"
of high art is a curious mingling of the gracefulness and reserve
of the drawingroom with a certain measure of classical sen-
suality. Of this last element, and the singular artifices by which
vice succeeds in combining it with what appears to be pure
and severe, it would take us long to reason fully; I would
rather leave the reader to follow out for himself the consider-
ation of the influence, in this direction, of statues, bronzes,
and paintings, as at present employed by the upper circles of
London, and (especially) Paris; and this not so much in the
works which are really fine, as in the multiplied coarse copies of

them; taking the widest range, from Dannaeker's Ariadne down
to the amorous shepherd and shepherdess in china on the drawing-
room time-piece, rigidly questioning, in each case, how far the
charm of the art does indeed depend on some appeal to the
inferior passions. Let it be considered, for instance, exactly
how far the value of a picture of a girl's head by Greuze
would be lowered in the market, if the dress, which now leaves
the bosom bare, were raised to the neck; and how far, in the
commonest lithograph of some utterly popular subject, — for
instance, the teaching of Uncle Tom by Eva, — the sentiment
which is supposed to be excited by the exhibition of Chris-
tianity in youth is complicated with that which depends upon
Eva's having a dainty foot and a well-made satin slipper; —
and then, having completely determined for himself how far the
element exists, consider farther, whether, when art is thus fre-
quent (for frequent he will assuredly find it to be) in its appeal
to the lower passions, it is likely to attain the highest order of
merit, or be judged by the truest standards of judgment. For,
of all the causes which have combined, in modern times, to lower
the rank of art, I believe this to be one of the most fatal; whUe,
reciprocally, it may be questioned how far society suifers, in its
turn, from the influences possessed over it by the arts it has
degraded. It seems to me a subject of the very deepest interest
to determine what has been the effect upon the European nations
of the great change by which art became again capable of minis-
tering delicately to the lower passions, as it had in the worst days
of Rome; how far, indeed, in all ages, the fall of nations may
be attributed to art's arriving at this particular stage among them.
I do not mean that, in any of its stages, it is incapable of being
employed for evil, but that assuredly an Egyptian, Spartan, or
Norman was unexposed to the kind of temptation which is con-
tinually offered by the delicate painting and sculpture of modern
days; and, although the diseased imagination might complete the
imperfect image of beauty from the coloured image on the wall \
or the most revolting thoughts be suggested by the mocking

barbarism of tlie Gothic sculpture, their hard outline and rude
execution were free from all the subtle treachery which now
fills the flushed canvass and the rounded marble.

§ 8. I cannot, however, pursue this inquiry here. For our present
purpose it is enough to note that the feeling, in itself so debased,
branches upwards into that of which, while no one has cause to be
ashamed, no one, on the other hand, has cause to be proud, namely,
the admiration of physical beauty in the human form, as distin-
guished from expression of character. Every one can easily
appreciate the merit of regular features and well-formed limbs,
but it requires some attention, sympathy, and sense, to detect the
charm of passing expression, or life-disciplined character. The
beauty of the Apollo Belvidere, or Yenus de Medicis, is per-
fectly palpable to any shallow fine lady or fine gentleman, though
they would have perceived none in the face of an old weather-
beaten St. Peter, or a grey-haired " Grandmother Lois." The
knowledge that long study is necessary to produce these regular
types of the human form renders the facile admiration matter of
eager self-complacency; the shallow spectator, delighted that he
can really, and without hypocrisy, admire what required much
thought to produce, supposes himself endowed with the highest
critical faculties, and easily lets himself be carried into rhapsodies
about the " ideal," which, when all is said, if they be accurately
examined, will be found literally to mean nothing more than that X

§ 9. That they do mean, in reality, nothing more than this may be
easily ascertained by watching the taste of the same persons in
other things. The fashionable lady who will write five or six

such an " ideal" in marble, will have her drawingroom table
covered with Books of Beauty, in which the engravings represent
the human form in every possible aspect of distoi'tion and affecta-
tion ; and the connoisseur who, in the morning, pretends to the
most exquisite taste in the antique, will be seen, in the evening,
in his opera-stall, applauding the least graceful gestures of the
least modest figurante.

§ 10. But even this vulgar pursuit of physical beauty (vulgar in the
profoundest sense, for there is no vulgarity like the vulgarity of
education) would be less contemptible if it really succeeded in its
object; but, like all pursuits carried to inordinate length, it defeats
itself. Physical beauty is a noble thing when it is seen in perfect-
ness; but the manner in which the moderns pursue their ideal
prevents their ever really seeing what they are always seeking;
for, requiring that all forms should be regular and faultless, they
permit, or even compel, their painters and sculptors to work
chiefly by rule, altering their models to fit their preconceived
notions of what is right. When such artists look at a face, they
do not give it the attention necessary to discern what beauty is
already in its peculiar features; but only to see how best it may
be altered into something for which they have themselves laid
down the laws. Nature never unveils her beauty to such a
gaze. She keeps whatever she has done best, close sealed, until
it is regarded with reverence. To the painter who honours her,
she will open a revelation in the face of a street mendicant; but
in the work of the painter who alters her, she will make Portia
become ignoble, and Perdita graceless.
§ 11. Nor is the effect less for evil on the mind of the general observer.
The lover of ideal beauty, with all his conceptions narrowed by
rule, never looks carefully enough upon the features which do not
come under his law (or any others), to discern the inner beauty
in them. The strange intricacies about the lines of the lips, and
marvellous shadows and watchfires of the eye, and wavering
traceries of the eyelash, and infinite modulations of the brow,
§1 wherein high humanity is embodied, are all invisible to him. He

finds himself driven back at last, with all his idealism, to the
lionne of the ball-room, whom youth and passion can as easily
distinguish as his utmost critical science; whereas, the observer
who has accustomed himself to take human faces as God made
them, will'often find as much beauty on a village green as in the
proudest room of state, and as much in the free seats of a church
aisle, as in all the sacred paintings of the Vatican or the Pitti.
§ 12. Then, farther, the habit of disdaining ordinary truth, and seek-
ing to alter it so as to fit the fancy of the beholder, gradually in-
ft]

fects the mind in all its other operation; so that it begins to pro-
pose to itself an ideal in history, an ideal in general narration, an
ideal in portraiture and description, and in every thing else where
truth may be painful or uninteresting; with the necessary result
of more or less weakness, wickedness, and uselessness in all that
is done or said, with the desire of concealing this painful truth.
And, finally, even when truth is not intentionally concealed, the
pursuer of idealism will pass his days in false and useless trains
of thought, pluming himself, all the while, upon Ms superiority
therein to the rest of mankind. A modern German, without
either invention or sense, seeing a rapid in a river, will imme-
diately devote the remainder of the day to the composition of
dialogues between amorous water nymphs and unhappy mari-
ners; while the man of true invention, power, and sense will,
instead, set himself to consider whether the rocks in the river
could have their points knocked off, or the boats upon it be
made with stronger bottoms.

§ 13. Of this final baseness of the false ideal, its miserable waste of
the time, strength, and available intellect of man, by turning, as I
have said above, innocence of pastime into seriousness of occupa-
tion, it is, of course, hardly possible to sketch out even so much
as the leading manifestations. The vain and haughty projects of
youth for future life; the giddy reveries of insatiable self-exalta-
tion ; the discontented dreams of what might have been or should
be, instead of the thankful understanding of what is; the casting
about for sources of interest in senseless fiction, instead of the real
human histories of the people round us; the prolongation from
age to age of romantic historical deceptions instead of sifted
truth; the pleasures taken in fanciful portraits of rural or
romantic life in poetry and on the stage, without the smallest
effort to rescue the living rural population of the world from
its ignorance or misery ; the excitement of the feelings by
laboured imagination of spirits, fairies, monsters, and demons,
issuing in total blindness of heart and sight to the true pre-
sences of beneficent or destructive spiritual powers around us;
in fine, the constant abandonment of all the straightforward
paths of sense and duty, for fear of losing some of the entice-

ment of ghostly joys, or trampling somewhat " sopra lor vanita,
che par persona;" all these various forms of false idealism have
so entangled the modern mind, often called, I suppose ironi-
cally, practical, that truly I believe there never yet was idolatry
of stock or staflp so utterly unholy as this our idolatry of shadows;
nor can I think that, of those who burnt incense under oaks, and
poplars, and elms, because " the shadow thereof was good," it
could in any wise be more justly or sternly declared than of us —
The wind hath bound them up in her wings, and they shall be
ashamed because of their sacrifices."'

§ I- Having thus glanced at the principal modes in which the imagi-
nation works for evil, we must rapidly note also the principal
directions in which its operation is admissible, even in changing or
strangely combining what is brought within its sphere.

For hitherto we have spoken as if every change wilfully
wrought by the imagination was an error; apparently implying
that its only proper work was to summon up the memories of past
events, and the anticipations of future ones, under aspects which
would bear the sternest tests of historical investigation, or abstract
reasoning. And in general this is, indeed, its noblest work.
Nevertheless, it has also permissible functions peculiarly its own,
and certain rights of feigning, adorning, and fancifully arranging,
inalienable from its nature. Everything that is natural is, within
certain limits, right; and we must take care not, in over-severity,
to deprive ourselves of any refreshing or animating power ordained
to be in us for our help.

;§ 2. (A). It was noted in speaking above of the Angelican or pas-
sionate ideal, that there was a certain virtue in it dependent on
the expression of its loving enthusiasm. (Chap. iv. § 10.)

(B). In speaking of the pursuit of beauty as one of the charac-
teristics of the highest art, it was also said that there were certain
ways of showing this beauty by gathering together, without
altering, the finest forms, and marking them by gentle emphasis.
(Chap. iii. § 15.)

said, that we might be allowed to create for ourselves, in innocent
play, fairies and naiads, and other such fictitious creatures. (Chap.
IV. § 5.)

Now this loving enthusiasm, which seeks for a beauty fit to be
the object of eternal love; this inventive skill, which kindly dis-
plays what exists around us in the world; and this playful energy
of thought which delights in various conditions of the impossible,
are three forms of idealism more or less connected with the
three tendencies of the artistical mind which I had occasion to
explain in the chapter on the Nature of Gothic, in the Stones of
Venice. It was there pointed out, that, the things around us
containing mixed good and evil, certain men chose the good and
left the evil (thence properly called Purists); others received both
good and evil together (thence properly called Naturalists); and
others had a tendency to choose the evil and leave the good,
whom, for convenience' sake, I termed Sensualists. I do not
mean to say that painters of fairies and naiads must belong to
this last and lowest class, or habitually choose the evil and leave
the good; but there is, nevertheless, a strange connection between
the reinless play of the imagination, and a sense of the presence
of evil, which is usually more or less developed in those creations
of the imagination to which we properly attach the word Grotesque.

For this reason, we shall find it convenient to arrange what
we have to note respecting true idealism under the three heads —■

A. Purist Idealism.—It results from the unwillingness of men
whose dispositions are more than ordinarily tender and holy, to
contemplate the various forms of definite evil which necessarily
occur in the daily aspects of the world around them. They
shrink from them as from pollution, and endeavour to create
for themselves an imaginary state, in which pain and imperfec-
tion either do not exist, or exist in some edgeless and enfeebled
condition.

As, however, pain and imperfection are, by eternal laws,
bound up with existence, so far as it is visible to us, the en-

deavour to cast them away invariably indicates a comparative
childishness of mind, and produces a childish form of art. In
general, the effort is most successful when it is most naive, and
when the ignorance of the draughtsman is in some frank pro-
portion to his innocence. For instance, one of the modes of
treatment, the most conducive to this ideal expression, is simply
drawing everything without shadows, as if the sun were every-
where at once. This, in the present state of our knowledge, we
could not do with grace, because we could not do it without fear
or shame. But a,n artist of the thirteenth century did it with
no disturbance of conscience, — knowing no better, or rather, in
some sense, we might say, knowing no worse. It is, however,
evident, at the first thought, that all representations of nature
without evil must either be ideals of a future world, or be false
ideals, if they are understood to be representations of facts.
They can only be classed among the branches of the true ideal,
in so far as they are understood to be nothing more than ex-
pressions of the painter's personal affections or hopes.

The life of Angelico was almost entirely spent in the endeavour
to imagine the beings belonging to another world. By purity of
life, habitual elevation of thought, and natural sweetness of
disposition, he was enabled to express the sacred affections upon
the human countenance as no one ever did before or since. In
order to effect clearer distinction between heavenly beings and
those of this world, he represents the former as clothed in dra-
peries of the purest colour, crowned with glories of burnished
gold, and entirely shadowless. With exquisite choice of gesture,
and disposition of folds of drapery, this mode of treatment gives
perhaps the best idea of spiritual beings which the human mind is
capable of forming. It is, therefore, a true ideal ^; but the mode
in which it is arrived at (being so far mechanical and contradictory
of the appearances of nature) necessarily precludes those who

practise it from being complete masters of their art. It is always
childish, but beautiful in its childishness.

§ 5. The works of our own Stothard are examples of the operation
of another mind, singular in gentleness and purity, upon mere
worldly subject. It seems as if'Stothard could not conceive
wickedness, coarseness, or baseness; every one of his figures looks
as if it had been copied from some creature who had never har-
boured an unkind thought, or permitted itself in an ignoble action.
With this intense love of mental purity is joined, in Stothard, a
love of mere physical smoothness and softness, so that he lived in
a universe of soft grass and stainless fountains, tender trees, and
stones at which no foot could stumble.

All this is very beautiful, and may sometimes urge us to an
endeavour to make the world itself more like the conception of the
painter. At least, in the midst of its malice, misery, and base-
ness, it is often a relief to glance at the graceful shadows, and
take, for momentary companionship, creatures full only of love,
gladness, and honour. But the perfect truth will at last vindicate
itself against the partial truth; the help which we can gain from
the unsubstantial vision will be only like that which we may
sometimes receive, in weariness, from the scent of a flower or the
passing of a breeze. For all firm aid, and steady use, we must
look to harder realities; and, as far as the painter himself is re-
garded, we can only receive such work as the sign of an amiable
imbecility. It is indeed ideal; but ideal as a fair dream is in the
dawn of morning, before the faculties are astir. The apparent
completeness of grace can never be attained without much definite
falsification as well as omission; stones, over which we cannot
stumble, must be ill-drawn stones; trees, which are all gentleness
and softness, cannot be trees of wood; nor companies without
evil in them, companies of flesh and blood. The habit of falsifi-
cation (with whatever aim) begins always in dulness and ends
always in incapacity: nothing can be more pitiable than any
endeavour by Stothard to express facts beyond his own sphere of
soft pathos or graceful mirth, and nothing more unwise than the
aim at a similar ideality by any painter who has power to render a
sincerer truth.

§ 6. I remember another interesting example of ideality on this
same root, but belonging to another branch of it, in the works of
a young German painter, which I saw some time ago in a London
drawingroom. He had been travelling in Italy, and had brought
home a portfolio of sketches remarkable alike for their fidelity and
purity. Every one was a laborious and accurate study of some
particular spot. Every cottage, every cliff, every tree, at the site
chosen, had been drawn; and drawn with palpable sincerity of
portraiture, and yet in such a spirit that it was impossible to
conceive that any sin or misery had ever entered into one of the
scenes he had represented; and the volcanic horrors of Eadico-
fani, the pestilent gloom of the Pontines, and the boundless de-
spondency of the Campagna became, under his hand, only various
appearances of Paradise.

It was very interesting to observe the minute emendations or
omissions by which this was effected. To set the tiles the slightest
degree more in order upon a cottage roof; to insist upon the vine-
leaves at the window, and let the shadow which fell from them
naturally conceal the rent in the wall; to draw all the flowers in
the foreground, and miss the weeds; to draw all the folds of the
white clouds, and miss those of the black ones; to mark the
graceful branches of the trees, and, in one way or another, beguile
the eye from those which were ungainly ; to give every peasant-
girl whose face was visible the expression of an angel, and every
one whose back was turned the bearing of a princess; finally, to
give a general look of light, clear organization and serene vitality
to every feature in the landscape; — such were his artifices, and
such his delights. It was impossible not to sympathize deeply with
the spirit of such a painter; and it was just cause for gratitude to
be permitted to travel, as it were, through Italy with such a friend.
But his work had, nevertheless, its stern limitations and marks of
everlasting inferiority. Always soothing and pathetic, it could
never be sublime, never perfectly nor entrancingly beautiful; for
the narrow spirit of correction could not cast itself fully into any
scene; the calm cheerfulness which shrank from the shadow of the
cypress, and the distortion of the olive, could not enter into the
brightness of the sky that they pierced, nor the softness of the

bloom that they bore: for every sorrow that his heart turned
from, he lost a consolation; for every fear which he dared not
confront, he lost a portion of his hardiness; the unsceptred sweep
of the storm-clouds, the fair freedom of glancing shower and
flickering sunbeam, sank into sweet rectitudes and decent formal-
isms ; and, before eyes that refused to be dazzled or darkened, the
hours of sunset wreathed their rays unheeded, and the mists of
the Apennines^spread their blue veils in vain.

§ 7. To this inherent shortcoming and narrowness of reach the
farther defect was added, that this work gave no useful represent-
ation of the state of facts in the country which it pretended to
contemplate. It was not only wanting in all the higher elements
of beauty, but wholly unavailable for instruction of any kind
beyond that which exists in pleasurableness of pure emotion.
And considering what cost of labour was devoted to the series of
drawings, it could not but be matter for grave blame, as well as
for partial contempt, that a man of amiable feeling and consider-
able intellectual power should thus expend his life in the declara-
tion of his own petty pieties and pleasant reveries, leaving the
burden of human sorrow, unwitnessed, and the power of God's
judgments unconfessed; and, while poor Italy lay wounded and
moaning at his feet, pass by, in priestly calm, lest the whiteness
of his decent vesture should be spotted with unhallowed blood.

§ 8. Of several other forms of Purism I shall have to speak here-
after, more especially of that exhibited in the landscapes of the
early religious painters; but these examples are enough, for the
present, to show the general principle that the purist ideal, though
in some measure true, in so far as it springs from the true longings
of an earnest mind, is yet necessarily in many things deficient or
blameable, and always an indication of some degree of weakness
in the mind pursuing it. But, on the other hand, it is to be
noted that entire scorn of this purist ideal is the sign of a far
greater weakness. Multitudes of petty artists, incapable of any
noble sensation whatever, but acquainted, in a dim way, with the
technicalities of the schools, mock at the art whose depths they
cannot fathom, and whose motives they cannot comprehend, but
of which they can easily detect the imperfections, and deride the

simplicities. Thus poor fumigatory Fuseli, with an art composed
of the tinsel of the stage and the panics of the nursery, speaks
contemptuously of the name of Angelico as " dearer to sanctity
than to art." And a large portion of the resistance to the noble
Pre-Raphaelite movement of our own days has been olfered by
men who suppose the entire function of the artist in this world to
consist in laying on colour with a large brush, and surrounding
dashes of flake white with bituminous brown; men whose entire
capacities of brain, soul, and sympathy, applied industriously to
the end of their lives, would not enable them, at last, to paint so
much as one of the leaves of the nettles at the bottom of Hunt's
picture of the Light of the World. ^
§ 9. It is finally to be remembered, therefore, that Purism is al-
ways noble when it is instinctive. It is not the greatest thing
that can be done, but it is probably the greatest thing that the
man who does it can do, provided it comes from his heart. True,
it is a sign of weakness, but it is not in our choice whether
we will be weak or strong; and there is a certain strength
which can only be made perfect in weakness. If he is working
in humility, fear of evil, desire of beauty, and sincere purity of
purpose and thought, he will produce good and helpful things;
but he must be much on his guard against supposing himself
to be greater than his fellows, because he has shut himself into
this calm and cloistered sphere. His only safety lies in knowing
himself to be, on the contrary, less than his fellows, and in
always striving, so far as he can find it in his heart, to extend
his delicate narrowness towards the great naturalist ideal. The
whole group of modern German purists have lost themselves,
because they founded their work not on humility, nor on religion,
but on small self-conceit. Incapable of understanding the great
Venetians, or any other masters of true imaginative power, and
having fed what mind they had with weak poetry and false
philosophy, they thought themselves the best and greatest of

' Not that the Pre-Eaphaelite is a purist movement, it is stern naturalist; but its
unfortunate opposcrs, who neither know what nature is, nor wliat purism is, have mis-
taken the simple nature for morbid purism, and therefore cried out against it.

artistic mankind, and expected to found a new school of paint-
ing in pious plagiarism and delicate pride. It is difficult at
first to" decide which is the more worthless, the spiritual affec-
tation of the petty German, or the composition and chiaroscuro
of the petty Englishman; on the whole, however, the latter
have lightest weight, for the pseudo-religious painter must, at
all events, pass much of his time in meditation upon solemn
subjects, and in examining venerable models; and may some-
times even cast a little useful reflected light, or touch the heart
with a pleasant echo.

§ 1. "We now enter on the consideration of that central and highest
branch of ideal art which concerns itself simply with things aa
they are, and accepts, in all of them, alike the evil and the good.
The question is, therefore, how the art which represents things
simply as they are, can be called ideal at all. How does it meet
that requirement stated in Chap. ill. § 4., as imperative on all great
art, 'that it shall be inventive, and a product of the imagination ?
It meets it preeminently by that power of arrangement which I
have endeavoured, at great length and with great pains, to define
accurately in the chapter on Imagination associative in the second
volume. That is to say, accepting the weaknesses, faults, and
wrongnesses in all things that it sees, it so places and harmo-
nizes them that they form a noble whole, in which the imperfection
of each several part is not only harmless, but absolutely essential,
and yet in which whatever is good in each several part shall
be completely displayed.

§ 2. This operation of true idealism holds, from the least things to
the greatest. For instance, in the arrangement of the smallest
masses of colour, the false idealist, or even the purist, depends upon
perfecting each separate hue, and raises them all, as far as he can,
into costly brilliancy; but the naturalist takes the coarsest and
feeblest colours of the things around him, and so interweaves and
opposes them that they become more lovely than if they had all
been bright. So in the treatment of the human form. The na-
turalist will take it as he finds it; but, with such examples as his

picture may rationally admit of more or less exalted beauty, he
will associate inferior forms, so as not only to set off those Avhich
are most beautiful, but to bring out clearly what good there is in
the inferior forms themselves; finally using such measure of abso-
lute evil as there is commonly in nature, both for teaching and for
contrast.

In Tintoret's Adoration of the Magi, the Madonna is not an
enthroned queen, but a fair girl, full of simplicity and almost
childish sweetness. To her are opposed (as Magi) two of the
noblest and most thoughtful of the Venetian senators in extreme
old age, — the utmost manly dignity, in its decline, being set
beside the utmost feminine simplicity, in its dawn. The steep
foreheads and refined features of the nobles are, again, opposed
to the head of a negro servant, and of an Indian, both, however,
noble of their kind. On the other side of the picture, the deli-
cacy of the Madonna is farther enhanced by contrast with a
largely made farm-servant, leaning on a basket. All these
figures are in repose: outside, the troop of the attendants of
the Magi is seen coming up at the gallop.

§ 3. I bring forward this picture, observe, not as an examj)le of the
ideal in conception of religious subject, but of the general ideal
treatment of the human form; in Avhich the peculiarity is, that the
beauty of each figure is displayed to the utmost, while yet, taken
separately the Madonna is an unaltered portrait of a Venetian
girl, the Magi are unaltered Venetian senators, and the figure
with the basket, an unaltered market-woman of Mestre.

And the greater the master of the ideal, the more perfectly true
in portraiture will his individual figures be always found, the
more subtle and bold his arts of harmony and contrast. This is
a universal principle, common to all great art. Consider, in
Shakspere, how Prince Henry is opposed to Falstaff, Falstaff to
Shallow, Titania to Bottom, Cordelia to Regan, Imogen to Cloten,
and so on; while all the meaner idealists disdain the naturalism,
and are shocked at the contrasts. The fact is, a man who can
see truth at all, sees it wholly, and neither desires nor dares to
mutilate it.

human form and mind in perfection, when this perfection ia
rationally to be supposed or Introduced,—that is to say, in the

the terra "ideal" to such representations, and not understanding
the imperfect ones to be equally ideal in their place, has greatly
added to the embarrassment and multiplied the errors of artists.^

having in itself, occasionally or partially, both faults and famili-
arities. If the next painter who desires to illustrate the character I
of Homer's Achilles, would represent him cutting pork chops for

from these two conditions, attached always to art of this kind.
First, it is to be taken straight from nature; it is to be the

' The -word " ideal" is used in this limited sense in the chapter on Generic Beauty
in the second volume, but under protest. See § 4. in that chapter.
« U. Lx. 209.

bodily one; but vision it is, of one kind or another,—tbe whole
scene, character, or incident passing before them as in second
sight, whether they will or no, and requiring them to paint it
as they see it; they not daring, under the might of its presence,
to alter' one jot or tittle of it as they write it down or paint
it down; it being to them in its own kind and degree always
a true vision or Apocalypse, and invariably accompanied in their
hearts by a feeling correspondent to the words, —" Write the
things which thou hast seen, and the things which are."

And the whole power, whether of painter or poet, to describe
rightly what we call an ideal thing, depends upon its being
thus, to him, not an ideal, but a real thing. No man ever did
or ever will work well, but either from actual sight or sight
of faith; and all that we call ideal in Greek or any other art,
because to us it is false and visionary, was, to the makers of
it, true and existent. The heroes of Phidias are simply repre-
sentations of such noble human persons as he every day saw,
and the gods of Phidias simply representations of such noble
divine persons as he thoroughly believed to exist, and did in
mental vision truly behold. Hence I said in the second preface
to the Seven Lamps of Architecture: " All great art represents
something that it sees or believes in; — nothing unseen or un-
credited."

§ 6. And just because it is always something that it sees or believes
in, there is the peculiar character above noted, almost unmistake-
able, in all high and true ideals, of having been as it were
studied from the life, and involving pieces of sudden familiarity,
and close specific painting which never would have been admitted
or even thought of, had not the painter drawn either from the
bodily life or from the life of faith. For instance, Dante's
centaur, Chiron, dividing his beard with his arrow before he
can speak, is a thing that no mortal would ever have thought
of, if he had not actually seen the centaur do it. They might
have composed handsome bodies of men and horses in all
possible ways, through a whole life of pseudo-idealism, and yet

' " And yet you have just said it shall be at such time and place as Homer chooses.
Is not this altering f" No; wait a little, and read on.

never dreamed of any sucli thing. But the real living centaur
actually trotted across Dante's brain, and he saw him do it.

§7. And on account of this reality it is, that the great idealists
venture into all kinds of what, to the pseudo-idealists, are " vul-
garities." Nay, venturing is the wrong word; the great men have
no choice in the matter; they do not know or care whether the
things they describe are vulgarities or not. They saw them;
they are the facts of the case. If they had merely composed
what they describe, they would have had it at their will to refuse
this circumstance or add that. But they did not compose it. It
came to them ready fashioned; they were too much impressed by
it to think what was vulgar or not vulgar in it. It might be a
very wrong thing in a centaur to have so much beard j but so it
was. And, therefore, among the various ready tests of true
greatness there is not any more certain than this daring reference
to, or use of, mean and little things—mean and little, that is, to
mean and little minds; but, when used by the great men, evidently
part of the noble whole which is authoritatively present before
them. Thus, in the highest poetry, as partly above noted in the
first chapter, there is no word so familiar but a great man will
bring good out of it, or rather, it will bring good to him, and
answer some end for which no other word would have done
equally well.

§ 8. A common person, for instance, would be mightily puzzled to
apply the word " whelp" to any one with a view of flattering
him. There is a certain freshness and energy in the term,
which gives it agreeableness; but it seems difficult, at first hear-
ing, to use it complimentarily. If the person spoken of be a
prince, the difficulty seems increased ; and when, farther, he is at
one and the same moment to be called a " whelp " and contem-
plated as a hero, it seems that a common idealist might well be
brought to a pause. But hear Shakspere do it: —

" Invoke his warlike spirit,
And your great uncle's, Edward the Black Prince,
AVhc on the French ground play'd a tragedy,
Making defeat on the full power of France,
While his most mighty father on a hill
Stood smiling, to behold his lion's whelp
Forage in blood of French nobility."

So a common idealist would have been rather alarmed at the
thought of introducing the name of a street in Paris — Straw
Street—Kue de Fouarre — into the midst of a description of
the highest heavens. Not so Dante^—

" Beyond, thou mayst the flaming histre scan
Of Isidore, of Bede, and that Eichart
Who was in contemplation more than man.
And he, from whom thy looks returning are

To me, a spirit was, that in austere
Deep musings often thought death kept too far.
That is the light eternal of Sigier,

Who while in Rue de Fouarre his days he wore,
Has argued hateful truths in haughtiest ear." Catlet.

What did it matter to Dante, up in heaven there, whether the
mob below thought him vulgar or not? Sigier had read in Straw
Street; that was the fact, and he had to say so, and there an
end.

§ 9. There is, indeed, perhaps, no greater sign of innate and rea?
vulgarity of mind or defective education than the want of power
to understand the universality of the ideal truth; the absence
of sympathy with the colossal grasp of those intellects, which have
in them so much of divine, that nothing is small to them, and
nothing large; but with equal and unofFended vision they take in
the sum of the world,—Straw Street and the seventh heavens,—in
the same instant. A certain portion of this divine spirit is visible
even in the lower examples of all the true men; it is, indeed,
perhaps, the clearest test of their belonging to the true and
great group, that they are continually touching what to the mul-
titude appear vulgarities. The higher a man stands, the more
the word " vulgar " becomes unintelligible to him. Vulgar ? what,
that poor farmer's girl of William Hunt's, bred in the stable,
putting on her Sunday gown, and pinning her best cap out of
the green and red pin-cushion ! Not so ; she may be straight on
the road to those high heavens, and may shine hereafter as one of
the stars in the firmament for ever. Nay, even that lady in the
satin bodice with her arm laid over a balustrade to show it, and
her eyes turned up to heaven to show them; and the sportsman
waving his rifle for the terror of beasts, and displaying his perfect

dress for the delight of men, are kept, by the very misery and
vanity of them, in the thoughts of a great painter, at a sorrow-
ful level, somewhat above vulgarity. It is only when the minor
painter takes them on his easel, that they become things for
the universe to be ashamed of.

We may dismiss this matter of vulgarity in plain and few
words, at least as far as regards art. There is never vulgarity
in a whole truth, however commonplace. It may be unimportant
or painful. It cannot be vulgar. Vulgarity is only in conceal-
ment of truth, or in affectation.

" Well, but," (at this point the reader asks doubtfully,) " if
then your great central idealist is to shoAV all truth, low as well
as lovely, receiving it in this passive way, what becomes of all
your principles of selection, and of setting in the right place,
which you were talking about up to the end of your fourth
paragraph ? How is Homer to enforce upon Achilles the cutting
of the pork chops ^ only at such time as Homer chooses,' if Homer
is to have no choice, but merely to see the thing done, and sing it
as he sees it ?" Why, the choice, as well as the vision, is mani-
fested to Homer. The vision comes to him in its chosen order.
Chosen/or him, not by him, but yet full of visible and exquisite
choice, just as a sweet and perfect dream will come to a sweet and
perfect person, so that, in some sense, they may be said to have
chosen their dream, or composed it; and yet they could not help
dreaming it so, and in no other wise. Thus, exactly thus, in all
results of true inventive power, the whole harmony of the thing
done seems as if it had been wrought by the most exquisite rules.
But to him who did it, it presented itself so, and his will, and
knowledge, and personality, for the moment went for nothing;
he became simply a scribe, and wrote what he heard and saw.

And all efforts to do things of a similar kind by rule or by
thought, and all efforts to mend or rearrange the first order of the
vision, are not inventive; on the contrary, they ignore and deny
invention. If any man, seeing certain forms laid on the canvass,
does by his reasoning power determine that certain changes
wrought in them would mend or enforce them, that is not only

uninventive, but contrary to invention, wHicli must be tbe in-
voluntary occurrence of certain forms or fancies to the mind in the
order they are to be portrayed. Thus the knowing of rules and
the exertion of judgment have a tendency to check and confuse
the fancy in its flow; so that it will follow, that, in exact pro-
portion as a master knows anything about rules of right and
wrong, he is likely to be uninventive; and, in exact proportion as
he holds higher rank and has nobler inventive power, he will
know less of rules; not despising them, but simply feeling that
between him and them there is nothing in common,—that dreams
cannot be ruled—that as they come, so they must be caught, and
they cannot be caught in any other shape than that they come in:
and that he might as well attempt to rule a rainbow into recti-
tude, or cut notches in a moth's wings to hold it by, as in any
wise attempt to modify, by rule, the forms of the involuntary
vision.

§ 11. And this, which by reason we have thus anticipated, is in
reality universally so. There is no exception. The great men
never know how or why they do things. They have no rules;
cannot comprehend the nature of rules; — do not, usually, even
know, in what they do, what is best or what is worst: to them it
is all the same; something they cannot help saying or doing, — one
piece of it as good as another, and none of it (it seems to theni)
worth much. The moment any man begins to talk about rules, in
whatsoever art, you may know him for a second-rate man; and,
if he talks about them much, he is a third-rate, or not an artist at
all. To this rule there is no exception in any art; but it is
perhaps better to be illustrated in the art of music than in that of
painting. I fell by chance the other day upon a work of De ^
Stendhal's, " Vies de Haydn, de Mozart, et de Metastase," fuller
of common sense than any book I ever read on the arts; though
I see, by the slight references made occasionally to painting, that
the author's knowledge therein is warped and limited by the ele-
ments of general teaching in the schools around him; and I have
not yet, therefore, looked at what he has separately written on
painting. But one or two passages out of this book on music
are closely to our present purpose.

Counterpoint is related to mathematics: a fool, with patience,
becomes a respectable savant in that; but for the part of genius,
melody, it has no rules. No art is so utterly deprived of precepts
for the production of the beautiful. So much the better for it
and for us. Cimarosa, when first at Prague his air was executed,
Pria che spunti in ciel 1'Aurora, never heard the pedants say to
him, ' Your air is fine, because you have followed such and such
a rule established by Pergolese in such an one of his airs; but
it would be finer still if you had conformed yourself to such
another rule from which Galluppi never deviated."

Yes: " so much the better for it, and for usbut I trust the
time will soon come when melody in painting will be understood,
no less than in music, and when people will find that, there also,
the great melodists have no rules, and cannot have any, and that
there are in this, as in sound, " no precepts for the production of
the beautiful."

§ 12. Again. " Behold, my friend, an example of that simple way of
answering which embarrasses much. One asked him (Haydn) the
reason for a harmony—for a passage's being assigned to one in-
strument rather than another; but all he ever answered was,
^ I have done it, because it does well.'" Farther on, De Stendhal
relates an anecdote of Haydn; I believe one well known, but so
much to our purpose that I repeat it. Haydn had agreed to give
some lessons in counterpoint to an English nobleman. ^^'For our
first lesson,' said the pupil, already learned in the art—drawing at
the same time a quatuor of Haydn's from his pocket, 'for our
first lesson may we examine this quatuor; and will you tell me
the reasons of certain modulations, which I cannot entirely ap-
prove because they are contrary to the principles?' Haydn, a
little surprised, declared himself ready to answer. The nobleman
began; and at the very first measures found matter for objection.
Haydn, who invented habitually, and who was the contrary of a
pedant, found himself much embarrassed, and answered always,
* I have done that because it has a good effect. I put that
passage there because it does well.' The Englishman, who
judged that these answers proved notliing, recommenced his proofs,
and demonstrated to him, by very good reasons, that his quatuor

was good for nothing. ' But, my lord, arrange this quatuor then
to your fancy, — play it so, and you will see which of the two
Avays is the best.' ^ But why is yours the best which is contrary
to the rules?' ^Because it is the pleasantest.' The nobleman
replied. Haydn at last lost patience, and said, ^ I see, my lord, it
is you who have the goodness to give lessons to me, and truly I
am forced to confess to you that I do not deserve the honour.'
The partizan of the rules departed, still astonished that in fol-
lowing the rules to the letter one cannot infallibly produce a
' Matrimonio Segreto.'"

This anecdote, whether in all points true or not, is in its
tendency most instructive, except only in that it makes one felse
inference or admission, namely, that a good composition can be
contrary to the rules. It may be contrary to certain principles,
supposed in Ignorance to be general; but every great composition
is in perfect harmony with all true rules, and involves thousands
too delicate for ear, or eye, or thought, to trace; still it is pos-
sible to reason, with infinite pleasure and profit, about these
principles, when the thing is once done; only, all our reasoning
will not enable any one to do another thing like it, because all
reasoning falls infinitely short of the divine instinct. Thus we
may reason wisely over the way a bee builds its comb, and be
profited by finding out certain things about the angles of it. But
the bee knows nothing about those matters. It builds its comb
in a far more inevitable way. And, from a bee to Paul Veronese,
all master-workers work with this awful, this inspired uncon-
sciousness.

I said just now that there was no exception to this law, that
the great men never knew how or why they did things. It
is, of course, only with caution that such a broad statement should
be made; but I have seen much of different kinds of artists, and
I have always found the knowledge of, and attention to, rules so
accurately in the inverse ratio to the power of the painter, that
I have myself no doubt that the law is constant, and that men's
smallness may be trigonometrically estimated by the attention
which, in their work, they pay to principles, especially prin-
ciples of composition. , The general way in which the great men

Speak is of " trying to do" this or that, just as a child would
tell of something he had seen and could not utter. Thus,
in speaking of the drawing of which I have given an etching
farther on (a scene on the St. GothardTurner asked if I had
been to see " that litter of stones which I endeavoured to repre-
sent ;" and William Hunt, when I asked him one day as he was
painting, why he put on such and such a colour, answered, " I
don't know ; I am just aiming at it;" and Turner, and he, and
all the other men I have known who could paint, always spoke
and speak in the same way; not in any selfish restraint of their
knowledge, but in pure simplicity. While all the men whom
I know, who cannot paint, are ready with admirable reasons for
everything they have done ; and can show, in the most conclusive
way, that Turner is wrong, and how he might be improved.

§ 14. And this is the reason for the somewhat singular, but very
palpable truth that the Chinese, and Indians, and other semi-
civilized nations, can colour better than we do, and that an
Indian shawl and China vase are still, in invention of colour,
inimitable by us. It is their glorious ignorance of all rules that
does it; the pure and true instincts have play, and do their
work,—instincts so subtle, that the least warping or compression,
breaks or blunts them; and the moment we begin teaching people
any rules about colour, and make them do this or that, we crush
the instinct, generally for ever. Hence, hitherto, it has been
an actual necessity, in order to obtain power of colouring, that
a nation should be half-savage: everybody could colour in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries; but we were ruled and legalized
into grey in the fifteenth; — only a little salt simplicity of their
sea natures at Venice still keeping their precious, shell-fishy
purpleness and power; and now that is gone; and nobody can
colour anywhere, except the Hindoos and Chinese : but that
need not be so, and will not be so long; for, in a little while,
people will find out their mistake, and give up talking about
rules of colour, and then everybody will colour again, as easily
as they now talk.

§ 15. Such, then, being the generally passive or instinctive character
of right invention, it may be asked how these unmanageable
instincts are to be rendered practically serviceable in historical or
poetical painting,— especially historical, in which given facts are
to be represented. Simply by the sense and self-control of the
whole man; not by control of the particular fancy or vision.

• He who habituates himself, in his daily life, to seek for the
stern facts in whatever he hears or sees, will have these facts
again brought before him by the involuntary imaginative power
in their noblest associations; and he who seeks for frivolities and
fallacies, will have frivolities and fallacies again presented to him
in his dreams. Thus if, in reading history for the purpose of
painting from it, the painter severely seeks for the accurate cir-
cumstances of every event; as, for instance, determining the
exact spot of ground on which his hero fell, the way he must
have been looking at the moment, the height the sun was at (by
the hour of the day), and the way in which the light must have
fallen upon his face, the actual number and individuality of the
persons by him at the moment, and such other veritable details,
ascertaining and dwelling upon them without the slightest care
for any desirableness or poetic propriety in them, but for their
own truth's sake; then these truths will afterwards rise up and
form the body of his imaginative vision, perfected and united
as his inspiration may teach. But if, in reading the history, he
does not regard these facts, but thinks only ho\y it might all
most prettily, and properly, and impressively have happened,
then there is nothing but prettiness and propriety to form the
body of his future imagination, and his whole ideal becomes false.
So, in the higher or expressive part of the work, the whole virtue
of it depends on his being able to quit his own personality, and
enter successively into the hearts and thoughts of each person;
and in all this he is still passive: in gathering the truth he is
passive, not determining what the truth to be gathered shall be;
and in the after vision he is passive, not determining, but as his
dreams will have it, what the truth to be represented shall be;
only according to his own nobleness is his power of entering

into the hearts of noble persons, and the general character of
his dream of them.^

§ 16. It follows from all this, evidently, that a great idealist never
can be egotistic. The whole of his power depends upon his
losing sight and feeling of his own existence, and becoming a
mere witness and mirror of truth, and a scribe of visions,—
always passive in sight, passive in utterance,—lamenting con-
tinually that he cannot completely reflect nor clearly utter all
he has seen. Not by any means a proud state for a man to be
in. But the man who has no invention is always setting things
in order, and putting the world to rights, and mending, and
beautifying, and pluming himself on his doings as supreme in all
ways.

§ 17. There is still the question open. What are the principal direc-
tions in which this ideal faculty is to exercise itself most usefully
for mankind ?

This question, however, is not to the purpose of our present
work, which respects landscape-painting only; it must be one of
those left open to the reader's thoughts, and for future inquiry in
another place. One or two essential points I briefly notice.

In Chap. IV. § 5. it was said, that one of the first func-
tions of imagination was traversing the scenes of history, and
forcing the facts to become again visible. But there is so little
of such force in written history, that it is no marvel there should
be none hitherto in painting. There does not exist, as far as
I know, in the world a single example of a good historical pic-
ture (that is to say, of one which, allowing for necessary dimness
in art as compared with nature, yet answers nearly the same
ends in our minds as the sight of the real event would have
answered); the reason being, the universal endeavour to get
effects instead of facts, already shown as the root of false idealism.
True historical ideal, founded on sense, correctness of know-
ledge, and purpose of usefulness, does not yet exist; the produc-
tion of it is a task which the closing nineteenth century may
propose to itself.

> The reader should, of course, refer for fuller details on this subject to the chapters
on Imagination in Vol. II., of which I am only glancing now at the practical results.

§ 18. Another point is to be observed. I do not, as tbe reader may
have lately perceived, insist on the distinction between historical
and poetical painting, because, as noted in the 22nd paragraph of
the third chajjter, all great painting must be both.

Nevertheless, a certain distinction must generally exist between
men who, like Horace Vernet, David, or Domenico Tintoret,
•* would employ themselves in painting, more or less graphically,
the outward verities of passing events — battles, councils, &c. —
of their day (who, supposing them to work worthily of their
mission, would become, properly so called, historical or narrative
painters); and men who sought, in scenes of perhaps less out-
ward importance, "noble grounds for noble emotion;"—who
would be, in a certain separate sense, ■poetical painters, some of
them taking for subjects events which had actually happened, and
others themes from the poets; or, better still, becoming poets
themselves in the entire sense, and inventing the story as they
painted it. Painting seems to me only just to be beginning, in
this sense also, to take its proper position beside literature, and
the pictures of the ^^ Awakening Conscience," Huguenot," and
such others, to be the first fruits of its new effort.

§ 19. Finally, as far as I can observe, it is a constant law that the
greatest men, whether poets or historians, live entirely in their
own age, and that the greatest fruits of their work are gathered
out of their own age. Dante paints Italy in the thirteenth cen-
tury ; Chaucer, England in the fourteenth; Masaccio, Florence
in the fifteenth; Tintoret, Venice in the sixteenth; — all of
them utterly regardless of anachronism and minor error of every
kind, but getting always vital truth out of the vital present.

§ 20. If it be said that Shakspere wrote perfect historical plays on
subjects belonging to the preceding centuries, I answer, that they
are perfect plays just because there is no care about centuries in
them, but a life which all men recognize for the human life of
all time; and this it is, not because Shakspere sought to give
universal truth, but because, painting honestly and completely
from the men about him, he painted that human nature which is,
indeed, constant enough,—a rogue in the fifteenth century being,
at heart, what a rogue is in the nineteenth and was in the twelfth;

and an honest or a knightly man being, in like manner, very
similar to other such at any other time. And the work of these
great idealists is, therefore, always universal; not because it is not
portrait, but because it is complete portrait down to the heart,
which is the same in all ages: and the work of the mean idealists
is not universal, not because it is portrait, but because it is half
portrait, ~ of the outside, the manners and the dress, not of the
heart. Thus Tintoret and Shakspere paint, both of them, sim-
ply Venetian and English nature as they saw it in their time,
down to the root; and it does for all time ; but as for any care to
cast themselves into the particular ways and tones of thought, or
custom, of past time in their historical work, you will find it in
neither of them, nor in any other perfectly great man that I
know of.

§ 21. If there had been no vital truth in their present, it is hard to
say what these men could have done. I suppose, primarily, they
would not have existed; that they, and the matter they have to
treat of, are given together, and that the strength of the nation
and its historians correlatively rise and fall — Herodotus springing
out of the dust of Marathon. It is also hard to say how far our
better general acquaintance with minor details of past history
may make us able to turn the shadow on the imaginative dial
backwards, and naturally to live, and even live strongly if we
choose, in past periods; but this main truth will always be un-
shaken, that the only historical painting deserving the name is
portraiture of our own living men and our own passing times ^
and that all efforts to summon up the events of bygone periods,
though often useful and touching, must come under an inferior
class of poetical painting; nor Avill it, I believe, ever be much
followed as their main work by the strongest men, but only by
the weaker and comparatively sentimental (rather than imagina-
tive) groups. This marvellous first half of the nineteenth century
has in this matter, as in nearly all others, been making a double
blunder. It has, under the name of improvement, done all it
could to EFFACE THE RECORDS which departed ages have left

of themselves, while it has declared the forgery of false
records of these same ages to be the great work of its histo-
rical painters! I trust that in a few years more we shall come
somewhat to our senses in the matter, and begin to perceive
that our duty is to preserve what the past has had to say for
itself, and to say for ourselves also what shall be true for the
future. Let us strive, with just veneration for that future, first
to do what is worthy to be spoken, and then to speak it faith-
fully ; and, with veneration for the past, recognize that it is
indeed in the power of love to preserve the monument, but not
of incantation to raise the dead.

§ 1. I HAVE already, in the Stones of Venice, had occasion to analyze,
as far as I was able, the noble nature and power of grotesque
conception: I am not sorry occasionally to refer the reader to
that work, the fact being that it and this are parts of one whole,
divided merely as I had occasion to follow out one or other of
its branches; for I have always considered architecture as an
essential part of landscape; and I think the study of its best
styles and real meaning one of the necessary functions of the
landscape-painter; — as, in like manner, the architect cannot be a
master-workman until all his designs are guided by understanding
of the wilder beauty of pure nature. But, be this as it may, the
discussion of the grotesque element belonged most properly to
the essay on architecture, in which that element must always find
its fullest development.

(A). Art arising from healthful but irrational play of the
imagination in times of rest.

(B). Art arising from irregular and accidental contemplation of
terrible things; or evil in general.

(C). Art arising from the confusion of the imagination by the
presence of truths which it cannot wholly grasp.

It is the central form of this art, arising from contemplation
of evil, which forms the link of connection between it and the
sensualist ideals, as pointed out above in the second paragraph of
the sixth chapter, the fact being that the imagination, when at
play, is curiously like bad children, and likes to play with fire:
in its entirely serious moods it dwells by preference on beautiful
and sacred images, but in its mocking or playful moods it is apt
to jest, sometimes bitterly, with under-current of sternest pathos,
sometimes waywardly, sometimes slightly and wickedly, with
death and sin; hence an enormous mass of grotesque art, some
most noble and useful, as Holbein's Dance of Death, and Albert
Durer's Knight and Death ^, going down gradually through
various conditions of less and less seriousness into an art whose
only end is that of mere excitement, or amusement by terror, like
a child making mouths at another, more or less redeemed by
the degree of wit or fancy in the grimace it makes, as in the
demons of Teniers and such others; and, lower still, in the
demonology of the stage.

The form arising from an entirely healthful and open play of
the imagination, as in Shakspere's Ariel and Titania, and in
Scott's White Lady, is comparatively rare. It hardly ever is
free from some slight taint of the inclination to evil; still more
rarely is it, when so free, natural to the mind; for the moment
we begin to contemplate sinless beauty we are apt to get serious;
and moral fairy tales, and such other innocent work, are hardly
ever truly, that is to say, naturally, imaginative; but for the
most part laborious inductions and compositions. The moment
any real vitality enters them, they are nearly sure to become sati-
rical, or slightly gloomy, and so connect themselves with the
evil-enjoying branch.

The third form of the Grotesque is a thoroughly noble one.
It is that which arises out of the use or fancy of tangible signs to
set forth an otherwise less expressible truth; including nearly the
whole range of symbolical and allegorical art and poetry. Its

nobleness has been sufficiently insisted upon in the place before
referred to. (Chapter on Grotesque Renaissance^, §§ lxiii. lxiv.
&c.) Of its practical use, especially in painting, deeply despised
among us, because grossly misunderstood, a few words must be
added here.

A fine grotesque is the expression, in a moment, by a
series of symbols thrown together in bold and fearless con-
nection, of truths which it would have taken a long time to ex-
press in any verbal way, and of which the connection is left for
the beholder to work out for himself; the gaps, left or over-
leaped by the haste of the imagination, forming the grotesque
character.

§5. For instance, Spenser desires to tell us, (I.) that envy is the
most untamable and unappeasable of the passions, not to be
soothed by any kindness; (2.) that with continual labour it
invents evil thoughts out of its own heart; (3.) that even in
this, its power of doing harm is partly hindered by the decay-
ing and corrupting nature of the evil it lives in; (4.) that it
looks every way, and that whatever it sees is altered and dis-
coloured by its own nature; (5.) which discolouring, however,
is to it a veil, or disgraceful dress, in the sight of others;
(6.) and that it never is free from the most bitter suffering,
(7.) which cramps all its acts and movements, enfolding and
crushing it while it torments. All this it has required a some-
what long and languid sentence for me to say in unsymbolical
terms, — not, by the way, that they are unsymbolical altogether,
for I have been forced, whether I would or not, to use some
figurative words; but even with this help the sentence is long
and tiresome, and does not with any vigour represent the truth*
It would take some prolonged enforcement of each sentence to
make it felt, in ordinary ways of talking. But Spenser puts
it all into a grotesque, and it is done shortly and at once, so
that we feel it fully, and see it, and never forget it. I have
numbered above the statements which had to be made. I now
number them with the same numbers, as they occur in the several
pieces of the grotesque: —

" And next to him malicious Envy rode
(1.) Upon a ravenous wolfe, and (2. 3.) still did chaw
Between his cankred' teeth a venemous tode,
That all the poison ran about his jaw.

He clothed was, y-paynted full of eies;
(6.) And in his bosome secretly there lay

An hatefull snake, the which his taile uptyes
(7.) In many folds, and mortaU sting implyes."

There is the whole thing in nine lines; or, rather, in one image,
which will hardly occupy any room at all on the mind's shelves,
hut can be lifted out, whole, whenever we want it. All noble
grotesques are concentrations of this kind, and the noblest convey
truths which nothing else could convey; and not only so, but con-
vey them, in minor cases with a delightfulness, — in the higher
instances with an awfulness, — which no mere utterance of the
symbolised truth would have possessed, but which belongs to the
effort of the mind to unweave the riddle, or to the sense it has of
there being an infinite power and meaning in the thing seen,
beyond all that is apparent therein, giving the highest sublimity
even to the most trivial object so presented and so contemplated.

' Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land.' "

And thus in all ages and among all nations, grotesque idealism
has been the element through which the most appalling and event-
ful truth has been wisely conveyed, from the most sublime words
of true Revelation, to the or av -qfilovos /SaaiXsvs" &c.,

of the oracles, and the more or less doubtful teaching of dreams;
and so down to ordinary poetry. No element of imagination has
a wider range, a more magnificent use, or so colossal a grasp of
sacred truth.

"We hear it not unfrequently asserted that symbolism or per-
sonification should not be introduced in painting at all. Such

assertions are in their grounds unintelligiblej and in their sub-
stance absurd. Whatever is in words described as visible, may
with all logical fitness^ be rendered so by colours, and not only
is this a legitimate branch of ideal art, but I believe there is
hardly any other so widely useful and instructive: and I heartily
wish that every great allegory which the poets ever invented
were powerfully put on canvass, and easily accessible by all men,
and that our artists were perpetually exciting themselves to in-
vent more. And as far as authority bears on the question, the
simple fact is that allegorical painting has been the delight of the
greatest men and of the wisest multitudes, from the beginning of
art, and will be till art expires. Orcagna's Triumph of Death;
Simon Memmi's frescoes in the Spanish Chapel; Giotto's prin-
cipal works at Assisi, and partly at the Arena; Michael Angelo's
two best statues, the Night and Day; Albert Durer's noble
Melancholy, and hundreds more of his best works; a full third,
I should think, of the works of Tintoret and Veronese, and
nearly as large a portion of those of Raphael and Rubens, are
entirely symbolical or personifiant; and, except in the case of the
last-named painter, are always among the most interesting works
the painters executed. The greater and more thoughtful the
artists, the more they delight in symbolism, and the more fear-
lessly they employ it. Dead symbolism, second-hand symbolism,
pointless symbolism, are indeed objectionable enough; but so
are most other things that are dead, second-hand, and pointless.
It is also true that both symbolism and personification are some-
what more apt than most things to have their edges taken off
by too much handling; and what with our modern Fames, Jus-
tices, and various metaphorical ideals, largely used for signs and
other such purposes, there is some excuse for our not well
knowing what the real power of personification is. But that
power is gigantic and inexhaustible, and ever to be grasped with
peculiar joy by the painter, because it permits him to introduce
picturesque elements and flights of fancy into his work, which
otherwise would be utterly inadmissible; — to bring the wild

beasts of the desert into the room of state, fill the air with inha-
bitants as well as the earth, and render the least (visibly) inter-
esting incidents themes for the most thrilling drama. Even
Tintoret might sometimes have been hard put to it, when he
had to fill a large panel in the Ducal Palace with the portrait
of a nowise interesting Doge, unless he had been able to lay a
winged lion beside him, ten feet long from the nose to the tail,
asleep upon the Turkey carpet; and Rubens could certainly have
made his flatteries of Mary of Medicis palatable to no one but
herself, without the help of rosy-cheeked goddesses of abundance,
and seven-headed hydras of rebellion.

§ 7. For observe, not only does the introduction of these imaginary
beings permit greater fantasticism of incident, but also infinite
fantasticism of treatment; and, I believe, so far from the pursuit
of the false ideal having in any wise exhausted the realms of
fantastic imagination, those realms have hardly yet been entered,
and that a universe of noble dream-land lies before us, yet to be
conquered. For, hitherto, when fantastic creatures have been
introduced, either the masters have been so realistic in temper
that they made the spirits as substantial as their figures of flesh
and blood,—as Rubens, and, for the most part, Tintoret; or else
they have been weak and iinpractised in realization, and have
painted transparent or cloudy spirits because they had no power
of painting grand ones. But if a really great painter, thoroughly
capable of giving substantial truth, and master of the elements of
pictorial efiect which have been developed by modern art, would
solemnly, and yet fearlessly, cast his fancy free in the spiritual
world, and faithfully follow out such masters of that world as
Dante and Spenser, there seems no limit to the splendour of
thought which painting might express. Consider, for instance,
how the ordinary personifications of Charity oscillate between
the mere nurse of many children, of Reynolds, and the somewhat
painfully conceived figure with flames issuing from the heart, of
Giotto; and how much more significance might be given to the
representation of Love, by amplifying with tenderness the thought
of Dante, " Tanta rossa, che a pena fora dentro al foco nota," ^

that is to say, by representing the loveliness of her face and
form as all flushed with glow of crimson light, and, as she
descended through heaven, all its clouds coloured by her presence
as they are by sunset. In the hands of a feeble painter, such
an attempt would end in mere caricature; but suppose it taken
up by Correggio, adding to his power of flesh-painting the (not
inconsistent) feeling of Angelico in design, and a portion of
Turner's knowledge of the clouds. There is nothing impossible
in such a conjunction as this. Correggio, trained in another
school, might have even himself shown some such extent of
grasp ; and in Turner's picture of the Dragon of the Hesperides,
Jason, vignette to Voyage of Columbus Slowly along the
evening sky they went"), and such others, as well as in many of
the works of Watts and Rossetti, is already visible, as I trust,
the dawn of a new era of art, in a true unison of the grotesque
with the realistic power.

§ 8. There is, however, unquestionably, a severe limit, in the case of
all inferior masters, to the degree in which they may venture to
realize grotesque conception, and partly, also, a limit in the nature
of the thing itself, there being many grotesque ideas which may
be with safety suggested dimly by words or slight lines, but which
will hardly bear being painted into perfect definiteness. It is
very difficult, in reasoning on this matter, to divest ourselves
of the prejudices which have been forced upon us by the base
grotesque of men like Bronzino, who, having no true imagination,
are apt, more than others, to try by startling realism to enforce the
monstrosity that has no terror in itself. But it is nevertheless
true, that, unless in the hands of the very greatest men, the
grotesque seems better to be expressed merely in line, or light and
shade, or mere abstract colour, so as to mark it for a thought
rather than a substantial fact. Even if Albert Durer had per-
fectly painted his Knight and Death, I question if we should feel
it so great a thought as we do in the dark engraving. Blake,
perfectly powerful in the etched grotesque of the book of Job,
fails always more or less as soon as he adds colour; not merely for
want of power (his eye for colour being naturally good), but
because his subjects seem, in a sort, insusceptible of completion;

and the two inexpressibly noble and pathetic woodcut grotesques
of Alfred Ketliel's, Death the Avenger, and Death the Friend,
could not, I think, but with disadvantage, be advanced into pic-
torial colour.

And what is thus doubtfully true of the pathetic grotesque, is
assuredly and always true of the jesting grotesque. So far as
it expresses any transient flash of wit or satire, the less labour
of line, or colour, given to its expression the better; elaborate
jesting being always intensely painful.

§ For these several reasons, it seems not only permissible, but
even desirable, that the art by which the grotesque is expressed
should be more or less imperfect, and this seems a most beneficial
ordinance as respects the human race in general. For the
grotesque being not only a most forceful instrument of teaching,
but a most natural manner of expression, springing as it does
at once from any tendency to playfulness in minds highly com-
prehensive of truth; and being also one of the readiest ways in
which such satire or wit as may be possessed by men of any
inferior rank of mind can be for perpetuity expressed, it becomes
on all grounds desirable that what is suggested in times of play
should be rightly sayable without toil; and what occurs to
men of inferior power or knowledge, sayable without any high
degree of skill. Hence it is an infinite good to mankind when
there is full acceptance of the grotesque, slightly sketched or
expressed; and, if field for such expression be frankly granted,
an enormous mass of intellectual power is turned to everlasting
use, which, in this present century of ours, evaporates in street
gibing or vain revelling; all the good wit and satire expiring
in daily talk, (like foam on wine,) Avhich in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries had a permitted and useful expression in
the arts of sculpture and illumination, like foam fixed into chal-
cedony. It is with a view (not the least important among
many others bearing upon art) to the reopening of this great
field of human intelligence, long entirely closed, that I am
striving to introduce Gothic architecture into daily domestic use;
and to revive the art of illumination, properly so called; not
the art of miniature-painting in books, or on vellum, which has

ridiculously been confused with it; but of making writing, simple
writing, beautiful to the eye, by investing it with the great chord
of perfect colour, blue, purple, scarlet, white, and gold, and in
that chord of colour, permitting the continual play of the fancy
of the writer in every species of grotesque imagination, carefully
excluding shadow; the distinctive difference between illumination
and painting proper, being, that illumination admits no shadows,
but only gradations of pure colour. And it is in this respect
that illumination is specially fitted for grotesque expression;
for, when I used the term ^^ pictorial colour," just now, in speak-
ing of the completion of the grotesque of Death the Avenger,
I meant to distinguish such colour from the abstract, shadeless
hues which are eminently fitted for grotesque thought. The
requirement, respecting the slighter grotesque, is only that it
shall be incompletely expressed. It may have light and shade
without colour (as in etching and sculpture), or colour without
light and shade (illumination), but must not, except in the
hands of the greatest masters, have both. And for some con-
ditions of the playful grotesque, the abstract colour is a much
more delightful element of expression than the abstract light
and shade.

§ 10. Such being the manifold and precious uses of the true gro-
tesque, it only remains for us to note carefully how it is to
be distinguished from the false and vicious grotesque which re-
sults from idleness, instead of noble rest; from malice, instead
of the solemn contemplation of necessary evil; and from general
degradation of the human spirit, instead of its subjection, or
confusion, by thoughts too high for it. It is easy for the
reader to conceive how difterent the fruits of two such diiferent
states of mind must be; and yet how like in many respects, and
apt to be mistaken, one for the other; — how the jest which
springs from mere fatuity, and vacant want of penetration or
purpose, is everlastingly, infinitely, separated from, and yet
may sometimes be mistaken for, the bright, playful, fond, far-
sighted jest of Plato, or the bitter, purposeful, sorrowing jest
of Aristophanes; — how, again, the horror which springs from
guilty love of foulness and sin, may be often mistaken for the

inevitable liorror which a great mind must sometimes feel in
the full and penetrative sense of their presence; — how, finally,
the vague and foolish inconsistencies of undisciplined dream or
reverie may be mistaken for the compelled inconsistencies of
thoughts too great to be well sustained, or clearly uttered. It is
easy, I say, to understand what a difference there must indeed be
between these; and yet how difficult it may be always to define
it, or lay down laws for the discovery of it, except by the just
instinct of minds set habitually in all things to discern right from
wrong.

§ 11. Nevertheless, one good and characteristic instance may be of
service in marking the leading directions in which the contrast is
discernible. On the opposite page, Plate I., I have put, beside
each other, a piece of true grotesque, from the Lombard-Gothic,
and of false grotesque from classical (Roman) architecture. They
are both griffins ; the one on the left carries on his back one of
the main pillars of the porch of the cathedral of Verona; the
one on the right is on the frieze of the temple of Antoninus and
Faustina at Rome, much celebrated by Renaissance and bad
modern architects.

In some respects, however, this classical griffin deserves its
reputation. It is exceedingly fine in lines of composition, and, I
believe (I have not examined the original closely), very exquisite
in execution. For these reasons, it is all the better for our pur-
pose. I do not want to compare the worst false grotesque with
the best true, but rather, on the contrary, the best false with the
simplest true, in order to see how the delicately wrought lie fails
in the presence of the rough truth; for rough truth in the pre-
sent case it is, the Lombard sculpture being altogether untoward
and imperfect in execution.^

§ 12. « Well, but," the reader says, " what do you mean by calling
eit/ier of them true ? There never were such beasts in the world
as either of these ? "

' If there be any inaccuracy in the right-hand griffin, I am sony, but am not
answerable for it, as the plate has been faithfully reduced from a large French litho-
graph, the best I could find. The other is from a sketch of my own.

did really see a griffin in his imagination, and carved it from the
life, meaning to declare to all ages that he had verily seen with
his immortal eyes such a griffin as that; but the classical work-
man never saw a griffin at all, nor anything else; but put the
whole thing together by line and rule.

Very easily. Look at the two, and think over them. You
know a griffin is a beast composed of lion and eagle. The
classical workman set himself to fit these together in the most
ornamental way possible. He accordingly carves a sufficiently
satisfactory lion's body, then attaches very gracefully cut wings
to the sides: then, because he cannot get the eagle's head on the
broad lion's shoulders, fits the two together by something like a
horse's neck (some griffins being wholly composed of horse and
eagle), then, finding the horse's neck look weak and unformida-
ble, he strengthens it by a series of bosses, like vertebr®, in
front, and by a series of spiny cusps, instead of a mane, on the
ridge; next, not to lose the whole leonine character about the
neck, he gives a remnant of the lion's beard, turned into a sort
of griffin's whisker, and nicely curled and pointed; then an eye,
probably meant to look grand and abstracted, and therefore neither
lion's nor eagle's; and, finally, an eagle's beak, very sufficiently
studied from a real one. The whole head being, it seems to him,
still somewhat wanting in weight and power, he brings forward
the right wing behind it, so as to enclose it with a broad line.
This is the finest thing in the composition, and very masterly, both
in thought, and in choice of the exactly right point where the lines
of wing and beak should intersect (and it may be noticed in
passing, that all men, who can compose at all, have this habit of
encompassing or governing broken lines with broad ones, wher-
ever it is possible, of which we shall see many instances here-
after). The whole griffin, thus gracefully composed, being,
nevertheless, when all is done, a very composed griffin, is set to
very quiet work, and raising his left foot, to balance his right
wing, sets it on the tendril of a flower so lightly as not even
to bend it down, though, in order to reach it, his left leg is
made half as long again as his right.

§ 14. We may be pretty sure, if the carver had ever seen a griffin, he
would have reported of him as doing something else than that
vi^ith his feet. Let us see what the Lombardic workman saw
him doing.

Kemember, first, the griffin, though part lion and part eagle,
has the united power of both. He is not merely a bit of lion and
a bit of eagle, but whole lion, incorporate with whole eagle. So
when we really see one, we may be quite sure we shall not find
him wanting in anything necessary to the might either of beast or
bird.

Well, among things essential to the might of a Hon, perhaps,
on the whole, the most essential are his teeth. He could get
on pretty well even without his claws, usually striking his prey
down with a blow, woundless; but he could by no means get
on without his teeth. Accordingly, we see that the real or Lom-
bardic griffin has the carnivorous teeth bare to the root, and the
peculiar hanging of the jaw at the back, which marks the
flexible and gaping mouth of the devouring tribes.

Again ; among things essential to the might of an eagle, next
to his wings (which are of course prominent in both examples),
are his claws. It is no use his being able to tear anything with
his beak, if he cannot first hold it in his claws; he has com-
paratively no leonine power of striking with his feet, but a
magnificent power of grip with them. Accordingly, we see that
the real griffin, while his feet are heavy enough to strike like a
lion's, has them also extended far enough to give them the eagle's
grip with the back claw; and has, moreover, some of the bird-
like wrinkled skin over the whole foot, marking this binding
power the more ; and that he has besides verily got something to
hold with his feet, other than a flower, of which more presently.

§ 15, Now observe, the Lombardic workman did not do all this
because he had thought it out, as you and I are doing together;
he never thought a bit about it. He simply saw the beast; saw
it as plainly as you see the writing on this page, and of course
could not be wrong in anything he told us of it.

Well, what more does he tell us ? Another thing, remember,
essential to an eagle is that it should fly fast. It is no use its

having wings at all if it is to be impeded in the use of them.
Now it would be difficult to impede him more thoroughly than
by giving him two cocked ears to catch the wind.

Look, again, at the two beasts. You see the false griffin has
them so set, and, consequently, as he flew, there would be a
continual humming of the wind on each side of his head, and he
would have an infallible earache when he got home. But the
real griffin has his ears flat to his head, and all the hair of them
blown back, even to a point, by his fast flying, and the aper-
ture is downwards, that he may hear anything going on upon
the earth, where his prey is. In the false griffin the aperture is
upwards.

§ 16. Well, what more ? As he is made up of the natures of lion and
eagle, we may be very certain that a real griffin is, on the whole,
fond of eating, and that liis throat will look as if he occasionally
took rather large pieces, besides being flexible enough to let him
bend and stretch his head in every direction as he flies.

Look again at the two beasts. You see the false one has got
those bosses upon his neck like vertebrae, which must be infinitely
in his way when he is swallowing, and which are evidently in-
separable, so that he cannot stretch his neck any more than a
horse. But the real griffin is all loose about the neck, evidently
being able to make it almost as much longer as he likes; to
stretch and bend it anywhere, and swallow anything, besides
having some of the grand strength of the bull's dewlap in it
when at rest.

§ 17. What more? Having both lion and eagle in him, it Is pro-
bable that the real griffin will have an infinite look of repose
as well as power of activity. One of the notablest things about
a lion is his magnificent indolence, his look of utter disdain of
trouble when there is no occasion for it; as, also, one of the
notablest things about an eagle is his look of inevitable vigilance,
even when quietest. Look again at the two beasts. You see
the false griffin is quite sleepy and dead in the eye, thus con-
tradicting his eagle's nature, but is putting himself to a great
deal of unnecessary trouble with his paws, holding one in a most
painful position merely to touch a flower, and bearing the whole

But the real griffin is primarily, with his eagle's nature, wide
awake; evidently quite ready for whatever may happen; and
with his lion's nature, laid all his length on his belly, prone and
ponderous; his two paws as simply put out before him as a
drowsy puppy's on a drawingroom hearth-rug; not but that he
has got something to do with them, worthy of such paws; but he
takes not one whit more trouble about it than is absolutely
necessary. He has merely got a poisonous winged dragon to
hold, and for such a little matter as that, he may as well do
it lying down and at his ease, looking out at the same time
for any other piece of work in his way. He takes the dragon
by the middle, one paw under the wing, another above, gathers
him up into a knot, puts two or three of his claws well into his
back, crashing through the scales of it and wrinkling all the
flesh up from the wound, flattens him down against the ground,
and so lets him do what he likes. The dragon tries to bite him,
but can only bring his head round far enough to get hold of his
own wing, which he bites in agony instead; flapping the griffin's
dewlap with it, and wriggling his tail up against the griffin's
throat; the griffin being, as to these minor proceedings, entirely
indifferent, sure that the dragon's body cannot drag itself one
hair's breadth off those ghastly claws, and that its head can do
no harm but to itself.

Now observe how in all this, through every separate part and
action of the creature, the imagination is always right. It
evidently cannot err; it meets every one of our requirements
respecting the griffin as simply as if it were gathering up the
bones of the real creature out of some ancient rock. It does
not itself know or care, any more than the peasant labouring
with his spade and axe, what is wanted to meet our theories or
fancies. It knows simply what is there, and brings out the
positive creature, errorless, unquestionable. So it is throughout
art, and in all that the imagination does; if anything be wrong it
is not the imagination's fault, but some inferior faculty's, which
would have its foolish say in the matter, and meddled with the

imagination, and said, the bones ought to be put together tail
first, or upside down.

§ 19. This, however, we need not be amazed at, because the very-
essence of the imagination is already defined to be the seeing to
the heart; and it is not therefore wonderful that it should never
err; but it is wonderful, on the other hand, how the composing
legalism does nothing else than err. One would have thought
that, by mere chance, in this or the other element of griffin, the
griffin-composer might have struck out a truth; that he might
have had the luck to set the ears back, or to give some grasp to
the claw. But, no; from beginning to end it is evidently im-
possible for him to be anything but wrong; his whole soul is
instinct with lies; no veracity can come Avithin hail of him; to
him, all regions of right and life are for ever closed.

§ 20. And another notable point is, that while tlie imagination re-
ceives truth in this simple way, it is all the while receiving
statutes of composition also, far more noble than those for the
sake of which the truth was lost by the legalist. The ornamental
lines in the classical griffin appear at first finer than in the other ;
but they only appear so because they are more commonplace
and more palpable. The subtlety of the sweeping and rolling
curves in the real griffin, the way they waver and change and
fold, down the neck, and along the wing, and in and out
among the serpent coils, is incomparably grander, merely as
grouping of ornamental line, than anything in the other; nor
is it fine as ornamental only, but as massively useful, giving
weight of stone enough to answer the entire purpose of pedestal
sculpture. Note, especially, the insertion of the three plumes
of the dragon's broken wing in the outer angle, just under the
large coil of his body ; this filling of the gap being one of the
necessities, not of the pedestal block merely, but a means of
getting mass and breadth, which all composers desire more or
less, but which they seldom so perfectly accomplish.

So that taking the truth first, the honest imagination gains
everything ; it has its griffinism, and grace, and usefulness, all at
once: but the false composer, caring for nothing but himself and
his rules, loses everything, — griffinism, grace, and all.

§ 21. I believe the reader will now sufficiently see how the terras
" true " and " false " are in the most accurate sense attachable to
the opposite branches of what might appear at first, in both cases,
the merest wildness of inconsistent reverie. But they are even to
be attached, in a deeper sense than that in which we have hitherto
used them, to these two compositions. For the imagination hardly
ever works in this intense way, unencumbered by the inferior
faculties, unless it be under the influence of some solemn purpose
or sentiment. And to all the falseness and all the verity of these
two ideal creatures this farther falsehood and verity have yet to be
added, that the classical griffin has, at least in this place, no other
intent than that of covering a level surface with entertaining
form; but the Lombardic griffin is a profound expression of the
most passionate symbolism. Under its eagle's wings are two
wheels', which mark it as connected, in the mind of him who
wrought it, with the living creatures of the vision of Ezekiel:
" When they went, the wheels went by them, and whithersoever
the spirit was to go, they went, and the wheels were lifted up
over against them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the
wheels." Thus signed, the winged shape becomes at once one
of the acknowledged symbols of the Divine power; and, in its
unity of lion and eagle, the workman of the middle ages always
meant to set forth the unity of the human and divine natures.'^
In this unity it bears up the pillars of the Church, set for ever
as the corner stone. And the faithful and true imagination
beholds it, in this unity, with everlasting vigilance and calm
omnipotence, restrain the seed of the serpent crushed upon the
earth; leaving the head of it free, only for a time, that it may
inflict in its fury profounder destruction upon itself,—in this also
full of deep meaning. The Divine power does not slay the evil
creature. It wounds and restrains it only. Its final and deadly
wound is inflicted by itself.

' At the extremities of the wings,—not seen in the plate.
Compare the Purgatorio, canto xxix. &c.

§1.1 AM afraid tlie reader must be, by this time, almost tired of hear-
ing about truth. But I cannot help this; the more I have ex-
amined the various forms of art, and exercised myself in receiving
their differently intended impressions, the more I have found this
truthfulness a final test, and the only test of lasting power; and,
although our concern in this part of our inquiry is, professedly,
with the beauty which blossoms out of truth, still I find myself
compelled always to gather it by the stalk, not by the petals. I
cannot hold the beauty, nor be sure of it for a moment, but by
feeling for that strong stem.

We have, in the preceding chapters, glanced through the
various operations of the imaginative power of man; with this
almost painfully monotonous result, that its greatness and honour
were always simply in proportion to the quantity of truth it
grasped. And now the question, left undetermined some hun-
dred pages back (Chap. ii. § 6.), recurs to us in a simpler form
than it could before. How far is this true imagination to be truly
represented ? How far should the perfect conception of Pallas be
so given as to look like Pallas herself, rather than like the picture
of Pallas?

§ 2. A question, this, at present of notable interest, and demand-
ing instant attention. For it seemed to us, in reasoning about
Dante's views of art, that he was, or might be, right in desiring
realistic completeness; and yet, in what we have just seen of
the grotesque ideal, it seemed there was a certain desirableness

•I

•r\

in ^completeness. And the schools of art in Europe are, at
this moment, set in two hostile ranks, — not nobly hostile, but
spitefully and scornfully; having for one of the main grounds
of their dispute the apparently simple question, how far a pic-
ture may be carried forward in detail, or how soon it may be
considered as finished.

I purpose, therefore, in the present chapter, to examine, as
thoroughly as I can, the real signification of this word, Finish, as
applied to art, and to see if in this, as in other matters, our almost
tiresome test is not the only right one; whether there be not a
fallacious finish and a faithful finish, and whether the dispute,
which seems to be only about completion and incompletion, has
not therefore, at the bottom of it, the old and deep grounds of
fallacy and fidelity.

§ 3. Observe, first, there are two great and separate senses in which
we call a thing finished, or well-finished. One, which refers to
the mere neatness and completeness of the actual work, as we
speak of a well-finished knife-handle or ivory toy (as opposed to
ill-cut ones); and, secondly, a sense which refers to the effect
produced by the thing done, as we call a picture well-finished if
it is so full in its details, as to produce the effect of reality
on the spectator. And, in England, we seem at present to value
highly the first sort of finish which belongs to yfov\manshipi in
our manufactures and general doings of any kind, but to despise
totally the impressive finish which belongs to the work; and
therefore we like smooth ivories better than rough ones,—but
careless scrawls or daubs better than the most complete paintings.
Now, I believe that Ave exactly reverse the fitness of judgment
in this matter, and that we ought, on the contrary, to despise the
finish of yforkmanship, which is done for vanity's sake, and to
love the finish of work, which is done for truth's sake,—that we
ought, in a word, to finish our ivory toys more roughly, and our
pictures more delicately.

§ 4. Perhaps one of the most remarkable points of difference be-
tween the English and Continental nations is in the degree of
finish given to their ordinary work. It is enough to cross from

v.!

Ai
K

Dover to Calais to feel this difference ; and to travel farther only-
increases the sense of it. English windows for the most part fit
their sashes, and their woodwork is neatly planed and smoothed:
French windows are larger, heavier, and framed with wood that
looks as if it had been cut to its shape with a hatchet; they have
curious and cumbrous fastenings, and can only be forced asunder
or together by some ingenuity and effort, and even then not
properly. So with everything else—French, Italian, and Ger-
man, and, as far as I know. Continental. Foreign drawers do
not slide as well as ours; foreign knives do not cut so well;
foreign wheels do not turn so well; and we commonly plume
ourselves much upon this, believing that generally the Eng-
lish people do their work better and more thoroughly, or as
they say, "turn it out of their hands in better style," than
foreigners. I do not know how far this is really the case. There
may be a flimsy neatness, as well as a substantial roughness; it
does not necessarily follow that the window which shuts easiest
will last the longest, or that the harness which glitters the
most is assuredly made of the toughest leather. I am afraid,
that if this peculiar character of finish in our workmanship ever
arose from a greater heartiness and thoroughness in our ways
of doing things, it does so only now in the case of our best
manufacturers; and that a great deal of the work done in Eng-
land, however good in appearance, is but treacherous and rotten
in substance. Still, I think that there is really in the English
mind, for the most part, a stronger desire to do things as well as
they can be done, and less inclination to put up with inferiorities
or insufficiencies, than in general characterize the temper of
foreigners. There is in this conclusion no ground for national
vanity ; for though the desire to do things as well as they can be
done at first appears like a virtue, it is certainly not so in all
its forms. On the contrary, it proceeds in nine cases out of ten
more from vanity than conscientiousness; and that, moreover,
often a weak vanity. I suppose that as much finish is displayed
in the fittings of the private carriages of our young rich men as
in any other department of English manufacture; and that our
St. James's Street cabs, dogcarts, and liveries are singularly

perfect in their way. But the feeling with which this perfection
is insisted upon (however desirable as a sign of energy of purpose)
is not in itself a peculiarly amiable or noble feeling; neither is it
an ignoble disposition which would induce a country gentleman to
put up with certain deficiencies in the appearance of his country-
made carriage. It is true that such philosophy may degenerate
into negligence, and that much thought and long discussion would
be needed before we could determine satisfactorily the limiting
lines between virtuous contentment and faultful carelessness;
but at all events we have no right at once to pronounce ourselves
the Avisest people because we like to do all things in the best
way. There are many little things which to do admirably is
to waste both time and cost: and the real question is not so
much whether we have done a given thing as well as possible,
as whether we have turned a given quantity of labour to the
best account.

§ 5. Now, so far from the labour's being turned to good account
which is given to our English " finishing," I believe it to be
usually destructive of the best powers of our workmen's minds.
For it is evident, in the first place, that there is almost always a
useful and a useless finish; the hammering and welding which
are necessary to produce a sword blade of the best quality, are
useful finishing; the polish of its surface, useless.' In nearly all
work this distinction will, more or less, take place between sub-
stantial finish and apparent finish, or what may be briefly cha-
racterized as " Make" and " Polish." And so far as finish is
bestowed for purposes of " make," I have nothing to say against
it. Even the vanity which displays itself in giving strength to
our work is rather a virtue than a vice. But so far as finish is
bestowed for purposes of " polish," there is much to be said
against it; this first, and very strongly, that the qualities aimed
at in common finishing, namely, smoothness, delicacy, or fineness,
cannot in reality exist, in a degree worth admiring, in anything
done by human hands. Our best finishing is but coarse and

blundering work after all. We may smooth, and soften, and
sharpen till we are sick at heart; but take a good magnifying-
glass to our miracle of skill, and the invisible edge is a jagged
saw, and the silky thread a rugged cable, and the soft surface a
granite desert. Let all the ingenuity and all the art of the
human race be brought to bear upon the attainment of the
utmost possible finish, and they could not do what is done in
the foot of a fly, or the film of a bubble. God alone can finish;
and the more intelligent the human mind becomes, the more the
infiniteness of interval is felt between human and divine work in
this respect. So then it is not a little absurd to weary ourselves
in struggling towards a point which we never can reach, and
to exhaust our strength in vain endeavours to produce qualities
which exist inimitably and inexhaustibly in the commonest things
around us.

§ 6. But more than this : the fact is, that in multitudes of instances,
instead of gaining greater fineness of finish by our work, we are
only destroying the fine finish of nature, and substituting coarse-
ness and imperfection. For instance, when a rock of any kind
has lain for some time exposed to the weather, Nature finishes
it in her own way ; first, she takes wonderful pains about its
forms, sculpturing it into exquisite variety of dint and dimple,
and rounding or hollowing it into contours, which for fineness no
human hand can follow ; then she colours it; and every one of
her touches of colour, instead of being a powder mixed with oil,
is a minute forest of living trees, glorious in strength and beauty,
and concealing wonders of structure, which in all probability are
mysteries even to the eyes of angels. Man comes, and digs up
this finished and marvellous piece of work, which in his ignorance
he calls a " rough stone." He proceeds to finish it in his fashion,
that is, to split it in two, rend it into ragged blocks, and, finally,
to chisel its surface into a large number of lumps and knobs, all
equally shapeless, colourless, deathful, and frightful.' And the
block, thus disfigured, he calls " finished," and proceeds to build
therewith, and thinks himself great, forsooth, and an intelligent

animal. Whereas, all that he has really done is, to destroy with
utter ravage a piece of divine art, which, under the laws appointed
by the Deity to regulate His work in this world, it must take
good twenty years to produce the like of again. This he has
destroyed, and has himself given in its place a piece of work
which needs no more intelligence to do than a pholas has, or a
worm, or the spirit which throughout the world has authority
over rending, rottenness, and decay. I do not say that stone
must not be cut; it needs to be cut for certain uses ; only I say
that the cutting it is not " finishing," but M7zfinishing, it; and that
so far as the mere fact of chiselling goes, the stone is ruined by
the human touch. It is with it as with the stones of the Jewish
altar: " If thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it."
In like manner, a tree is a finished thing. But a plank, though
ever so polished, is not. "We need stones and planks, as we need
food; but we no more bestow an additional admirableness upon
stone in hewing it, or upon a tree in sawing it, than upon an
animal in killing it.

§ 7. Well, but it will be said, there is certainly a kind of finish in
stone-cutting, and in every other art, which is meritorious, and
which consists in smoothing and refining as nmch as possible.
Yes, assuredly there is a meritorious finish. First, as it has just
been said, that which fits a thing for its uses, — as a stone to lie
well in its place, or a cog of an engine-wheel to play well on
another; and, secondly, a finish belonging properly to the arts;
but that finish does not consist in smoothing or polishing, but in
the completeness of the expression of ideas. For in painting, there
is precisely the same difference between the ends proposed in
finishing that there is in manufacture. Some artists finish for the
finish' sake; dot their pictures all over, as in some kinds of minia-
ture-painting (when a wash of colour would have produced as
good an effect); or polish their pictures all over, making the
execution so delicate that the touch of the brush cannot be seen,
for the sake of the smoothness merely, and of the credit they
may thus get for great labour; which kind of execution, seen in
great perfection in many works of the Dutch school, and in those
of Carlo Dolce, is that polished " language" against which I have

spoken at length in various portions of the first volume; nor is it
possible to speak of it with too great severity or contempt, where
it has been made an ultimate end.

But other artists finish for the impression's sake, not to show
their skill, nor to produce a smooth piece of work, but that they
may, with each stroke, render clearer the expression of know-
ledge. And this sort of finish is not, properly speaking, so much
completing the picture as adding to it. It is not that what is
painted is more delicately done, but that infinitely more is painted.
This finish is always noble, and, like all other noblest things,
hardly ever understood or appreciated. I must here endeavour,
more especially with respect to the state of quarrel between the
schools of living painters, to illustrate it thoroughly.

§ 8. In sketching the outline, suppose of the trunk of a tree, as in
Plate 2. (opposite) fig. 1., it matters comparatively little whether
the outline be given with a bold, or a delicate line, so long as it is
outline only. The work is not more " finished" in one case than
in the other; it is only prepared for being seen at a greater or less
distance. The real refinement or finish of the line depends, not on
its thinness, but on its truly following the contours of the tree,
which it conventionally represents; conventionally, I say, because
there is no such line round the tree, in reality; and it is set down
not as an mzVation, but a ?^w^Vation of the form. But if we are to
add shade to it as in fig. 2., the outline must instantly be made
proportionally delicate, not for the sake of delicacy as such, but
because the outline will now, in many parts, stand not for limita-
tion of form merely, but for a portion of the shadow within that
form. Now, as a limitation it was true, but as a shadow it would
be false, for there is no line of black shadow at the edge of the
stem. It must, therefore, be made so delicate as not to detach
itself from the rest of the shadow where shadow exists, and only
to be seen in the light where limitation is still necessary.

Observe, then, the " finish " of fig. 2. as compared with fig. 1.
consists, not in its greater delicacy, but in the addition of a truth
(shadow), and the removal, in a great degree, of a conventionalism
(outline). All true finish consists in one or other of these things.
Now, therefore, if we are to " finish" farther, we must know

more or see more about the tree. And as the plurality of persons
who draw trees know nothing of them^ and will not look at them,
it results necessarily that the effort to finish is not only vain, but
unfinishes—does mischief. In the lower part of the plate, figs.

3, 4, 5, and 6. are fac-similes of pieces of line engraving, meant to
represent trunks of trees; 3. and 4. are the commonly accredited
types of tree-drawing among engravers in the eighteenth century;
5. and 6. are quite modern; 3. is from a large and important
plate by Boydell, from Claude's Molten Calf, dated 1781;

4. by Boydell in 1776, from Rubens's Waggoner; 5. from a
bombastic engraving, published about twenty years ago by
Meulemeester of Brussels, from Raphael's Moses at the Burning
Bush; and 6. from the foreground of Miller's Modern Italy, after
Turner,^

All these represent, as far as the engraving goes, simply nothing.
They are not " finished " in any sense but this, — that the paper
has been covered with lines. 4. is the best, because, in the ori-
ginal work of Rubens, the lines of the boughs, and their manner
of insertion in the trunk, have been so strongly marked, that no
engraving could quite efface them; and, inasmuch as it represents
these facts in the boughs, that piece of engraving is more finished
than the other examples, while its own networked texture is still
false and absurd; for there is no texture of this knitted-stocking-
like description on boughs; and if there were, it would not be
seen in the shadow, but in the light. Miller's is spirited, and
looks lustrous, but has no resemblance to the original bough of
Turner's, which is pale, and does not glitter. The Netherlands
work is, on the whole, the worst; because, in its ridiculous
double lines, it adds affectation and conceit to its incapacity.
But in aU these cases the engravers have worked in total
ignorance both of what is meant by " drawing," and of the
form of a tree, covering their paper with certain lines, which
they have been taught to plough in copper, as a husbandman
ploughs in clay.

' I take this example from Miller, becaiise, on th« whole, he is the best engraver of
Turner whom we have.

§ 9, In the next three examples we have instances of endeavours
at finish by the hands of artists themselves, marking three stages
of knowledge or insight, and three relative stages of finish.
Fig. 7. is Claude's (Liber Yeritatis, No. 140., facsimile by Boy-
] dell). It still displays an appalling ignorance of the forms of

trees, but yet is, in mode of execution, better—that is, more
I finished — than the engravings, because not altogether mechanical,

and showing some dim, far-away, blundering memory of a few
facts in stems, such as their variations of texture and roundness,
and bits of young shoots of leaves. 8. is Salvator's, facsimiled
from part of his original etching of the Finding of Oedipus. It
displays considerable power of handling—not mechanical, but free
and firm, and is just so much more finished than any of the
others as it displays more intelligence about the way in which
boughs gather themselves out of the stem, and about the varying
character of their curves. Finally, fig. 9. is good work. It is
the root of the apple-tree in Albert Durer's Adam and Eve, and
fairly represents the wrinkles of the bark, the smooth portions
emergent beneath, and the general anatomy of growth. All
the lines used conduce to the representation of these facts; and
the work is therefore highly finished. It still, however, leaves
out, as not to be represented by such kind of lines, the more
delicate gradations of light and shade. I shall now "finish" a
little farther, in the next plate (S.)» the mere insertion of the
two houghs outlined in fig. 1. I do this simply by adding as-
sertions of more facts. First, I say that the whole trunk is
dark, as compared with the distant sky. Secondly, I say that
it is rounded by gi'adations of shadow, in the various forms
shown. And, lastly, I say that (this being a bit of old pine
stripped by storm of its bark) the wood is fissured in certain
directions, showing its grain, or muscle^ seen in complicated
contortions at the insertion of the arm and elsewhere.
§ 10. Now this piece of work, though yet far from complete (we
will better it presently), is yet more finished than any of
the others, not because it is more delicate or more skilful, but
simply because it tells more truth, and admits fewer fallacies.
That which conveys most information, with least inaccuracy, is

always the highest finish; and the question whether we prefer art
so finished, to art unfinished, is not one of taste at all. It is
simply a question whether we like to know much or little; to see
accurately or see falsely; and those whose taste in art (if they
choose so to call it) leads them to like blindness better than
sight, and fallacy better than fact, would do well to set themselves
to some other pursuit than that of art.

§ 11. In the above plate we have examined chiefly the grain and
surface of the boughs; we have not yet noticed the finish of their
curvature. If the reader will look back to the No. 7. (Plate 2.),
which, in this respect, is the worst of all the set, he will imme-
diately observe the exemplification it gives of Claude's principal
theory about trees; namely, that the boughs always parted from
each other, two at a time, in the manner of the prongs of an ill-
made table-fork. It may, perhaps, not be at once believed that
this is indeed Claude's theory respecting tree-structure, without
some farther examples of his practice. I have, therefore, assem-
bled on the next page, Plate 4., some of the most characteristic
passages of ramification in the Liber Veritatis; the plates them-
selves are sufficiently cheap (as they should be) and accessible
to nearly every one, so that the accuracy of the facsimiles may
be easily tested. I have given in Appendix I. the numbers
of the plates from which the examples are taken, and it will
be found that they have been rather improved than libelled,
only omitting, of course, the surrounding leafage, in order to
show accurately the branch outlines, with which alone we are
at present concerned. And it would be difficult to bring to-
gether a series more totally futile and foolish, more singularly
wrong (as the false griffin was), every way at once: they
are stiff, and yet have no strength; curved, and yet have no
flexibility; monotonous, and yet disorderly; unnatural, and yet
uninventive. They are, in fact, of that commonest kind of tree
bough which a child or beginner first draws experimentally;
nay, I am well assured, that if this set of branches had been
drawn by a schoolboy, " out of his own head," his master
would hardly have cared to show them as signs of any promise
in him.

§ 12. " Well, but do not the trunks of trees fork, and fork mostly
into two arms at a time ? "

Yes; but under as stern anatomical law as the limbs of an
animal; and those hooked junctions in
Plate 4. are just as accurately representa-
tive of the branching of wood as this
(fig. 2.) is of a neck and shoulders. We
should object to such a representation of
shoulders, because we have some interest in, and knowledge of
human form; we do not object to Claude's trees, because we have
no interest in, nor knowledge of, trees. And if it be still alleged
that such work is nevertheless enough to give any one an " idea''
of a tree, I answer that it never gave, nor ever will give, an idea
of a tree to any one who loves trees; and that, moreover, no
idea, whatever its pleasantness, is of the smallest value, which is
not founded on simple facts. What pleasantness may be in
wrong ideas we do not here inquire; the only question for us has
always been, and must always be. What are the facts?

§ 13. And assuredly those boughs of Claude's are not facts; and
every one of their contours is, in the worst sense, unfinished,
without even the expectation or faint hope of possible refinement
ever coming into them, I do not mean to enter here into the
discussion of the characters of ramification; that must be in
our separate inquiry into tree-structure generally; but I will
merely give one piece of Turner's tree-drawing as an example
of what finished work really is, even in outline. In Plate 5.
opposite, fig. 1. is the contour (stripped, like Claude's, of its
foliage) of one of the distant tree-stems in the drawing of
Bolton Abbey. In order to show its perfectness better by
contrast with bad work (as we have had, I imagine, enough
of Claude), I will take a bit of Constable; fig. 2. is the prin-
cipal tree out of the engraving of the Lock on the Stour
(Leslie's Life of Constable). It differs from the Claude out-
lines merely in being the kind of work which is produced by
an uninventive person dashing about idly, with a brush, instead
of drawing determinately wrong, with a pen: on the one hand
worse than Claude's, in being lazier; on the other a little

better, in being more free, but, as representative of tree-fqrm,
of course still wholly barbarous. It is worth while to turn
back to the description of the uninventive painter at work on
a tree (Vol. II. chapter on Imaginative ^Association, § 11.),
for this trunk of Constable's is curiously illustrative of it. One
can almost see him, first bending it to the right; then, having
gone long enough to the right, turning to the left; then, having
gone long enough to the left, away to the right again; then
dividing it; and " because there is another tree in the picture
with two long branches (in this case there really is), he knows
that this ought to have three or four, which must undulate or
go backwards and forwards," &c. &c.

§ 14, Then study the bit of Turner work: note first its quiet-
ness, unattractiveness, apparent carelessness whether you look
at it or not; next note the subtle curvatures within the narrowest
limits, and, when it branches, the unexpected, out of the way
things it does, just what nobody could have thought of its
doing; shooting out like a letter Y, with a nearly straight
branch, and then correcting its stiffness with a zig-zag behind,
so that the boughs, ugly individually, are beautiful in unison.
(In what I have hereafter to say about trees, I shall need to
dwell much on this character of unexpectedness. A bough is
never drawn rightly if it is not wayward, so that although, as
just now said, quiet at first, not caring to be looked at, the
moment it is looked at, it seems bent on astonishing you, and
doing the last things you expect it to do.) But our present
purpose is only to note the finish of the Turner curves, which,
though they seem straight and stiiF at first, are, when you look
long, seen to be all tremulous, perpetually wavering along every
edge into endless melody of change. This is finish in line, in
exactly the same sense that a fine melody is finished in the asso-
ciation of its notes.

§ 15. And now, farther, let us take a little bit of the Turnerian
tree in light and shade. I said above I would better the
drawing of that pine trunk, which, though it has incipient
shade, and muscular action, has no texture, nor local colour.
Now, I take about an inch and a half of Turner's ash trunks

(one of the nearer ones in this same draAving of Bolton Abbey)
(fig. 3. Plate 5.), and this I cannot better; this is perfectly-
finished ; it is not possible to add more truth to it on that scale.
Texture of bark, anatomy of muscle beneath, reflected lights in
recessed hollows, stains of dark moss, and flickering shadows
from the foliage above, all are there, as clearly as the human
hand can mark them. I place a bit of trunk by Constable
(fig. 5.),' from another plate in Leslie's Life of him (a dell in
Ilelmingham Park, Suffolk), for the sake of the same comparison
in shade that we have above in contour. You see Constable
does not know whet^'^^- he is drawing moss or shadow: those
dark touches in the middle are confused in his mind between
the dark stains on the trunk and its dark side; there is no
anatomy, no cast shadow, nothing but idle sweeps of the brush,
vaguely circular. The thing is much darker than Turner's, but
it is not, therefore, finished; it is only blackened. And " to
blacken" is indeed the proper word for all attempts at finish
without knowledge. All true finish is added fact; and Turner's
word for finishing a picture was always this significant one,
" carry forward." But labour without added knowledge can
only blacken or stain a picture, it cannot finish it.

And this is especially to be remembered as we pass from com-
paratively large and distant objects, such as this single trunk,
to the more divided and nearer features of foreground. Some
degree of ignorance may be hidden, in comj^leting what is far
away ; but there is no concealment possible in close work, and
darkening instead of finishing becomes then the engraver's only
possible resource. It has always been a Avonderful thing to me
to hear people talk of making foregrounds " vigorous," " marked,"
" forcible," and so on. If you will lie down on your breast on
the next bank you come to (which is bringing it close enough,
I should think, to give it all the force it is capable of), you

' Fig. 5. is not, however, so lustrous as Constable's ; I cannot help this, having given
the original plate to my good friend Mr. Cousen, with strict charge to facsimile it
faithfully ; but the figure is all the fairer, as a representation of Constable's art, for
those mezzotints in Leslie's life of him have many qualities of drawing which are
quite wanting in Constable's blots of colour. The comparison shall be made elabo-
rately, between picture and picture, in the section on Vegetation.

will see, in the cluster of leaves and grass close to your face,
something as delicate as this, which I have actually so drawn, on
the opposite page, a mystery of soft shadow in the depths of
the grass, with indefinite forms of leaves, which you cannot
trace nor count, within it, and out of that, the nearer leaves
coming in every subtle gradation of tender light and flick-
ering form, quite beyond all delicacy of pencilling to follow; and
yet you will rise up from that bank (certainly not making it
appear coarser by drawing a little back from it), and profess to
represent it by a few blots of " forcible" foreground colour.
" Well, but I cannot draw every leaf that I see on the bank."
No, for as we saw, at the beginning of this chapter, that no
human work could be finished so as to express the delicacy of
nature, so neither can it be finished so as to express the redun-
dance of nature. Accept that necessity; but do not deny it; do
not call your work finished, when you have, in engraving, sub-
stituted a confusion of coarse black scratches, or in water-colour
a few edgy blots, for ineffable organic beauty. Follow that
beauty as far as you can, remembering that just as far as you
see, know, and represent it, just so far your work is finished; as
far as you fall short of it, your work is wwfinished, and as far as
you substitute any other thing for it, your work is spoiled.

§ 17. How far Turner followed it, is not easily shown; for his finish
is so delicate as to be nearly uncopiable. I have just said it
was not possible to finish that ash trunk of his, farther, on such
a scale. ^ By using a magnify ing-glass, and giving the same
help to the spectator, it might perhaps be possible to add and
exhibit a few more details; but even as it is, I cannot by line
engraving express all that there is in that piece of tree-trunk,
on the same scale. I have therefore magnified the upper part
of it in fig. 4. (Plate 5.), so that the reader may better see
the beautiful lines of curvature into which even its slightest
shades and spots are cast. Every quarter of an inch of Turner's
drawings will bear magnifying in the same way; much of the
finer work in them can hardly be traced, except by the keenest

' It is of the exact size of the original, the whole drawing being about 15^ inches
by 11 in.

sight, until it is magnified. In his painting of Ivy Bridgethe
veins are drawn on the wings of a butterfly, not above three lines
in diameter; and in one of his smaller drawings of Scarborough,
in my own possession, the muscle-shells on the beach are
rounded, and some shown as shut, some as open, though none
are as large as one of the letters of this type; and yet this is
the man who was thought to belong to the " dashing" school,
literally because most people had not patience or delicacy of
sight enough to trace his endless detail.

§18. " Suppose it was so," perhaps the reader replies; ^^ still I do
not like detail so delicate that it can hardly be seen." Then
you like nothing in Nature (for you will find she always carries
her detail too far to be traced). This point, however, we shall
examine hereafter; it is not the question now whether we
like finish or not; our only inquiry here is, what finish means;
and I trust the reader is beginning to be satisfied that it does
indeed mean nothing but consummate and accumulated truth,
and that our old monotonous test must still serve us here as
elsewhere. And it will become us to consider seriously why
(if indeed it be so) we dislike this kind of finish — dislike an
accumulation of truth. For assuredly all authority is against
us, and no truly great man can he named in the arts — hut it
is that of one who finished to his utmost. Take Leonardo,
Michael Angelo, and Raphael for a triad, to begin with. They
all completed their detail with such subtlety of touch and
gradation, that, in a careful drawing by any of the three, you
cannot see where the pencil ceased to touch the paper; the
stroke of it is so tender, that, when you look close to the draw-
ing you can see nothing; you only see the effect of it a little
way back! Thus tender in execution, — and so complete in de-
tail, that Leonardo must needs draw every several vein in the little
agates and pebbles of the gravel under the feet of the St. Anne
in the Louvre. Take a quartett after the triad — Titian,
Tintoret, Bellini, and Veronese. Examine the vine-leaves of
the Bacchus and Ariadne, (Titian's) in the National Gallery;

' An oil painting (about 3 ft. by 4 ft, 6 in.), and very broad in its masses. In the
possession of E. Bicknell, Esq.

examine the borage blossoms, painted petal by petal, though
lying loose on the table, in Titian's Supper at Emmaus, in
the Louvre, or the snail-shells on the ground in his Entomb-
ment' ; examine the separately designed patterns on every
drapery of Veronese, in his Marriage in Cana; go to Venice
and see how Tintoret paints the strips of black bark on the
birch trunk that sustains the platform in his Adoration of the
Magi; how Bellini fills the rents of his ruined walls Avith
the most exquisite clusters of the erba della Madonna.^ You
will find them all in a tale. Take a quintett after the quartett
— Francia, Angelico, Durer, Hemling, Perugino, — and still
the witness is one, still the same striving in all to such utmost
perfection as their knowledge and hand could reach.

"Who shall gainsay these men? Above all, who shall gain-
say them when they and Nature say precisely the same thing?
for where does Nature pause in her finishing — that finishing
which consists not in the smoothing of surface, but the filling
of space, and the multiplication of life and thought?

Who shall gainsay them ? I, for one, dare not; but accept
their teaching, with Nature's, in all humbleness.

" But is there, then, no good in any Avork which does not
pretend to perfectness? Is there no saving clause from this ter-
rible requirement of completion ? And if there be none, what
is the meaning of all you have said elsewhere about rudeness
as the glory of Gothic work, and, even a few pages back,
about the danger of finishing, for our modern workmen?"

Indeed there are many saving clauses, and there is much good
in imperfect Avork. But we had better cast the consideration
of these draAvbacks and exceptions into another chapter, and
close this one, Avithout obscuring, in any Avise, our broad con-
clusion that " finishing" means in art simply telling more
truth;" and that Avhatever Ave have in any sort begun Avisely,
it is good to finish thoroughly.

' These snail-shells are very notable, occurring as they do in, perhaps, the very-
grandest and broadest of all Titian's compositions.

§1.1 AM afraid this will be a difficult chapter; one of drawbacks,
qualifications, and exceptions. But the more I see of useful
truths, the more I find that, like human beings, they are
eminently biped; and, although, as far as apprehended by human
intelligence, they are usually seen in a crane-like posture, stand-
ing on one leg, whenever they are to be stated so as to maintain
themselves against all attack it is quite necessary they should
stand on two, and have their complete balance on opposite
fulcra.

§ 2. I doubt not that one objection, with which as well as with
another we may begin, has struck the reader very forcibly,
after comparing the illustrations above given from Turner, Con-
stable, and Claude. He will wonder how it was that Turner,
finishing in this exquisite way, and giving truths by the thou-
sand, where other painters gave only one or two, yet, of all
painters, seemed to obtain least acknowledgeable resemblance
to nature, so that the world cried out upon him for a madman,
at the moment when he was giving exactly the highest and
most consummate truth that had ever been seen in landscape.

And he will wonder why still there seems reason for this out-
cry. Still, after what analysis and proof of his being right
have as yet been given, the reader may perhaps be saying to
himself: " All this reasoning is of no use to me. Turner does
not give me the idea of nature; I do not feel before one of his
pictures as I should in the real scene. Constable takes me out
into the shower, and Claude into the sun; and De Wint makes

me feel as if I were walking in the fields; but Turner keeps me
in the house, and I know always that I am looking at a picture."

I might answer to this: Well, wliat else should he do ? If
you want to feel as if you were in a shower, cannot you go
and get wet without help from Constable ? If you want to
feel as if you were walking in the fields, cannot you go and walk
in them without help from De Wint ? But if you want to sit
in your room and look at a beautiful picture, why should you
blame the artist for giving you one? This was the answer
actually made to me by various journalists, when first I showed
that Turner was truer than other painters: Nay," said they,
" we do not want truth, we want something else than truth; we
would not have nature, but something better than nature."

§ 3. I do not mean to accept that answer, although it seems at
this moment to make for me: I have never accepted it. As I
raise my eyes from the paper, to think over the curious mingling
in it, of direct error, and far away truth, I see upon the room-
walls, first, Turner's drawing of the chain of the Alps from
the Superga above Turin; then a study of a block of gneiss
at Chamouni, with the purple Aiguilles-Houges behind it;
another, of the towers of the Swiss Fribourg, with a cluster of
pine forest behind them; then another Turner, Isola Bella,
with the blue opening to the St. Gothard in the distance; and
then a fair bit of thirteenth century illumination, depicting, at
the top of the page, the Salutation; and beneath, the painter
who painted it, sitting in his little convent cell, with a legend
above him to this effect —

None of these things are bad pieces of art; and yet,—if it
were offered me to have, instead of them, so many windows, out
of which I should see, first, the real chain of the Alps from the
Superga; then the real block of gneiss, and Aiguilles-Kouges;
then the real towers of Fribourg, and pine forest; the real
Isola Bella; and, finally, the true Mary and Elizabeth; and
beneath them, the actual old monk at work in his cell, — I
would very unhesitatingly change my five pictures for the five

" Well, then," the reader goes on to question me, " the
more closely the picture resembles such a window, the better it
must be ? "

" Then if Turner does not give me the impression of such a
window, that is, of Nature, there must be something wrong in
Turner?"

" And if Constable and De Wint give me the impression of
such a window, there must be something right in Constable and
De Wint?"

I have explained myself, long ago, and that fully; perhaps
too fully for the simple sum of the explanation to be remem-
bered. If the reader will glance back to, and in the present
state of our inquiry, reconsider in the first volume. Part I.
Sec, I. Chap, v., and Part II. Sec. i. Chap, vii., he will find our
present difficulties anticipated. There are some truths, easily
obtained, which give a deceptive resemblance to Nature; others
only to be obtained with difficulty, which cause no deception,
but give inner and deep resemblance. These two classes of
truths cannot be obtained together; choice must be made be-
tween them. The bad painter gives the cheap deceptive resem-
blance. The good painter gives the precious non-deceptive
resemblance. Constable perceives in a landscape that the grass
is wet, the meadows flat, and the boughs shady; that is to say,
about as much as, I suppose, might in general be apprehended,
between them, by an intelligent fawn, and a skylark. Turner
perceives at a glance the whole sura of visible truth open to
human intelligence. So Berghem perceives nothing in a figure,
beyond the flashes of light on the folds of its dress ; but Michael
Angelo perceives every flash of thought that is passing through

its spirit: and Constable and Bergliem may imitate windows;
Tui-ner and Michael Angelo can by no means imitate windows.
But Turner and Michael Angelo are nevertheless the best.

" Well but," the reader persists, " you admitted just now that
because Turner did not get his work to look like a window
there was something wrong in him."

I did so; if he were quite right he would have all truth,
low as well as high; that is, he would be Nature and not
Turner: but that is impossible to man. There is much that is
wrong in him; much that is infinitely wrong in all human effort.
But, nevertheless, in some an infinity of Betterness above other
human effort.

"Well, but you said you would change your Turners for
windows, why not, therefore, for Constables?"

Nay, I did not say that I would change them for windows
merely, but for windows Avhich commanded the chain of the
Alps and Isola Bella. That is to say, for all the truth that
there is in Turner, and all the truth besides which is not in
him; but I would not change them for Constables, to have a
small piece of truth which is not in Turner, and none of the
mighty truth which there is.

Thus far, then, though the subject is one requiring some-
what lengthy explanation, it involves no real difficulty. There
is not the slightest inconsistency in the mode in which through-
out this work I have desired the relative merits of painters to
be judged. I have always said, he who is closest to Nature
is best. All rules are useless, all genius is useless, all labour
is useless, if you do not give facts; the more facts you give
the greater you are; and there is no fact so unimportant as to
be prudently despised, if it be possible to represent it. Nor,
but that I have long known the truth of Herbert's lines,

would it have been without intense surprise that I heard
querulous readers asking, " how it was possible " that I could
praise Pre-Raphaelitism and Turner also. For, from the

beginning of this book to this page of it, I have never praised
Turner highly for any other cause than that he gave facts more
delicately^ more Pre-Raphaelitically, than other men. Careless
readers, who dashed at the descriptions and missed the argu-
ments, took up their own conceptions of the cause of my liking
Turner, and said to themselves: " Turner cannot draw. Turner
is generalizing, vague, visionary; and the Pre-Raphaelites are
hard and distinct. How can any one like both ? " ^ But I never
said that Turner could not draw. I never said that he was
vague or visionary. What I said was, that nobody had ever
drawn so well: that nobody was so certain, so visionary; that
nobody had ever given so many hard and downright facts.
Glance back to the first volume, and note the expressions now.
" He is the only painter who ever drew a mountain or a stone ®;
the only painter who can draw the stem of a tree; the only
painter who has ever drawn the sky, previous artists having only
drawn it typically or partially, but he absolutely and universally."
Note how he is praised in his rock drawing for " not selecting
a pretty or interesting morsel here or there, but giving the whole
truth, with all the relations of its parts."® Observe how the
great virtue of the landscape of Cima da Conegliano and the early
sacred painters is said to be giving "entire, exquisite, humble,

' People of any sense, however, confined themselves to wonder, I think it was only
in the Art Journal of September 1st, 1854, that any writer had the meanness to charge
me with insincerity. " The pictures of Turner and the works of the Pre-Eaphaelites
are the very antipodes of each other; it is, therefore, impossible that one and the
same individual can with any show of sincerity [Note, by the way, the Art-Union
has no idea that real sincerity is a thing existent or possible at all. All that it expects
or hopes of human nature is, that it should have show of sincerity,] stand forth as
the thick and thin [I perceive the Avriter intends to teach me English, as well as
honesty,] eulogist of both. With a certain knowledge of art, such as may be pos-
sessed by the author of English Painters, [Note, farther, that the eminent critic
does not so much as know the title of the hook he is criticising,] it is not diflScult to
.praise any bad or mediocre picture that may be qualified with extravagance or
mysticism. This author owes the public a heavy debt of explanation, which a life-
time spent in ingenious reconciliations would not suffice to discharge. A fervent
admiration of certain pictures by Turner, and, at the same time, of some of the
severest productions of the Pre-Baphaelites, presents an insuperable problem to
persons whose taste in art is regulated by definite principles."

Part II. Sec. IV. Chap. IV. § 23., and Part II. Sec. I. Chap. VH. § 9. The
whole of the Preface to the Second Edition is written to maintain this one point of
specific detail against the advocates of generalization.

realization — a strawberry-plant in the foreground with a blos-
som, and a herry just set, and one half ripe, and one ripe, all
patiently and innocently painted from the real thing, and there-
fore most divine.''^ Then re-read the following paragraph (§ 10.),
carefully, and note its conclusion, that the thoroughly great men
are those who have done everything thoroughly, and who have
never despised anything, however small, of God's making; with
the instance given of Wordsworth's daisy casting its shadow on
a stone; and the following sentence, " Our painters must come
to this before they have done their duty." And yet, when our
painters did come to this, did do their duty, and did paint the
daisy with its shadow (this passage having been written years
before Pre-Raphaelitism was thought of), people wondered how
I could possibly like what was neither more nor less than the
precise fulfilment of my own most earnest exhortations and
highest hopes.

§ 6, Thus far, then, all I have been saying is absolutely consistent,
and tending to one simple end. Turner is praised for his truth
and finish ; that truth of which I am beginning to give examples.
Pre-Raphaelitism is praised for its truth and finish; and the
whole duty inculcated upon the artist is that of being in all
respects as like Nature as possible.

And yet this is not all I have to do. There is more than
this to be inculcated upon the student, more than this to be
admitted or established, before the foundations of just judgment
can be laid.

For, observe, although I believe any sensible person would
exchange his pictures, however good, for windows, he would not
feel, and ought not to feel, that the arrangement was entirely
gainful to him. He would feel it was an exchange of a less
good of one kind, for a greater of another kind, but that it was
definitely exchange, not pure gain, not merely getting more truth
instead of less. The picture would be a serious loss; something
gone which the actual landscape could never restore, though it
might give something better in its place, as age may give to the
heart something better than its youthful delusiouj but cannot
give again the sweetness of that delusion.

§ 7. What Is this in the picture which is precious to us, and yet
is not natural? Hitherto our arguments have tended, on the
whole, somewhat to the depreciation of art; and the reader may
eveiy now and then, so far as he has been convinced by them,
have been inclined to say, " Why not give up this whole science
of Mockery at once, since its only virtue is in representing facts,
and it cannot, at best, represent them completely, besides being
liable to all manner of shortcomings and dishonesties, — why not
keep to the facts, to real fields, and hills, and men, and let this
dangerous painting alone ? "

No, it would not be well to do this. Painting has its peculiar
virtues, not only consistent with, but even resulting from, its
shortcomings and weaknesses. Let us see what these virtues
are.

§ 8. I must ask permission, as I have sometimes done before, to
begin apparently aJong way from the point.

Not long ago, as I was leaving one of the towns of Switzer-
land, early in the morning, I saw in the clouds behind the houses
an Alp which I did not know, a grander Alp than any I knew,
nobler than the Schreckhorn or the Monch ; terminated, as it
seemed, on one side by a precipice of almost unimaginable
height; on the other, sloping away for leagues in one field of
lustrous ice, clear and fair and blue, flashing here and there
into silver under the morning sun. For a moment I received
a sensation of as much sublimity as any natural object could
possibly excite; the next moment, I saw that my unknown Alp
was the glass roof of one of the workshops of the town, rising
above its nearer houses, and rendered aerial and indistinct by
some pure blue wood smoke which rose from intervening
chimneys.

It is evident, that so far as the mere delight of the eye was
concerned, the glass roof was here equal, or at least equal for
a moment, to the Alp. Whether the power of the object over the
heart was to be small or great, depended altogether upon what
it was understood for, upon its beiiig taken possession of and
apprehended in its full nature, either as a granite mountain or
a group of panes of glass; and thus, always, the real majesty

of the appearance of the thing to us, depends upon the degree
in which we ourselves possess the power of understanding it,—
that penetrating, possession-taking power of the imagination,
which has been long ago defined' as the very life of the man,
considered as a seeing creature. For though the casement had
indeed been an Alp, there are many persons on whose minds
it would have produced no more effect than the glass roof. It
would have been to them a glittering object of a certain apparent
length and breadth, and whether of glass or ice, Avhether twenty
feet in length, or twenty leagues, would have made no difference
to them; or, rather, would not have been in any wise conceived
or considered by them. Examine the nature of your own
emotion (if you feel it) at the sight of the Alp, and you find
all the brightness of that emotion hanging, like dew on gossamer,
on a curious web of subtle fancy and imperfect knowledge.
First, you have a vague idea of its size, coupled with wonder at
the work of the great Builder of its walls and foundations, then
an apprehension of its eternity, a pathetic sense of its per-
petualness, and your own transientness, as of the grass upon its
sides; then, and in this very sadness, a sense of strange com-
panionship with past generations in seeing what they saw.
They did not see the clouds that are floating over your head;
nor the cottage wall on the other side of the field; nor the
road by which you are travelling. But they saw that. The
wall of granite in the heavens was the same to them as to you.
They have ceased to look iipon it; you will soon cease to look
also, and the granite wall will be for others. Then, mingled
with these more solemn imaginations, come the understandings
of the gifts and glories of the Alps, the fancying forth of all
the fountains that well from its rocky walls, and strong rivers
that are born out of its ice, and of all the pleasant valleys that
wind between its cliffs, and all the chalets that gleam among
its clouds, and happy farmsteads couched upon its pastures;
while together with the thoughts of these, rise strange sympathies
with all the unknown of human life, and happiness, and death,

signified by that narroAv white flame of the everlasting snow,
seen so far in the morning sky.

These images, and far more than these, lie at the root of the
emotion which you feel at the sight of the Alp. You may not
trace them in your heart, for there is a great deal more in your
heart, of evil and good, than you ever can trace; but they
stir you and quicken you for all that. Assuredly, so far as you
feel more at beholding the snowy mountain than any other ob-
ject of the same sweet silvery grey, these are the kind of images
which cause you to do so; and, observe, these are nothing more
than a greater apprehension of the/ac^5 of the thing. We call
the power " Imagination," because it imagines or conceives; but
it is only noble imagination if it imagines or conceives the truth.
And, according to the degree of knowledge possessed, and of
sensibility to the pathetic or impressive character of the things
known, will be the degree of this imaginative delight.

§ 9. But the main point to be noted at present is, that if the imagi-
nation can be excited to this its peculiar work, it matters
comparatively little what it is excited by. If the smoke had
not cleared partially away, the glass roof might have pleased
me as well as an Alp, until I had quite lost sight of it; and if, in
a picture, the imagination can be once caught, and, without abso-
lute affront from some glaring fallacy, set to work in its own
field, the imperfection of the historical details themselves is, to
the spectator's enjoyment, of small consequence.

Hence it is, that poets, and men of strong feeling in general,
are apt to be among the very worst judges of painting. The
slightest hint is enough for them. Tell them that a white stroke
means a ship, and a black stain, a thunderstorm, and they will be
perfectly satisfied with both, and immediately proceed to re-
member all that they ever felt about ships and thunderstorms,
attributing the whole current and fulness of their own feelings
to the painter's work; while probably, if the picture be really
good, and full of stem fact, the poet, or man of feeling, will find
some of its fact in his way, out of the particular course of his own
thoughts,—be offended at it, take to criticizing and wondering
at it, detect, at last, some imperfection in it,—such as must be

inherent in all human work,—and so finally quarrel with, and
reject the whole thing. Thus, Wordsworth writes many sonnets
to Sir George Beaumont and Haydon, none to Sir Joshua or
to Turner.

§ 10. Hence, also the error into which many superficial artists fall,
in speaking of "addressing the imagination" as the only end of
art. It is quite true that the imagination must be addressed;
but it may be very sufficiently addressed by the stain left by an
ink-bottle throAvn at the wall. The thrower has little credit,
though an imaginative observer may find, perhaps, more to amuse
him in the ei'ratic nigrescence than in many a laboured picture.
And thus, in a slovenly or ill-finished picture, it is no credit to
the artist that he has "addressed the imagination;" nor is the
success of such an appeal any criterion whatever of the merit of
the work. The duty of an artist is not only to address and
awaken, but to guide the imagination; and there is no safe gui-
dance but that of simple concurrence with fact. It is no matter
that the picture takes the fancy of A. or B., that C. Avrites sonnets
to it, and D. feels it to be divine. This is still the only question
for the artist, or for us: —" Is it a fact ? Are things really
so?" Is the picture an Alp among pictures, full, firm, eternal;
or only a glass house, frail, hollow, contemptible, demolishable;
calling, at all honest hands, for detection and demolition ? "

§ 11. Hence it is also that so much grievous difficulty stands in
the way of obtaining real opinion about pictures at all. Tell
any man, of the slightest imaginative power, that such and such
a picture is good, and means this or that: tell him, for instance,
that a Claude is good, and that it means trees, and grass, and
water; and forthwith, whatever faith, virtue, humility, and imagi-
nation there are in the man, rise up to help Claude, and to declare
that indeed it is all " excellent good, i'faith;" and whatever in
the course of his life he has felt of pleasure in trees and
grass, he will begin to reflect upon and enjoy anew, supposing
all the while it is the picture he is enjoying. Hence, when once
a painter's reputation is accredited, it must be a stubborn kind
of person indeed whom he will not please, or seem to please;
for all the vain and weak people pretend to be pleased with

him, for their own credit's sake, and all the humble and imagi-
native people seriously and honestly fancy they are pleased with
him, deriving indeed, very certainly, delight from his work,
but a delight which, if they were kept in the same temper,
they would equally derive (and, indeed, constantly do derive)
from the grossest daub that can be manufactured in imitation
by the pawnbroker. Is, therefore, the pawnbroker's imitation
as good as the original? Not so. There is the certain test
of goodness and badness, which I am always striving to get
people to use. As long as they are satisfied if they find their
feelings pleasantly stirred and their fancy gaily occupied, so long
there is for them no good, no bad. Anything may please, or
anything displease, them; and their entire manner of thought
and talking about art is mockery, and all their judgments are
laborious injustices. But let them, in the teeth of their pleasure
or displeasure, simply put the calm question, —Is it so ? Is that
the way a stone is shaped, the way a cloud is wreathed, the way
a leaf is veined ? and they are safe. They will do no more in-
justice to themselves nor to other men; they will learn to whose
guidance they may trust their imagination, and from whom they
must for ever withhold its reins.

" Well, but why have you dragged in this poor spectator's
imagination at all, if you have nothing more to say for it than
this; if you are merely going to abuse it, and go back to your
tiresome facts ?"

Nay; I am not going to abuse it. On the contrary, I have
to assert, in a temper profoundly venerant of it, that though we
must not suppose everything is right when this is aroused, we
may be sure that something is wrong when this is not aroused.
The something wrong may be in the spectator or in the picture ;
and if the picture be demonstrably in accordance with truth, the
odds are, that it is in the spectator; but there is wrong some-
where ; for the work of the picture is indeed eminently to get at
this imaginative power in the beholder, and all its facts are of no
use whatever if it does not. No matter how much truth it tells
if the hearer be asleep. Its first work is to wake him, then to
teach him.

§ 13. NoWj observe, while, as it penetrates into the nature of things,
the imagination is preeminently a beholder of things as they are,
it is, in its creative function, an eminent beholder of things
when and where they are NOT; a seer, that is, in the prophetic
sense, calling " the things that are not as though they were,"
and for ever delighting' to dwell on that which is not tangibly
present. And its great function being the calling forth, or back,
that which is not visible to bodily sense, it has of course been
made to take delight in the fulfilment of its proper function, and
preeminently to enjoy, and spend its energy on, things past
and future, or out of sight, rather than things present, or in
sight. So that if the imagination is to be called to take delight
in any object, it will not be always well, if we can help it, to
put the real object there, before it. The imagination would on
the whole rather have it not there; — the reality and sub-
stance are rather in the imagination's way; it would think a
good deal more of the thing if it could not see it. Hence,
that strange and sometimes fatal charm, which there is in
all things as long as Ave wait for them, and the moment we
have lost them; but which fades while we possess them; —
that sweet bloom of all that is far away, which perishes under
our touch. Yet the feeling of this is not a weakness ; it
is one of the most glorious gifts of the human mind, making
the whole infinite future, and imperishable past, a richer in-
heritance, if faithfully inherited, than the changeful, frail, fleeting
present; it is also one of the many witnesses in us to the truth
that these present and tangible things are not meant to satisfy
us. The instinct becomes a weakness only when it is weakly
indulged, and when the faculty which was intended by God
to give back to us what we have lost, and gild for us what is
to come, is so perverted as only to darken what we possess.
But, perverted or pure, the instinct itself is everlasting, and
the substantial presence even of the things which we love the
best, will inevitably and for ever be found wanting in one strange
and tender charm, which belonged to the dreams of them.

§ 14, Another character of the imagination is equally constant, and,
to our present inquiry, of yet greater importance. It is emi-

nently a weariable faculty, eminently delicate, and incapable of
bearing fatigue; so that if we give it too many objects at a time
to employ itself upon, or very grand ones for a long time to-
gether, it fails under the effort, becomes jaded, exactly as the^
limbs do by bodily fatigue, and incapable of answering any
farther appeal till it has had rest. And this is the real nature
of the weariness which is so often felt in travelling, from seeing
too much. It is not that the monotony and number of the
beautiful things seen have made them valueless, but that the
imaginative power has been overtaxed; and, instead of letting
it rest, the traveller, wondering to find himself dull, and incapable
of admiration, seeks for something more admirable, excites and
torments, and drags the poor fainting imagination up by the
shoulders: Look at tliis, and look at that, and this more won-
derful still!" — until the imaginative faculty faints utterly away,
beyond all farther torment, or pleasure, dead for many a day to
come; and the despairing prodigal takes to horse-racing in the
Campagna, good now for nothing else than that; whereas, if the
imagination had only been laid down on the grass, among simple
things, and left quiet for a little while, it would have come to
itself gradually, recovered its strength and colour, and soon been
fit for work again. So that, whenever the imagination is tired,
it is necessary to find for it something, not more admirable but
less admirable; such as in that weak state it can deal with; then
give it peace, and it will recover.

§15. I well recollect the walk on which I first found out this; it
was on the winding road from Sallenche, sloping up the hills
towards St. Gervais, one cloudless Sunday afternoon. The road
circles softly between bits of rocky bank and mounded pasture;
little cottages and chapels gleaming out from among the trees at
every turn. Behind me, some leagues in length, rose the jagged
range of the mountains of the E6posoir; on the other side
of the valley, the mass of the Aiguille de Varens, heaving
its seven thousand feet of cliff into the air at a single effort,
its gentle gift of waterfall, the Nant d'Arpenaz, like a pillar
of cloud at its feet; Mont Blanc and all its aiguilles, one
silver flame, in front of me; marvellous blocks of mossy

granite and (lark glades of pine around me; but I could enjoy
nothing, and could not for a long while make out what was
the matter with me, until at last I discovered that if I con-
fined myself to one thing, — and that a little thing,—a tuft of
moss, or a single crag at the top of the Varens, or a wreath or
two of foam at the bottom of the Nant d'Arpenaz, I began to
enjoy it directly, because then I had mind enough to put into
the thing, and the enjoyment arose from the quantity of the
imaginative energy I could bring to bear upon it; but when I
looked at or thought of all together, moss, stones, Varens,
Nant d'Arpenaz, and Mont Blanc, I had not mind enough
to give to all, and none were of any value. The conclusion
which would have been formed, upon this, by a German philo-
sopher, would have been that the Mont Blanc was of no value;
that he and his imagination only were of value; that the Mont
Blanc, in fact, except so far as he was able to look at it, could
not be considered as having any existence. But the only con-
clusion which occurred to me as reasonable under the circum-
stances (I have seen no ground for altering it since) was, that I
was an exceedingly small creature, much tired, and, at the
moment, not a little stupid, for whom a blade of grass, or a
wreath of foam, was quite food enough and to spare, and that
if I tried to take any more, I should make myself ill. Where-
upon, associating myself fraternally with some ants, who were
deeply interested in the conveyance of some small sticks over
the road, and rather, as I think they generally are, in too great
a hurry about it, I returned home in a little while with great
contentment, thinking how well it was ordered that, as Mont
Blanc and his pine forests could not be everywhere, nor all the
world come to see them, the human mind, on the whole, should
enjoy itself most surely in an ant-like manner, and be happy and
busy with the bits of stick and grains of crystal that fall in its
way to be handled, in daily duty.

§ 16. It follows evidently from the first of these characters of the
imagination, its dislike of substance and presence, that a picture
has in some measure even an advantage with us in not being

real. The imagination rejoices in having something to do, springs
up with all its willing power, flattered and happy; and ready
with its fairest colours and most tender pencilling, to prove itself
worthy of the trust, and exalt into sweet supremacy the shadow
that has been confided to its fondness. And thus, so far from
its being at all an object to the painter to make his work look
real, he ought to dread such a consummation as the loss of one
of its most precious claims upon the heart. So far from striving
to convince the beholder that what he sees is substance, his mind
should be to what he paints as the fire to the body on the pile,
burning away the ashes, leaving the unconquerable shade—an
immortal dream. So certain is this, that the slightest local
success in giving the deceptive appearance of reality—the
imitation, for instance, of the texture of a bit of wood, Avith its
grain in relief— will instantly destroy the charm of a whole
picture; the imagination feels itself insulted and injured, and
passes by with cold contempt; nay, however beautiful the whole
scene may be, as of late in much of our highly wrought paint-
ing for the stage, the mere fact of its being deceptively real
is enough to make us tire of it; we may be surprised and
pleased for a moment, but the imagination will not on those
terms be persuaded to give any of its help, and, in a quarter of
an hour, we wish the scene would change.

" Well, but then, what becomes of all these long dogmatic
chapters of yours about giving nothing but the truth, and as
much truth as possible ? "

The chapters are all quite right. " Nothing but the Truth,"
I say still. " As much Truth as possible," I say still. But
truth so presented, that it will need the help of the imagination
to make it real. Between the painter and the beholder, each
doing his proper part, the reality should be sustained; and after
the beholding imagination has come forward and done its best,
then, with its help and in the full action of it, the beholder
should be able to say, I feel as if I were at the real place, or
seeing the real incident. But not without that help.

nation, fatiguableness, it is a great advantage to the picture that
it need not present too much at once, and that what it does
present may be so chosen and ordered as not only to be more
easily seized, but to give the imagination rest, and, as it were,
places to lie down and stretch its limbs in ; kindly vacancies,
beguiling it back into action, with pleasant and cautious sequence
of incident; all jarring thoughts being excluded, all vain re-
dundance denied, and all just and sweet transition permitted.

And thus it is that, for the most part, imperfect sketches,
engravings, outlines, rude sculptures, and other forms of abstrac-
tion, possess a charm which the most finished picture frequently
wants. For not only does the finished picture excite the ima-
gination less, but, like nature itself, it taxes it more. None of it
can be enjoyed till the imagination is brought to bear upon it;
and the details of the completed picture are so numerous, that it
needs greater strength and willingness in the beholder to follow
them all out; the redundance, perhaps, being not too great for
the mind of a careful observer, but too great for a casual or
careless observer. So that although the perfection of art will
always consist in the utmost acceptable completion, yet, as every
added idea will increase the difficulty of apprehension, and
every added touch advance the dangerous realism which makes
the imagination languid, the difference between a noble and
ignoble painter is in nothing more sharply defined than in this,—
that the first wishes to put into his work as much truth as pos-
sible, and yet to keep it looking wn-real; the second wishes to
get through his work lazily, with as little truth as possible, and
yet to make it look real; and, so far as they add colour to their
abstract sketch, the first realizes for the salce of the colour, and
the second colours for the sake of the realization.^
§ 19. And then, lastly, it is another infinite advantage possessed
by the picture, tliat in these various differences from reality it
becomes the expression of the power and intelligence of a com-
panionable human soul. In all this choice, arrangement, pene-
trative sight, and kindly guidance, we recognize a supernatural

' Several other points connecfed with this subject have already been noticed in the
last chapter of the Stones of Venice, § 21, &c.

operation, and perceive, not merely the landscape or incident as
in a mirror, but, besides, the presence of what, after all, may
perhaps be the most wonderful piece of divine work in the whole
matter—the great hmnan spirit through which it is manifested
to us. So that, although with respect to many important scenes,
it might, as we saw above, be one of the most precious gifts
that could be given us to see them with our own eyes, yet also
in many things it is more desirable to be permitted to see them
with the eyes of others; and although, to the small, conceited,
and affected painter displaying his narrow knowledge and tiny
dexterities, our only word may be, " Stand aside from between
that nature and me:" yet to the great imaginative painter—
greater a million times in every faculty of soul than we —
our word may wisely be, " Come between this nature and me
— this nature which is too great and too wonderful for me ;
temper it for me, interpret it to me; let me see with your
eyes, and hear with your ears, and have help and strength from
your great spirit."

All the noblest pictures have this character. They are true or
inspired ideals, seen in a moment to he ideal; that is to say, the
result of all the highest powers of the imagination, engaged in the
discovery and apprehension of the purest truths, and having so
arranged them as best to show their preciousness and exalt their
clearness. They are always orderly, always one, ruled by one
great purpose throughout, in the fulfilment of which every atom
of the detail is called to help, and would be missed if removed;
this peculiar oneness being the result, not of obedience to any
teachable law, but of the magnificence of tone in the perfect mind,
which accepts only what is good for its great purposes, rejects
whatever is foreign or redundant, and instinctively and instan-
taneously ranges whatever it accepts, in sublime subordination
and helpful brotherhood.

Then, this being the greatest art, the lowest art is the mimicry
of it,—the subordination of nothing to nothing; the elaborate
arrangement of sightlessness and emptiness; the order which has
no object; the unity which has no life, and the law which has no

love; the light which has nothing to illumine, and shadow which
has nothing to relieve.^

§ 21. And then, between these two, comes the wholesome, happy,
and noble — though not noblest — art of simple transcript from
nature; into which, so far as our modern Pre-Raphaelitism falls,
it will indeed do sacred service in ridding us of the old fallacies
and componencies, but cannot itself rise above the level of simple
and happy usefulness. So far as it is to be great, it must add,
— and so far as it is great, has already added, — the great imagi-
native element to all its faithfulness in transcript. And for this
reason, I said in the close of my Edinburgh Lectures, that Pre-
Raphaelitism, as long as it confined itself to the simple copying
of nature, could not take the character of the highest class of art.
But it has already, almost unconsciously, supplied the defect, and
taken that character, in all its best results; and, so far as it ought,
hereafter, it will assuredly do so, as soon as it is permitted to
maintain itself in any other position than that of stern antagonism
to the composition-teachers around it. I say " so far as it ought,"
because, as already noticed in that same place, we have enough,
and to spare, of noble inventful pictures: so many have we, that
we let them moulder away on the walls and roofs of Italy with-
out one regretful thought about them. But of simple transcripts
from nature, till now we have had none; even Van Eyck and
Albert Durer having been strongly filled with the spirit of
grotesque idealism; so that the Pre-Raphaelites have, to the
letter, fulfilled Steele's description of the author, who " deter-
mined to write in an - entirely new manner, and describe things
exactly as they took place."

^ 22. We have noAV, I believe, in some sort answered most of the
questions which were suggested to us during our statement gf
the nature of great art. I could recapitulate the answers j but

Chiaroscuro has done to art, in the full extent of its influence. It has been not only
shadow, but shadow of Death ; passing over the face of the ancient art, as death itself
might over a fair human countenance; whispering, as it reduced it to the white pro-
jections and lightless orbits of the skull, " Thy face shall have nothing else, but it
shall have Chiaroscuro."

perhaps the reader is already sufficiently wearied of the recur-
rence of the terms " Ideal," " Nature," " Imagination," " In-
vention," and will hardly care to see them again interchanged
among each other, in the formalities of a summary. What diffi-
culties may yet occur to him will, I think, disappear as he either
re-reads the passages which suggested them, or follows out
the consideration of the subject for himself: — this very simple,
but very precious, conclusion being continually remembered by
him as the sum of all; that greatness in art (as assuredly in all
other things, but more distinctly in this than in most of them,)
is not a teachable nor gainable thing, but the expression of
the mind of a God-made great man; that teach, or preach, or
labour as you will, everlasting difference is set between one
man's capacity and another's; and that this God-given supre-
macy is the priceless thing, always just as rare in the world at
one time as another. What you can manufacture, or commu-
nicate, you can lower the price of, but this mental supremacy
is incommunicable ; you will never multiply its quantity, nor
lower its price; and nearly the best thing that men can gene-
rally do is to set themselves, not to the attainment, but the
discovery of this; learning to know gold, when we see it, from
ron-glance, and diamonds from flint-sand, being for most of us
a more profitable employment than trying to make diamonds
out of our own charcoal. And for this God-made supremacy, I
generally have used, and shall continue to use, the word Inspi-
ration, not carelessly nor lightly, but in all logical calmness
and perfect reverence. We English have many false ideas
about reverence: we should be shocked, for instance, to see a
market-woman come into church with a basket of eggs on her
arm: we think it more reverent to lock her out till Sunday;
and to surround the church with respectability of iron railings,
and defend it with pacing inhabitation of beadles. I believe
this to be w-reverence; and that it is more truly reverent,
when the market-woman, hot and hurried, at six in the morn-
ing, her head much confused with calculations of the probable
price of eggs, can nevertheless get within church porch, and
church aisle, and church chancel, lay the basket down on the

very steps of the altar, and receive thereat so much of help
and hope as may serve her for the day's work. In like man-
ner we are solemnly, but I think not wisely, shocked at any
one who comes hurriedly into church, in any figurative way,
with his basket on his arm; and perhaps, so long as we feel it
so, it is better to keep the basket out. But, as for this one
commodity of high mental supremacy, it cannot be kept out, for
the very fountain of it is in the church wall, and there is no
other right word for it but this of Inspiration; a word, indeed,
often ridiculously perverted, and irreverently used of fledgling
poets and pompous orators — no one being offended then, and
yet cavilled at when quietly used of the spirit that is in a truly
great man; cavilled at, chiefly, it seems to me, because we expect
to know inspiration by the look of it. Let a man have shaggy
hair, dark eyes, a rolling voice, plenty of animal energy, and
a facility of rhyming or sentencing, and—improvisatore or senti-
mentalist—we call him " inspired" willingly enough; but let
him be a rough, quiet worker, not proclaiming himself melo-
diously in anywise, but familiar with us, unpretending, and
letting all his littlenesses and feeblenesses be seen, unhindered,
— wearing an ill-cut coat withal, and, though he be such a
man as is only sent upon the earth once in five hundred years,
for some special human teaching, it is irreverent to call him
" inspired." But, be it iiTeverent or not, this word I must
always use; and the rest of what work I have here before
me, is simply to prove the truth of it, with respect to the one
among these mighty spirits whom we have just lost; who divided
his hearers, as many an inspired speaker has done before now,
into two great sects — a large and a narrow; these searching
the Nature-scripture calmly, " whether those things were so,"
and those standing haughtily on their Mars hill, asking, " what
will this babbler say?"

§ 1. Having now obtained, I trust, clear ideas, up to a certain point,
of what is generally right and wrong in all art, both in con-
ception and in workmanship, we have to applj these laws of
right to the particular branch of art which is the subject of
our present inquiry, namely, landscape-painting. Respecting
which, after the various meditations into which we have been
led on the high duties and ideals of art, it may not improbably
occur to us first to ask,— whether it be worth inquiring about
at all.

That question, perhaps the reader thinks, should have been
asked and answered before I had written, or he read, two
volumes and a half about it. So I had answered it, in my own
mind; but it seems time now to give the grounds for this answer.
If, indeed, the reader has never suspected that landscape-painting
was anything but good, right, and healthy work, I should be
sorry to put any doubt of its being so into his mind; but if,
as seems to me more likely, he, living in this busy and perhaps
somewhat calamitous age, has some suspicion that landscape-
painting is but an idle and empty business, not worth all our
long talk about it, then, perhaps, he will be pleased to have such
suspicion done away, before troubling himself farther with these
disquisitions.

§ 2. I should rather be glad, than otherwise, that he had formed
some suspicion on this matter. If he has at all admitted the
truth of anything hitherto said respecting great art, and its
choices of subject, it seems to me he ought, by this time, to be

questioning with himself whether road-side weeds^, old cottages,
broken stones, and such other materials, be worthy matters for
grave men to busy themselves in the imitation of. And I should
like him to probe this doubt to the deep of it, and bring all his
misgivings out to the broad light, that we may see how we are
to deal with them, or ascertain if indeed they are too well founded
to be dealt with.

And to this end I would ask him now to imagine himself
entering, for the first time in his life, the room of the Old Water-
Colour Society; and to suppose that he has entered it, not for
the sake of a quiet examination of the paintings one by one,
but in order to seize such ideas as it may generally suggest
respecting the state and meaning of modern, as compared with
elder, art. I suppose him, of course, that he may be capable
of such a comparison, to be in some degree familiar with the
diiferent forms in which art has developed itself within the
periods historically known to us; but never, till that moment,
to have seen any completely modern work. So prepared, and
so unprepared, he would, as his ideas began to arrange them-
selves, be first struck by the number of paintings representing
blue mountains, clear lakes, and ruined castles or cathedrals,
and he would say to himself: " There is something strange in the
mind of these modern people! Nobody ever cared about blue
mountains before, or tried to paint the broken stones of old walls."
And the more he considered the subject, the more he would
feel the peculiarity; and, as he thought over the art of Greeks
and Komans, he would still repeat, with increasing certainty of
conviction: " Mountains ! I remember none. The Greeks did
not seem, as artists, to know that such things were in the world.
They carved, or variously represented, men, and horses, and
beasts, and birds, and all kinds of living creatures,— yes, even
down to cuttle-fish; and trees, in a sort of way; but not so
much as the outline of a mountain; and as for lakes, they
merely showed they knew the difference between salt and fresh
water by the fish they put into each." Then he would pass
on to mediaeval art: and still he would be obliged to repeat:
" Mountains ! I remember none. Some careless and jagged

arrangements of blue spires or spikes on the horizon, and, here
and there, an attempt at representing an overhanging rock with
a hole through it; but merely in order to divide the light behind
some human figure. Lakes ! No, nothing of the kind, — only-
blue bays of sea put in to fill up the background when the
painter could not think of anything else. Broken-down build-
ings ! No; for the most part very complete and well-appointed
buildings, if any; and never buildings at all, but to give place
or explanation to some circumstance of human conduct." And
then he would look up again to the modern pictures, observing,
with an increasing astonishment, that here the human interest
had, in many cases, altogether disappeared. That mountains,
instead of being used only as a blue ground for the relief of
the heads of saints, were themselves the exclusive subjects of
reverent contemplation; that their ravines, and peaks, and forests,
were all painted with an appearance of as much enthusiasm as
had formerly been devoted to the dimples of beauty, or the
frowns of asceticism; and that all the living interest which was
still supposed necessary to the scene, might be supplied by a
traveller in a slouched hat, a beggar in a scarlet cloak, or, in
default of these, even by a heron or a wild duck.

§ 4. And if he could entirely divest himself of his own modern
habits of thought, and regard the subjects in question with the
feelings of a knight or monk of the middle ages, it might be a
question whether those feelings would not rapidly verge towards
contempt. " What!" he might perhaps mutter to himself, " here
are human beings spending the whole of their lives in making
pictures of bits of stone and runlets of Avater, withered sticks and
flying fogs, and actually not a picture of the gods or the heroes !
none of the saints or the martyrs! none of the angels and demons!
none of councils or battles, or any other single thing worth the
thought of a man I Trees and clouds indeed ! as if I should not
see as many trees as I cared to see, and more, in the first half
of my day's journey to-morrow, or as if it mattered to any man
whether the sky were clear or cloudy, so long as his armour
did not get too hot in the sun I "

the tone of thought with which either a Lacedasmonian, a soldier
of Rome in her strength, or a knight of the thirteenth century,
would have been apt to regard these particular forms of our
present art. Nor can there be any question that, in many re-
spects, their judgment would have been just. It is true that the
indignation of the Spartan or Roman would have been equally
excited against any appearance of luxurious industry ; but the
mediaeval knight would, to the full, have admitted the nobleness
of art; only he would have had it employed in decorating his
church or his prayer-book, not in imitating moors and clouds.
And the feelings of all the three would have agreed in this,—
that their main ground of offence must have been the want of
seriousness and purpose in what they saw. They would all have
admitted the nobleness of whatever conduced to the honour of
the gods, or the power of the nation; but they would not have
understood how the skill of human life could be wisely spent
in that which did no honour either to Jupiter or to the Virgin;
and which in no wise tended, apparently, either to the accumula-
tion of wealth, the excitement of patriotism, or the advancement
of morality.

§ 6. And exactly so far forth their judgment would be just, as the
landscape-painting could indeed be shown, for others as well as
for them, to be art of this nugatory kind; and so far forth unjust,
as that painting could be shown to depend upon, or cultivate,
certain sensibilities which neither the Greek nor mediaival knight
possessed, and which have resulted from some extraordinary
change in human nature since their time. "We have no right to
assume, without very accurate examination of it, that this change
has been an ennobling one. The simple fact, that we are, in
some strange way, different from all the great races that have
existed before us, cannot at once be received as the proof of our
own greatness; nor can it be granted, without any question, that
we have a legitimate subject of complacency in being under the
influence of feelings, with which neither Miltiades nor the Black
Prince, neither Homer nor Dante, neither Socrates nor St.
Francis, could for an instant have sympathized.

not, it is assuredly one to excite our deepest interest. The fact
itself is certain. For nearly six thousand years the energies of
man have pursued certain beaten paths, manifesting some con-
stancy of feeling throughout all that period, and involving some
fellowship at heart, among the various nations who by turns suc-
ceeded or surpassed each other in the several aims of art or
policy. So that, for these thousands of years, the whole human
race might be to some extent described in general terms. Man
was a creature separated from all others by his instinctive sense
of an Existence superior to his own, invariably manifesting this
sense of the being of a God more strongly in proportion to his
own perfectness of mind and body; and making enormous and
self-denying efforts, in order to obtain some persuasion of the
immediate presence or approval of the Divinity. So that, on
the whole, the best things he did were done as in the presence,
or for the honour, of his gods; and, whether in statues, to help
him to imagine them, or temples raised to their honour, or acts
of self-sacrifice done in the hope of their love, he brought what-
ever was best and skilfullest in him into their service, and lived
in a perpetual subjection to their unseen power. Also, he was
always anxious to know something definite about them; and
his chief books, songs, and pictures were filled with legends
about them, or specially devoted to illustration of their lives and
nature.

§ 8. Next to these gods he was always anxious to know something
about his human ancestors; fond of exalting the memory, and
telling or painting the history of old rulers and benefactors; yet
full of an enthusiastic confidence in himself, as having in many
ways advanced beyond the best efforts of past time; and eager
to record his own doings for future fame. He was a creature
eminently warlike, placing his principal pride in dominion; emi-
nently beautiful, and having great delight in his own beauty:
setting forth this beauty by every species of invention in dress,
and rendering his arms and accoutrements superbly decorative
of his form. He took, however, very little interest in anything
but what belonged to humanity; caring in no wise for the exter-
nal world, except as it influenced his own destiny; honouring

the lightning because it could strike him, the sea because it
could drown him, the fountains because they gave him drink, and
the grass because it yielded him seed; but utterly incapable
of feeling any special happiness in the love of such things, or
any earnest emotion about them, considered as separate from
man; therefore giving no time to the study of them; — knowing
little of herbs, except only which were hurtful, and which
healing; of stones, only which would glitter brightest in a crown,
or -last the longest in a wall; of the wild beasts, which were
best for food, and which the stoutest quarry for the hunter;
— thus spending only on the lower creatures and inanimate
things his waste energy, his dullest thoughts, his most languid
emotions, and reserving all his acuter intellect for researches
into his own nature and that of the gods; all his strength of
will for the acquirement of political or moral power; all his
sense of beauty for things immediately connected with his own
person and life; and all his deep affections for domestic or divine
companionship.

Such, in broad light and brief terms, was man for five
thousand years. Such he is no longer. Let us consider what
he is now, comparing the descriptions clause by clause.

I. He was invariably sensible of the existence of gods, and
went about all liis speculations or works holding this as an
acknowledged fact, making his best efforts in their service. Noio
he is capable of going through life with hardly any positive idea
on this subject,—doubting, fearing, suspecting, analyzing,—
doing everything, in fact, hut believing; hardly ever getting quite
up to that point which hitherto was wont to be the starting point
for all generations. And human work has accordingly hardly
any reference to spiritual beings, but is done either from a
patriotic or personal interest, — either to benefit mankind, or
reach some selfish end, not (I speak of human work in the
broad sense) to please the gods.

II. He was a beautiful creature, setting forth this beauty by
all means in his power, and depending upon it for much of his
authority over his fellows. So that the ruddy cheek of David,
and the ivory skin of Atrides, and the towering presence of Saul,

and the blue eyes of Cceur de Lion, were among chief reasons
why they should be kings; and it was one of the aims of all
education, and of all dress, to make the presence of the human
form stately and lovely. Now it has become the task of grave
philosophy partly to depreciate or conceal this bodily beauty;
and even by those who esteem it in their hearts, it is not made
one of the great ends of education: man has become, upon the
whole, an ugly animal, and is not ashamed of his ugliness.

III, He was eminently warlike. He is now gradually be-
coming more and more ashamed of all the arts and aims of bat-
tle. So that the desire of dominion, which was once frankly
confessed or boasted of as a heroic passion, is now sternly
reprobated or cunningly disclaimed.

IV. He used to take no interest in anything but what imme-
diately concerned himself. Noio, he has deep interest in the
abstract natures of things, inquires as eagerly into the laws which
regulate the economy of the material world, as into those of his
own being, and manifests a passionate admiration of inanimate
objects, closely resembling, in its elevation and tenderness, the
affection which he bears to those living souls with which he is
brought into the nearest fellowship.

It is this last change only which is to be the subject of our
present inquiry; but it cannot be doubted that it is closely con-
nected with all the others, and that we can only thoroughly
understand its nature by considering it in this connection. For,
regarded by itself, we might, perhaps, too rashly assume it to be
a natural consequence of the progress of the race. There appears
to be a diminution of selfishness in it, and a more extended and
heartfelt desire of understanding the manner of God's working;
and this the more, because one of the permanent characters of
this change is a greater accuracy in the statement of external
facts. When the eyes of men were fixed first upon themselves,
and upon nature solely and secondarily as bearing upon their
interests, it was of less consequence to them what the ultimate
laws of nature were, than what their immediate effects were upon
human beings. Hence they could rest satisfied with phenomena
instead of principles, and accepted without scrutiny every fable

which seemed suflSciently or gracefully to account for those phe-
nomena. But so far as the eyes of men are now withdrawn from
themselves, and turned upon the inanimate things about them,
the results cease to be of importance, and the laws become es-
sential.

§ IL In these respects, it might easily appear to us that this change
was assuredly one of steady and natural advance. But when we
contemplate the others above noted, of which it is clearly one
of the branches or consequences, we may suspect ourselves of
over-rashness in our self-congratulation, and admit the necessity
of a scrupulous analysis both of the feeling itself and of its ten-
dencies.

Of course a complete analysis, or anything like it, would in-
volve a treatise on the whole history of the world. I shall merely
endeavour to note some of the leading and more interesting cir-
cumstances bearing on the subject, and to show sufficient practical
ground for the conclusion, that landscape-painting is indeed a
noble and useful art, though one not long known by man. I
shall therefore examine, as best I can, the effect of landscape,
1st, on the Classical mind; 2ndly, on the Mediaeval mind; and
lastly, on the Modern mind. But there is one point of some
interest respecting the effect of it on any mind, which must be
settled first; and this I will endeavour to do in the next chapter.

§ 1« German dulness, and English affectation, have of late much
multiplied among us the use of two of the most objectionable
words that were ever coined by the troublesomeness of meta-
physicians,—namely, " Objective" and " Subjective."

No words can be more exquisitely, and in all points, useless;
and I merely speak of them that I may, at once and for ever,
get them out of my way, and out of my reader's. But to get
that done, they must be explained.

The word " Blue," say certain philosophers, means the sensa-
tion of colour which the human eye receives in looking at the
open sky, or at a bell gentian.

Now, say they farther, as this sensation can only be felt
when the eye is turned to the object, and as, therefore, no such
sensation is produced by the object when nobody looks at it,
therefore the thing, when it is not looked at, is not blue; and
thus (say they) there are many qualities of things which depend
as much on something else as on themselves. To be sweet, a
thing must have a taster; it is only sweet while it is being
tasted, and if the tongue had not the capacity of taste, then
the sugar would not have the quality of sweetness.

And then they agree that the qualities of things which thus
depend upon our perception of them, and upon our human
nature as affected by them, shall be called Subjective; and the
qualities of things which they always have, irrespective of any
other nature, as roundness or squareness, shall be called Ob-
jective.

From these ingenious views the step is very easy to a farther
opinion, that it does not much matter what things are in them-
selves, but only what they are to us; and that the only real
truth of them is their appearance to, or effect upon, us. From
■which position, with a hearty desire for mystification, and much
egotism, selfishness, shallowness, and impertinence, a philosopher
may easily go so far as to believe, and say, that everything in
the world depends upon his seeing or thinking of it, and that
nothing, therefore, exists, but what he sees or thinks of.

§ 2. Now, to get rid of all these ambiguities and troublesome
words at once, be it observed that the word " Blue" does not
mean the sensation caused by a gentian on the human eye; but
it means the power of producing that sensation; and this power
is always there, in the thing, whether we are there to experience
it or not, and would remain there though there were not left
a man on the face of the earth. Precisely in the same way
gunpowder has a power of exploding. It will not explode if
you put no match to it. But it has always the power of so
exploding, and is therefore called an explosive compound, which
it very positively and assuredly is, whatever philosophy may say
to the contrary.

In like manner, a gentian does not produce the sensation of
blueness if you don't look at it. But it has always the power
of doing so; its particles being everlastingly so arranged by
its Maker. And, therefore, the gentian and the sky are always
verily blue, whatever philosophy may say to the contrary; and
if you do not see them blue when you look at them, it is not
their fault but yours. ^

§ 3. Hence I would say to these philosophers : If, instead of using
the sonorous phrase, " It is objectively so," you will use the

' It is quite true, that in all qualities involving sensation, there may be a doubt
whether different people receive the same sensation from the same thing (compare
Part II. Sec. I. Chap. V. § 6.) ; but, though this makes such facts not distinctly
explicable, it does not alter the facts themselves. I derive a certain sensation, which
I call sweetness, from sugai". That is a fact. Another person feels a sensation,
which he also calls sweetness, from sugar. That is also a fact. The sugar's power
to produce these two sensations, which we suppose to be, and which arc, in all proba-
bility, very nearly the same in both of us, and, on the whole, in the human race, is its
sweetness.

plain old phrase, " It is so ;" and if instead of the sonorous phrase,
" It is subjectively so," you will say, in plain old English, " It
does so," or '' It seems so to me;" you will, on the whole, be
more intelligible to your fellow-creatures : and besides, if you
find that a thing which generally " does so " to other people (as
a gentian looks blue to most men), does not so to you, on any
particular occasion, you will not fall into the impertinence of
saying, that the thing is not so, or did not so, but you will
say simply (what you will be all the better for speedily finding
out), that something is the matter with you. If you find that
you cannot explode the gunpoAvder, you will not declare that
all gunpowder is subjective, and all explosion imaginary, but
you will simply suspect and declare yourself to be an ill-made
match. Which, on the whole, though there may be a distant
chance of a mistake about it, is, nevertheless, the wisest con-
clusion you can come to until farther experiment.^

Now, therefore, putting these tiresome and absurd words
quite out of our way, we may go on at our ease to examine
the point in question, — namely, the difference between the
ordinary, proper, and true appearances of things to us; and the
extraordinary, or false appearances, when we are under the in-
fluence of emotion, or contemplative fancy ^; false appearances,

' In fact (for I may as well, for once, meet our German friends in their own style),
all that has been subjected to us on the subject seems object to tliis great objection ;
that the subjection of all things (subject to no exceptions) to senses which are, in us,
both subject and abject, and objects of perpetual contempt, cannot but make it our
ultimate object to subject ourselves to the senses, and to remove whatever objections
existed to such subjection. So that, finally, that which is the subject of examination
or object of attention, uniting thus in itself the characters of subness and obness (so
that, that which has no obness in it should be called sub-subjective, or a sub-subject,
and that which has no subness in it should be called upper or ober-objective, or
an ob-object) ; and we also, who suppose ourselves the objects of every arrangement,
and are certainly the subjects of every sensual impression, thus uniting in ourselves,
in an obverse or adverse manner, the characters of obness and subness, must both
become metaphysically dejected or rejected, nothing remaining in us objective, but
subjectivity, and the very objectivity of the object being lost in the abyss of this sub-
jectivity of the Human.

There is, however, some meaning in the above sentence, if the reader cares to make
it out ; but in a pure German sentence of the highest style there is often none what-
ever. See Appendix IL " German Philosophy."

I say, as being entirely unconnected with any real power or
character in the object, and only imputed to it by us.

" The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mould
Naked and shivering, with his cup of gold." '

This is very beautiful, and yet very untrue. The crocus is
not a spendthrift, but a hardy plant ; its yellow is not gold,
but saffron. How is it that we enjoy so much the having it
put into our heads that it is anything else than a plain crocus ?

It is an important question. For, throughout our past reason-
ings about art, we have always found that nothing could be
good or useful, or ultimately pleasurable, which was untrue.
But here is something pleasurable in written poetry which is
nevertheless Mwtrue. And what is more, if we think over our
favourite poetry, we shall find it full of this kind of fallacy,
and that we like it all the more for being so.

§ 5. It will appear also, on consideration of the matter, that this
fallacy is of two principal kinds. Either, as in this case of the
crocus, it is the fallacy of Avilful fancy, which involves no real
expectation that it will be believed; or else it is a fallacy caused
by an excited state of the feelings, making us, for the time,
more or less irrational. Of the cheating of the fancy we shall
have to speak presently ; but, in this chapter, I want to examine
the nature of the other error, that which the mind admits when
affected strongly by emotion. Thus, for instance, in Alton
Locke, —

The foam is not cruel, neither does it crawl. The state of
mind which attributes to it these characters of a living creature
is one in which the reason is unhinged by grief. All violent
feelings have the same effect. They produce in us a falseness
in all our impressions of external things, which I would generally
characterize as the " Pathetic fallacy."

' Holmes (Oliver Wendel), quoted by Miss Mitford in her Recollections of a
Literary Life.

§ 6. Now we are in the habit of considering this fallacy as emi-
nently a character of poetical description, and the temper of
mind in which we allow it, as one eminently poetical, because
passionate. But, I believe, if we look well into the matter, that
we shall find the greatest poets do not often admit this kind of
falseness, — that it is only the second order of poets who much
delight in it.'

Thus, when Dante describes the spirits falling from the bank
of Acheron " as dead leaves flutter from a bough," he gives
the most perfect image possible of their utter lightness, feeble-
ness, passiveness, and scattering agony of despair, without, how-
ever, for an instant losing his own clear perception that these
are souls, and those are leaves; he makes no confusion of one
with the other. But when Coleridge speaks of

" The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can,"

he has a morbid, that is to say, a so far false, idea about the leaf:
he fancies a life in it, and will, which there are not; confuses
its powerlessness with choice, its fading death with merriment,
and the wind that shakes it with music. Here, however, there is

' I admit two orders of poets, but no third ; and by these two orders I mean
the Creative (Shakspere, Homer, Dante), and Reflective or Perceptive (Wordsworth,
Keats, Tennyson). But both of these must be first-x&ta in their range, though their
range is different; and with poetry second-rate in quality no one ought to be allowed
to trouble mankind. There is quite enough of the best,— much more than we can ever
read or enjoy in the length of a life ; and it is a literal wrong or sin in any person to
encumber us with inferior work. I have no patience with apologies made by young
pseudo-poets, " that they believe there is some good in what they have written : that
they hope to do better in time," &c. Some good ! If there is not all good, there is
no good. If they ever hope to do better, why do they trouble us now ? Let them
rather courageously burn all they have done, and wait for the better days. There are
few men, ordinarily educated, who in moments of strong feeling could not strike out a
poetical thought, and afterwards polish it so as to be presentable. But men of sense
knoAV better than so to waste their time ; and those who sincerely love poetry, know
the touch of the master's hand on the chords too well to fumble among them after
him. Nay, more than this ; all inferior poetry is an injury to the good, inasmuch as
it takes away the freshness of rhymes, blunders upon and gives a wretched common-
alty to good thoughts ; and, in general, adds to the weight of himian weariness in a
most woful and culpable manner. There are few thoughts likely to come across
ordinary men, which have not already been expressed by greater men in the best
possible way ; and it is a wiser, more generous, more noble thing to remember and
point out the perfect words, than to invent poorer ones, wherewith to encumbcr
temporarily the world.

some beauty, even in the morbid passage; but take an instance
in Homer and Pope. Without the knowledge of Ulysses, El-
penor, his youngest follower, has fallen from an upper chamber
in the Circean palace, and has been left dead, unmissed by his
leader, or companions, in the haste of their departure. They
cross the sea to the Cimmerian land; and Ulysses summons the
shades from Tartarus. The first which appears is that of the
lost Elpenor. Ulysses, amazed, and in exactly the spirit of
bitter and terrified lightness which is seen in Hamlet ^ addresses
the spirit with the simple, startled words: —

" Elpenor! How earnest thou undex' the shadowy darkness ? Hast thou come
faster on foot than I in my black ship ? "

" 0, say, what angry power Elpenor led
To glide in shades, and wander with the dead ?
How could thy soul, by realms and seas disjoined,
Outfly the nimble sail, and leave the lagging wind ? "

I sincerely hope the reader finds no pleasure here, either in
the nimbleness of the sail, or the laziness of the wind! And
yet how is it that these conceits are so painful now, when they
have been pleasant to us in the other instances ?

§ 7 For a very simple reason. They are not a pathetic fallacy at
all, for they are put into the mouth of the wrong passion—a
passion which never could possibly have spoken them — agonized
curiosity. Ulysses Avants to know the facts of the matter; and
the very last thing his mind could do at the moment would be to
pause, or suggest in any wise what was not a fact. The delay
in the first three lines, and conceit in the last, jar upon ua in-
stantly, like the most frightful discord in music. No poet of true
imaginative power could possibly have written the passage.^

' It is worth while comparing the way a similar question is piit by the exquisite
sincerity of Keats : —

" He wept, and his bright tears
Went trickling down the golden bow he held.
Thus, with half-shut, suffused eyes, he stood ;
While from beneath some cumb'rous boughs hard by,
With solemn step, an awful goddess came.
And there was purport in her looks for him,
Which he with eager guess began to read :
Perplexed the while, melodiously he said,
' How cam'st thou over the unfooted sea ?

Therefore, we see tliat the spirit of truth must guide us in
some sort, even in our enjoyment of fallacy. Coleridge's fallacy
has no discord in it, but Pope's has set our teeth on edge. With-
out farther questioning, I will endeavour to state the main bear-
ings of this matter.

§ 8. The temperament which admits the pathetic fallacy, is, as I
said above, that of a mind and body in some sort too weak to
deal fully with what is before them or upon them; borne away,
or over-clouded, or over-dazzled by emotion; and it is a more
or less noble state, according to the force of the emotion which
has induced it. For it is no credit to a man that he is not morbid
or inaccurate in his perceptions, when he has no strength of feel-
ing to warp them; and it is in general a sign of higher capacity
and stand in the ranks of being, that the emotions should be strong
enough to vanquish, partly, the intellect, and make it believe
what they choose. But it is still a grander condition when the
intellect also rises, till it is strong enough to assert its rule
against, or together with, the utmost efforts of the passions; and
the whole man stands in an iron glow, white hot, perhaps, but
still strong, and in no wise evaporating; even if he melts, losing
none of his weight.

So, then, we have the three ranks: the man who perceives
rightly, because he does not feel, and to whom the primrose is
very accurately the primrose, because he does not love it. Then,
secondly, the man who perceives wrongly, because he feels, and to
whom the primrose is anything else than a primrose : a star, or a
sun, or a fairy's shield, or a forsaken maiden. And then, lastly,
there is the man who perceives rightly in spite of his feelings, and
to whom the primrose is for ever nothing else than itself— a little
flower, apprehended in the very plain and leafy fact of it, what-
ever and how many soever the associations and passions may be,
that crowd around it. And, in general, these three classes may be
rated in comparative order, as the men who are not poets at all,
and the poets of the second order, and the poets of the first; only
however great a man may be, there are always some subjects
which ought to throw him off his balance; some, by which his
poor human capacity of thought should be conquered, and

brought into the inaccurate and vague state of perception, so
that the language of the highest inspiration becomes broken, ob-
scure, and wild in metaphor, resembling that of the weaker man,
overborne by weaker things.

§ 9. And thus, in full, there are four classes: the men who feel
nothing, and therefore see truly; the men who feel strongly,
think weakly, and see untruly (second order of poets); the men
who feel strongly, think strongly, and see truly (first order of
poets); and the men who, strong as human creatures can be, are
yet submitted to influences stronger than they, and see in a sort
untruly, because what they see is inconceivably above them.
This last is the usual condition of prophetic inspiration.

§ 10. I separate these classes, in order that their character may be
clearly understood; but of course they are united each to the
other by imperceptible transitions, and the same mind, according
to the influences to which it is subjected, passes at different times
into the various states. Still, the difference between the great
and less man is, on the whole, chiefly in this point of alterability.
That is to say, the one knows too much, and perceives and feels
too much of the past and future, and of all things beside and
around that wliich immediately affects him, to be in any wise
shaken by it. His mind is made up; his thoughts have an accus-
tomed current; his ways are stedfast; it is not this or that new
sight which Avill at once unbalance him. He is tender to im-
pression at the surface, like a rock with deep moss upon it; but
there is too much mass of him to be moved. The smaller man,
with the same degree of sensibility, is at once carried off his feet;
he wants to do something he did not want to do before; he views
all the universe in a new light through his tears; he is gay or
enthusiastic, melancholy or passionate, as things come and go
to him. Therefore the high creative poet might even be thought,
to a great extent, impassive (as shallow people think «Dante stern),
receiving indeed all feelings to the full, but having a great
centre of reflection and knowledge in which he stands serene, and
watches the feeling, as it were, from far off.

Dante, in his most intense moods, has entire command of him-
self, and can look around calmly, at all moments, for the image

or the word that will best tell what he sees to the upper or
lower world. But Keats and Tennyson, and the poets of the
second order, are generally themselves subdued by the feelings
under which they write, or, at least, write as choosing to be so,
and therefore admit certain expressions and modes of thought
which are in some sort diseased or false.

§ 11. Now so long as we see that the feeling is true, we pardon, or
are even pleased by, the confessed fallacy of sight which it in-
duces : we are pleased, for instance, with those lines of Kings-
ley's, above quoted, not because they fallaciously describe foam,
but because they faithfully describe sorrow. But the moment
the mind of the speaker becomes cold, that moment every such
expression becomes untrue, as being for ever untrue in the
external facts. And there is no greater baseness in literature
than the habit of using these metaphorical expressions in cool
blood. An inspired writer, in full impetuosity of passion, may
speak wisely and truly of " raging waves of the sea, foaming out
their own shame;" but it is only the basest writer who cannot
speak of the sea Avithout talking of " raging waves," " remorseless
floods," " ravenous billows," &c.; and it is one of the signs of
the highest power in a writer to check all such habits of thought,
and to keep his eyes fixed firmly on the pure fact, out of which
if any feeling comes to him or his reader, he knows it must be
a true one.

To keep to the waves, I forget who it is who represents a
man in despair, desiring that his body may be cast into the
sea,

" Whose changing mound, and foam that passed away,
Might mock tlie eye that questioned where I lay."

Observe, there is not here a single false, or even overcharged,
expression. "Mound" of the sea wave is perfectly simple and
true; " changing" is as familiar as may be; " foam that passed
away," strictly literal; and the whole line descriptive of the
reality with a degree of accuracy which I know not any other
verse, in the range of poetry, that altogether equals. For most
people have not a distinct idea of the clumsiness and massive-

ness of a large wave. The word " wave " is used too generally
of ripples and breakers, and bendings in light drapery or grass:
it does not by itself convey a perfect image. But the word
" mound" is heavy, large, dark, definite; there is no mistaking
the kind of wave meant, nor missing the sight of it. Then the
term " changing " has a peculiar force also. Most people think
of waves as rising and falling. But if they look at the sea care-
fully, they will perceive that the waves do not rise and fall.
They change. Change both place and form, but they do not fall;
one wave goes on, and on, and still on; now lower, now higher,
now tossing its mane like a horse, now building itself together
like a wall, now shaking, now steady, but still the same wave,
till at last it seems struck by something, and changes, one knows
not how,— becomes another wave.

The close of the line insists on this image, and paints it still
more perfectly,—"foam that passed away." Not merely melt-
ing, disappearing, but passing on, out of sight, on the career
of the wave. Then, having put the absolute ocean fact as far
as he may before our eyes, the poet leaves us to feel about it
as we may, and to trace for ourselves the opposite fact,—the
image of the green mounds that do not change, and the white
and written stones that do not pass away; and thence to follow
out also the associated images of the calm life with the quiet
grave, and the despairing life with the fading foam: —

But nothing of this is actually told or pointed out, and the
expressions, as they stand, are perfectly severe and accurate,
utterly uninfluenced by the firmly governed emotion of the
writer. Even the word "mock" is hardly an exception, as it
may stand merely for " deceive " or " defeat," without implying
any impersonation of the waves.

§ 12. It may be well, perhaps, to give one or two more instances
to show the peculiar dignity possessed by all passages which
thus limit their expression to the pure fact, and leave the hearer
to gather what he can from it. Here is a notable one from the

Iliad. Helen, looking from the Scasan gate of Troy over the
i Grecian host, and telling Priam the names of its captains,

" I see all the other dark-eyed Greeks; but two I camiot see,—Castor and Pollux,—
I whom one mother bore with me. Have they not followed from lair Lacedajmon, or

I have they indeed come in their sea-wandering ships, but now will not enter into the

■ I

" So she spoke. But them, already, the life-giving earth possessed, there in Lace-
diemon, in the dear fatherland."

Note, here, the high poetical truth carried to the extreme.
The poet has to speak of the earth In sadness, but he will not
let that sadness affect or change his thoughts of it. No; though
Castor and Pollux be dead, yet the earth is our mother still,
fruitful, life-giving. These are the facts of the thing. I see
nothing else than these. Make what you will of them.

§ 13. Take another very notable instance from Casimir de la Vigne's
terrible ballad, " La Toilette de Constance." I must quote a
few lines out of it here and there, to enable the reader who
has not the book by him, to understand its close.

Ds sont d'hier, mon Dieu, comme tout passe I
Que du reseau qui retient mes cheveux

Que sur mon front ce saphir etincelle:
Vous me piquez, mal-adroite. Ah, c'est bien,
Bien,— ch^re Anna! Je t'aime, je suis belle,

Quoi! ces grains d'or benits par le Saint-PJre I)
H y sera; Dieu, s'il pressait ma main,

En y pensant, a peine je respire :
Pere Anselmo doit m'entendre demain,
Comment ferai je, Anna, pour tout lui dire ?

Au feu. Courez ; Quand Tespoir I'enivrait
Tout perdre ainsi! Quoi! Mourir,—et si belle !

Yes, that is tlie fact of it. Right or wrong, the poet does
not say. What you may think about it, he does not know.
He has nothing to do with that. There lie the ashes of the
dead girl in her chamber. There they danced, till tl^e morning,
at the Ambassador's of France. Make what you will of it.

If the reader will look through the ballad, of which I have
quoted only about the third part, he will find that there is
not, from beginning to end of it, a single poetical (so called)
expression, except in one stanza. The girl speaks as simple
prose as may be; there is not a word she would not have
actually used as she was dressing. The poet stands by, im-
passive as a statue, recording her w^ords just as they come.
At last the doom seizes her, and in the very presence of death,
for an instant, his own emotions conquer him. He records no
longer the facts only, but the facts as they seem to him. The
fire gnaws with voluptuousness — imthout pity. It is soon past.
The fate is fixed for ever; and he retires into his pale and
crystalline atmosphere of truth. He closes all with the calm
veracity,

§ 14. Now in this there is the exact type of the consummate
poetical temperament. For, be it clearly and constantly re-
membered, that the greatness of a poet depends upon the two

faculties^, acuteness of feeling, and command of it. A poet is
great, first in proportion to the strength of his passion, and then,
that strength being granted, in proportion to his government of
It; there being, however, always a point beyond which it would
be inhuman and monstrous if he pushed this government, and,
therefore, a point at which all feverish and wild fancy becomes
just and true. Thus the destruction of the kingdom of Assyria
cannot be contemplated firmly by a prophet of Israel. The
fact is too great, too wonderful. It overthrows him, dashes
him into a confused element of dreams. All the world is, to
his stunned thought, full of strange voices. " Yea, the fir-trees
rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, ' Since
thou art gone down to the grave, no feller is come up against
us.'" So, still more, the thought of the presence of Deity
cannot be borne without this great astonishment. The moun-
tains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands."

But by how much this feeling is noble when it is justified
by the strength of its cause, by so much it is ignoble when
there is not cause enough for it; and beyond all other ignoble-
ness is the mere affectation of it, in hardness of heart. Simply
bad writing may almost always, as above noticed, be known
by its adoption of these fanciful metaphorical expressions, as a
sort of current coin; yet there is even a worse, at least a more
harmful, condition of writing than this, in which such expressions
are not ignorantly and feelinglessly caught up, but, by some
master, skilful in handling, yet insincere, deliberately wrought
out with chill and studied fancy; as if we should try to make
an old lava stream look red-hot again, by covering it with dead
leaves, or white-hot, with hoar-frost.

When Young is lost in veneration, as he dwells on the cha-
racter of a truly good and holy man, he permits himself for a
moment to be overborne by the feeling so far as to exclaim —

" Where shall I find him ? angels, tell me where.
You know him ; he is near you ; point him out.
Shall I see glories beaming from his brow.
Or trace his footsteps by the rising flowers ? "

This emotion has a worthy cause, and is thus true and right.
But now hear the cold-hearted Pope say to a shepherd girl —

" "Where'er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade ;
Ti-ees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade ;
Your praise the birds shall chant in every grove,
And winds shall waft it to the powers above.
But would you sing, and rival Orpheus' strain,
The wondering forests soon should dance again ;
The moving mountains hear the powerful call.
And headlong streams hang, listening, in their fall."

This is not, nor could it for a moment be mistaken for, the
language of passion. It is simple falsehood, uttered by hypo-
crisy ; definite absurdity, rooted in affectation, and coldly as-
serted in the teeth of nature and fact. Passion will indeed go
far in deceiving itself; but it must be a strong passion, not the
simple wish of a lover to tempt his mistress to sing. Compare
a very closely parallel passage in Wordsworth, in which the lover
has lost his mistress :

" Three years had Barbara in her grave been laid,
When thus his moan he made :—

May mount into the sky.
If still behind yon pine-tree's ragged bough.
Headlong, the waterfall must come,
Oh, let it, then, be dumb—
Be anything, sweet stream, but that which thou art now.' "

Here is a cottage to be moved, if not a mountain, and a water-
fall to be silent, if it is not to hang listening: but with what
diflPerent relation to the mind that contemplates them! Here,
in the extremity of its agony, the soul cries out wildly for relief,
which at the same moment it partly knows to be impossible,
but partly believes possible, in a vague impression that a miracle
might be wrought to give relief even to a less sore distress,—
that nature is kind, and God is kind, and that grief is strong :
it knows not well what is possible to such grief. To silence
a stream, to move a cottage wall, — one might think it could do
as much as that!

§ 16. I believe these Instances are enough to illustrate the main
point I insist upon respecting the pathetic fallacy, — that so far
as it is a fallacy, it is always the sign of a morbid state of
mind, and comparatively of a weak one. Even in the most
inspired prophet it is a sign of the incapacity of his human
sight or thought to bear what has been revealed to it. In
ordinary poetry, if it is found in the thoughts of the poet him-
self, it is at once a sign of his belonging to the inferior school;
if in the thoughts of the characters imagined by him, it is right
or wrong according to the genuineness of the emotion from which
it springs; always, however, implying necessarily some degree of
weakness in the character.

Take two most exquisite instances from master hands. The
Jessy of Shenstone, and the Ellen of Wordsworth, have both
been betrayed and deserted. Jessy, in the course of her most
touching complaint, says:

Where bloom the jasmines that could once allure,
' Hope not to find delight in us,' they say,
' For we are spotless, Jessy; we are pure,' "

" ' Ah, why,' said Ellen, sighing to herself,
' Why do not words, and kiss, and solemn pledge,
And nature, that is kind in woman's breast,
And reason, that in man is wise and good,
And fear of Him who is a righteous Judge,—
Why do not these prevail for human life,
To keep two hearts together, that began
Their springtime with one lore, and that have need
Of mutual pity and forgiveness, street
To grant, or be received ; while that poor bird—
0, come and hear him 1 Thou who hast to me
Been faithless, hear him ;—though a lowly creature,
One of God's simple children, that yet know not
The Universal Parent, how he sings !
As if he wished the firmament of heaven
Should listen, and give back to him the voice
Of his triumphant constancy and love.
The proclamation that he makes, how far
His darkness doth transcend our fickle light' "

and tenderness of imagination in the two poets, is quite insu-
perable. But, of the two characters imagined, Jessy is weaker
than Ellen, exactly in so far as something appears to her to be
in nature which is not. The flowers do not really reproach her.
God meant them to comfort her, not to taunt her; they would
do so if she saw them rightly.

Ellen, on the other hand, is quite above the slightest erring
emotion. There is not the barest film of fallacy in all her
thoughts. She reasons as calmly as if she did not feel. And,
although the singing of the bird suggests to her the idea of
its desiring to be heard in heaven, she does not for an instant
admit any veracity in the thought. As if," she says, — "I
know he means nothing of the kind; but it does verily seem
as if." The reader will find, by examining the rest of the
poem, that Ellen's character is throughout consistent in this clear
though passionate strength.^

It then being, I hope, now made clear to the reader in all
respects that the pathetic fallacy is powerful only so far as it
is pathetic, feeble so far as it is fallacious, and, therefore, that
the dominion of Truth is entire, over this, as over every other
natural and just state of the human mind, we may go on to
the subject for the dealing with which this prefatory inquiry
became necessary; and why necessary, we shall see forthwith.

' I cannot quit this subject without giving two more instances, both exquisite, of
the pathetic fallacy, which I have just come upon, in Maude ;—

" For a great speculation had fail'd;
And ever he mutter'd and madden'd, and ever wann'd with despair;

And out he walk'd, wheiiN;he wind like a broken worldling wail'd,
And the flying gold of the ruined woodlands drove thro' the air."

From the passion-flower at the gate.
The red rose cries, ' She is near, she is near!'

And the white rose weeps, 'She is late'
The larkspur listens, ■ I hear, I hear!'

§ 1. My reason for asking the reader to give so much of his time
to the examination of the pathetic fallacy was, that, whether in
literature or in art, he will find it eminently characteristic of the
modern mind; and in the landscape, whether of literature or
art, he will also find the modern painter endeavouring to express
something which he, as a living creature, imagines in the lifeless
object, while the classical and mediseval painters were content
with expressing the unlmaglnary and actual qualities of the
object Itself. It will be observed that, according to the prin-
ciple stated long ago, I use the words painter and poet quite
indifferently, including in our inquiry the landscape of literature,
as well as that of painting; and this the more because the spirit
of classical landscape has hardly been expressed in any other
way than by words.

§ 2. Taking, therefore, this wide field, it is surely a very notable
circumstance, to begin with, that this pathetic fallacy is emi-
nently characteristic of modern painting. For instance, Keats,
describing a wave, breaking, out at sea, says of it —

" Down whose green back the short-lived foam, all hoar,
Bursts gradual, with a wayward indolence."

That is quite perfect, as an example of the modern manner.
The idea of the peculiar action with which foam rolls down a long,
large wave could not have been given by any other words so
well as by this " wayward indolence." But Homer would never
have written, never thought of, such words. He could not by
any possibility have lost sight of the great fact that the wave.

from the beginning to the end of it, do what it might, was still
nothing else than salt water; and that salt water could not be
either wayward or indolent. He will call the waves " over-
roofed," " full-charged," " monstrous," " compact-black," " dark-
clear," " violet-coloured," " wine-coloured," and so on. But every-
one of these epithets is descriptive of pure physical nature.
" Over-roofed" is the term he invariably uses of anything —
rock, house, or wave — that nods over at the brow: the other
terms need no explanation; they are as accurate and intense in
truth as words can be, but they never show the slightest feeling
of anything animated in the ocean. Black or clear, monstrous or
violet-coloured, cold salt water it is always, and nothing but that.

§ 3. " Well, but the modern writer, by his admission of the tinge
of fallacy, has given an idea of something in the action of the
wave which Homer could not, and surely, therefore, has made
a step in advance ? Also there appears to be a degree of
sympathy and feeling in the one writer, which there is not in the
other; and as it has been received for a first principle that
writers are great in proportion to the intensity of their feelings,
and Homer seems to have no feelings about the sea but that
it is black and deep, surely in this respect also the modern
writer is the greater?"

Stay a moment. Homer had some feeling about the sea; a
faith in the animation of it much stronger than Keats's. But
all this sense of something living in it, he separates in his
mind into a great abstract image of a Sea Power. He never
says the waves rage, or the waves are idle. But he says there
is somewhat in, and greater than, the waves, which rages, and is
idle, and that he calls a god.

§ 4. I do not think we ever enough endeavour to enter into what
a Greek's real notion of a god was. We are so accustomed
to the modern mockeries of the classical religion, so accustomed
to hear and see the Greek gods introduced as living personages,
or invoked for help, by men who believe neither in them nor
in any other gods, that we seem to have infected the Greek
ages themselves with the breath, and dimmed them with the
shade, of our hypocrisy; and are apt to think that Homer, as

we know that Pope, was merely an ingenious fabulist; nay,
more than this, that all the nations of past time were ingenious
fabulists also, to whom the universe was a lyrical drama, and
by whom whatsoever was said about it was merely a witty alle-
gory, or a graceful lie, of which the entire upshot and consum-
mation was a pretty statue in the middle of the court, or at
the end of the garden.

This, at least, is one of our forms of opinion about Greek faith;
not, indeed, possible altogether to any man of honesty or ordinary
powers of thought; but still so venomously inherent in the
modern philosophy that all the pure lightning of Carlyle cannot
as yet quite burn it out of any of us. And then, side by side
with this mere infidel folly, stands the bitter short-sightedness
of Puritanism, holding the classical god to be either simply an
idol,—a block of stone ignorantly, though sincerely, worshipped,
— or else an actual diabolic or betraying power, usurping the
place of God.

§ 5. Both these Puritanical estimates of Greek deity are of course
to some extent true. The corruption of classical worship is
barren idolatry; and that corruption was deepened, and variously
directed to their own purposes, by the evil angels. But this was
neither the whole, nor the principal part, of Pagan worship.
Pallas was not, in the pure Greek mind, merely a powerful piece
of ivory in a temple at Athens; neither was the choice of Leo-
nidas between the alternatives granted him by the oracle, of per-
sonal death, or ruin to his country, altogether a work of the
Devil's prompting. ^

§ 6. What, then, was actually the Greek god ? In what way were
these two ideas of human form, and divine power, credibly asso-
ciated in the ancient heart, so as to become a subject of true faith,
irrespective equally of fable, allegory, superstitious trust in st^ne,
and demoniacal influence ?

It seems to me that the Greek had exactly the same in-
stinctive feeling about the elements that we have ourselves;
that to Homer, as much as to Casimir de la Vigne, fire seemed
ravenous and pitiless; to Homer, as much as to Keats, the
sea-wave appeared wayward or idle, or whatever else it may

be to the poetical passion. But then the Greek reasoned upon
this sensation, saying to himself: " I can light the fire, and put
it out; I can dry this water up, or drink it. It cannot be
the fire or the water that rages, or that is wayward. But it
must be something in this fire and in the Avater, which I
cannot destroy by extinguishing the one, or evaporating the
other, any more than I destroy myself by cutting off my
finger; I was in my finger, — something of me at least was;
I had a power over it, and felt pain in it, though I am still as
much myself when it is gone. So there may be a power in
the water which is not water, but to which the water is as a
body;—which can strike with it, move in it, suffer in it, yet not
be destroyed with it. This something, this great Water Spirit,
I must not confuse with the waves, which are only its body.
They may flow hither and thither, increase or diminish. That
must be indivisible — imperishable — a god. So of fire also;
those rays which I can stop, and in the midst of which I cast
a shadow, cannot be divine, nor greater than I. They cannot
feel, but there may be something in them that feels,— a glorious
intelligence, as much nobler and more swift than mine, as these
rays, which are its body, are nobler and swifter than my flesh;
— the spirit of all light, and truth, and melody, and revolving
hours.

It was easy to conceive, farther, that such spirits should be
able to assume at will a human form, in order to hold intercourse
with men, or to perform any act for which their proper body,
whether of fire, earth, or air, was unfitted. And it would have
been to place them beneath, instead of above, humanity, if,
assuming the form of man, they could not also have tasted his
pleasures. Hence the easy step to the more or less material ideas
of deities, which are apt at first to shock us, but which are indeed
only dishonourable so far as they represent the gods as false and
unholy. It is not the materialism, but the vice, which degrades
the conception; for the materialism itself is never positive or
complete. There is always some sense of exaltation in the
spiritual and immortal body ; and of a power proceeding from the
visible form through all the infinity of the element ruled by the

particular god. The precise nature of the idea is well seen
in the passage of the Iliad which describes the river Scaraan-
der' defending the Trojans against Achilles. In order to re-
monstrate with the heroj the god assumes a human form, which
nevertheless is in some way or other instantly recognized by
Achilles as that of the river-god: it is addressed at once as
a river, not as a man; and its voice is the voice of a river,

out of the deep whirlpools." ^ Achilles refuses to obey its
commands; and from the human form it returns instantly into
its natural or divine one, and endeavours to overwhelm him
with waves. Vulcan defends Achilles, and sends fire against
the river, which suffers in its water-body, till it is able to bear
no more. At last even the " nerve of the river," or " strength
of the river " (note the expression), feels the fire, and this
" strength of the river" addresses Vulcan in supplications for
respite. There is in this precisely the idea of a vital part of
the river-body, which acted and felt, and which, if the fire
reached, it was death, just as would be the case if it touched
a vital part of the human body. Throughout the passage the
manner of conception is perfectly clear and consistent; and if,
in other places, the exact connection between the ruling spirit
and the thing ruled is not so manifest, it is only because it is
almost impossible for the human mind to dwell long upon such
subjects without falling into inconsistencies, and gradually slack-
ening its effort to grasp the entire truth; until the more spiritual
part of it slips from its hold, and only the human form of the
god is left, to be conceived and described as subject to all the
errors of humanity. But I do not believe that the idea ever
weakens itself down to mere allegory. When Pallas is said to
attack and strike down Mars, it does not mean merely that
Wisdom at that moment prevailed against Wrath. It means
that there are indeed two great spirits, one entrusted to guide
the human soul to wisdom and chastity, the other to kindle
wrath and prompt to battle. It means that these two spirits,

' Compare Lay of the Last Minstrel, canto i. stanza 15., and canto v. stanza 2. In
the first instance, the river-spirit is accurately the Homeric god, only Homer would
have believed in it, — Scott did not; at least not altogether.

on the spot where, and at the moment when, a great contest
was to be decided between all that they each governed in man,
then and there assumed human form, and human weapons, and
did verily and materially strike at each other, until the Spirit of
Wrath Avas crushed. And when Diana is said to hunt with her
nymphs in the woods, it does not mean merely, as Wordsworth
puts it, that the poet or shepherd saw the moon and stars
glancing between the branches of the trees, and wished to say
so figuratively. It means that there is a living spirit, to which
the light of the moon is a body; which takes delight in glancing
between the clouds and following the wild beasts as they wander
through the night; and that this spirit sometimes assumes a
perfect human form, and in this form, with real arrows, pursues
and slays the wild beasts, which with its mere arrows of moon-
light it could not slay; retaining, nevertheless, all the while, its
power and being in the moonlight, and in all else that it rules.

§ 8. There is not the smallest inconsistency or unspirituality in
this conception. If there were, it would attach equally to the
appearance of the angels to Jacob, Abraham, Joshua, or Manoah.
In all those instances the highest authority which governs our
own faith requires us to conceive divine power clothed with
a human form (a form so real that it is recognized for super-
human only by its " doing wondrously "), and retaining, never-
theless, sovereignty and omnipresence in all the world. This
is precisely, as I understand it, the heathen idea of a God;
and it is impossible to comprehend any single part of the Greek
mind until we grasp this faithfully, not endeavouring to explain
it away in any wise, but accepting, with frank decision and
definition, the tangible existence of its deities;—blue-eyed —
white-fleshed — human-hearted, — capable at their choice of meet-
ing man absolutely in his own nature — feasting with him —
talking with him — fighting with him, eye to eye, or breast to
breast, as Mars with Diomed; or else, dealing with him in a
more retired spirituality, as Apollo sending the plague upon the
Greeks, when his quiver rattles at his shoulders as he moves,
and yet the darts sent forth of it strike not as arrows, but as
plague; or, finally, retiring completely into the material uni-

verse which they properly inhabit, and dealing with man through
that, as Scamander with Achilles through his waves.
§ 9. Nor is there anything whatever in the various actions recorded
of the gods, however apparently ignoble, to indicate weakness
of belief in them. Very frequently things which appear to
us ignoble are merely the simplicities of a pure and truthful
age. When Juno beats Diana about the ears with her own
quiver, for instance, we start at first, as if Homer could not have
believed that they were both real goddesses. But what should
Juno have done ? Killed Diana with a look ? Nay, she neither
wished to do so, nor could she have done so, by the very
faith of Diana's goddess-ship. Diana is as immortal as herself.
Frowned Diana into submission ? But Diana has come ex-
pressly to try conclusions with her, and will by no means be
frowned into submission. Wounded her with a celestial lance?
That sounds more poetical, but it is in reality partly more
savage, and partly more absurd, than Homer. More savage, for
it makes Juno more cruel, therefore less divine; and more
absurd, for it only seems elevated in tone, because we use the
word " celestial," which means nothing. What sort of a thing
is a "celestial" lance? Not a wooden one. Of what then?
Of moonbeams, or clouds, or mist. Well, therefore, Diana's
arrows were of mist too; and her quiver, and herself, and J uno,
with her lance, and all, vanish into mist. Why not have said I

intelligible, but not to talk of celestial lances. Homer had no
such misty fancy; he believed the two goddesses were there

means un-Greek-lady-like, nor even un-natural-lady-like. If a
modern lady does not beat her servant or her rival about the

because she is of purer mind than Homer's Juno. She will
not strike them ; but she will overwork the one or slander
the other without pity; and Homer would not have thought

§ 10. Ifj however, the reader likes to suppose that while the two
goddesses in personal presence thus fought with arrow and
quiver, there was also a broader and vaster contest supposed
by Homer between the elements they ruled; and that the
goddess of the heavens, as she struck the goddess of the moon
on the flushing cheek, was at the same instant exercising omni-
present power in the heavens themselves, and gathering clouds,
with which, fiUed with the moon's own arrows or beams, she
was encumbering and concealing the moon; he is welcome to
this out-carrying of the idea, provided that he does not pretend
to make it an interpretation instead of a mere extension, nor think
to explain away my real, running, beautiful, beaten Diana, into
a moon behind clouds.^
§11. It is only farther to be noted, that the Greek conception of
Godhead, as it was much more real than we usually suppose,
so it was much more bold and familiar than to a modem mind
would be possible. I shall have something more to observe, in
a little while, of the danger of our modern habit of endeavouring
to raise ourselves to something like comprehension of the truth
of divinity, instead of simply believing the words in which the
Deity reveals Himself to us. The Greek erred rather on the
other side, making hardly any effort to conceive divine mind
as above the human; and no more shrinking from frank inter-
course with a divine being, or dreading its immediate presence,
than that of the simplest of mortals. Thus Atrides, enraged
at his sword's breaking in his hand upon the helmet of Paris,
after he had expressly invoked the assistance of Jupiter, exclaims
aloud, as he would to a king who had betrayed him, " Jove.
Father, there is not another god more evil-minded than thou!"
and Helen, provoked at Paris's defeat, and oppressed with pout-
ing shame both for him and for herself, when Venus appears at

' Compare the exquisite lines of Longfellcw on the sunset in the Golden Legend :—

" The day is done, and slowly from the scene
The stooping sun upgathers his spent shafts,
And puts them back into his golden quiver."

her side, and would lead her back to the delivered Paris, impa-
tiently tells the goddess to " go and take care of Paris herself."

§ 12. The modern mind is naturally, but vulgarly and unjustly,
shocked by this kind of familiarity. Eightly understood, it is
not so much a sign of misunderstanding of the divine nature as
of good understanding of the human. The Greek lived, in all
things, a healthy, and, in a certain degree, a perfect, life. He
had no morbid or sickly feeling of any kind. He was accustomed
to face death without the slightest shrinking, to undergo all kinds
of bodily hardship without complaint, and to do what he sup-
posed right and honourable, in most cases, as a matter of course.
Confident of his own immortality, and of the power of abstract
justice, he expected to be dealt with in the next world as was
right, and left the matter much in his god's hands; but being
thus immortal, and finding in his own soul something which it
seemed quite as difficult to master, as to rule the elements, he did
not feel that it was an appalling superiority in those gods to have
bodies of water, or fire, instead of flesh, and to have various work
to do among the clouds and waves, out of his human way; or
sometimes, even, in a sort of service to himself. Was not the
nourishment of herbs and flowers a kind of ministering to his
wants? were not the gods in some sort his husbandmen, and
spirit-servants? Their mere strength or omnipresence did not
seem to him a distinction absolutely terrific. It might be the
nature of one being to be in two places at once, and of another
to be only in one; but that did not seem of itself to infer any
absolute lordliness of one nature above the other, any more than
an insect must be a nobler creature than a man, because it can
see on four sides of its head, and the man only in front. They
could kill him or torture him, it was true ; but even that not un-
justly, or not for ever. There was a fate, and a Divine Justice,
greater than they; so that if they did wrong, and he right, he
might fight it out with them, and have the better of them at last.
In a general way, they were wiser, stronger, and better than he;
and to ask counsel of them, to obey them, to sacrifice to them, to
thank them for all good, this was well; but to be utterly down-
cast before them, or not to tell them his mind in plain Greek if

they seemed to him to be conducting themselves in an ungodly-
manner,—this would not be well.

§ 13. Such being their general idea of the gods, we can now easily
understand the habitual tone of their feelings towards what was
beautiful in nature. With us, observe, the idea of the Divinity
is apt to get separated from the life of nature; and imagining our
God upon a cloudy throne, far above the earth, and not in the
ilowers or waters, we approach those visible things with a theory
that they are dead, governed by physical laws, and so forth.
But coming to them, we find the theory fail; that they are
not dead; that, say what we choose about them, the instinctive
sense of their being alive is too strong for us; and in scorn of
all physical law, the wilful fountain sings, and the kindly flowers
rejoice. And then, puzzled, and yet happy; pleased, and yet
ashamed of being so; accepting sympathy from nature, which
we do not believe it gives, and giving sympathy to nature, which
we do not believe it receives, — mixing, besides, all manner of
purposeful play and conceit with these involuntary fellowships, —•
we fall necessarily into the curious web of hesitating sentiment,
pathetic fallacy, and wandering fancy, which form a great part
of our modern view of nature. But the Greek never removed
his god out of nature at all; never attempted for a moment
to contradict his instinctive sense that God was everywhere.
" The tree is glad," said he, " I know it is; I can cut it
down ; no matter, there was a nymph in it. The water
does sing," said he; I can dry it up; but no matter, there
was a naiad in it." But in thus clearly defining his belief,
observe, he threw it entirely into a human form, and gave his
faith to nothing but the image of his own humanity. What
sympathy and fellowship he had, were always for the spirit in
the stream, not for the stream; always for the dryad in the
wood, not for the wood. Content with this human sympathy, he
approached the actual waves and woody fibres with no sympathy
at all. The spirit that ruled them, he received as a plain fact.
Them, also, ruled and material, he received as plain facts; they,
without their spirit, were dead enough. A rose was good for
scent, and a stream for sound and coolness; for the rest, one

was no more than leaves, the other no more than water; he
could not make anything else of them; and the divine power,
which was involved in their existence, having been all distilled
away by him into an independent Flora or Thetis, the poor leaves
or waves were left, in mere cold corporealnesa, to make the most
of their being discernibly red and soft, clear and wet, and un-
acknowledged in any other power whatsoever.

§ 14. Then, observe farther, the Greeks lived in the midst of the
most beautiful nature, and were as familiar with blue sea,
clear air, and sweet outlines of mountain, as we are with brick
walls, black smoke, and level fields. This perfect familiarity
rendered all such scenes of natural beauty unexciting, if not
indifferent to them, by lulling and overwearying the imagination
as far as it was concerned with such things; but there was another
kind of beauty which they found it required effort to obtain,
and which, when thoroughly obtained, seemed more glorious
than any of this wild loveliness — the beauty of the human
countenance and form. This, they perceived, could only be
reached by continual exercise of virtue; and it was in Heaven's
sight, and theirs, all the more beautiful because it needed this
self-denial to obtain it. So they set themselves to reach this,
and having gained it, gave it their principal thoughts, and set
it off with beautiful dress as best they might. But making this
their object, they were obliged to pass their lives in simple
exercise and disciplined employments. Living wholesomely,
giving themselves no fever fits, either by fasting or over-eating,
constantly in the open air, and full of animal spirit and physical
power, they became incapable of every morbid condition of
mental emotion. Unhappy love, disappointed ambition, spiritual
despondency, or any other disturbing sensation, had little power
over the well-braced nerves, and healthy flow of the blood;
and what bitterness might yet fasten on them was soon boxed
or raced out of a boy, and spun or woven out of a girl, or
danced out of both. They had indeed their sorrows, true and
deep, but still, more like children's sorrows than ours, whether
bursting into open cry of pain, or hid with shuddering under the
veil, stiU passing over the soul as clouds do over heaven, not

sullying it, not mingling with it;—darkening it perhaps long or
utterly, but still not becoming one with it, and for the most
part passing away in dashing rain of tears, and leaving the man
unchanged; in nowise affecting, as our sorrow does, the whole
tone of his thought and imagination thenceforward.

How far our melancholy may be deeper and wider than
theirs, in its roots and view, and therefore nobler, we shall
consider presently; but at all events, they had the advantage
of us in being entirely free from all those dim and feverish
sensations which result from unhealthy state of the body. I
believe that a large amount of the dreamy and sentimental
sadness, tendency to reverie, and general patheticalness of modern
life results merely from derangement of stomach; holding to
the Greek life the same relation that the feverish night of an
adult does to a child's sleep.

§ 15. Farther. The human beauty, which, whether in its bodily
being or in imagined divinity, had become, for the reasons
we have seen, the principal object of culture and sympathy
to these Greeks, was, in its perfection, eminently orderly,
symmetrical, and tender. Hence, contemplating it constantly
in this state, they could not but feel a proportionate fear of
all that was disorderly, unbalanced, and rugged. Having trained
their stoutest soldiers into a strength so delicate and lovely, that
. their white flesh, with their blood upon it, should look like ivory
stained with purple ^; and having always around them, in the
motion and majesty of this beauty, enough for the full employ-
ment of their imagination, they shrank with dread or hatred
from all the ruggedness of lower nature,—from the wrinkled
forest bark, the jagged hill-crest, and irregular, inorganic storm
of sky; looking to these for the most part as adverse powers,
and taking pleasure only in such portions of the lower world
as were at once conducive to the rest and health of the human
frame, and in harmony with the laws of its gentler beauty.

§ 16. Thus, as far as I recollect, without a single exception, every
Homeric landscape, intended to be beautiful, is composed of a

fountain, a meadow, and a shady grove. This ideal is very
interestingly marked, as intended for a perfect one, in the fifth
book of the Odyssey; when Mercury himself stops for a moment,
though on a message, to look at a landscape " which even an
immortal might be gladdened to behold." This landscape con-
sists of a cave covered with a running vine, all blooming into
grapes, and surrounded by a grove of alder, poplar, and sweet-
smelling cypress. Four fountains of white (foaming) water,
springing in succession (mark the orderliness), and close to one
another, flow away in different directions, through a meadow
full of violets and parsley (parsley, to mark its moisture, being
elsewhere called " marsh-nourished," and associated with the
lotus'); the air is perfumed not only by these violets and by
the sweet cypress, but by Calypso's fire of finely chopped cedar
wood, which sends a smoke, as of incense, through the island;
Calypso herself is singing; and finally, upon the trees are rest-
ing, or roosting, owls, hawks, and " long-tongued sea-crows."
Whether these last are considered as a part of the ideal land-
scape, as marine singing-birds, I know not; but the approval
of Mercury appears to be elicited chiefly by the fountains and
violet meadow.

Now the notable things in this description are, first, the evident
subservience of the whole landscape to human comfort, to the foot,
the taste, or the smell; and, secondly, that throughout the pas-
sage there is not a single figurative word expressive of the things
being in any wise other than plain grass, fruit, or flower. I have
used the term " spring " of the fountains, because, without doubt.
Homer means that they sprang forth brightly, having their source
at the foot of the rocks (as copious fountains nearly always
have); but Homer does not say " spring," he says simply flow,
and uses only one word for " growing softly," or " richly," of the
tall trees, the vine, and the violets. There is, however, some
expression of sympathy with the sea-birds; he speaks of them
in precisely the same terms, as in other places of naval nations,
saying they " have care of the works of the sea."

§ 18, If we glance through the references to pleasant landscape which
occur in other parts of the Odyssey, we shall always be struck by
this quiet subjection of their every feature to human service, and
by the excessive similarity in the scenes. Perhaps the spot in-
tended, after this, to be most perfect, may be the garden of Al-
cinous, where the principal ideas are, still more definitely, order,
symmetry, and fruitfulness; the beds being duly ranged between
rows of vines, which, as well as the pear, apple, and fig-trees,
bear fruit continually, some grapes being yet sour, while others
are getting black; there are plenty of " orderly square beds of
herbs," chiefly leeks, and two fountains, one running through the
garden, and one under the pavement of the palace to a reservoir
for the citizens. Ulysses, pausing to contemplate this scene, is
described nearly in the same terms as Mercury pausing to con-
template the wilder meadow; and it is interesting to observe,
that, in spite of all Homer's love of symmetry, the god's admira-
tion is excited by the free fountains, wild violets, and wandering
vine; but the mortal's, by the vines in rows, the leeks in beds,
and the fountains in pipes.

Ulysses has, however, one touching reason for loving vines in
rows. His father had given him fifty rows for himself, when he
was a boy, with corn between them (just as it now grows in
Italy). Proving his identity afterwards to his father, whom he
finds at work in his garden, " with thick gloves on, to keep his
hands from the thorns," he reminds him of these fifty rows of
vines, and of the " thirteen pear-trees and ten apple-trees " which
he had given him; and Laertes faints upon his neck.

§ 19. If Ulysses had not been so much of a gardener, it might have
been received as a sign of considerable feeling for landscape
beauty, that, intending to pay the very highest possible compli-
ment to the Princess Nausicaa, (and having indeed, the moment
before, gravely asked her whether she was a goddess or not), he
says that he feels, at seeing her, exactly as he did when he saw
the young palm-tree growing at Apollo's shrine at Delos. But
I think the taste for trim hedges and upright trunks has its
usual influence over him here also, and that he merely means
to tell the princess that she is delightfully tall and straight.

§ 20. The princess is, however, pleased by his address, and tells him
to wait outside the town, till she can speak to her father about
him. The spot to which she directs him is another ideal piece of
landscape, composed of a " beautiful grove of aspen poplars, a
fountain, and a meadow," near the road-side; in fact, as nearly as
possible such a scene as meets the eye of the traveller every
instant on the much-despised lines of road through lowland
France; for instance, on the railway between Arras and Amiens;
— scenes, to my mind, quite exquisite in the various grouping
and grace of their innumerable poplar avenues, casting sweet,
tremulous shadows over their level meadows and labyrinthine
streams. "We know that the princess means aspen poplars,
because soon afterwards we find her fifty maid-servants at the
palace, all spinning, and in perpetual motion, compared to the
" leaves of the tall poplar;" and it is with exquisite feeling
that it is made afterwards^ the chief tree in the groves of
Proserpine; its light and quivering leafage having exactly the
melancholy expression of fragility, faintness, and inconstancy
which the ancients attributed to the disembodied spirit.^ The
likeness to the poplars by the streams of Amiens is more marked
still in the Iliad, Avhere the young Simois, struck by Ajax, falls
to the earth " like an aspen that has grown in an irrigated
meadow, smooth-trunked, the soft shoots springing from its
top, which some coach-making man has cut down with his
keen iron, that he may fit a wheel of it to a fair chariot, and
it lies parching by the side of the stream." It is sufficiently
notable that Homer, living in mountainous and rocky countries,
dwells thus delightedly on all the Jlat bits; and so I think
invariably the inhabitants of mountain countries do, but the
inhabitants of the plains do not, in any similar way, dwell
delightedly on mountains. The Dutch painters are perfectly
contented with their flat fields and pollards: Rubens, though he
had seen the Alps, usually composes his landscapes of a hayfield
or two, plenty of pollards and willows, a distant spire, a Dutch

' Odyssey, x. 510.
Compare the passage in Dante referred to above, Chap. XII. | 6.

house with a moat about it^ a windmill, and a ditch. The
Flemish sacred painters are the only ones who introduce moun-
tains in the distance, as we shall see presently; but rather in a
formal way than with any appearance of enjoyment. So Shak-
spere never speaks of mountains with the slightest joy, but
only of lowland flowers, flat fields, and Warwickshire streams.
And if we talk to the mountaineer, he will usually charac-
terize his own country to us as a pays affreux," or in some
equivalent, perhaps even more violent, German term: but the
lowland peasant does not think his country frightful; he either
will have no ideas beyond it, or about it; or will think it
a very perfect country, and be apt to regard any deviation
from its general principle of flatness with extreme disfavour; as
the Lincolnshire farmer in Alton Locke : " I '11 shaw 'ee some'at
like a field o' beans, I wool—none o' this here darned ups and
downs o' hills, to shake a body's victuals out of his inwards —
all so vlat as a barn's vloor, for vorty mile on end—there's the
country to live in ! "

I do not say whether this be altogether right (though cer-
tainly not wholly wrong), but it seems to me that there must
be in the simple freshness and fruitfulness of level land, in
its pale upright trees, and gentle lapse of silent streams, enough
for the satisfaction of the human mind in general; and I so
far agree with Homer, that, if I had to educate an artist to the
full perception of the meaning of the word " gracefulness" in
landscape, I should send liim neither to Italy nor to Greece,
but simply to those poplar groves between Arras and Amiens.

But to return more definitely to our Homeric landscape.
When it is perfect, we have, as in the above instances, the
foliage and meadows together; when imperfect, it is always
either the foliage or the meadow; preeminently the meadow,
or arable field. Thus, meadows of asphodel are prepared for
the happier dead; and even Orion, a hunter among the moun-
tains in his lifetime, pursues the ghosts of beasts in these
asphodel meadows after death. ^ So the sirens sing in a meadow;

' Odyssey, xi. 571. xxir. 13. The couch of Ceres, with Homer's usual faithfulness,
is made of & ploughed field, v. 127.

and throughout the Odyssey there is a general tendency to the
depreciation of poor Ithaca, because it is rocky, and only fit
for goats, and has " no meadows ;" for which reason Telemachus
refuses Atrides's present of horses, congratulating the Spartan
king at the same time on ruling over a plain which has " plenty
of lotus in it, and rushes," with corn and barley. Note this con-
stant dwelling on the marsh plants, or, at least, those which
grow in flat and well-irrigated land, or beside streams: when
Scamander, for instance, is restrained by Vulcan, Homer says,
very sorrowfully, that " all his lotus, and reeds, and rushes
were burnt;" and thus Ulysses, after being shipwrecked and
nearly drowned, and beaten about the sea for many days and
nights, on raft and mast, at last getting ashore at the mouth
of a large river, casts himself down first upon its rushes^ and
then, in thankfulness, kisses the " corn-giving land," as most
opposed, in his heart, to the fruitless and devouring sea.^
§ 22. In this same passage, also, we find some peculiar expressions
of the delight which the Greeks had in trees; for, when
Uly sses first comes in sight of land, which gladdens him, " as
the reviving of a father from his sickness gladdens his children,"
it is not merely the sight of the land itself which gives him
such pleasure, but of the " land and wood.''^ Homer never throws
away any words, at least in such a place as this; and what
in another poet would have been merely the filling up of the
deficient line with an otherwise useless word, is in him the
expression of the general Greek sense, that land of any kind
was in nowise grateful or acceptable till there was wood upon
it (or corn; but the corn, in the flats, could not be seen so
far as the black masses of forest on the hill sides), and that,
as in being rushy and corn-giving, the low land, so in being
woody, the high land, was most grateful to the mind of the
man who for days and nights had been wearied on the en-
gulphing sea. And this general idea of wood and corn, as
the types of the fatness of the whole earth, is beautifully
marked in another place of the Odyssey®, where the sailors

in a desert island, having no flour of corn to offer as a meat
offering with their sacrifices, take the leaves of the trees, and
scatter them over the burnt offering instead.

§ 23. But still, every expression of the pleasure which Ulysses has in
this landing and resting, contains uninterruptedly the reference
to the utility and sensible pleasantness of all things, not to their
beauty. After his first grateful kiss given to the corn-growing
land, he considers immediately how he is to pass the night; for
some minutes hesitating whether it will be best to expose himself
to the misty chill from the river, or run the risk of wild beasts in
the wood. He decides for the wood, and finds in it a bower
formed by a sweet and a wild olive tree. Interlacing their branches,
or — perhaps more accurately translating Homer's intensely
graphic expression—" changing their branches with each other"
(it is very curious how often, in an entanglement of wood, one
supposes the branches to belong to the wrong trees), and forming
a roof penetrated by neither rain, sun, nor wind. Under this
bower Ulysses collects the " vain (or frustrate) outpouring of
the dead leaves" — another exquisite expression, used elsewhere
of useless grief or shedding of tears; — and, having got enough
together, makes his bed of them, and goes to sleep, having
covered himself up with them, " as embers are covered up with
ashes."

Nothing can possibly be more intensely possessive of the facts
than this whole passage; the sense of utter deadness and empti-
ness, and frustrate fall in the leaves; of dormant life in the
human body, — the fire, and heroism, and strength of it, lulled
under the dead brown heap, as embers under ashes, and the knit-
ting of interchanged and close strength of living boughs above.
But there is not the smallest apparent sense of there being beauty
elsewhere than in the human being. The wreathed wood is ad-
mired simply as being a perfect roof for it; the fallen leaves only
as being a perfect bed for it; and there is literally no more ex-
citement of emotion in Homer, as he describes them, nor does he
expect us to be more excited or touched by hearing about them,
than if he had been telling us how the chambermaid at the Bull
aired the four-poster, and put on two extra blankets.

§ 24. Now, exactly this same contemplation of subservience to
human use makes the Greek take some pleasure in rocks, when
they assume one particular form, but one only-—that of a cave.
They are evidently quite frightful things to him under any
other condition, and most of all if they are rough and jagged;
but if smooth, looking " sculptured," like the sides of a ship, and
forming a cave or shelter for him, he begins to think them
endurable. Hence, associating the ideas of rich and sheltering
wood, sea, becalmed and made useful as a port by projecting
promontories of rock, and smoothed caves or grottoes in the
rocks themselves, we get the pleasantest idea which the Greek
could form of a landscape, next to a marsh with poplars in it;
not, indeed, if possible, ever to be without these last: thus, in
commending the Cyclops' country as one possessed of every
perfection, Homer first says : They have soft marshy meadows
near the sea, and good, rich, crumbling, ploughing-land, giving
fine deep crops, and vines always giving fruit;" then, " a port so
quiet, that they have no need of cables in it; and at the head
of the port, a beautiful clear spring just under a cave, and asjjen
poplars all round

§ 25. This, it will be seen, is very nearly Homer's usual " ideal;"
but, going into the middle of the island, Ulysses comes on a
rougher and less agreeable bit, though still fulfilling certain re-
quired conditions of endurableness; a " cave shaded with laurels,"
which, having no poplars about it, is, however, meant to be
somewhat frightful, and only fit to be inhabited by a Cyclops.
So in the country of the Laestrygons, Homer, preparing his
reader gradually for something very disagreeable, represents the
rocks as bare and " exposed to the sun;" only with some smooth
and slippery roads over them, by which the trucks bring down
wood from the higher hills. Any one familiar with Swiss slopes
of hills must remember how often he has descended, sometimes

faster than was altogether intentional, by these same slippery
woodman's truck roads.

And thus, in general, whenever the landscape is intended to
be lovely, it verges towards the ploughed land and poplars; or,
at worst, to woody rocks ; but, if intended to be painful, the rocks
are bare and " sharp." This last epithet, constantly used by
Homer for mountains, does not altogether correspond, in Greek,
to the English term, nor is it intended merely to characterize the
sharp mountain summits; for it never would be applied simply
to the edge or point of a sword, but signifies rather harsh,"
" bitter," or " painful/' being applied habitually to fate, death, and
in Od. ii. 333. to a halter; and, as expressive of general objec-
tionableness and unpleasantness, to all high, dangerous, or peaked
mountains, as the Maleian promontory (a much dreaded one),
the crest of Parnassus, the Tereian mountain^, and a grim or
untoward, though, by keeping off the force of the sea, protective,
rock at the mouth of the Jardanus; as well as habitually to
inaccessible or impregnable fortresses built on heights.

In all this I cannot too strongly mark the ntter absence
of any trace of the feeling for what we call the picturesque,
and the constant dwelling of the writer's mind on what was
available, pleasant, or useful; his ideas respecting all landscape
b^ing not uncharacteristically summed, finally, by Pallas her-
self ; when, meeting Ulysses, who after his long wandering
does not recognize his own country, and meaning to describe
it as politely and soothingly as possible, she says ^: —" This
Ithaca of ours is, indeed, a rough country enough, and not
good for driving in; but, still, things might be worse: it has
plenty of corn, and good wine, and always rain, and soft nourish-
ing dew; and it has good feeding for goats and oxen, and
all manner of wood, and springs fit to drink at all the year
round."

We shall see presently how the blundering, pseudo-pictu-
resque, pseudo-classical minds of Claude and the Kenaissance
landscape-painters, wholly missing Homer's practical common

sense, and equally Incapable of feeling the quiet natural
grace and sweetness of his asphodel meadows, tender aspen
poplars, or running vines, — fastened on his ports and caves, as the
only available features of his scenery; and appointed the type
of " classical landscape" thenceforward to consist in a bay of
insipid sea, and a rock with a hole through it.^
§ 27. It may indeed be thought that I am assuming too hastily that
this was the general view of the Greeks respecting landscape,
because it was Homer's. But I believe the true mind of a
nation, at any period, is always best ascertainable by examining
that of its greatest men; and that simpler and truer results
will be attainable for us by simply comparing Homer, Dante,
and Walter Scott, than by attempting (what my limits must
have rendered absurdly inadequate, and in which, also, both my
time and knowledge must have failed me) an analysis of the
landscape in the range of contemporary literature. All that I
can do, is to state the general impression which has been made
upon me by my desultory reading, and to mark accurately the
grounds for this impression, in the works of the greatest men.
Now it is quite true that in others of the Greeks, especially in
-^schylus and Aristophanes, there is infinitely more of modern
feeling, of pathetic fallacy, love of picturesque or beautiful form,
and other such elements, than there is in Homer; but then these
appear to me just the parts of them which were not Greek, the ele-
ments of their minds by which (as one division of the human race
always must be with subsequent ones) they are connected with
the mediasvals and moderns. And without doubt, in his influence
over future mankind, Homer is eminently the Greek of Greeks:
if I were to associate any one with him it would be Herodotus,
and I believe all I have said of the Homeric landscape will be
found equally true of the Herodotean, as assuredly it will be
of the Platonic; — the contempt, which Plato sometimes ex-
presses by the mouth of Socrates, for the country in general,
except so far as it is shady, and has cicadas and running streams

' Educated, as we shall see hereafter, first in this school, Turner gave tho 'j^hack-
ueyed composition a strange power and freshness, in his Glaucus and Scylla.

to make pleasant noises in it, being almost ludicrous. But
Homer is the great type, and the more notable one because of
his influence on Virgil, and, through him, on Dante, and all the
after ages: and, in like manner, if we can get the abstract of
mediaeval landscape out of Dante, it will serve us as well as if
we had read all the songs of the troubadours, and help us to the
farther changes in derivative temper, down to all modern time.

§ 28. I think, therefore, the reader may safely accept the conclusions
about Greek landscape which I have got for him out of Homer;
and in these he Avill certainly perceive something very different
from the usual imaginations we form of Greek feelings. We
think of the Greeks as poetical, ideal, imaginative, in the way
that a modern poet or novelist is; supposing that their thoughts
about their mythology and world were as visionary and artificial
as ours are: but I think the passages I have quoted show that
it was not so, although it may be difficult for us to appre-
hend the strange minglings in them of the elements of faith,
which, in our days, have been blended with other parts of
human nature in a totally different guise. Perhaps the Greek
mind may be best imagined by taking, as its groundwork, that of
a good, conscientious, but illiterate, Scotch Presbyterian Border
farmer of a century or two back, having perfect faith in the bodily
appearances of Satan and his imj)s; and in ^all kelpies, brownies,
and fairies. Substitute for the indignant terrors in this man's
mind, a general persuasion of the Divinity, more or less bene-
ficent, yet faultful, of all these beings; that is to say, take aAvay
his belief in the demoniacal malignity of the fallen spiritual world,
•and lower, in the same degree, his conceptions of tlie angelical,
retaining for him the same firm faith 'in both; keep his ideas
about flowers and beautiful scenery much as they are,—his delight
in regular ploughed land and meadows, and a neat garden (only
with rows of gooseberry bushes instead of vines), being, in all
probability, about accurately representative of the feelings of
Ulysses ; then, let the military spirit that is in him, glowing
against the Border forager, or the foe of old Flodden and
Chevy-Chase, be made more principal, with a higher sense of
nobleness in soldiership, not as a careless excitement, but a

kniglitly duty; and increased by high cultivation of every per-
sonal quality, not of mere shaggy strength, but graceful strength,
aided by a softer climate, and educated in all proper harmony
of sight and sound: finally, instead of an informed Christian,
suppose him to have only the patriarchal Jewish knowledge of the
Deity, and even this obscured by tradition, but still thoroughly
solemn and faithful, requiring his continual service as a priest
of burnt sacrifice and meat offering; and I think we shall get
a pretty close approximation to the vital being of a true old
Greek; some slight difference still existing in a feeling which
the Scotch farmer would have of a pleasantness in blue hills
and running streams, wholly wanting in the Greek mind; and
perhaps also some difference of views on the subjects of truth
and honesty. But the main points, the easy, athletic, strongly
logical and argumentative, yet fanciful and credulous, characters
of mind, would be very similar in both; and the most serious
change in the substance of the stuff among the modifica-
tions above suggested as necessary to turn the Scot into the
Greek, is that effect of softer climate and surrounding luxury,
inducing the practice of various forms of polished art, — the more
polished, because the practical and realistic tendency of the Hel-
lenic mind (if my interpretation of it be right) would quite
prevent it from taking pleasure in any irregularities of form,
or imitations of the weeds and wildnesses of that mountain
nature with which it thought itself born to contend. In its
utmost refinement of work, it sought eminently for orderliness;
carried the principle of the leeks in squares, and fountains in
pipes, perfectly out in its streets and temples; formalized what-
ever decoration it put into its minor architectural mouldings,
and reserved its whole heart and power to represent the action
of living men, or gods, though not unconscious, meanwhile, of

" The simple, the sincere deliglit ;
The habitual scene of hill and dale 5
The rm-al herds, the vernal gale ;
The tangled vetches' purple bloom 5
The fragrance of the bean's perfume,—
Theirs, theirs alone, who cultivate the soil,
And drink the cup of thirst, and eat the bread of toil."

§ L In our examination of the spirit of classical landscape, we were
obliged to confine ourselves to what is left to us in written
description. Some interesting results might indeed have been
obtained by examining the Egyptian and Ninevite landscape
sculpture, but in nowise conclusive enough to be worth the
pains of the inquiry; for the landscape of sculpture is necessarily
confined in range, and usually inexpressive of the complete feel-
ings of the workman, being introduced rather to explain the
place and circumstances of events, than for its own sake. In the
Middle Ages, however, the case is widely different. We have
written landscape, sculptured landscape, and painted landscape,
all bearing united testimony to the tone of the national mind in
almost every remarkable locality of Europe.

§ 2. That testimony, taken in its breadth, is very curiously conclu-
sive. It marks the mediseval mind as agreeing altogether with
the ancients, in holding that flat land, brooks, and groves of
aspens, compose the pleasant places of the earth, and that rocks
and mountains are, for inhabitation, altogether to be reprobated
and detested; but as disagreeing with the classical mind totally
in this other most important respect, that the pleasant flat land
is never a ploughed field, nor a rich lotus meadow good for
pasture, but garden ground covered with flowers, and divided by
fragrant hedges, with a castle in the middle of it. The aspens
are delighted in, not because they are good for "coach-making
men" to make cart-wheels of, but because they are shady and

graceful; and the fruit-trees, covered with delicious fruit, espe-
cially apple and orange, occupy still more important positions in
the scenery. Singing-birds — not '' sea-crows," but nightingales ^
— perch on every bough; and the ideal occupation of mankind is
not to cultivate either the garden or the meadow, but to gather
roses and eat oranges in the one, and ride out hawking over the
other.

Finally, mountain scenery, though considered as disagreeable
for general inhabitation, is always introduced as being proper to
meditate in, or to encourage communion with higher beings; and
in the ideal landscape of daily life, mountains are considered
agreeable things enough, so that they be far enough away.

The first, the disdain of agricultural pursuits by the nobility;
a fatal change, and one gradually bringing about the ruin of that idleness,
nobility. It is expressed in the medioBval landscape by the emi-
nently pleasurable and horticultural character of everything; by
the fences, hedges, castle walls, and masses of useless, but lovely
flowers, especially roses. The knights and ladies are represented
always as singing, or making love, in these pleasant places. The
idea of setting an old knight, like Laertes (whatever his state
of fallen fortune), " with thick gloves on to keep his hands from
the thorns," to prune a row of vines, would have been regarded
as the most monstrous violation of the decencies of life; and a
senator, once detected in the home employments of Cincinnatus,
could, I suppose, thenceforward hardly have appeared in society.

§ 4. The second vital point is the evidence of a more sentimen- 2. Poetical ob-
tal enjoyment of external nature. A Greek, wishing really

to enjoy himself, shut himself into a beautiful atrium, with
an excellent dinner, and a society of philosophical or musical
friends. But a mediaeval knight went into his pleasance, to gather
roses and hear the birds sing; or rode out hunting or hawking.
His evening feast, though riotous enough sometimes, was not the
height of his day's enjoyment; and if the attractions of the world

' The peculiar dislike felt by the medisevals for the sea, is so interesting a subject
of inquiry, that I have reserved it for separate discussion in another work, in present
preparation, " Harbours of England."

Three essential
characters:

1. Pride in

are to be shown typically to him, as opposed to the horrors
of death, they are never represented by a full feast in a chamber,
but by a delicate dessert in an orange grove, with musicians
under the trees; or a ride on a May morning, hawk on fist.

The third vital point is the marked sense that this hawking
and apple-eating are not altogether right; that there is some-
thing else to be done in the world than that; and that the
mountains, as opposed to the pleasant garden-ground, are places
where that other something may best be learned; — which is
evidently a piece of infinite and new respect for the mountains,
and another healthy change in the tone of the human heart.

The two first nanied, evil and good as they are, are very
closely connected. The more poetical delight in external nature
proceeds just from the fact that it is no longer looked upon
with the eye of the farmer; and in proportion as the herbs
and flowers cease to be regarded as useful, they are felt to be
charming. Leeks are not now the most important objects in
the garden, but lilies and roses; the herbage which a Greek
would have looked at only with a view to the number of
horses it would feed, is regarded by the mediasval knight as a
green carpet for fair feet to dance upon, and the beauty of its
softness and colour is proportionally felt by him; while the
brook, which the Greek rejoiced to dismiss into a reservoir
under the palace threshold, would be, by the media3val, distri-
buted into pleasant pools, or forced into fountains; and regarded
alternately as a mirror for fair faces, and a witchery to ensnare
the sunbeams and the rainbow.

§ 7. And this change of feeling involves two others, very important,
grautude to"'^*' When the flowers and grass were regarded as means of life, and
God. therefore (as the thoughtful labourer of the soil must always

regard them) with the reverence due to those gifts of God
which were most necessary to his existence; although their
own beauty was less felt, their proceeding from the Divine

§5.

3. Disturbed
conscience.

§6.

Derivative cha-
racters :
1, Love of
flowers.

1
a

i ii

hand was more seriously acknowledged, and the herb yielding
seed, and fruit-tree yielding fruit, though in themselves less
admired, were yet solemnly connected in the heart with the
reverence of Ceres, Pomona, or Pan. But when the sense of
these necessary uses was more or less lost, among the upper
classes, by the delegation of the art of husbandry to the hands
of the peasant, the flower and fruit, whose bloom or richness
thus became a mere source of pleasure, were regarded with less
solemn sense of the Divine gift in them; and were converted
rather into toys than treasures, chance gifts for gaiety, rather
than promised rewards of labour; so that while the Greek could
hardly have trodden the formal furrow, or plucked the clusters
from the trellised vine, without reverent thoughts of the deities
of field and leaf, who gave the seed to fructify, and the bloom
to darken, the media3val knight plucked the violet to wreathe
in his lady's hair, or strewed the idle roso on the turf at her
feet, with little sense of anything in the nature that gave them,
but a frail, accidental, involuntary exuberance; while also the
Jewish sacrificial system being now done away, as well as the
Pagan mythology, and, with it, the whole conception of meat
offering or firstfruits ofiering, the chiefest seriousnesses of all
the thoughts connected with the gifts of nature faded from the
minds of the classes of men concerned with art and literature;
Avhile the peasant, reduced to serf level, was incapable of imagi-
native thought, owing to his want of general cultivation. But
on the other hand, exactly in proportion as the idea of definite
spiritual presence in material nature was lost, the mysterious
sense of unaccountable life in the things themselves would be
increased, and the mind would instantly be laid open to all
those currents of fallacious, but pensive and pathetic sympathy,
which we have seen to be characteristic of modern times.

§ 8. Farther: a singular difference would necessarily result from 3. Gloom,
the far greater loneliness of baronial life, deprived as it was of fo^dsofitude,
all interest in agricultural pursuits. The palace of a Greek
leader in early times might have gardens, fields, and farms
around it, but was sure to be near some busy city or sea-port:
in later times, the city itself became the principal dwelling-place,

and the country was visited only to see how the farm went on,
or traversed in a line of march. Far other was the life of the
mediaeval baron, nested on his solitary jut of crag; entering
into cities only occasionally for some grave political or warrior's
purpose, and, for the most part, passing the years of his life in
lion-like isolation; the village inhabited by his retainers strag-
gling indeed about the slopes of the rocks at his feet, but his
own dwelling standing gloomily apart, between them and the
uncompanionable clouds, commanding, from sunset to sunrise,
the flowing flame of some calm unvoyaged river, and the end-
less undulation of the untraversable hills. How different must
the thoughts about nature have been, of the noble who lived
among the bright marble porticos of the Greek groups of temple
or palace, — in the midst of a plain covered with corn and olives,
and by the shore of a sparkling and freighted sea, — from those
of the master of some mountain promontory in the green recesses
of Northern Europe, watching night by night, from amongst his
heaps of storm-broken stone, rounded into towers, the lightning
of the lonely sea flash round the sands of Harlech, or the mists
changing their shapes for ever, among the changeless pines,
that fringe the crests of Jura.

Nor was it without similar effect on the minds of men that
their journeyings and pilgrimages became more frequent than
those of the Greek, the extent of ground traversed in the course of
them larger, and the mode of travel more companionless. To
the Greek, a voyage to Egypt, or the Hellespont, was the sub-
ject of lasting fame and fable, and the forests of the Danube and
the rocks of Sicily closed for him the gates of the intelligible
world. What parts of that narrow world he crossed were crossed
with fleets or armies; the camp always populous on the plain,
and the ships drawn in cautious symmetry around the shore.
But to the mediieval knight, from Scottish moor to Syrian sand,
the world was one great exercise ground, or field of adventure;
the staunch pacing of his charger penetrated the pathlessness of
outmost forest, and sustained the sultriness of the most secret
desert. Frequently alone, — or, if accompanied, for the most
part only by retainers of lower rank, incapable of entering into

complete sympathy with any of his thoughts, — he must have
been compelled often to enter into dim companionship with the
silent nature around him, and must assuredly sometimes have
talked to the wayside flowers of his love, and to the fading
clouds of his ambition.

§ 10. But, on the other hand, the idea of retirement from the world 4. Dread of
for the sake of self-raortification, of combat with demons, or com-
munion with angels., and with their King,—authoritatively com-
mended as it was to all men by the continual practice of Christ
Himself,—gave to all mountain solitude at once a sanctity and
a terror, in the medieeval mind, which were altogether different
from anything that it had possessed in the un-Christian periods.
On the one side, there was an idea of sanctity attached to rocky
wilderness, because it had always been among hills that the Deity
had manifested Himself most intimately to men, and to the hills
that His saints had nearly always retired for meditation, for
especial communion with Him, and to prepare for death. Men
acquainted with the history of Moses, alone at Horeb, or with
Israel at Sinai,— of Elijah by the brook Cherith, and in the
Horeb cave; of the deaths of Moses and Aaron on Hor and
Nebo; of the preparation of Jephthah's daughter for her death
among the Judea mountains; of the continual retirement of
Christ Himself to the mountains for prayer, His temptation in
the desert of the Dead Sea, His sermon on the hills of Caper-
naum, His transfiguration on the crest of Tabor, and His even-
ing and morning walks over Olivet for the four or five days
preceding His crucifixion, — were not likely to look with irre-
verent or unloving eyes upon the blue hills that girded their
golden horizon, or drew down upon them the mysterious clouds
out of the height of the darker heaven. But with this impres-
sion of their greater sanctity was involved also that of a peculiar
terror. In all this,—their haunting by the memories of prophets,
the presences of angels, and the everlasting thoughts and words
of the Redeemer,—the mountain ranges seemed separated from
the active world, and only to be fitly approached by hearts which
were condemnatory of it. Just in so much as it appeared ne-
cessary for the noblest men to retire to the hill-recesses before

their missions could be accomplished, or their spirits perfected,
in so far did the daily world seem by comparison to be pro-
nounced profane and dangerous; and to those who loved that
world, and its work, the mountains were thus voiceful with per-
petual rebuke, and necessarily contemplated with a kind of pain
and fear, such as a man engrossed by vanity feels at being by
some accident forced to hear a startling sermon, or to assist at a
funeral service. Every association of this kind was deepened
by the practice and the precept of the time; and thousands of
hearts, which might otherwise have felt that there was loveliness
in the wild landscape, shrank from it in dread, because they knew
that the monk retired to it for penance, and the hermit for
contemplation. The horror which the Greek had felt for hills
only when they were uninhabitable and barren, attached itself
now to many of the sweetest spots of earth; the feeling was
conquered by political interests, but never by admiration; mili-
tary ambition seized the frontier rock, or maintained itself in the
unassailable pass; but it was only for their punishment, or in
their despair, that men consented to tread the crocused slopes
of the Chartreuse, or the soft glades and dewy pastures of Val-
lombrosa.

§ 11. In all these modifications of temper and principle there appears
much which tends to a passionate, affectionate, or awe-struck
observance of the features of natural scenery, closely resembling,
in all but this superstitious dread of mountains, our feelings at
the present day. But one character which the mediaevals had
in common with the ancients, and that exactly the most eminent
character in both, opposed itself steadily to all the feelings we
have hitherto been examining, — the admiration, namely, and
constant watchfulness, of human beauty. Exercised in nearly
the same manner as the Greeks, from their youth upwards, their
countenances were cast even in a higher mould; for, although
somewhat less regular in feature, and affected by minglings of
Northern bluntness and stolidity of general expression, together
with greater thinness of lip and shaggy formlessness of brow,
these less sculpturesque features were, nevertheless, touched with
a seriousness and refinement proceeding first from the modes

of thought inculcated by the Christian religion, and secondly
from their more romantic and various life. Hence a degree of
personal beauty, both male and female, was attained in the
Middle Ages, with which classical periods could show nothing
for a moment comparable: and this beauty was set forth by the
most perfect splendour, united with grace, in dress, which
the human race have hitherto invented. The strength of their
art-genius was directed in great part to this object; and their
best workmen and most brilliant fanciers were employed in
wreathing the mail or embroidering the robe. The exquisite
arts of enamelling and chasing metal enabled them to make the
armour as radiant and delicate as the plumage of a troi)ical
bird; and the most various and vivid imaginations were displayed
in the alternations of colour, and fiery freaks of form, on shield
and crest: so that of all the beautiful things which the eyes
of men could fall upon, in the world about them, the most beau-
tiful must have been a young knight riding out in morning
sunshine, and in faithful hope.

" His broad, clear brow in sunlight glowed j
On burnished hooves his war-horse trode ;
From underneath his helmet flowed
His coal-black curls, as on he rode.
All in the blue, unclouded weather,
Thick jewelled shone the saddle leather;
The helmet and the helmet feather
Burned like one burning flame together;
And the gemmy bridle glittered fi'ee,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden galaxy."

§ 12, Now, the effect of this superb presence of human beauty 5. Care for hu-
on men in general was, exactly as it had been in Greek beauty,
times, first, to turn their thoughts and glances in great part
away from all other beauty but that, and to make the grass of
the field take to them always more or less the aspect of a carpet
to dance upon, a lawn to tilt upon, or a serviceable crop of
hay; and, secondly, in what attention they paid to this lower
nature, to make them dwell exclusively on what was graceful,
symmetrical, and bright in colour. All that was rugged, rough,
dark, wild, unterminated, they rejected at once, as the domain

of " salvage men " and monstrous giants: all that they admired
was tender, bright, balanced, enclosed, symmetrical — only sym-
metrical in the noble and free sense: for what Ave moderns call
" symmetry," or " balance," differs as much from mediaeval sym-
metry as the poise of a grocer's scales, or the balance of an
Egyptian mummy with its hands tied to its sides, does from the
balance of a knight on his horse, striking with the battle-axe,
at the gallop; the mummy's balance looking wonderfully perfect,
and yet sure to be one-sided if you weigh the dust of it,—the
knight's balance swaying and changing like the wind, and yet
as true and accurate as the laws of life.

6. Symmetrical peculiar duties required of art at the time; for, in order to fit

glass, it was absolutely necessary to take away its complexity,
and reduce it to the condition of a disciplined and orderly
pattern; and this the more, because, for all military purposes,
the device, whatever it was, had to be distinctly intelligible at
extreme distance. That it should be a good imitation of nature,
when seen near, was of no moment; but it was of highest
moment that when first the knight's banner flashed in the sun
at the turn of the mountain road, or rose, torn and bloody,
through the drift of the battle dust, it should still be discern-
ible what the bearing was.

" At length, the freshening western blast
Aside the shroud of battle cast;
And first the ridge of mingled spears
Above the brightening cloud appears;
And in the smoke the pennons flew,
As in the storm the white sea-mew;
Then marked they, dashing broad and far
The broken billows of the war.
Wide raged the battle on the plain ;
Spears shook, and falchions flashed amain ;
Fell England's arrow-flight like rain ;
Crests rose, and stooped, and rose again,

Wild and disorderly.
Amidst the scene of tumult, high.
They saw Lord Marmion's falcon fly.
And stainless TunstalVs banner white.
And Edmund Howard's lion bright"

It was needed, not merely that they should see it was a falcon,
but Lord Marmion's falcon; not only a lion, but the Howard's
lion. Hence, to the one imperative end of intelligihility, every
minor resemblance to nature was sacrificed, and above all, the
curved, which are chiefly the confusing lines; so that the straight,
elongated back, doubly elongated tail, projected and separate
claws, and other rectilinear unnaturalnesses of form, became the
means by which the leopard was, in midst of the mist and storm
of battle, distinguished from the dog, or the lion from the wolf;
the most admirable fierceness and vitality being, in spite of these
necessary changes (so often shallowly sneered at by the modern
workman), obtained by the old designer.

Farther, it was necessary to the brilliant harmony of colour, and
clear setting forth of everything, that all confusing shadows, all
dim and doubtful lines should be rejected: hence at once an utter
denial of natural appearances by the great body of workmen;
and a calm rest in a practice of representation which would make
either boar or lion blue, scarlet, or golden, according to the
device of the knight, or the need of such and such a colour in
that place of the pattern; and which wholly denied that any
substance ever cast a shadow, or was affected by any kind of
obscurity.

All this was in its way, and for its end, absolutely right, 7. Therefore,
admirable, and delightful; and those who despise it, laugh at it, or dering^rna-"'
derive no pleasure from it, are utterly ignorant of the highest prin-
ciples of art, and are mere tyros and beginners in the practice of
colour. But, admirable though it might be, one necessary result
of it was a farther withdrawal of the observation of men from
the refined and subtle beauty of nature; so that the workman
who first was led to think lightly of natural beauty, as being
subservient to human, was next led to think inaccurately of
natural beauty, because he had continually to alter and simplify it
for his practical purposes.

7!:

a
)

Now, assembling all these different sources of the peculiar
mediaeval feeling towards nature in one view, we have:

to a sentimental contemplation of nature, instead of a
practical and agricultural one. (§§ 3, 4. 6.)
2nd. Loss of sense of actual Divine presence, leading to fancies
of fallacious animation, in herbs, flowers, clouds, &c.

with wild nature. (§§ 8, 9.)
4th. Apprehension of demoniacal and angelic presence among

mountains, leading to a reverent dread of them. (§ 10.)
5th. Principalness of delight in human beauty, leading to com-
parative contempt of natural objects. (§ 11.)
6th. Consequent love of order, light, intelligibility, and sym-
metry, leading to dislike of the wildness, darkness, and
mystery of nature. (§ 12.)
7th. Inaccuracy of observance of nature, induced by the habitual
practice of change on its forms. (§ 13.)

From these mingled elements, we should necessarily expect to
find resulting, as the characteristic of medi£eval landscape art,
compared with Greek, a far higher sentiment about it, and affec-
tion for it, more or less subdued by still greater respect for
the loveliness of man, and therefore subordinated entirely to
human interests; mingled with curious traces of terror, piety,
or superstition, and cramped by various formalisms, — some wise
and necessary, some feeble, and some exhibiting needless igno-
rance and inaccuracy.

The landscape of the Middle Ages is represented in a central
manner by the illuminations of the MSS. of Romances, executed
about the middle of the fifteenth century. On one side of
these stands the earlier landscape work, more or less treated
as simple decoration; on the other, the later landscape work,
becoming more or less affected with modern ideas and modes of
imitation.

These central fifteenth century landscapes are almost invariably
composed of a grove or two of tall trees, a winding river, and a
castle, or a garden: the peculiar feature of both tliese last being
trimness; the artist always dwelling especially on the fences;

wreathing the espaliers indeed prettily with sweetbriar, and put-
ting pots of orange-trees on the tops of the walls, but taking ^
great care that there shall be no loose bricks in the one, nor |
broken stakes in the other,—the trouble and ceaseless warfare of i
the times having rendered security one of the first elements of
pleasantness, and making it impossible for any artist to conceive
Paradise but as surrounded by a moat, or to distinguish the road
to it better than by its narrow wicket gate, and watchful
porter,

above. Mr. Macaulay is evidently quite unaware that the ser-
pent with the human head, and body twisted round the tree, was
the universally accepted symbol of the evil angel, from the dawn
of art up to Michael Angelo; that the greatest sacred artists in-
variably place the man on the one side of the tree, the woman on
the other, in order to denote the entlironed and balanced do-
minion about to fall by temptation; that the beasts are ranged
(when they are so, though this is much more seldom the case,)
in a circle round them, expressly to mark that they were then not

wild, but obedient;, intelligent, and orderly beasts; and that the
four rivers are trenched and enclosed on the four sides, to mark
that the waters which now wander in waste, and destroy in fury,
had then for their principal office to " water the garden " of God.
The description is, however, sufficiently apposite and interest-
ing, as bearing upon what I have noted respecting the eminent
fence-loVmg spirit of the medigevals.

§ 18. Together with this peculiar formality, we find an infinite
delight in drawing pleasant flowers, always articulating and out-
lining them completely; the sky is always blue, having only a
few delicate white clouds in it, and in the distance are blue
mountains, very far away, if the landscape is to be simply
delightful; but brought near, and divided into quaint over-
hanging rocks, if it is intended to be meditative, or a place of
saintly seclusion. But the whole of it always,—flowers, castles,
brooks, clouds, and rocks, — subordinate to the human figures in
the foreground, and painted for no other end than that of ex-
plaining their adventures and occupations.

§ 19. Before the idea of landscape had been thus far developed, the
representations of it had been purely typical; the objects which
had to be shown in order to explain the scene of the event,
being firmly outlined, usually on a pure golden or chequered
colour background, not on sky. The change from the golden
background (characteristic of the finest thirteenth century work)
and the coloured chequer (which in like manner belongs to the
finest fourteenth) to the blue sky, gradated to the horizon, takes
place early in the fifteenth century, and is the crisis of change in
the spirit of mediaBval art. Strictly speaking, we might divide the
art of Christian times into two great masses — Symbolic and Imi-
tative;—the symbolic, reaching from the earliest periods down
to the close of the fourteenth century, and the imitative from
that close, to the present time; and, then, the most important
circumstance indicative of the culminating point, or turn of tide,
would be this of the change from chequered background to sky
background. The uppermost figure in Plate 7. opposite, repre-
senting the tree of knowledge, taken from a somewhat late
thirteenth century Hebrew manuscript (Additional 11,639) in

the British Museum, will at once illustrate Mr. Macaulay's
"serpent turned round the tree," and the mode of introducing
the chequer background, and will enable the reader better to
understand the peculiar feeling of the period, which no more
intended the formal walls or streams for an imitative representa-
tion of the Garden of Eden, than these chequers for an imitation
of sky.

§ 20. The moment the sky is introduced (and it is curious how per-
fectly it is done at once, many manuscripts presenting, in alternate
pages, chequered backgrounds, and deep blue skies exquisitely
gradated to the horizon)—the moment, I say, the sky is intro-
duced, the spirit of art becomes for evermore changed, and
thenceforward it gradually proposes imitation more and more as
an end, until it reaches the Turnerian landscape. This broad
division into two schools would therefore be the most true and
accurate we could employ, but not the most convenient. For
the great mediteval art lies in a cluster about the culminating
point, including symbolism on one side, and imitation on the
other, and extending like a radiant cloud upon the mountain
peak of ages, partly down both sides of it, from the year 1200
to 1500; the brightest part of the cloud leaning a little back-
wards, and poising itself between 1250 and 1350. And therefore
the most convenient arrangement is into Romanesque and barba-
ric art, up to 1200, — mediajval art, 1200 to 1500, — and modern
art, from 1500 downwards. But it is only in the earlier or sym-
bolic mediEeval art, reaching up to the close of the fourteenth
century, that the peculiar modification of natural forms for de-
corative purposes is seen in its perfection, with all its beauty,
and all its necessary shortcomings; the minds of men being
accurately balanced between that honour for the superior human
form which they shared with the Greek ages, and the sentimental
love of nature which was peculiar to their own. The expression
of the two feelings will be found to vary according to the ma-
terial and place of the art; in painting, the conventional forms
are more adopted, in order to obtain definition, and brilliancy of
colour, while in sculpture the life of nature is often rendered
YOL. III. P

with a love and faithfulness which put modern art to shame.
And in this earnest contemplation of the natural facts, united
with an endeavour to simplify, for clear expression, the results
of that contemplation, the ornamental artists arrived at two
a,bstract conclusions about form, which are highly curious and
interesting.

§ 21. They saw, first, that a leaf might always be considered as a
sudden expansion of the stem that bore it; an uncontrollable
expression of delight, on the part of the twig, that spring had
come, shown in a fountain-like expatiation of its tender green
heart into the air. They saw that in this violent proclamation
of its delight and liberty, whereas the twig had, until that
moment, a disposition only to grow quietly forwards, it ex-
pressed its satisfaction and extreme pleasure in sunshine by
springing out to right and left. Let ah. Fig. 1. Plate 8,, be
the twig growing forward in the direction from a to h. It
reaches the point and then — spring coming, — not being able
to contain itself, it bursts out in every direction, even springing
backwards at first for joy; but as this backward direction is
contrary to its own proper fate and nature, it cannot go on so
long, and the length of each rib into which it separates is propor-
tioned accurately to the degree in which the proceedings of that
rib are in harmony with the natural destiny of the plant. Thus
the rib c, entirely contradictory, by the direction of his life and
energy, of the general intentions to the tree, is but a short-lived
rib; d, not quite so opposite to his fate, lives longer; e, accom-
modating himself still more to the spirit of progress, attains a
greater length still; and the largest rib of all is the one who
has not yielded at all to the erratic disposition of the others
when spring came, but, feeling quite as happy about the spring
as they did, nevertheless took no holiday, minded his business,
and grew straightforward.

§ 22. Fig. 6. in the same plate, which shows the disposition of the
ribs in the leaf of an American Plane, exemplifies the principle
very accurately: it is indeed more notably seen in this than
in most leaves, because the ribs at the base have evidently

had a little fraternal quarrel about their spring holiday; and
the more gaily-minded ones, getting together into trios on each
side, have rather pooh-poohed and laughed at the seventh bro-
ther in the middle, who w^anted to go on regularly, and attend
to his work. Nevertheless, though thus starting quite by him-
self in life, this seventh brother, quietly pushing on in the right
direction, lives longest, and makes the largest fortune, and the
triple partnerships on the right and left meet with a very minor
prosperity.

§ 23. Now if we inclose Fig. 1. in Plate 8. with two curves passing
through the extremities of the ribs, we get Fig. 2., the central
type of all leaves. Only this type is modified of course in a
thousand ways by the life of the plant. If it be marsh or
aquatic, instead of springing out in twigs, it is almost certain to
expand in soft currents, as the liberated stream does at its mouth
into the ocean, Fig. 3. (Alisma Plantago); if it be meant for one
of the crowned and lovely trees of the earth, it will separate
into stars, and each ray of the leaf will form a ray of light in
the crown. Fig. 5. (Horsechestnut); and if it be a common-
place tree, rather prudent and practical than imaginative, it will
not expand all at once, but throw out the ribs every now and
then along the central rib, like a merchant taking his occasional
and restricted holiday. Fig. 4. (Elm).

§ 24. Now in the bud, where all these proceedings on the leaf's part
are first imagined, the young leaf is generally (always ?) doubled
up in embryo, so as to present the profile of the half-leaves,
as Fig. 7., only in exquisite complexity of arrangement; Fig 9.
for instance, is the profile of the leaf-bud of a rose. Hence the
general arrangement of line represented by Fig. 8. (in which the
lower line is slightly curved to express the bending life in the
spine) is everlastingly typical of the expanding power of joyful
vegetative youth; and it is of all simple forms the most exqui-
sitely delightful to the human mind. It presents itself in a thou-
sand different proportions and variations in the buds and profiles
of leaves; those being always the loveliest in which, either by
accidental perspective of position, or inherent character in the

tree, it is most frequently presented to the eye. The branch of
bramble, for instance, Fig. 10. at the bottom of Plate 8., owes
its chief beauty to the perpetual recurrence of this typical form;
and we shall find presently the enormous importance of it, even
in mountain ranges, though, in these, falling force takes the
place of vital force.

This abstract conclusion the great thirteenth century artists
were the first to arrive at; and whereas, before their time, orna-
ment had been constantly refined into intricate and subdivided
symmetries, they were content with this simple form as the
termination of its most important features. Fig. 3., which is
a scroll out of a Psalter executed in the latter half of the thir-

teenth century, is a sufficient example of a practice at that time
absolutely universal.

§ 26. The second great discovery of the Middle Ages in floral orna-
ment, was that, in order completely to express the law of subor-
dination among the leaf-i'ibs, two ribs were necessary, and no
more, on each side of the leaf, forming a series of three with
the central one, because proportion is between three terms at
least.

That is to say, when they had only three ribs altogether, as
a, Fig. 4., no law of relation was discernible between the ribs,
or the leaflets they bore; but by the addition of a third on each

side, as at J, proportion instantly was expressible, whether arith-
metical or geometrical, or of any other kind. Hence the adop-
tion of forms more or less approximating to that at c (young
ivy), or d (wild geranium), as the favourite elements of their
floral ornament, those leaves being, in their disposition of masses,
the simplest which can express a perfect law of proportion, just
as the outline Fig. 7. Plate 8. is the simplest which can express
a perfect law of growth.

Plate 9. opposite gives, in rude outline, the arrangement of
the border of one of the pages of a missal in my own posses-
sion, executed for the Countess Yolande of Flandersin the
latter half of the fourteenth century, and furnishing, in exhaust-
less variety, the most graceful examples I have ever seen of
the favourite decoration at the period, commonly now known
as the " Ivy-leaf" pattern.

In thus reducing these two everlasting laws of beauty to
their simplest possible exponents, the mediseval workmen were
the first to discern and establish the principles of decorative
art to the end of time, nor of decorative art merely, but of
mass arrangement in general. For the members of any great
composition, arranged about a centre, are always reducible to

Married to Philip, younger son of the King of Navarre, in 1352. She died in 13y4.

the law of tlie ivy leaf, the best cathedral entrances having five
porches corresponding in proportional purpose to its five lobes
(three being an imperfect, and seven a superfluous number);
while the loveliest groups of lines attainable in any pictorial
composition are ahvays based on the section of the leaf-bud,
Fig. 7. Plate 8., or on the relation of its ribs to the convex
curve enclosing them.

§ 28. These discoveries of ultimate truth are, I believe, never
made philosophically, but instinctively; so that wherever we
find a high abstract result .of the kind, we may be almost sure
it has been the work of the penetrative imagination, acting
under the influence of strong affection. Accordingly, when we
enter on our botanical inquiries, I shall have occasion to show
with what tender and loving fidelity to nature the masters of
the thirteenth century always traced the leading lines of their
decorations, either in missal-painting or sculpture, and how
totally in this respect their methods of subduing, for the sake
of distinctness, the natural forms they loved so dearly, differ
from the iron formalisms to which the Greeks, careless of all
that was not completely divine or completely human, reduced
the thorn of the acanthus, and softness of the lily. Nevertheless,
in all this perfect and loving decorative art, we have hardly any
careful references to other landscape features than herbs and
flowers; mountains, water, and clouds are introduced so rudely,
that the representations of them can never be received for any-
thing else than letters or signs. Thus the sign of clouds, in the
thirteenth century, is an undulating band, usually in paint-
ing, of blue edged with white, in sculpture, wrought so as to
resemble very nearly the folds of a curtain closely tied, and un-
derstood for clouds only by its position, as surrounding angels
or saints in heaven, opening to souls ascending at the Last
Judgment, or forming canopies over the Saviour or the Virgin.
"Water is represented by zigzag lines, nearly resembling those
employed for clouds, but distinguished, in sculpture, by having
fish in it; in painting, both by fish and a more continuous blue
or green colour. And when these unvaried symbols are associated
ander the influence of that love of firm fence, moat, and every

Other means of definition wliich we have seen to be one of
the prevailing characteristics of the medieval mind, it is not
possible for us to conceive, through the rigidity of the signs
employed, what were the real feelings of the workman or
spectator about the natural landscape. We see that the thing
carved or painted is not intended in anywise to imitate the truth,
or convey to us the feelings which the workman had in con-
templating the truth. He has got a way of talking about it so
definite and cold, and tells us with his chisel so calmly that the
knight had a castle to attack, or the saint a river to cross dry-
shod, without making the smallest effort to describe pictorially
either castle or river, that we are left wholly at fault as to the
nature of the emotion with which he contemplated the real
objects. But that emotion, as the intermediate stej? between
the feelings of the Grecian and the Modern, it must be our
aim to ascertain as clearly as possible; and, therefore, finding
it not at this period completely expressed in visible art, we
must, as we did with the Greeks, take up the written landscape
instead, and examine this mediaeval sentiment as we find it
embodied in the poem of Dante.

The thing that must first strike us in this respect, as we turn
our thoughts to the poem, is, unquestionably, the formality of its
landscape.

Milton's effort, in all that he tells us of his Inferno, is to make
it indefinite ; Dante's, to make it definite. Both, indeed, describe
it as entered through gates; but, within the gate, all is wild and
fenceless with Milton, having indeed its four rivers,—the last
vestige of the mediaeval tradition,—but rivers which flow through
a waste of mountain and moorland, and by " many a frozen, many
a fiery Alp." But Dante's Inferno is accurately separated into
circles drawn wi!h well-pointed compasses; mapped and properly
surveyed in every direction, trenched in a thoroughly good style
of engineering from depth to depth, and divided in the " accurate
middle" (dritto mezzo) of its deepest abyss, into a concentric
series of ten moats and embankments, like those about a castle,
with bridges from each embankment to the next; precisely in the
manner of those bridges over Hiddekel and Euplirates, which

Mr. Macaulay thinks so innocently designed, apparently not
aware that he is also laughing at Dante. These larger fosses
are of rock, and the bridges also; but as he goes farther into
detail, Dante tells us of various minor fosses and embankments, in
which he anxiously points out to us not only the formality, but
the neatness and perfectness, of the stonework. For instance, in
describing the river Phlegethon, he tells us that it was " paved
with stone at the bottom, and at the sides, and over the edges
of the sides,just as the water is at the baths of Bulicame ; and
for fear we should think this embankment at all larger than
it really was, Dante adds, carefully, that it was made just like
the embankments of Ghent or Bruges against the sea, or those
in Lombardy which bank the Brenta, only " not so high, nor
so wide," as any of these. And besides the trenches, we have
two well-built castles; one, like Ecbatana, with seven circuits of
wall (and surrounded by a fair stream), wherein the great poets
and sages of antiquity live; and another, a great fortified city
with walls of iron, red-hot, and a deep fosse round it, and full of
" grave citizens," — the city of Dis.

Now, whether this be in what we moderns call " good taste,"
or not, I do not mean just now to inquire—Dante having nothing
to do with taste, but with the facts of what he had seen; only,
so far as the imaginative faculty of the two poets is concerned,
note that Milton's vagueness is not the sign of imagination,
but of its absence, so fer as it is significative in the matter. For
it does not follow, because Milton did not map out his Inferno as
Dante did, that he eonld not have done so if he had chosen; only,
it was the easier and less imaginative process to leave it vague
than to define it. Imagination is always the seeing and asserting
faculty; that which obscures or conceals may be judgment, or
feeling, but not invention. The invention, whether good or bad,
is in the accurate engineering, not in the fog and uncertainty.

When we pass with Dante from the Inferno to Purgatory, we
have indeed more light and air, but no more liberty; being now
confined on various ledges cut into a mountain side, with a pre-
cipice on one hand and a vertical wall on the other; and, lest here
also we should make any mistake about magnitudes, we are told

that the ledges were eighteen feet wide and that the ascent from
one to the other was by steps, made like those which go up from
Florence to the church of San Miniato.^

Lastly, though in the Paradise there is perfect freedom and
infinity of space, though for trenches we have planets, and for
cornices constellations, yet there is more cadence, procession, and
order among the redeemed souls than any others; they fly, so as
to describe letters and sentences in the air, and rest in circles,
like rainbows, or determinate figures, as of a cross and an eagle ;
in which certain of the more glorified natures are so arranged as
to form the eye of the bird, while those most highly blessed are
arranged with their white crowds in leaflets, so as to form the
image of a white rose in the midst of heaven.

§ 32. Thus, throughout the poem, I conceive that the first striking
character of its scenery is intense definition; precisely the reflec-
tion of that definiteness which we have already traced in pictorial
art. But the second point which seems noteworthy is, that the
flat ground and embanked trenches are reserved for the Inferno ;
and that the entire territory of the Purgatory is a mountain, thus
marking the sense of that purifying and perfecting influence in
mountains which we saw the mediDQval mind was so ready to
suggest. The same general idea is indicated at the very com-
mencement of the poem, in which Dante is overwhelmed by fear
and sorrow in passing through a dark forest, but revives on seeing
the sun touch the top of a hill, afterwards called by Virgil " the
pleasant mount—the cause and source of all delight."

§ 33. While, however, we find this greater honour paid to mountains,
I think we may perceive a much greater dread and dislike of
woods. We saw that Homer seemed to attach a pleasant idea,
for the most part, to forests ; regarding them as sources of wealth
and places of shelter ; and we find constantly an idea of sacredness
attached to them, as being haunted especially by the gods; so that
even the wood which surrounds the house of Circe is spoken of
as a sacred thicket, or rather, as a sacred glade, or labyrinth of
glades (of the particular word used I shaU have more to say

presently); and so the wood is sought as a kindly shelter by
Ulysses, in spite of its wild beasts; and evidently regarded with
great affection by Sophocles, for, in a passage which is always
regarded by readers of Greek tragedy with peculiar pleasure,
the aged and blind QSdipus, brought to rest in " the sweetest
resting-place" in all the neighbourhood of Athens, has the spot
described to him as haunted perpetually by nightingales, which
sing " in the green glades and in the dark ivy, and in the
thousand-fruited, sunless, and windless thickets of the god"
(Bacchus); the idea of the complete shelter from wind and sun
being here, as with Ulysses, the uppermost one. After this come
the usual staples of landscape,—narcissus, crocus, plenty of rain,
olive trees; and last, and the greatest boast of all,—" it is a good
country for horses, and conveniently by the sea;" but the
prominence and pleasantness of the thick wood in the thoughts of
the writer are very notable; whereas to Dante the idea of a forest
is exceedingly repulsive, so that, as just noticed, in the opening of
his poem, he cannot express a general despair about life more
strongly than by saying he was lost in a wood so savage and
terrible, that " even to think or speak of it is distress, ■— it was so
bitter,—it was something next door to death;" and one of the
saddest scenes in all the Inferno is in a forest, of which the trees
are haunted by lost souls; while (with only one exception), when-
ever the country is to be beautiful, we find ourselves coming out
into open air and open meadows.

It is quite true that this is partly a characteristic, not merely
of Dante, or of mediaeval writers, but of southern writers; for the
simple reason that the forest, being with them higher upon the
hills, and more out of the way than in the north, was generally
a type of lonely and savage places; while in England, the
" greenwood," coming up to the very walls of the towns, it was
possible to be " merry in the good greenwood," in a sense which
an Italian could not have understood. Hence Chaucer, Spenser,
and Shakspere send their favourites perpetually to the woods
for pleasure or meditation; and trust their tender Canace, or
Rosalind, or Helena, or Silvia, or Belpha3be, where Dante
would have sent no one but a condemned spirit. Nevertheless,

there is always traceable in the mediaeval mind a dread of thick
foliage, which was not present to that of a Greek; so that, even
in the north, we have our sorrowful " children in the wood,"
and black huntsmen of the Hartz forests, and such other wood
terrors; the principal reason for the difference being that a Greek,
being by no means given to travelling, regarded his woods as so
much valuable property; and if he ever went into them for
pleasure, expected to meet one or two gods in the course of his
walk, but no banditti; while a mediseval, much more of a solitary
traveller, and expecting to meet with no gods in the thickets,
but only with thieves, or a hostile ambush, or a bear, besides a
great deal of troublesome ground for his horse, and a very serious
chance, next to a certainty, of losing his way, naturally kept
in the open ground as long as he could, and regarded the forests,
in general, with anything but an eye of favour.

§ 34. These, I think, are the principal points which must strike us,
when we first broadly think of the poem as compared with
classical work. Let us now go a little more into detail.

As Homer gave us an ideal landscape, which even a god might
have been pleased to behold, so Dante gives us, fortunately, an
ideal landscape, which is specially intended for the terrestrial
paradise. And it will doubtless be with some surprise, after our
reflections above on the general tone of Dante's feelings, that we
find ourselves here first entering & forest, and that even a thick
forest. But there is a peculiar meaning in this. With any other
poet than Dante, it might have been regarded as a wanton incon-
sistency. Not so with him; by glancing back to the two lines
Avhich explain the nature of Paradise, we shall see what he means
by it. Virgil tells him, as he enters it, " Henceforward, take
thine own pleasure for guide; thou art beyond the steep ways,
and beyond all Art;" — meaning, that the perfectly purified and
noble human creature, having no pleasure but in right, is past all
effort, and past all rule. Art has no existence for such a being.
Hence, the first aim of Dante, in his landscape imagery, is to
show evidence of this perfect liberty, and of the purity and sin-
lessness of the new nature, converting pathless ways into happy
ones. So that all those fences and formalisms which had been

needed for him in imperfection, are removed in this paradise;
and eA'^en the pathlessness of the wood, the most dreadful thing
possible to him in his days of sin and shortcoming, is now a
joy to him in his days of purity. And as the fencelessness and
thicket of sin led to the fettered and fearful order of eternal
punishment, so the fencelessness and thicket of the free virtue
lead to the loving and constellated order of eternal happiness.

§ 35. This forest, then, is very like that of Colonos in several
respects — in its peace and sweetness, and number of birds; it
differs from it only in letting a light breeze through it, being
therefore somewhat thinner than the Greek wood; the tender
lines which tell of the voices of the birds mingling with the
wind, and of the leaves all turning one way before it, have been
more or less copied by every poet since Dante's time. They are,
so far as I know, the sweetest passage of wood description which
exists in literature.

Before, however, Dante has gone far in this wood, — that is
to say, only so far as to have lost sight of the place where he
entered it, or rather, I suppose, of the light under the boughs
of the outside trees, and it must have been a very thin wood
indeed if he did not do this in some quarter of a mile's walk, —
he comes to a little river, three paces over, which bends the
blades of grass to the left, with a meadow on the other side of
it; and in this meadow

Singing, and setting flower by flower apart,
By which the path she walked on was besprent.

In beams of love, if I may trust thy face,
Which useth to bear witness of the heart.
Let liking come on thee,' said I, ' to trace

Thy path a little closer to the shore,
Where I may reap the hearing of thy lays.
Thou mindest me, how Proserpine of yore

Appeared in such a place, what time her mother
Lost her, and she the spring, for evermore.'
As, pointing downwards and to one another

Her feet, a lady bendeth in the dance,
And barely setteth one before the other.
Thus, on the scarlet and the salFron glance

Of flowers, with motion maidenlike she bent
(Her modest eyelids drooping and askance) ;

And there she gave my wishes their content,
Approaching, so that her sweet melodies

When first she came amongst the blades, that rise,
Already wetted, from the goodly river,

§ 36. I have given this passage at length, because, for our purposes,
it is by much the most important, not only in Dante, but in the
whole circle of poetry. This lady, observe, stands on the oppo-
site side of the little stream, which, presently, she explains to
Dante is Lethe, having power to cause forgetfulness of all evil,
and she stands just among the bent blades of grass at its edge.
She is first seen gathering flower from flower, then passing
continually the multitudinous flowers through her hands," smiling
at the same time so brightly, that her first address to Dante is to
prevent him from wondering at her, saying, " if he will remember
the verse of the ninety-second Psalm, beginning ' Delectasti,' he
will know why she is so happy."

And turning to the verse of this Psalm we find it written,
" Thou, Lord, hast made me glad through Thy works. I will
triumph in the works of Thy handsor, in the very words in
which Dante would read it, —

" Quia delcctasti me, Domine, in factura tua,
Et in operibus manuum Tuarum exultabo."

§ 37. Now we could not for an instant have had any difficulty in
understanding this, but that, some way farther on in the poem,
this lady is called Matilda, and is with reason supposed by the
commentators to be the great Countess Matilda of the eleventh
century; notable equally for her ceaseless activity, her brilliant
political genius, her perfect piety, and her deep reverence for
the see of Rome. This Countess Matilda is therefore Dante's
guide in the terrestrial paradise, as Beatrice is afterwards in the
celestial; each of them having a spiritual and symbolic character
in their glorified state, yet retaining their definite personality.

The question is, then, what is the symbolic character of the
Countess Matilda, as the guiding spirit of the terrestrial para-
dise ? Before Dante had entered this paradise he had rested on

a step of shelving rock, and as lie watched the stars he slept,
and dreamed, and thus tells us what he saw: —■

" A lady, young and beautiful, I dreamed.
Was passing o'er a lea ; and, as she came,
Methought I saw her ever and anon
Bending to cull the JElowcrs ; and thus she sang :
' Know ye, whoever of my name would ask,
That I am Leah ; for my brow to weave
A garland, these fair hands unwearied ply;
To please me at the crystal mirror, here
I deck me. But my sister Rachel, she
Before her glass abides the livelong day,
Her radiant eyes beholding, charmed no less
Than I Avith this delightful task. Her joy
In contemplation, as in labour mine.' "

This vision of Rachel and Leah has been always, and with
unquestionable truth, received as a type of the Active and Con-
templative life, and as an introduction to the two divisions of the
paradise which Dante is about to enter. Therefore the un-
wearied spirit of the Countess Matilda is understood to represent
the Active life, which forms the felicity of Earth; and the spirit
of Beatrice the Contemplative life, which forms the felicity of
ij Heaven. This interpretation appears at first straightforward and

certain; but it has missed count of exactly the most important
I fact in the two passages which we have to explain. Observe:

Leah gathers the flowers to decorate herself^ and delights in Her
I Own Labour. Rachel sits silent, contemplating herself, and de-

lights in Her Own Image. These are the types of the Unglorified
Active and Contemplative powers of Man. But Beatrice and
Matilda are the same powers. Glorified. And how are they
Glorified ? Leah took delight in her own labour; but Matilda
— " in operibus manuum Tuarum " — in God's labour : Rachel in
the sight of her own face ; Beatrice in the sight of God's face,
§ 38. And thus, when afterwards Dante sees Beatrice on her throne,
and prays her that, when he himself shall die, she would receive
him with kindness, Beatrice merely looks down for an instant,
and answers with a single smile, then " towards the eternal
fountain turns."

not between earth and heaven, but between perfect and imper-
fect happiness, whether in earth or heaven. The active life which
has only the service of man for its end, and therefore gathers
flowers, with Leah, for its own decoration, is indeed happy, but
not perfectly so ; it has only the happiness of the dream, belong-
ing essentially to the dream of human life, and passing away
with it. But the active life which labours for the more and
more discovery of God's work, is perfectly happy, and is the
life of the terrestrial paradise, being a true foretaste of heaven,
and beginning in earth, as heaven's vestibule. So also the con-
templative life which is concerned with human feeling and
thought and beauty—the life which is in earthly poetry and
imagery of noble earthly emotion — is happy, but it is the happi-
ness of the dream ; the contemplative life which has God's
person and love in Christ for its object, has the happiness of
eternity. But because this higher happiness is also begun here
on earth, Beatrice descends to earth ; and when revealed to
Dante first, he sees the image of the twofold personality of
Christ reflected in her eyes; as the flowers, which are, to the
mediaeval heart, the chief work of God, are for ever passing
through Matilda's hands.

Now, therefore, we see that Dante, as the great prophetic
exponent of the heart of the Middle Ages, has, by the lips of
the spirit of Matilda, declared the mediaeval faith, — that all per-
fect active life was '' the expression of man's delight in God's
work;^^ and that all their political and warlike energy, as fully
shown in the mortal life of Matilda, was yet inferior and im-
pure, — the energy of the dream, — compared with that which on
the opposite bank of Lethe stood " choosing flower from flower."
And what joy and peace there were in this work is marked by
Matilda's being the person who draws Dante through the stream
of Lethe, so as to make him forget all sin, and all sorrow :
throwing her arms round him, she plunges his head under the
waves of it; then draws him through, crying to him, " hold me,
hold Tne" (tiemmi, tiemmi), and so presents him, thus bathed,
free from all painful memory, at the feet of the spirit of the
more heavenly contemplation.

§ 40. The reader will, I think, now see, with suflficient distinctness,
why I called this passage the most important, for our present
purposes, in the whole circle of poetry. For it contains the
first great confession of the discovery by the human race (I mean
as a matter of experience, not of revelation), that their happi-
ness was not in themselves, and that their labour was not to
have their own service as its chief end. It embodies in a few
syllables the sealing difference between the Greek and the me-
diasval, in that the former sought the flower and herb for his
own uses, the latter for God's honour; the former, primarily and
on principle, contemplated his own beauty and the workings of
his own mind, and the latter, primarily and on principle, con-
templated Christ's beauty and the workings of the mind of
Christ,

§ 41. I will not at present follow up this subject any farther; it
being enough that we have thus got to the root of it, and have
a great declaration of the central mediaeval purpose, whereto we
may return for solution of all future questions. I would only,
therefore, desire the reader now to compare the Stones of Venice,
vol. i. chap. XX. §§ 15, 16. ; the Seven Lamps of Architecture,
chap. iv. § 3.; and the second volume of this work. Chap. ii.
§§ 9, 10., and Chap. iii. § 10. ; that he may, in these several
places, observe how gradually our conclusions are knitting them-
selves together as we are able to determine more and more
of the successive questions that come before us : and, finally,
to compare the two interesting passages in Wordsworth, which,
without any memory of Dante, nevertheless, as if by some
special ordaining, describe in matters of modern life exactly the
soothing or felicitous powers of the two active spirits of Dante —
Leah and Matilda, Excursion, book v. line 608. to 625., and
book vi. line 102. to 214.

§ 42. Having thus received from Dante this great lesson, as to the
spirit in which mediaeval landscape is to be understood, what else
we have to note respecting it, as seen in his poem, will be com-
paratively straightforward and easy. And first, we have to ob-
serve the place occupied in his mind by colour. It has already
been shown, in the Stones of Venice, vol. ii. chap. v. §§ 30

—34., that colour is tlie most sacred element of all visible things.
Hence, as the mediajval mind contemplated them first for their
sacredness, we should, beforehand, expect that the first thing it
would seize would be the colour; and that we should find its
expressions and renderings of colour infinitely more loving and
accurate than among the Greeks.

§ 43. Accordingly, the Greek sense of colour seems to have been
so comparatively dim and uncertain, that it is almost impossible to
ascertain what the real idea was which they attached to any word
alluding to hue: and above all, colour, though pleasant to their
eyes, as to those of all human beings, seems never to have been
impressive to their feelings. They liked purple, on the whole,
the best; but there was no sense of cheerfulness or pleasantness
in one colour, and gloom in another, such as the mediajvals had.

For instance, when Achilles goes, in great anger and sorrow,
to complain to Thetis of the scorn done him by Agamemnon,
the sea appears to him " wine-coloured." One might think this
meant that the sea looked dark and reddish-purple to him, in a
kind of sympathy with his anger. But we turn to the passage of
Sophocles, which has been above quoted, — a passage peculiarly
intended to express peace and rest,—and we find that the birds
sing among " wine-coloured" ivy. The uncertainty of conception
of the hue itself, and entire absence of expressive character in
the word, could hardly be more clearly manifested.

§ 44. Again: I said the Greek liked purple, as a general source of
enjoyment, better than any other colour. So he did; and so all
healthy persons who have eye for colour, and are unprejudiced
about it, do; and will to the end of time, for a reason presently
to be noted. But so far was this instinctive preference for
purple from giving, in the Greek mind, any consistently cheer-
ful or sacred association to the colour, that Homer constantly
calls death ^^ purple death."

§ 45. Again: in the passage of Sophocles, so often spoken of, I said
there was some difficulty respecting a word often translated
" thickets." I believe, myself, it means glades; literally, " going
places" in the woods,—that is to say, places where, either natu-
rally or by foi'ce, the trees separate, so as to give some accessible
VOL. III. Q

avenue. Now, Sophocles tells us the birds sang in these "green
going places;" and we take up the expression gratefully, thinking
the old Greek perceived and enjoyed, as we do, the sweet fall of
the eminently green light through the leaves when they are
a little thinner than in the heart of the wood. But we turn
to the tragedy of Ajax, and are much shaken in our conclu-
sion about the meaning of the word, when we are told that the
body of Ajax is to lie unburied, and be eaten by sea-birds on
green sand." The formation, geologically distinguished by
that title, was certainly not known to Sophocles; and the only
conclusion which, it seems to me, we can come to under the
circumstances, — assuming Ariel's ^ authority as to the colour of
pretty sand, and the ancient mariner's (or, rather, his hearer's^)
as to the colour of ugly sand, to be conclusive,—is that Sophocles
really did not know green from yellow or brown.

§ 46. Now, without going out of the terrestrial paradise, in which
Dante last left us, we shall be able at once to compare with this
Greek incertitude the precision of the mediaeval eye for colour.
Some three arrowflights farther up into the wood we come to a
tall tree, which is at first barren, but, after some little time,
visibly opens into flowers, of a colour less than that of roses,
but more than that of violets."

It certainly would not be possible, in words, to come nearer to
the definition of the exact hue which Dante meant—that of the
apple-blossom. Had he employed any simple colour-phrase, as
a ** pale pink," or " violet-pink," or any other such combined
expression, he still could not have completely got at the delicacy
of the hue ; he might perhaps have indicated its kind, but not its
tenderness ; but by taking the rose-leaf as the type of the delicate
red, and then enfeebling this with the violet grey, he gets, as
closely as language can carry him, to the complete rendering
of the vision, though it is evidently felt by him to be in its
perfect beauty ineffable; and rightly so felt, for of all lovely
things which grace the spring time in our fair temperate zone,

I am not sure but this blossoming of the apple-tree is the
fairest. At all events, I find it associated in my mind with
four other kinds of colour, certainly principal among the gifts
of the northern earth, namely:

the valley, on the Jura pastures.
2nd. Alpine roses with dew upon them, under low rays of morn-
ing sunshine, touching the tops of the flowers.
3rd. Bell heather in mass, in full light, at sunset.
4th. White narcissus (red-centred) in mass, on the Vevay pas-
tures, in sunshine after rain.

And I know not where in the group to place the wreaths
of apple-blossom, in the Yevay orchards, with the far-off blue
of the lake of Geneva seen between the flowers.

A Greek, however, would have regarded this blossom simply
with the eyes of a Devonshire farmer, as bearing on the probable
price of cider, and would have called it red, cerulean, purple,
white, hyacinthine, or generally " aglaos," agreeable, as happened
to suit his verse.

Again: we have seen how fond the Greek was of composing
his paradises of rather damp grass; but that in this fondness
for grass there was always an undercurrent of consideration for
his horses; and the characters in it which pleased him most
were its depth and freshness; not its colour. Now, if we
remember carefully the general expressions, respecting grass,
used in modern literature, I think nearly the commonest that
occurs to us will be that of " enamelled" turf or sward. This
phrase is usually employed by our pseudo-poets, like all their
other phrases, without knowing what it means, because it has
been used by other writers before them, and because they do not
know what else to say of grass. If we were to ask them what
enamel was, they could not tell us; and if we asked why grass
was like enamel, they could not tell us. The expression has a
meaning, however, and one peculiarly characteristic of mediaeval
and modern temper.

§ 48. The first instance I tnow of its right use, though very pro-
bably it had been so employed before, is in Dante. The righteous
spirits of the pre-Christian ages are seen by him, though in the
Inferno, yet in a place open, luminous, and high, walking upon
the " green enamel."

I am very sure that Dante did not use this phrase as we use
it. He knew well what enamel was; and his readers, in order
to understand him thoroughly, must remember what it is, — a
vitreous paste, dissolved in water, mixed with metallic oxides,
to give it the opacity and the colour required, spread in a moist
state on metal, and afterwards hardened by fire, so as never
to change. And Dante means, in using this metaphor of the
grass of the Inferno, to mark, that it is laid as a tempering and
cooling substance over the dark, metallic, gloomy ground; but
yet so hardened by the fire, that it is not any more fresh or
living grass, but a smooth, silent, lifeless bed of eternal green.
And we know how hard Dante's idea of it was; because after-
Avards, in what is perhaps the most awful passage of the whole
Inferno, when the three furies rise at the top of the burning
tower, and catching sight of Dante, and not being able to get
at him, shriek wildly for the Gorgon to come up too, that they
may turn him into stone,—the word stone is not hard enough
for them. Stone might crumble away after it was made, or
something with life might grow upon it; no, it shall not be
stone; they will make enamel of him; nothing can grow out
of that; it is dead for ever.^

§ 49. Now, almost in the opening of the Purgatory, as there at the
entrance of the Inferno, we find a company of great ones resting
in a grassy place. But the idea of the grass now is very dif-
ferent. The word now used is not " enamel," but " herb," and
instead of being merely green, it is covered with flowers of many
colours. With the usual mediaeval accuracy, Dante insists on
telling us precisely what these colours were, and how bright;

' Compare parallel passage, making Dante hard or changeless in good, Purg.
viii. 114.

whicli be does by naming the actual pigments used in illumi-
nation, — " Gold, and fine silver, and cochineal, and white lead,
and Indian wood, serene and lucid, and fresh emerald, just
broken, would have been excelled, as less is by greater, by the
flowers and grass of the place." It is evident that the " emerald "
here means the emerald green of the illuminators; for a fresh
emerald is no brighter than one which is not fresh, and Dante
was not one to throw away his words thus. Observe, then, we
have here the idea of the growth, life, and variegation of the
" green herb," as opposed to the smalto of the Inferno; but
the colours of the variegation are illustrated and defined by the
reference to actual pigments: and, observe, because the other
colours are rather bright, the blue ground (Indian wood, indigo ?)
is sober; lucid, but serene ; and presently two angels enter, who
are dressed in green drapery, but of a paler green than the
grass, which Dante marks, by telling us that it was " the green
of leaves just budded."

§ 50. In all this, I wish the reader to observe two things: first,
the general carefulness of the poet in defining colour, distin-
guishing it precisely as a painter would (opposed to the Greek
carelessness about it); and, secondly, his regai'ding the grass
for its greenness and variegation, rather than, as a Greek would
have done, for its depth and freshness. This greenness or
brightness, and variegation, are taken up by later and modern
poets, as the things intended to be chiefly expressed by the word
" enamelledand, gradually, the term is taken to indicate any
kind of bright and interchangeable colouring; there being always
this much of propriety about it, when used of greensward,
that such sward is indeed, like enamel, a coat of bright colour
on a comparatively dark ground; and is thus a sort of natural
jewellery and painter's work, diiferent from loose and large
vegetation. The word is often awkwardly and falsely used, by
the later poets, of all kinds of growth and colour; as by Milton
of the flowers of Paradise showing themselves over its wall;
but it retains, nevertheless, through all its jaded inanity, some
half-unconscious vestige of the old sense, even to the present
day,

§ 51. There are, it seems to me, several important deductions to
be made from these facts. The Greek, we have seen, delighted
in the grass for its usefulness; the mediaeval, as also we moderns,
for its colour and beauty. But both dwell on it as the first
element of the lovely landscape; we saw its use in Homer,
we see also that Dante thinks the righteous spirits of the
heathen enough comforted in Hades by having even the image
of green grass put beneath their feet; the happy resting-place
in Purgatory has no other delight than its grass and flowers;
and, finally, in the terrestrial paradise, the feet of Matilda pause
where the Lethe stream first bends the blades of grass. Consider
a little what a depth there is in this great instinct of the human
race. Gather a single blade of grass, and examine for a minute,
quietly, its narrow sword-shaped strip of fluted green. Nothing,
as it seems there, of notable goodness or beauty. A very
little strength, and a very little tallness, and a few delicate
long lines meeting in a point,—not a perfect point neither, but
blunt and unfinished, by no means a creditable or apparently
much cared for example of Nature's workmanship; made, as it
seems, only to be trodden on to-day, and to-morrow to be cast
into the oven; and a little pale and hollow stalk, feeble and
flaccid, leading down to the dull brown fibres of roots. And
yet, think of it well, and judge whether of all the gorgeous
flowers that beam in summer air, and of all strong and goodly
trees, pleasant to the eyes or good for food,—stately palm and
pine, strong ash and oak, scented citron, burdened vine,— there
be any by man so deeply loved, by God so highly graced, as
that narrow point of feeble green. It seems to me not to have
been without a peculiar significance, that our Lord, when about
to work the miracle which, of all that He showed, appears to
have been felt by the multitude as the most impressive, — the
miracle of the loaves, — commanded the people to sit down by
companies " upon the green grass." He was about to feed them
with the principal produce of earth and the sea, the simplest re-
presentations of the food of mankind. He gave them the seed
of the herb; He bade them sit down upon the herb itself, which
was as great a gift, in its fitness for their joy and rest, as its

perfect fruit, for their sustenance; thus, in this single order and
act, when rightly understood, indicating for evermore how the
Creator had entrusted the comfort, consolation, and sustenance of
man, to the simplest and most despised of all the leafy families
of the earth. And well does it fulfil its mission. Consider what
we owe merely to the meadow grass, to the covering of the dark
ground by that glorious enamel, by the companies of those soft,
and countless, and peaceful spears. The fields I Follow but
forth for a little time the thoughts of all that we ought to
recognize in those words. All spring and summer is in them,

— the walks by silent, scented paths, — the rests in noonday
heat,—the joy of herds and flocks, — the power of all shepherd
life and meditation, — the life of sunlight upon the world, falling
in emerald streaks, and failing in soft blue shadows, where else
it would have struck upon the dark mould, or scorching dust,

— pastures beside the pacing brooks, — soft banks and knolls of
lowly hills, — thymy slopes of down overlooked by the blue line
of lifted sea, — crisp lawns all dim with early dew, or smooth
in evening warmth of barred sunshine, dinted by happy feet, and
softening in their fall the sound of loving voices: all these are
summed in those simple words; and these are not all. We
may not measure to the full the depth of this heavenly gift,
in our own land; though still, as we think of it longer, the
infinite of that meadow sweetness, Shakspere's peculiar joy,
would open on us more and more, yet we have it but in part.
Go out, in the spring time, among the meadows that slope from
the shores of the Swiss lakes to the roots of their lower moun-
tains. There, mingled with the taller gentians and the white
narcissus, the grass grows deep and free; and as you follow
the winding mountain paths, beneath arching boughs all veiled
and dim with blossom, — paths that for ever droop and rise over
the green banks and mounds sweeping down in scented un-
dulation, steep to the blue water, studded here and there with
new-mown heaps, filling all the air with fainter sweetness,—
look up towards the higher hills, where the waves of ever-r
lasting green roll silently into their long inlets among the
shadows of the pines; and we may, perhaps, at last know the

meaning of those quiet words of the 147th Psalm, " He maketh
grass to grow upon the mountains."

§ 52- There are also several lessons symbolically connected with this
subject, which we must not allow to escape us. Observe, the
peculiar characters of the grass, which adapt it especially for the
service of man, are its apparent humility, and cheerfulness. Its
humility, in that it seems created only for lowest service,—
appointed to be trodden on, and fed upon. Its cheerfulness, in
that it seems to exult under all kinds of violence and suffering.
You roll it, and it is stronger the next day; you mow it, and it
multiplies its shoots, as if it were grateful; you tread upon it,
and it only sends up richer perfume. Spring comes, and it
rejoices with all the earth, — glowing with variegated flame of
flowers, — waving in soft depth of fruitful strength. Winter
comes, and though it will not mock its fellow plants by growing
then, it will not pine and mourn, and turn colourless or leafless
as they. It is always green; and is only the brighter and gayer
for the hoar-frost.

§ 53. Now, these two characters — of humility, and joy under trial'—
are exactly those which most definitely distinguish the Christian
from the Pagan spirit. "Whatever virtue the pagan possessed was
rooted in pride, and fruited with sorrow. It began in the eleva-
tion of his own nature; it ended but in the " verde smalto "—
the hopeless green — of the Elysian fields. But the Christian
virtue is rooted in self-debasement, and strengthened under
suffering by gladness of hope. And remembering this, it is
curious to observe how utterly without gladness the Greek
heart appears to be in watching the flowering grass, and what
strange discords of expression arise sometimes in consequence.
There is one, recurring once or twice in Homer, which has
always pained me. He says, " The Greek army was on the
fields, as thick as flowers in the spring." It might be so; but
flowers in spring time are not the image by which Dante would
have numbered soldiers on their path of battle. Dante could
not have thought of the flowering of the grass but as associated
with happiness. There is a still deeper significance in the pas-
sage quoted, a little while ago, from Homer, describing Ulysses
casting himself down on the rushes and the corn-giving land

at the river shore,—the rushes and corn being to him only good
for rest and sustenance, — when we compare it with that in
which Dante tells us he was ordered to descend to the shore
of the lake as he entered Purgatorj, to gather a rush, and gird
himself with it, it being to him the emblem not only of rest,
but of humility under chastisement, the rush (or reed) being the
only plant which can grow there ;—" no plant which bears leaves,
or hardens its bark, can live on that shore, because it does not
yield to the chastisement of its waves." It cannot but strike the
reader singularly how deep and harmonious a significance runs
through all these words of Dante—how every syllable of them, the
more we penetrate it, becomes a seed of farther thought I For,
follow up this image of the girding with the reed, under trial, and
see to whose feet it will lead us. As the grass of the earth,
thought of as the herb yielding seed, leads us to the place where
our Lord commanded the multitude to sit down by companies
upon the green grass; so the grass of the waters, thought of as
sustaining itself among the waters of affliction, leads us to the
place where a stem of it was put into our Lord's hand for His
sceptre; and in the crown of thorns, and the rod of reed, was
foreshown the everlasting truth of the Christian ages—that all
glory was to be begun in suffering, and all power in humility.

Assembling the images we have traced, and adding the simplest
of all, from Isaiah xl. 6., we find, the grass and flowers are
types, in their passing, of the passing of human life, and, in their
excellence, of the excellence of human life; and this in twofold
way; first, by their Beneficence, and then, by their endurance :
— the grass of the earth, in giving the seed of corn, and in
its beauty under tread of foot and stroke of scythe; and the
grass of the waters, in giving its freshness for our rest, and in
its bending before the wave.^ But understood in the broad
human and Divine sense, the " herb yielding seed" (as opposed
to the fruit-tree yielding fruit) includes a third family of plants,
and fulfils a third oflSice to the human race. It includes the great
family of the lints and flaxes, and fulfils thus the three offices

' So also in Isa. xxxv. 7., the prevalence of righteousness and peace over all evil is
thus foretold:

" In the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass, with reeda and rtisJies"

of giving food, raiment, and rest. Follow out this fulfilment;
consider the association of the linen garment and the linen em-
broidery, with the priestly office, and the furniture of the taber-
nacle ; and consider how the rush has been, in all time, the first
natural carpet thrown under the human foot. Then next ob-
serve the three virtues definitely set forth by the three families
of plants; not arbitrarily or fancifully associated with them, but
in all the three cases marked for us by Scriptural words :

Ist. Cheerfulness, or joyful serenity ; in the grass for food and
beauty.—" Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow ; they
toil not, neither do they spin."

3rd. Love; in the grass for clothing (because of its swift
kindling), — " The smoking flax shall He not quench."

And then, finally, observe the confirmation of these last two
images in, I suppose, the most important prophecy, relating to
the future state of the Christian Church, which occurs in the
Old Testament, namely, that contained in the closing chapters of
Ezekiel. The measures of the Temple of God are to be taken;
and because it is only by charity and humility that those measures
ever can be taken, the angel has " a line of flax in his hand, and
a measuring reed.^'' The use of the line was to measure the land,
and of the reed to take the dimensions of the buildings; so the
buildings of the church, or its labours, are to be measured by
humility, and its territory or land, by love.

The limits of the Church have, indeed, in later days, been
measured, to the world's sorrow, by another kind of flaxen line,
burning with the fire of unholy zeal, not with that of Christian
charity; and perhaps the best lesson which we can finally take
to ourselves, in leaving these sweet fields of the mediaeval land-
scape, is the memory that, in spite of all the fettered habits of
thought of his age, this great Dante, this inspired exponent of
what lay deepest at the heart of the early Church, placed his
terrestrial paradise where there had ceased to be fence or division,
and where the grass of the earth was bowed down, in unity of
direction, only by the soft waves that bore with them the for-
getfulness of evil.

§ 1. I CLOSED the last chapter, not because our subject was ex-
hausted, but to give the reader breathing time, and because I
supposed he would hardly care to turn back suddenly from the
subjects of thought last suggested, to the less pregnant matters
of inquiry connected with mediajval landscape. Nor was the
pause mistimed even as respects the order of our subjects; for
hitherto we have been arrested chiefly by the beauty of the
pastures and fields, and have followed the mediajval mind in its
. fond regard of leaf and flower. But now we have some hard
hill-climbing to do; and the remainder of our investigation must
be carried on, for the most part, on hands and knees, so that
it is not ill done of us first to take breath.

§ 2. It will be remembered that in the last chapter, § 14., we
supposed it probable that there would be considerable inaccu-
racies in the mediseval mode of regarding nature. Hitherto,
however, we have found none; but, on the contrary, intense
accuracy, precision, and affection. The reason of this is, that
all floral and foliaged beauty might be perfectly represented, as
far as its form went, in the sculpture and ornamental painting
of the period; hence the attention of men was thoroughly
awakened to that beauty. But as mountains and clouds and
large features of natural scenery could not be accurately repre-
sented, we must be prepared to find them not so carefully
contemplated, — more carefully, indeed, than by the Greeks, but
still in no wise as the things themselves deserve.

reverence by tlie mediaeval, were also the subjects of a certain
dislike and dread. And we have seen already that in fact the
place of the soul's purification, though a mountain, is yet by
Dante subdued, whenever there is any pleasantness to be found
upon it, from all mountainous character into grassy recesses,
or slopes to rushy shore; and, in his general conception of it,
resembles much more a castle mound, surrounded by terraced
walks,—in the manner, for instance, of one of Turner's favourite
scenes, the bank under Richmond Castle (Yorkshire); or, still
more, one of the hill slopes divided by terraces, above the Rhine,
in which the picturesqueness of the ground has. been reduced
to the form best calculated for the growing of costly wine, than
any scene to which we moderns should naturally attach the
term " Mountainous." On the other hand, although the Inferno
is just as accurately measured and divided as the Purgatory, it
is nevertheless cleft into rocky chasms which possess something
of true mountain nature—nature which we moderns of the north
should most of us seek with delight, but which, to the great
Florentine, appeared adapted only for the punishment of lost
spirits, and which, on the mind of nearly all his countrymen,
would to this day produce a very closely correspondent effect;
so that their graceful language, dying away on the north side
of the Alps, gives its departing accents to proclaim its detest-
ation of hardness and ruggedness; and is heard for the last time,
as it bestows on the noblest defile in all the Grisons, if not
in all the Alpine chain, the name of the " evil way" — " la
Via Mala."

This " evil way," though much deeper and more sublime,
corresponds closely in general character to Dante's " Evilpits,"
just as the banks of Richmond do to his mountain of Purgatory ;
and it is notable that Turner has been led to illustrate, with his
whole strength, the character of both; having founded, as it
seems to me, his early dreams of mountain form altogether on the
sweet banks of the Yorkshire streams, and rooted his hardier
thoughts of it in the rugged clefts of the Via Mala.

Nor of the Via Mala only: a correspondent defile on the St.
Gothard,—so terrible in one part of it, that it can, indeed, suggest

no ideas but those of horror to minds either of northern or
southern temper, and whose wild bridge, cast from rock to rock
over a chasm as utterly hopeless and escapeless as any into
which Dante gazed from the arches of Malebolge, has been,
therefore, ascribed both by northern and southern lips to the
master-building of the great spirit of evil,—supplied to Turner h

the elements of his most terrible thoughts in mountain vision,
even to the close of his life. The noblest plate in the series

brances of the path by which he had traversed in his youth this
Malebolge of the St. Gothard.

§ 6. It is therefore with peculiar interest, as bearing on our own
proper subject, that we must examine Dante's conception of the
rocks of the eighth circle. And first, as to general tone of
colour: from what we have seen of the love of the mediajval
for bright and variegated colour, we might guess that his chief

colourlessness. With hardly an exception, the range of the
Apennines is composed of a stone of which some special account
is given hereafter in the chapters on Materials of Mountains, and
of which one peculiarity, there noticed, is its monotony of hue.

ever seen rock scenery of the finely coloured kind, aided by tlie
Alpine mosses: I do not know the fall at Forli (Inferno, xvi.
99.), but every other scene to which he alludes is among these
Apennine limestones; and when he wishes to give the idea of
enormous mountain size, he names Tabernicch and Pietra-pana,—
the one clearly chosen only for the sake of the last syllable of its
name, in order to make a sound as of cracking ice, with the two
sequent rhymes of the stanza,—and the other is an Apennine
near Lucca.

§ 7. His idea, therefore, of rock colour, founded on these expe-
riences, is that of a dull or ashen grey, more or less stained by the
brown of iron ochre, precisely as the Apennine limestones nearly
always are; the grey being peculiarly cold and disagreeable. As
we go down the very hill which stretches out from Pietra-pana
towards Lucca, the stones laid by the road side to mend it are
of this ashen grey, with efflorescences of manganese and iron
in the fissures. The whole of Malebolge is made of this rock,
" All wrought in stone of iron-coloured grain." ^

Perhaps the iron colour may be meant to predominate in
Evilpits; but the definite grey limestone colour is stated higher
up, the river Styx flowing at the base of " malignant grey cliffs ^"
(the word malignant being given to the iron-coloured Malebolge
also); and the same whitish grey idea is given again definitely
in describing the robe of the purgatorial or penance angel,
which is " of the colour of ashes, or earth, dug dry." Ashes
necessarily mean wooi?-ashes in an Italian mind, so that we get
the tone very pale ; and there can be no doubt whatever about
the hue meant, because it is constantly seen on the sunny sides
of the Italian hills, produced by the scorching of the ground,
a dusty and lifeless whitish grey, utterly painful and oppressive;
and I have no doubt that this colour, assumed eminently also
by limestone crags in the sun, is the quality which Homer
means to express by a term he applies often to bare rocks,
and which is usually translated " craggy," or " rocky." Now
Homer is indeed quite capable of talking of "rocky rocks,"

pi
iv'

pj'f

ii
III

i-r

just as he talks sometimes of " wet water;" but I tliink he means
more by this word: it sounds as if it were derived from another,
meaning " meal," or " flour," and I have little doubt it means
"mealy white;" the Greek limestones being for the most part
brighter in effect than the Apennine ones.

§ 8. And the fact is, that the great and pre-eminent fault of
southern, as compared with northern scenery, is this rock-white-
ness, which gives to distant mountain ranges, lighted by the
sun, sometimes a faint and monotonous glow, hardly detaching
itself from the whiter parts of the sky, and sometimes a speckled
confusion of white light with blue shadow, breaking up the
whole mass of the hills, and making them look near and small;
the whiteness being stiU distinct at the distance of twenty or
twenty-five miles. The inferiority and meagreness of such ef-'
fects of hill, compared with the massive purple and blue of our
own heaps of crags and morass, or the solemn grass-greens and
pine-purples of the Alps, have always struck me most painfully;
and they have rendered it impossible for any poet or painter
studying in the south, to enter with joy into hill scenery.
Imagine the difference to Walter Scott, if instead of the single
lovely colour which, named by itself alone, was enough to de-
scribe his hills,—

a dusty whiteness had been the image that first associated itself
with a hill range, and he had been obliged, instead of " blue"
Cheviots, to say "barley-meal-coloured" Cheviots.

§ 9. But although this would cause a somewhat painful shock even
to a modern mind, it would be as nothing when compared with
the pain occasioned by absence of colour to a mediaeval one.
We have been trained, by our ingenious principles of Renaissance
architecture, to think that meal-colour and ash-colour are the
properest colours of all; and that the most aristocratic harmonies
are to be deduced out of grey mortar and creamy stucco. Any
of our modern classical architects would delightedly "face"
a lieathery hill with Boman cement; and any Italian sacristan

would, but for the cost of it, at once whitewash the Cheviots.
But the mediaBvals had not arrived at these abstract principles
of taste. They liked fresco better than whitewash; and, on the
whole, thought that Nature was in the right in painting her
flowers yellow, pink, and blue; — not grey. Accordingly, this
absence of colour from rocks, as compared with meadoWs and
trees, was in their eyes an unredeemable defect; nor did it matter
to them whether its place was supplied by the grey neutral
tint, or the iron-coloured stain; for both colours, grey and brown,
were, to them, hues of distress, despair, and mortification, hence
adopted always for the dresses of monks; only the word "brown"
bore, in their colour vocabulary, a still gloomier sense than with
us. I was for some time embarrassed by Dante's use of it with
respect to dark skies and water. Thus, in describing a simple
twilight—not a Hades twilight, but an ordinarily fair evening —
(Inf. ii. 1.) he says, the "brown" air took the animals of earth
away from their fatigues;—the waves under Charon's boat are
"brown" (Inf. iii. 117.); and Lethe, which is perfectly clear
and yet dark, as with oblivion, is^ " bruna-bruna," " brown, ex-
ceeding brown." Now, clearly in all these cases no loarmth is
meant to be mingled in the colour. Dante had never seen
one of our bog-streams, with its porter-coloured foam; and
there can be no doubt that, in calling Lethe brown, he means
it was dark slate grey, inclining to black; as, for instance, our
clear Cumberland lakes, which, looked straight down upon where
they are deep, seem to be lakes of ink. I am sure this is the
colour he means; because no clear stream or lake on the Con-
tinent ever looks brown, but blue or green ; and Dante, by merely
taking away the pleasant colour, would get at once to this idea of
grave clear grey. So, when he was talking of twilight, his eye
for colour was far too good to let him call it hroimi in our sense.
Twilight is not brown, but purple, golden, or dark grey; and this
last was what Dante meant. Farther, I find that this negation
of colour is always the means by which Dante subdues his tones.
Thus the fatal inscription on the Hades gate is written in " ob-
scure colour," and the air which torments the passionate spirits
is " aer nero" hlack air (Inf. v. 51.), called presently afterwards

§ 10 I was not, therefore, at a loss to find out what Dante meant
by the word; but I was at a loss to account for his not, as it
seemed, acknowledging the existence 'of the colour of hrown at
all; for if he called dark neutral tint " brown," it remained a
question what term he would use for things of the colour of burnt
umber. But, one day, just when I was puzzling myself about
this, I happened to be sitting by one of our best living modern
colourists, watching him at his work, when he said, suddenly, and
by mere accident, after we had been talking of other things, Do
you know I have found that there is no hrown in Nature ? What
we call brown is always a variety either of orange or purple.
It never can be represented by umber, unless altered by con-
trast."

§ 11. It is curious how far the significance of this remark extends,
how exquisitely it illustrates and confirms the mediasval sense of
hue; — how far, on the other hand, it cuts into the heart of the
old umber idolatries of Sir Greorge Beaumont and his colleagues,
the " where do you put your hrown tree" system; the code of
Cremona-violin-coloured foregrounds, of brown varnish and as-
phaltum; and all the old night-owl science, which, like Young's
pencil of sorrow,

Nay, I do Young an injustice by associating his words with the
asphalt schools; for his eye for colour was true, and like Dante's;
and I doubt not that he means dark grey, as Byron purple-grey
in that night piece of the Siege of Corinth, beginning

" 'Tis midnight; on the mountains brown
The cold, round moon looks deeply down;"

and, by the way, Byron's best piece of evening colour farther
certifies the hues of Dante's twilight, — it

" Dies like the dolphin, when it gasps away—
The last stiU loveliest; till 'tis gone, and all is grey"

§ 12. Let not, however, the reader confuse the use of brown, as an
expression of a natural tint, with its use as a means of getting
VOL. III. 11

other tints. Brown is often an admirable ground, just because
it is the only tint which is not to be in the finished picture, and
because it is the best basis of many silver greys and purples,
utterly opposite to it in their nature. But there is infinite dif-
ference between laying a brown ground as a representation of
shadow, — and as a base for light: and also an infinite difference
between using brown shadows, associated with coloured lights —
always the characteristic of false schools of colour, — and using
brown as a warm neutral tint for general study. I shall have
to pursue this subject farther hereafter, in noticing how brown
is used by great colourists in their studies, not as colour, but
as the pleasantest negation of colour, possessing more transpa-
rency than black, and having more pleasant and sunlike warmth.
Hence Turner, in his early studies, used blue for distant neutral
tint, and brown for foreground neutral tint; while, as he ad-
vanced in colour science, he gradually introduced, in the place
of brown, strange purples, altogether peculiar to himself, founded,
apparently, on Indian red and vermilion, and passing into various
tones of russet and orange.^ But, in the meantime, we must go
back to Dante and his mountains.

We find, then, that his general type of rock colour was meant,
whether pale or dark, to be a colourless grey — the most melan-
choly hue which he supposed to exist in Nature (hence the
synonym for it, subsisting even till late times, in mediaeval appel-
latives of dress, " sarf-coloured") — with some rusty stain from
iron; or perhaps the "color ferrigno" of the Inferno does not
involve even so much of orange, but ought to be translated
" iron grey."

This being his idea of the colour of rocks, we have next
to observe his conception of their substance. And I believe it
will be found that the character on which he fixes first in them
\b frangihility—breakableness to bits, as opposed to wood, which

■ It is in these subtle purples that even the more elaborate passages of the earlier
drawings are worked ; as, for instance, the Highland streams, spoken of in Prc-
Eaphaelitism. Also, Turner could, by opposition, get what colour he liked out of a
browH. I have seen cases in which he had made it stand for the purest rose light.

can be sawn or rent, but not shattered with a hammer, and to
metal, which is tough and malleable.

Thus, at the top of the abyss of the seventh circle, appointed
for the " violent," or souls who had done evil by force, we are
told, first, that the edge of it was composed of "great broken
stones in a circle; " then, that the place was " Alpine; " and, be-
coming hereupon attentive, in order to hear what an Alpine
place is like, we find that it was " like the place beyond Trent,
where the rock, either by earthquake, or failure of support, has
broken down to the plain, so that it gives any one at the top
some means of getting down to the bottom." This is not a very
elevated or enthusiastic description of an Alpine scene; and it is
far from mended by the following verses, in which we are told
that Dante " began to go down by this great unloading of
stones," and that they moved often under his feet by reason
of the new weight. The fact is that Dante, by many ex-
pressions throughout the poem, shows himself to have been
a notably bad climber ; and being fond of sitting in the
sun, looking at his fair Baptistery, or walking in a digni-
fied manner on flat pavement in a long robe, it puts him
seriously out of his way when he has to take to his hands
and knees, or look to his feet ; so that the first strong im-
pression made upon him by any Alpine scene whatever, is,
clearly, that it is bad walking. When he is in a fright and
hurry, and has a very steep place to go down, Yirgil has
to carry him altogether, and is obliged to encourage him, again
and again, when they have a steep slope to go up, — the first
ascent of the purgatorial mountain. The similes by which he
illustrates the steepness of that ascent are all taken from the
Riviera of Genoa, now traversed by a good carriage road under
the name of the Corniche; but as this road did not exist in
Dante's time, and the steep precipices and promontories were
then probably traversed by footpaths which, as they necessarily
passed in many places over crumbling and slippery limestone, were
doubtless not a little dangerous, and as in the manner they
commanded the bays of sea below, and lay exposed to the full

situation ot the patli by which he ascends above the purgatorial
sea, the image could not possibly have been taken from a better
source for the fully conveying his idea to the reader: nor, by
the way, is there reason to discredit, in this place, his powers of
climbing; for, with his usual accuracy, he has taken the angle of
the path for us, saying it was considerably more than forty-five.
Now a continuous mountain slope of forty-five degrees is already
quite unsafe either for ascent or descent, except by zigzag paths;
and a greater slope than this could not be climbed, straightfor-
ward, but by help of crevices or jags in the rock, and great
physical exertion besides.

Throughout these passages, however, Dante's thoughts are
clearly fixed altogether on the question of mere accessibility or
inaccessibility. He does not show the smallest interest in the
rocks, except as things to be conquered; and his description of
their appearance is utterly meagre, involving no other epithets
than "erto" (steep or upright). Inf. xix. 131., Purg. iii. 48. &c.;
"sconcio" (monstrous). Inf. xix. 131.; "staghata" (cut), Inf.
xvii. 134. ; '^maligno " (malignant), Inf. vii. 108.; "duro" (hard)
xx. 25. ; with " large " and " broken" (rotto) in various places.
No idea of roundness, massiveness, or pleasant form of any kind
appears for a moment to enter his mind; and the different names
which are given to the rocks in various places seem merely to
refer to variations in size : thus a " rocco " is part of a " scoglio,"
Inf. xx. 25. and xxvi. 27. ; a " scheggio " (xxi. 60. and xxvi. 17.)
is a less fragment yet; a "petrone," or ^'sasso," is a large stone
or boulder (Purg. iv. 101. 104.), and "pietra," a less stone,—
both of these last terms, especially " sasso," being used for any
large mountainous mass, as in Purg. xxi. 106.; and the vague-
ness of the Avord " monte " itself, like that of the French mon-
tagne," applicable either to a hill on a post-road requiring the
drag to be put on,—or to the Mont Blanc, marks a peculiar care-
lessness in both nations, at the time of the formation of their
languages, as to the sublimity of the higher hills; so that the
effect produced on an English ear by the word " mountain,"
signifying always a mass of a certain large size, cannot be
conveyed either in French or Italian.

§ 15. In all these modes of regarding rooks we find (rocks being
in themselves, as we shall see presently, by no means mon-
strous or frightful things) exactly that inaccuracy in the me-
diasval mind which we had been led to expect, in its bearings
on things contrary to the spirit of that symmetrical and perfect
humanity which had formed its ideal; and it is very curious to
observe how closely in the terms he uses, and the feelings they
indicate, Dante here agrees with Homer. For the Avord stagli-
ata (cut) corresponds very nearly to a favourite term of Homer's
respecting rocks " sculptured," used by him also of ships' sides;
and the frescoes and illuminations of the Middle Ages enable us
to ascertain exactly what this idea of ^'cut" rock was.

§ 16. In Plate 10. I have assembled some examples, which will
give the reader a sufficient knowledge of mediajval rock-drawing,
by men whose names are known. They are chiefly taken from
engravings, with which the reader has it in his power to com-
pare them^ and if, therefore, any injustice is done to the original
paintings the fault is not mine; but the general impression con-
veyed is quite accurate, and it would not have been worth while,
where work is so deficient in first conception, to lose time in
insuring accuracy of facsimile. Some of the crags may be taller
here, or broader there, than in the original paintings; but the
character of the work is perfectly preserved, and that is all with
which we are at present concerned.

Figs. 1. and 5. are by Ghirlandajo; 2. by Filippo Pesellino;
4. by Leonardo da Vinci; and 6. by Andrea del Castagno.
All these are indeed workmen of a much later period than
Dante, but the system of rock-drawing remains entirely un-""
changed from Giotto's time to Ghirlandajo's;—is then altered
only by an introduction of stratification indicative of a little
closer observance of nature, and so remains until Titian's
time. Fig. 1. is exactly representative of one of Giotto's rocks,
though actually by Ghirlandajo; and Fig. 2. is rather less
skilful than Giotto's ordinary work. Both these figures indicate

precisely what Homer and Dante meant by " cut" rocks. They
had observed the concave smoothness of certain rock fractures
as eminently distinctive of rock from earth, and use the term
cut" or " sculptured" to distinguish the smooth surface from
the knotty or sandy one, having observed nothing more respect-
ing its real contours than is represented in Figs. 1. and 2., which
look as if they had been hewn out with an adze. Lorenzo
Ghiberti preserves the same type, even in his finest work.

Fig. 3., from an interesting sixteenth century MS. in the
British Museum (Cotton, Augustus, A. 5.), is characteristic of
the best later illuminators' work; and Fig. 5., from Ghirlandajo, is
pretty illustrative of Dante's idea of terraces on the purgatorial
mountain. It is the road by which the Magi descend in his pic-
ture of their Adoration, in the Academy of Florence. Of the
other examples I shall have more to say in the chapter on
Precipices; meanwhile we have to return to the landscape of the
poem.

§ 17. Inaccurate as this conception of rock was, it seems to have
been the only one which, in mediasval art, had place as re-
presentative of mountain scenery. To Dante, mountains are
inconceivable except as great broken stones or crags; all their
broad contours and undulations seem to have escaped his eye.
It is, indeed, with his usual undertone of symbolic meaning that
he describes the great broken stones, and the fall of the shattered
mountain, as the entrance to the circle appointed for the punish-
ment of the violent; meaning that the violent and cruel, not-
withstanding all their iron hardness of heart, have no true
strength, but, either by earthquake, or want of support, fall at
last into desolate ruin, naked, loose, and shaking under the tread.
But in no part of the poem do we find allusion to mountains
in any other than a stern light; nor the slightest evidence that
Dante cared to look at them. From that hill of San Miniato,
whose steps he knew so well, the eye commands, at the farther
extremity of the Val d'Arno, the whole purple range of the
mountains of Carrara, peaked and mighty, seen always against the
sunset light in silent outline, the chief forms that rule the scene
as twilight fades away. By this vision Dante seems to have been

wholly unmoved, and, but for Lucan's mention of Aruns at
Luna, would seemingly not have epoken of the Carrara hills in
the whole course of his poem: when he does allude to them, he
speaks of their white marble, and their command of stars and sea,
but has evidently no regard for the hills themselves. There is
not a single phrase or syllable throughout the poem which indi-
cates such a regard. Ugolino, in his dream, seemed to himself to
be in the mountains, " by cause of which the Pisan cannot see
Lucca;" and it is impossible to look up from Pisa to that hoary
slope without remembering the awe that there is in the passage;
nevertheless, it was as a hunting-ground only that he remembered
those hills. Adam of Brescia, tormented with eternal thirst,
remembers the hills of Komena, but only for the sake of their
sweet waters:

" The rills that glitter down the grassy slopes
Of Casentino, making fresh and soft
The banks whereby they glide to Arno's stream,
Stand ever in my view."

And, whenever hills are spoken of as having any influence on
character, the repugnance to them is still manifest; they are
always causes of rudeness or cruelty :

" But that ungratefal and malignant race,
Who in old_^times came down from Fesole,
Ay^ and still smack of their rough mountain flint,
Will, for thy good deeds, show thee enmity.
Take heed thou cleanse thee of their ways."

" As one mountain-hred,
Eugged, and clownish, if some city's walls
He chance to enter, round him stares agape."

§ 18. Finally, although the Carrara mountains are named as having
command of the stars and sea, the Alps are never specially
mentioned but in bad weather, or snow. On the sand of the
circle of the blasphemers —

" Fell slowly wafting down
Dilated flakes of fire, as flakes of snow
On Alpine summit, when the wind is hushed."

" On an Alpine height been ta'en by cloud,
Through which thou sawest no better than the mole
Doth through opacous membrane."

" Arriving at the verge
Of a dim umbrage hoar, such as is seen
Beneath green leaves and gloomy branches oft
To overbrow a bleak and Alpine cliff."

§ 19. Truly, it is unfair of Dante, that when he is going to use
snow for a lovely image, and speak of it as melting away under
heavenly sunshine, he must needs put it on the Apennines, not
on the Alps:

" As snow that lies
Amidst the living rafters, on the back
Of Italy, congealed, when drifted high
And closely piled by rough Sclavonian blasts.
Breathe but the land whereon no shadow falls,
And straightway, melting, it distils away,
Like a fire-wasted taper; thus was I,
Without a sigh, or teax, consumed in heart."

The reader will thank me for reminding him, though out of
its proper order, of the exquisite passage of Scott which we have
to compare with this :

" As snow upon the mountain's breast
Slides from the rock that gave it rest,
Sweet Ellen glided from her stay.
And at the monarch's feet she lay."

Examine the context of this last passage, and its beauty is
quite beyond praise; but note the northern love of rocks in the
very first words I have to quote from Scott, " The rocks that

gave it rest." Dante could not have thought of his " cut rocks "
as giving rest even to snow. He must put it on the pine
branches, if it is to be at peace.

§ 20. There is only one more point to be noticed in the Dantesque
landscape; namely, the feeling entertained by the poet towards
the sky. And the love of mountains is so closely connected with
the love of clouds, the sublimity of both depending much on their
association, that, having found Dante regardless of the Carrara
mountains as seen from San Miniato, we may well expect to
find him equally regardless of the clouds in which the sun sank
behind them. Accordingly, we find that his only pleasure in
the sky depends on its " white clearness,"—that turning into
" bianca aspetto di cilestro " which is so peculiarly characteristic
of fine days in Italy. His pieces of pure pale light are always
exquisite. In the dawn on the purgatorial mountain, first, in
its pale white, he sees the " tremola della marina"—trembling of
the sea; then it becomes vermilion; and at last, near sunrise,
orange. These are precisely the changes of a calm and perfect
dawn. The scenery of Paradise begins with " Day added to
day," the light of the sun so flooding the heavens, that " never
rain nor river made lake so wide;" and throughout the Paradise
all the beauty depends on spheres of light, or stars, never on
clouds. But the pit of the Inferno is at first sight obscure,
deep, and so cloudy that at its bottom nothing could be seen.
When Dante and Virgil reach the marsh in which the souls of
those who have been angry and sad in their lives are for ever
plunged, they find it covered With thick fog; and the condemned
souls say to them,—

Even the angel crossing the marsh to help them is annoyed
by this bitter marsh smoke, " fummo acerbo," and continually
sweeps it with his hand from before his face.

Anger, on the purgatorial mountain, is in like manner imaged,
because of its blindness and wildness, by the Alpine clouds.

As they emerge from its mist they see the white light radiated
through the fading folds of it; and, excejat this appointed cloud,
no other can touch the mountain of purification.

" Tempest none, shower, hail, or snow,
Hoar-frost, or dewy moistness, higher falls,
Than that brief scale of threefold steps. Thick clouds,
Nor scudding rack, are ever seen, swift glance
Ne'er lightens, nor Thaumantian iris gleams."

taught, as he is at last by Beatrice, to gaze on the sun itself
like an eagle, — and endeavour to enter into his equally intense
detestation of all mist, rack of cloud, or dimness of rain; and
then consider with what kind of temper he would have regarded
a landscape of Copley Fielding's, or passed a day in the High-
lands. He has, in fact, assigned to the souls of the gluttonous
no other punishment in the Inferno than perpetuity of Highland
weather:

Ceaseless, accursed, heavy and cold, unchanged
For ever, both in kind and in degree,—
Large hail, discoloured water, sleety flaw,
Through the dim midnight air streamed down amain."

§ 21. However, in this immitigable dislike of clouds, Dante goes
somewhat beyond the general temper of his age. For although
the calm sky was alone loved, and storm and rain were dreaded
by all men, yet the white horizontal clouds of serene summer
were regarded with great affection by all early painters, and
considered as one of the accompaniments of the manifestation of
spiritual power; sometimes, for theological reasons which we shall
soon have to examine, being received, even without any other
sign, as the types of blessing or Divine acceptance; and in al-
most every representation of the heavenly paradise, these level
clouds are set by the early painters for its floor, or for thrones
of its angels; whereas Dante retains steadily, through circle after
circle, his cloudless thought, and concludes his painting of
heaven, as he began it, upon the purgatorial mountain, with the
image of shadowless morning:

" I raised my eyes, and as at morn is seen
The horizon's eastern quarter to excel,
So likewise, that pacific Oriflamb
Glowed in the midmost, and toward every part.
With like gradation paled away its flame."

But the best way of regarding this feeling of Dante's is as
the ultimate and most intense expression of the love of light,
colour, and clearness, which, as we saw above, distinguished the
mediseval from the Greek on one side, and, as we shall presently
see, distinguished him from the modern on the other. For it
is evident that precisely in the degree in which the Greek was
agriculturally inclined, in that degree the sight of clouds would
become to him more acceptable than to the mediaeval knight,
who only looked for the fine afternoons in which he might
gather the flowers in his garden, and in no wise shared or
imagined the previous anxieties of his gardener. Thus, when
we find Ulysses comforted about Ithaca, by being told it had
" plenty of rain," and the maids of Colonos boasting of their
country for the same reason, we may be sure that they had
some regard for clouds; and accordingly, except Aristophanes,
of whom more presently, all the Greek poets speak fondly of
the clouds, and consider them the fitting resting-places of the
gods; including in their idea of clouds not merely the thin
clear cirrus, but the rolling and changing volume of the thunder-
cloud ; nor even these only, but also the dusty whirlwind cloud
of the earth, as in that noble chapter of Herodotus which tells
us of the cloud, full of mystic voices, that rose out of the
dust of Eleusis, and went down to Salamis. Clouds and rain
were of course regarded with a like gratitude by the eastern
and southern nations — Jews and Egyptians; and it is only
among the northern mediasvals, with whom fine weather was
rarely so prolonged as to occasion painful drought, or dangerous
famine, and over whom the clouds broke coldly and fiercely when
they came, that the love of serene light assumes its intense cha-
racter, and the fear of tempest its gloomiest; so that the powers
of the clouds which to the Greek foretold his conquest at Salamis,
and with whom he fought in alliance, side by side with their
lightnings, under the crest of Parnassus, seemed, in the heart

of the Middle Ages, to be only under the dominion of the spirit
of evil. I have reserved, for our last example of the landscape
of Dante, the passage in which this conviction is expressed; a
passage not less notable for its close description of what the
writer feared and disliked, than for the ineffable tenderness, in
which Dante is always raised as much above all other poets, as
in softness the rose above all other flowers. It is the spirit
of Buonconte da Montefeltro who speaks:

" Then said another : ' Ah, so may thy wish,
That takes thee o'er the mountain, be fulfilled,
As thou shalt graciously give aid to mine !
Of Montefeltro I; Buonconte I:
Giovanna, nor none else, have care for me;
Sorrowing with these I therefore go.' I thus :
• Prom Campaldino's field what force or chance
Drew thee, that ne'er thy sepulture was known ?'
' Oh !' answered he, ' at Cascntino's foot
A stream there courseth, named Archiano, sprung
In Apennine, above the hermit's seat.
e'en where its name is caticelled, there came I,
Pierced in the throat, fleeing away on foot.
And bloodying the plain. Here sight and speech
Failed me ; and finishing with Mary's name,
I fell, and tenantless my flesh remained.

the valley, soon
As day was spent, he covered o'er with cloud.
From Pratomagno to the mountain range.
And stretched the sky above; so that the air.
Impregnate, changed to water. Fell the rain ;
And to the fosses came all that the land
Contained not; and, as mightiest streams are wont.
To the great river, with such headlong sweep,
Eushed, that nought stayed its course. My stiffened frame,
Laid at his mouth, the feU Archiano found.
And dashed it into Arno ; from my breast
Loosening the cross, that of myself I made
When overcome with pain. He hurled me on,
Along the banks and bottom of his course;
Then in his muddy spoils encircling wrapt.' "

Observe, Buonconte, as he dies, crosses his arms over his breast,
pressing them together, partly in his pain, partly in prayer. His
body thus lies by the river shore, as on a sepulchral monument.

the arms folded into a cross. The rage of the river, under the
influence of the evil demon, unlooses this cross, dashing the body
supinely away, and rolling it over and over by bank and bottom.
Nothing can be truer to the action of a stream in fury than these
lines. And how desolate is it all! The lonely flight,—the grisly
wound, " pierced in the throat," — the death, without help or
pity,— only the name of Mary on the lips, — and the cross folded
over the heart. Then the rage of the demon and the river,—the
noteless grave, — and, at last, even she who had been most trusted
forgetting him,—

There is, I feel assured, nothing else like it in all the range of
poetry ; a faint and harsh echo of it, only, exists in one Scottish
ballad, « The Twa Corbies."

Here, then, I think, we may close our inquiry into the nature
of the media3val landscape ; not but that many details yet require
to be worked out; but these will be best observed by recurrence
to them, for comparison with similar details in modern landscape,—
our principal purpose, the getting at the governing tones and
temper of conception, being, I believe, now sufficiently accom-
plished. And I think that our subject may be best pursued by
immediately turning from the medigeval to the perfectly modern
landscape ; for although I have much to say respecting the transi-
tional state of mind exhibited in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, I believe the transitions may be more easily explained
after we have got clear sight of the extremes; and that by getting
perfect and separate hold of the three great phases of art,—Greek,
mediseval, and modern,—we shall be enabled to trace, with least
chance of error, those curious vacillations which brought us to
the modern temper while vainly endeavouring to resuscitate the
Greek. I propose, therefore, in the next chapter, to examine the
spirit of modern landscape, as seen generally in modern painting,
and especially in the poetry of Scott.

§ ]. We turn our eyes, therefore, as "boldly and as quickly as may
be, from these serene fields and skies of media?val art, to the most
characteristic examples of modern landscape. And, I believe,
the first thing that will strike us, or that ought to strike us, is
their cloudiness.

Out of perfect light and motionless air, we find ourselves on a
sudden brought under sombre skies, and into drifting wind; and,
with fickle sunbeams flashing in our face, or utterly drenched
with sweep of rain, we are reduced to track the changes of the
shadows on the grass, or watch the rents of twilight through
angry cloud. And we find that whereas all the pleasure of the
mediaeval was in stability, definiteness, and luminousness, we are
expected to rejoice in darkness, and triumph in mutability; to lay
the foundation of happiness in things which momentarily change
or fade; and to expect the utmost satisfaction and instruction
from what it is impossible to arrest, and difficult to comprehend.

§ 2. We find, however, together with this general delight in breeze
and darkness, much attention to the real form of clouds, and care-
ful drawing of effects of mist; so that the appearance of objects,
as seen through it, becomes a subject of science with us; and
the faithful representation of that appearance is made of primal
importance, under the name of aerial perspective. The aspects
of sunset and sunrise, with all their attendant phenomena of cloud
and mist, are, watchfully delineated; and in ordinary daylight
landscape, the sky is considered of so much importance, that a
principal mass of foliage, or a whole foreground, is unhesitatingly

thrown into shade merely to bring out the form of a white cloud.
So that, if a general and characteristic name were needed for
modern landscape art, none better could be invented than " the
service of clouds."

§ 3. And this name would, unfortunately, be characteristic of our
art in more ways than one. In the last chapter, I said that all
the Greeks spoke kindly about the clouds, except Aristophanes;
and he, I am sorry to say (since his report is so unfavourable) is
the only Greek who had studied them attentively. He tells us,
first, that they are "great goddesses to idle men;" then, that
they are " mistresses of disputlngs, and logic, and monstrosities,
and noisy chattering;" declares that whoso believes in their
divinity must first disbelieve in Jupiter, and place supreme
power in the hands of an unknown god " Whirlwind;" and,
finally, he displays their influence over the mind of one of their
disciples, in his sudden desire " to speak ingeniously concerning
smoke."

There is, I fear, an infinite truth in this Aristophanic judgment
applied to our modern cloud-worship. Assuredly, much of the
love of mystery in our romances, our poetry, our art, and, above
all, in our metaphysics, must come under that definition so long
ago given by the great Greek, " speaking ingeniously concern-
ing smoke." And much of the instinct, which, partially deve-
loped in painting, may be now seen throughout every mode of
exertion of mind,—the easily encouraged doubt, easily excited
curiosity, habitual agitation, and delight in the changing and the
marvellous, as opposed to the old quiet serenity of social custom
and religious faith,—is again deeply defined in those few words,
the " dethroning of Jupiter," the " coronation of the whirl-
wind."

§ 4. Nor of whirlwind merely, but also of darkness or ignorance
respecting all stable facts. That darkening of the foreground
to bring out the white cloud, is, in one aspect of it, a type
of the subjection of all plain and positive fact, to what is un-
certain and unintelligible. And as we examine farther into the
matter, we shall be struck by another great difierence between
the old and modern landscape, namely, that in the old no one

ever thought of drawing anything but as well as he could.
That might not be well, as we have seen in the case of rocks;
but it was as well as he could, and always distinctly. Leaf,
or stone, or animal, or man, it was equally drawn with care
and clearness, and its essential characters shown. If it was
an oak tree, the acorns were drawn; if a flint pebble, its veins
were drawn ; if an arm of the sea, its fish were drawn ; if a group
of figures, their faces and dresses were drawn—to the very last
subtlety of expression and end of thread that could be got into
the space, far off or near. But now our ingenuity is all " con-
cerning smoke." Nothing is truly drawn but that; all else is
vague, slight, imperfect; got with as little pains as possible.
You examine your closest foreground, and find no leaves; your
largest oak, and find no acorns; your human figure, and find
a spot of red paint instead of a face; and in all this, again and
again, the Aristophanic words come true, and the clouds seem to
be " great goddesses to idle men."

§ 5. The next thing that will strike us, after this love of clouds,
is the love of liberty. Whereas the mediseval was always shut-
ting himself into castles, and behind fosses, and drawing brick-
work neatly, and beds of flowers primly, our pahiters delight
in getting to the open fields and moors; abhor all hedges and
moats; never paint anything but free-growing trees, and rivers
gliding " at their own sweet will;" eschew formality down to the
smallest detail; break and displace the brickwork which the
mediasval would have carefully cemented; leave unpruned the
thickets he would have delicately trimmed; and, carrying the
love of liberty even to license, and the love of wildness even to
ruin, take pleasure at last in every aspect of age and desolation
which emancipates the objects of nature from the government of
men;—on the castle wall displacing its tapestry with ivy, and
spreading, through the garden, the bramble for the rose.

§ 6 Connected with this love of liberty we find a singular mani-
festation of love of mountains, and see our painters traversing the
wildest places of the globe in order to obtain subjects with craggy
foregrounds and purple distances. Some few of them remain
content with pollards and flat land; but these are always men of

third-rate order; and the leading masters, while they do not reject
the beauty of the low grounds, reserve their highest powers to
paint Alpine peaks or Italian promontories. And it is emi-
nently noticeable, also, that this pleasure in the mountains is
never mingled with fear, or tempered by a spirit of meditation,
as with the mediaeval; but is always free and fearless, brightly
exhilarating, and wholly unreflective: so that the painter feels
that his mountain foreground may be more consistently animated
by a sportsman than a hermit; and our modern society in general
goes to the mountains, not to fast, but to feast, and leaves their
glaciers covered with chicken-bones and egg-shells.

§ 7. Connected with this want of any sense of solemnity in moun-
tain scenery, is a general j)rofanity of temper in regarding all the
rest of nature; that is to say, a total absence of faith in the pre-
sence of any deity therein. Whereas the media3val never painted
a cloud, but with the purpose of placing an angel in it; and a
Greek never entered a wood without expecting to meet a god in
it; loe should think the appearance of an angel in the cloud
wholly unnatural, and should be seriously surprised by meeting a
god anywhere. Our chief ideas about the wood are connected
with poaching. We have no belief that the clouds contain more
than so many inches of rain or hail, and from our ponds and
ditches expect nothing more divine than ducks and watercresses.

§ 8. Finally: connected with this profanity of temper is a strong
tendency to deny the sacred element of colour, and make our
boast in blackness. For though occasionally glaring, or violent,
modern colour is on the whole eminently sombre, tending con-
tinually to grey or brown, and by many of our best painters con-
sistently falsified, with a confessed pride in what they call chaste
or subdued tints; so that, whereas a mediasval paints his sky bright
blue, and his foreground bright green, gilds the towers of his
castles, and clothes his figures with purple and white, we paint
our sky grey, our foreground black, and our foliage brown, and
think that enough is sacrificed to the sun in admitting the dan-
gerous brightness of a scarlet cloak or a blue jacket.

§ 9. These, I believe, are the principal points which would strike us
instantly, if we were to be brought suddenly into an exhibition of
VOL. in. s

modern landscapes out of a room filled with mediteval Avork. It
is evident that there are both evil and good in this change; but
how much evil, or how much good, Ave can only estimate by
considering, as in the former divisions of our inquiry, what are
the real roots of the habits of mind which have caused them.

And first, it is evident that the title " Dark Ages," given to the
mediaeval centuries, is, respecting art, wholly inapplicable. They
were, on the contrary, the bright ages; ours are the dark ones.
I do not mean metaphysically, but literally. They were the ages
of gold; ours are the ages of umber.

This is partly mere mistake in us; we build broAvn brick walls,
and Avear brown coats, because Ave have been blunderingly taught
to do so, and go on doing so mechanically. There is, however,
also some cause for the change in our OAvn tempers. On the
Avhole, these are much sadder ages than the early ones; not
sadder in a noble and deep Avay, but in a dim, Avearied Avay,—-the
Avay of ennui, and jaded intellect, and uncomfortableness of soul
and body. The Middle Ages had their Avars and agonies, but
also intense delights. Their gold was dashed with blood; but ours
is sprinkled Avith dust. Their life was inwoven Avith white and
purple; ours is one seamless stuff of brown. Not that we are
Avithout apparent festivity, but festivity more or less forced,
mistaken, embittered, incomplete — not of the heart. Hoav Avon-
derfully, since Shakspere's time, have Ave lost the power of laugh-
ing at bad jests! The very finish of our wit belies our gaiety.

The profoundest reason of this darkness of heart is, I believe,
our want of faith. There never yet Avas a generation of
men (savage or civilized) who, taken as a body, so wofully
fulfilled the Avords, " having no hope, and Avithout God in the
Avorld," as the present civilized European race. A Eed Indian
or Otaheitan savage has more sense of a Divine existence round
him, or government over him, than the plurality of refined
Londoners and Parisians; and those among us Avho may in some
sense be said to believe, are divided almost without exception
into two broad, classes, Romanist and Puritan; who, but for
the interference of the unbelieving portions of society, would,
either of them, reduce the other sect as speedily as possible to

Distinctive
characters of
the modern
mind:

1. Despondency
arising from
faithlessness.

aslies; the Romanist having always done so Avhenever he could,
from the beginning of their separation, and the Puritan at this
time holding himself in complacent expectation of the destruction
of Rome by volcanic fire. Such division as this between persons
nominally of one religion, that is to say, believing in the same
God, and the same Revelation, cannot but become a stumbling-
block of the gravest kind to all thoughtful and far-sighted men,—
a stumbling-block which they can only surmount under the most
favourable circumstances of early education. Hence, nearly all
our powerful men in this age of the world are unbelievers; the
best of them in doubt and misery ; the worst in reckless defiancc;
the plurality, in plodding hesitation, doing, as well as they can,
what practical Avork lies ready to their hands. Most of our
scientific men are in this last class; our popular authors either
set themselves definitely against all religious form, pleading for
simple truth and benevolence, (Thackeray, Dickens), or give
themselves up to bitter and fruitless statement of facts, (De
Balzac), or surface-painting, (Scott), or careless blasphemy, sad
or smiling, (Byron, Beranger). Our earnest poets, and deepest
thinkers, are doubtful and indignant, (Tennyson, Carlyle); one or
two, anchored. Indeed, but anxious, or weeping, (Wordsworth,
Mrs. Browning); and of these two, the first is not so sure of
his anchor, but that now and then it drags with him, even to
make him cry out, —

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn."

In politics, religion is now a name; in art, a hypocrisy or
affectation. Over German religious pictures the inscription,
" See how Pious I am," can be read at a glance by any clear-
sighted person. Over French and English religious pictures,
the inscription, " See how Impious I am," is equally legible.
All sincere and modest art is, among us, profane.^

' Pre-Raphaelitism, of course, excepted, wliich is a new phase of art, in no wise
considered in this chapter. Blake was sincere, but full of wild creeds, and some-
what diseased in brain.

§ 11. This faithlessness operates among us according to our tempers,
the^samlf' producing either sadness or levity, and being the ultimate root

alike of our discontents and of our wantonnesses. It is mar-
vellous how full of contradiction it makes us: we are first dull,
and seek for wild and lonely places because we have no heart for
the garden; presently Ave recover our spirits, and build an as-
sembly room among the mountains, because we have no reverence
for the desert. I do not know if there be game on Sinai, but I
am always expecting to hear of some one's shooting over it.

There is, however, another, and a more innocent root of our
delight in wild scenery.

All the Renaissance principles of art tended, as I have before
often explained, to the setting Beauty above Truth, and seeking
for it always at the expense of truth. And the proper punish-
ment of such pursuit—the punishment which all the laws of the
universe rendered inevitable— was, that those Avho thus pursued
beauty should wholly lose sight of beauty. All the thinkers
of the age, as we saw previously, declared that it did not exist.
The age seconded their efforts, and banished beauty, so far as
human effort could succeed in doing so, from the face of the
earth, and the form of man. To powder the hair, to patch the
cheek, to hoop the body, to buckle the foot, were all part and
parcel of the same system which reduced streets to brick walls,
and pictures to brown stains. One desert of Ugliness was ex-
tended before the eyes of mankind; and their pursuit of the beau-
tiful, so recklessly continued, received unexpected consummation
in high-heeled shoes and periwigs,— Gower Street, and Gaspar
Poussin.

Reaction from this state was inevitable, if any true life Avas
left in the races of mankind; and, accordingly, though still forced,
by rule and fashion, to the producing and wearing all that is ugly,
men steal out, half-ashamed of themselves for doing so, to the
fields and mountains; and, finding among these the colour, and
liberty, and variety, and power, which are for ever grateful to
them, delight in these to an extent never before known; rejoice in
all the wildest shattering of the mountain side, as an opposition
to Gower Street; gaze in a rapt manner at sunsets and sunrises,

§ 12.

3. Reactionary
love of inani-
mate beauty.

to see there the blue, and gold, and purple, which glow for them
no longer on knight's armour or temple porch; and gather with
care out of the fields, into their blotted herbaria, the flowers
which the five orders of architecture have banished from their
doors and casements.

§ 14. The absence of care for personal beauty, which is another great 4. Disdain of
characteristic of the age, adds to this feeling in a twofold way:
first, by turning all reverent thoughts away from human nature;
and making us think of men as ridiculous or ugly creatures, get-
ting through the world as well as they can, and spoiling it in doing
so; not ruling it in a kingly way and crowning all its loveliness.
In the Middle Ages hardly anything but vice could be cari-
catured, because virtue was always visibly and personally noble:
now virtue itself is apt to inhabit such poor human bodies, that
no aspect of it is invulnerable to jest; and for all fairness we
have to seek to the flowers, for all sublimity, to the hills.

The same want of care operates, in another way, by lowering
the standard of health, increasing the susceptibility to nervous
or sentimental impressions, and thus adding to the other powers
of nature over us whatever charm may be felt in her fostering
the melancholy fancies of brooding idleness.

§ 15_ It is not, however, only to existing inanimate nature that our s. Romantic
want of beauty in person and dress has driven us. The ima- the^p
gination of it, as it was seen in our ancestors, haunts us con-
tinually ; and while we yield to the present fashions, or act iu
accordance with the dullest modern principles of economy and
utility, we look fondly back to the manners of the ages of chi-
valry, and delight in painting, to the fancy, the fashions we
pretend to despise, and the splendours we think it wise to
abandon. The furniture and personages of our romance are
sought, when the writer desires to please most easily, in the
centuries which we profess to have surpassed in everything; the
art which takes us into the present times is considered as both
daring and degraded; and while the weakest words please us,
and are regarded as poetry, which recall the manners of our
forefathers, or of strangers, it is only as familiar and vulgar that

In this we are wholly different from all the races that preceded
us. All other nations have regarded their ancestors with reve-
rence as saints or heroes; but have nevertheless thought their
own deeds and ways of life the fitting subjects for their arts
of painting or of verse. We, on the contrary, regard our an-
cestors as foolish and wicked, but yet find our chief artistic
pleasure in descriptions of their ways of life.

The Greeks and mediaevals honoured, but did not imitate,
their forefathers; we imitate, but do not honour.

With this romantic love of beauty, forced to seek in history,
and in external nature, the satisfaction it cannot find in ordi-
nary life, we mingle a more rational passion, the due and just
result of newly awakened powers of attention. Whatever may
first lead us to the scrutiny of natural objects, that scrutiny
never fails of its reward. Unquestionably they are intended
to be regarded by us with both reverence and delight; and
eyery hour we give to them renders their beauty more apparent,
and their Interest more engrossing. Natural science — which
can hardly be considered to have existed before modern times —
rendering our knowledge fruitful in accumulation, and exquisite
in accuracy, has acted for good or evil, according to the temper
of the mind which received it; and though it has hardened the
faithlessness of the dull and proud, has shown new grounds for
7. Fear of war. reverence to hearts which were thoughtful and humble. The
neglect of the art of war, while it has somewhat weakened and
deformed the body^, has given us leisure and opportunity for
studies to which, before, time and space were equally wanting;
lives which once were early wasted on the battle field are now
passed usefully in the study; nations which exhausted them-
selves in annual warfare now dispute with each other the dis-
covery of new planets; and the serene philosopher dissects the
plants, and analyzes the dust, of lands which were of old only

§ 16.

6. Interest in
science.

' Of course this is meant only of the modern citizen or country-gentleman, as com-
pared with a citizen of Sparta or old Florence. I leave it to others to say whether
the " neglect of the art of war" may or may not, in a yet more fatal sense, be predi-
cated of the English nation. War, without art, we seem, with God's help, able still to
wage nobly.

§ 17. The elements of progress and decline being thus strangely
mingled in the modern mind, we might beforehand anticipate that
one of the notable characters of our art would be its inconsistency;
that efforts would be made in every direction, and arrested by
every conceivable cause and manner of failure; that in all we
did, it would become next to impossible to distinguish accurately
the grounds for praise or for regret; that all previous canons of
practice and methods of thought would be gradually overthroAvn,
and criticism continually defied by successes which no one had
expected, and sentiments which no one could define.

§ 18. Accordingly, while, in our inquiries into Greek and medieval
art, I was able to describe, in general terms, what all men did
or felt, I find now many characters in many men; some, it seems
to me, founded on the inferior and evanescent principles of mo-
dernism, on its recklessness, impatience, or faithlessness; others
founded on its science, its new affection for nature, its love of
openness and liberty. And among all these characters, good or
evil, I see that some, remaining to us from old or transitional
periods, do not properly belong to us, and will soon fade away,
and others, though not yet distinctly developed, are yet properly
our own, and likely to grow forward into greater strength.

For instance: our reprobation of bright colour is, I think, for
the most part, mere affectation, and must soon be done away with.
Vulgarity, dulness, or impiety, will indeed always express them-
selves through art in brown and grey, as in Rembrandt, Cara-
vaggio, and Salvator; but we are not wholly vulgar, dull, or
impious; nor, as moderns, are we necessarily obliged to continue
so in anywise. Our greatest men, whether sad or gay, still
delight, like the great men of all ages, in brilliant hues. The
colouring of Scott and Byron is full and pure; that of Keats and
Tennyson rich even to excess. Our practical failures in colour-
ing are merely ~ the necessary consequences of our prolonged
want of practice during the periods of Renaissance affectation and
ignorance; and the only durable difference between old and mo-
dern colouring, is the acceptance of certain hues, by the modern.

which please Mm by expressing that melancholy peculiar to his
more reflective or sentimental character, and the greater variety
of them necessary to express his greater science.

§ 19. Again: if we ever become wise enough to dress consistently
and gracefully, to make health a principal object in education,
and to render our streets beautiful with art, the external charm of
past history will in great measure disappear. There is no essen-
tial reason, because we live after the fatal seventeenth century,
that we should never again be able to confess interest in sculpture,
or see brightness in embroidery; nor, because now we choose to
make the night deadly with our pleasures, and the day with our
labours, prolonging the dance till dawn, and the toil to twilight,
that we should never again learn how rightly to employ the
sacred trusts of strength, beauty, and time. Whatever external
charm attaches itself to the past, would then be seen in proper
subordination to the brightness of present life; and the elements
of romance would exist, in the earlier ages, only in the attraction
which must generally belong to whatever is unfamiliar; in the
reverence which a noble nation always pays to its ancestors; and
in the enchanted light which races, like individuals, must perceive
in looking back to the days of their childhood.

§ 20. Again: the peculiar levity with which natural scenery is re-
garded by a large number of modern minds cannot be considered
as entirely characteristic of the age, inasmuch as it never can
belong to its greatest intellects. Men of any high mental power
must be serious, Avhether in ancient or modern days: a certain
degree of reverence for fair scenery is found in all our great
writers without exception,— even the one who has made us laugh
oftenest, taking us to the valley of Chamouni, and to the sea
beach, there to give peace after suffering, and change revenge into
pity.' It is only the dull, the uneducated, or the worldly, whom
it is painful to meet on the hill sides; and levity, as a ruling
character, cannot be ascribed to the whole nation, but only to its
holiday-making apprentices, and its House of Commons.

painter representing the entire group of powers, weaknesses, and
inconsistent instincts which govern or confuse our modern life.
But we may expect that in the man who seems to be given by-
Providence as the type of the age (as Homer and Dante were
given, as the types of classical and media3val mind), we shall find
whatever is fruitful and substantial to be completely present,
together with those of our weaknesses, which are indeed nation-
ally characteristic, and compatible with general greatness of mind ;
just as the weak love of fences, and dislike of mountains, were
found compatible with Dante's greatness in other respects.

§ 22. Farther: as the admiration of mankind is found, in our times,
to have in great part passed from men to mountains, and from
human emotion to natural phenomena, we may anticipate that the
great strength of art will also be warped in this direction; with
this notable result for us, that whereas the greatest painters or
painter of classical and mediajval periods, being wholly devoted to
the representation of humanity, furnished us with but little to
examine in landscape, the greatest painters or painter of modern
times will in all probability be devoted to landscape principally ;
and farther, because in representing human emotion words sur-
pass painting, but in representing natural scenery painting sur-
passes words, we may anticipate also that the painter and poet
(for convenience' sake I here use the words in opposition) will
somewhat change their relations of rank in illustrating the mind
of the age; that the painter will become of more importance, the
poet of less; and that the relations between the men who are the
types and firstfruits of the age in word and work, — namely,
Scott and Turner, — will be, in many curious respects, different
from those between Homer and Phidias, or Dante and Giotto.

§ 23. And, first, I think it probable that many readers may be
surprised at my Wling Scott the great representative of the mind
of the age in literature. Those who can perceive the intense
penetrative depth of Wordsworth, and the exquisite finish and
melodious power of Tennyson, may be offended at my placing in
higher rank that poetry of careless glance, and reckless rhyme, in
which Scott poured out the fancies of his youth; and those who

are familiar with the subtle analysis of the French novelists, or
who have in anywise submitted themselves to the influence of
German philosophy, may be equally indignant at my ascribing a
principality to Scott among the literary men of Europe, in an age
which has produced De Balzac and Goethe.

So also in painting, those who are acquainted with the senti-
mental efforts made at present by the German religious and
historical schools, and with the disciplined power and learning
of the French, will think it beyond all explanation absurd to
call a painter of light water-colour landscapes, eighteen inches
by twelve, the first representative of the arts of the age. I
can only crave the reader's patience, and his due consideration
of the following reasons for my doing so, together with those
advanced in the farther course of the work.

§ 24. I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I
do not mean, by humility, doubt of his own power, or hesitation in
speaking his opinions; but a right understanding of the relation
between what he can do and say, and the rest of the world's
sayings and doings. All great men not only know their business,
but usually know that they know it; and are not only right
in their main opinions, but they iisually know that they are right
in them; only, they do not think much of themselves on that
account. Arnolfo knows he can build a good dome at Florence ;
Albert Durer writes calmly to one who had found fault with his
work, " It cannot be better done ;" Sir Isaac Newton knows that
he has worked out a problem or two that would have puzzled any-
body else;—only they do not expect their fellow-men therefore
to fall down and worship them; they have a curious under-
sense of powerlessness, feeling that the greatness is not in them,
but through them; that they could not do or be anything else
than God made them. And they see something divine and
God-made in every other man they meet, and are endlessly,
foolishly, incredibly merciful.

§ 25. Now; I find among the men of the present age, as far as I
know them, this character in Scott and Turner preeminently; I
am not sure if it is not in them alone. I do not find Scott talk-
ing about the dignity of literature, nor Turner about the dignity

of painting. They do their work, feeling that they cannot
well help it; the story must be told, and the effect put down;
and if people like it, well and good; and if not, the world will
not be much the worse.

I believe a very different impression of their estimate of them-
selves and their doings will be received by any one who reads
the conversations of Wordsworth or Goethe. The slightest
manifestation of jealousy or self-complacency is enough to mark
a second-rate character of the intellect; and I fear that, especially
in Goethe, such manifestations are neither few nor slight.

§ 26. Connected with this general humility, is the total absence of
affectation in these men, — that is to say, of any assumption of
manner or behaviour in their work, in order to attract attention.
Not but that they are mannerists both. Scott's verse is strongly
mannered, and Turner's oil painting; but the manner of it neces-
sitated by the feelings of the men, entirely natural to both, never
exaggerated for the sake of show. I hardly know any other
literary or pictorial work of the day which is not in some degree
affected. I am afraid "Wordsworth was often affected in his
simplicity, and De Balzac in his finish. Many fine French
writers are affected in their reserve, and full of stage tricks in
placing of sentences. It is lucky if in German writers we ever
find so much as a sentence without affectation. I know no
painters without it, except one or two Pre-Raphaelites (chiefly
Holman Hunt), and some simple water-colour painters, as
William Hunt, William Turner of Oxford, and the late George
Robson; but these last have no invention, and therefore by our
fourth canon. Chap. ill. sec. 21., are excluded from the first rank
of artists; and of the Pre-Raphaelites there is here no question,
as they in no wise represent the modern school.

§ 27. Again: another very important, though not infallible, test
of greatness is, as we have often said, the appearance of Ease
with which the thing is done. It may be that, as with Dante
and Leonardo, the finish given to the work effaces the evi-
dence of ease; but where the ease is manifest, as in Scott,
Turner, and Tintoret; and the thing done is very noble, it is
a strong reason for placing the men above those who confessedly

work with great pains. Scott writing his chapter or two before
breakfast — not retouching, Turner finishing a whole drawing
in a forenoon before he goes out to shoot (providing' always the
chapter and drawing be good), are instantly to be set above men
who confessedly have spent the day over the work, and think
the hours well spent if it has been a little mended between
sunrise and sunset. Indeed, it is no use for men to think to
appear great by Avorking fast, dashing, and scrawling; the thing
they do must be good and great, cost what time it may; but if it
he so, and they have honestly and unaffectedly done it with no
effort, it is probably a greater and better thing than the result
of the hardest efforts of others.

§ 28. Then, as touching the kind of work done by these two men,
the more I think of it I find this conclusion more impressed
upon me,—that the greatest thing a human soul ever does in this
world is to see something, and tell what it saio in a plain way.
Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thou-
sands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry,
prophecy, and religion, — all in one.

Therefore, finding the world of Literature more or less divided
into Thinkers and Seers, I believe we shall find also that the
Seers are wholly the greater race of the two. A true Thinkei-,
who has practical purpose in his thinking, and is sincere, as Plato,
or Carlyle, or Helps, becomes in some sort a seer, and must be
always of infinite use in his generation ; but an affected Thinker,
who supposes his thinking of any other importance than as it
tends to work, is about the vainest kind of person that can be
found in the occupied classes. Nay, I believe that metaphysicians
and philosophers are, on the whole, the greatest troubles the
world has got to deal with; and that while a tyrant or bad man is
of - some use in teaching people submission or indignation, and a
tlioroughly idle man is only harmful in setting an idle example,
and communicating to other lazy people his OAvn lazy misunder-
standings, busy metaphysicians are always entangling good and
active people, and weaving cobwebs among the finest Avheels of
the world's business ; and are as much as possible, by all prudent
persons, to be brushed out of their way, like spiders, and the

meshed weed that has got into the Cambridgeshire canals, and
other such impediments to barges and business. And if we thus
clear the metaphysical element out of modern literature, we shall
find its bulk amazingly diminished, and the claims of the re-
maining writers, or of those whom we have thinned by this
abstraction of their straw stuffing, much more easily adjusted.^
§ 29. Again: the mass of sentimental literature, concex'ned with
the analysis and description of emotion, headed by the poetry of
Byron, is altogether of lower rank than the literature which
merely describes what it saw. The true Seer always feels as
intensely as any one else; but he does not much describe his
feelings. He tells you whom he met, and what they said ; leaves
you to make out, from that, what they feel, and what he feels, but
goes into little detail. And, generally speaking, pathetic writing
and careful explanation of passion are quite easy, compared with
this plain recording of what people said and did, or with the right
invention of what they are likely to say and do; for this reason,
that to invent. a story, or admirably and thoroughly tell any part
of a story, it is necessary to grasp the entire mind of every
personage concerned in it, and know precisely how they would
be affected by what happens; which to do requires a colossal
intellect; but to describe a separate emotion delicately, it is only
needed that one should feel it oneself; and thousands of people
are capable of feeling this or that noble emotion, for one who is
able to enter into all the feelings of somebody sitting on the other
side of the table. Even, therefore, 'where this sentimental litera-
ture is first rate, as in passages of Byron, Tennyson, and Keats,
it ought not to be ranked so high as the Creative; and though
perfection, even in narrow fields, is perhaps as rare as in the
wider, and it may be as long before we have another In Memo-
riam as another Guy Mannering, I unhesitatingly receive as a
greater manifestation of power the right invention of a few

' Observe, I do not speak thus of metaphysics because I have no pleasure in them.
When I speak contemptuously of philology, it may be answered me, that I am a bad
scholar; but I cannot be so answered touching metaphysics, for every one conversant
with such subjects may see that I have strong inclination that way, which would,
indeed, have led me far astray long ago, if I had not learned also some use of my
hands, eyes, and feet.

sentences spoken by Pleydell and Mannering across their supper-
table, than the most tender and passionate melodies of the self-
examining verse.

§ 30. Having, therefore, cast metaphysical writers out of our way,
and sentimental writers into the second rank, I do not think
Scott's supremacy among those who remain will any more be
doubtful; nor would it, perhaps, have been doubtful before, hud
it not been encumbered by innumerable faults and weaknesses.
But it is preeminently in these faults and weaknesses that
Scott is representative of the mind of his age: and because
he is the greatest man born amongst us, and intended for the
enduring type of us, all our principal faults must be laid on
his shoulders, and he must bear down the dark marks to the
latest ages; while the smaller men, who have some special Avork
to do, perhaps not so much belonging to this age as leading out
of it to the next, are often kept providentially quit of the en-
cumbrances which they had not strength to sustain, and are
much smoother and pleasanter to look at, in their way: only that
is a smaller way.

§ 31. Thus, the most startling fault of the age being its faithless-
ness, it is necessary that its greatest man should be feithless.
Nothing is more notable or sorrowful in Scott's mind than its
incapacity of steady belief in anything. He cannot even resolve
hardily to believe in a ghost, or a water-spirit; always explains
them away in an apologetic manner, not believing, all the while,
even in his own explanation. He never can clearly ascertain
whether there is anything behind the arras but rats; never
draws sword, and thrusts at it for life or death; but goes on
looking at it timidly, and saying, it must be the wind." He
is educated a Presbyterian, and remains one, because it is the
most sensible thing he can do if he is to live in Edinburgh;
but he thinks Romanism more picturesque, and profaneness more
gentlemanly : does not see that anything affects human life
but love, courage, and destiny; which are, indeed, not matters
of faith at all, but of sight. Any gods but those are very
misty in outline to liim; and when the love is laid ghastly in
poor Charlotte's coffin; and the courage is no more of use,—the

pen having fallen from between the fingers; and destiny is seal-
ing the scroll, — the God-light is dim in the tears that fall on it.

§ 32. Again: as another notable weakness of the age is its habit of
looking back, in a romantic and passionate idleness, to the past
ages, not understanding them all the while, nor really desiring \

to understand them, so Scott gives up nearly the half of his
intellectual power to a fond, yet purposeless, dreaming over the
past, and spends half his literary labours in endeavours to revive
it, not in reality, but on the stage of fiction; endeavours which
were the best of the kind that modernism made, but still successful
only so far as Scott put, under the old armour, the everlasting
human nature which he knew; and totally unsuccessful, so far as
concerned the painting of the armour itself, which he knew not.
The excellence of Scott's work is precisely in proportion to the
degree in which it is sketched from present nature. His familiar
life is inimitable; his quiet scenes of introductory conversation,
as the beginning of Rob Roy and Redgauntlet, and all his
living Scotch characters, mean or noble, from Andrew Fair
service to Jeanie Deans, are simply right, and can never be
bettered. But his romance and antiquarianlsm, his knighthood
and monkery, are all false, and he knows them to be false; does
not care to make them earnest; enjoys them for their strange-
ness, but laughs at his own antiquarianism, all through his
own third novel, — with exquisite modesty indeed, but with
total misunderstanding of the function of an Antiquary. He
does not see how anything is to be got out of the past but
confusion, old iron on drawingroom chairs, and serious incon-
venience to Dr. Heavysterne.

§ 33. Again: more than any age that had preceded it, ours had
been ignorant of the meaning of the word " Art." It had not
a single fixed principle, and what unfixed principles it worked
upon were all wrong.' It was necessary that Scott should know
nothing of art. He neither cared for painting nor sculpture, and
was totally incapable of forming a judgment about them. He
had some confused love of Gothic architecture, because it was
dark, picturesque, old, and like nature; but could not tell the

worst from the best, and built for himself perhaps the most
incongruous and ugly pile that gentlemanly modernism ever de-
signed ; marking, in the most curious and subtle way, that
mingling of reverence with irreverence which is so striking in
the age: he reverences Melrose, yet casts one of its piscinas,
puts a modern steel grate into it, and makes it his fireplace.
Like all pure moderns, he supposes the Gothic barbarous, not-
Avithstanding his love of it; admires, in an equally ignorant way,
totally opposite styles; is delighted with the new town of Edin-
burgh; mistakes its dulness for purity of taste, and actually
compares it, in its deathful formality of street, as contrasted
with the rudeness of the old town, to Britomart taking off her
armour.

§ 34. Again: as in reverence and irreverence, so in levity and melan-
choly, we saw that the spirit of the age was strangely interwoven.
Therefore, also, it is necessary that Scott should be light, care-
less, unearnest, and yet eminently sorrowful. Throughout all
his work there is no evidence of any purpose but to while away
the hour. His life had no other object than the pleasure of the
instant, and the establishing of a family name. AH his thoughts
were, in their outcome and end, less than nothing, and vanity.
And yet, of all poetry that I know, none is so sorrowful as
Scott's. Other great masters are pathetic in a resolute and
predetermined way, when they choose; but, in their own minds,
are evidently stern, or hopeful, or serene; never really melan-
choly. Even Byron is rather sulky and desperate than me-
lancholy ; Keats is sad because he is sickly; Shelley because
he is impious; but Scott is inherently and consistently sad.
Around all his power, and brightness, and enjoyment of eye and
heart, the far-away iEolian knell is for ever sounding; there
is not one of those loving or laughing glances of his but it is
brighter for the film of tears; his mind is like one of his own
hill rivers,— it is white, and flashes in the sun fairly, careless, as
it seems, and hasty in its going, but

" Far beneath, where slow they creep
rrom pool to eddy, dark and deep,
Where alders moist, and willows weep,
You hear her streams repine."

Life begins to pass from him very early; and while Homer
sings cheerfully in his blindness, and Dante retains his courage,
and rejoices in hope of Paradise, through all his exile, Scott, yet
hardly past his youth, lies pensive in the sweet sunshine and
among the harvests of his native hills.

" Blackford, on whose uncultured breast,
Among the broom, and thorn, and whin,
A truant boy, I sought the nest.
Or listed as I lay at rest,

While rose on breezes tliin
Tlie murmur of the city crowd.
And, from his steeple jangling loud,

St. Giles's mingling din !
Now, from the summit to the ^jlain.
Waves all the hill with yellow grain ;

Save the rude cliffs and chiming brook ;
To me they make a heavy moan
Of early friendships past and gone."

§ 35. Such, then, being the weaknesses which it was necessary that
Scott should share with his age, in order that he might suffi-
ciently represent it, and such the grounds for supposing him, in
spite of all these weaknesses, the greatest literary man whom
that age produced, let us glance at the principal points in which
his view of landscape differs from that of the mediaBvals.

I shall not endeavour now, as I did with Homer and Dante,
to give a complete analysis of all the feelings which appear to
be traceable in Scott's allusions to landscape scenery, ^—for this
would require a volume, — but only to indicate the main points of
differing character between his temper and Dante's. Then we
Avill examine in detail, not the landscape of literature, but that
of painting, which must, of course, be equally, or even in a
higher degree, characteristic of the age.

§ 36. And, first, observe Scott's habit of looking at nature neither
as dead, or merely material, in the way that Homer regards it,
nor as altered by his own feelings, in the way that Keats and
Tennyson regard it, but as having an animation and pathos of
its own, wholly irrespective of human presence or passion,— an
VOL. III. T

animation which Scott loves and sympathizes with, as he would
with a fellow-creature, forgetting himself altogether, and sub-
duing his own humanity before what seems to him the power
of the landscape.

" Yon lonely thorn,—would he could tell
The changes of his parent dell,
Since he, so grey and stubborn now.
Waved in each breeze a sapling bough !
"Would he could tell, how deep the shade
A thousand mingled branches made,
How broad the shadows of the oak,
How clung the rowan to the rock.
And through the foliage showed his head,
With narrow leaves and berries red !"

Scott does not dwell on the grey stubbornness of the thoni,
because he himself is at that moment disposed to be dull, or
stubborn; neither on the cheerful peeping forth of the rowan,
because he himself is at that moment cheerful or curious: but
he perceives them both with the kind of interest that he would
take in an old man, or a climbing boy; forgetting himself, in
sympathy with either age or youth.

" And from the grassy slope he sees
The Gi'eta flow to meet the Tees,
Where issuing from her darksome bed,
She caught the morning's eastern red,
And through the softening vale below
Rolled her bright waves in rosy glow,
All blushing to her biidal bed,
Like some shy maid, in convent bred ;
While linnet, lark, and blackbird gay
Sing forth her nuptial roundelay."

Is Scott, or are the persons of his story, gay at this moment?
Far from it. Neither Scott nor Risingham are happy, but the
Greta is; and all Scott's sympathy is ready for the Greta, on
the instant.

Observe, therefore, this is not pathetic fallacy; for there is no
passion in Scott which alters nature. It is not the lover's passion,
making him think the larkspurs are listening for his lady's foot;
i't is not the miser's passion, making him think that dead leaves

are falling coins; but it is an inherent and continual habit of
thought, which Scott shares with the moderns in general, being,
in fact, nothing else than the instinctive sense which men must
have of the Divine presence, not formed into distinct belief.
In the Greek it created, as we saw, the faithfully believed gods
of the elements; in Dante and the mediasvals, it formed the
faithfully believed angelic presence: in the modern, it creates no
perfect form, does not apprehend distinctly any Divine being or
operation ; but only a dim, slightly credited animation in the
natural object, accompanied with great interest and affection for
it. This feeling is quite universal with us, only varying in depth
according to the greatness of the heart that holds it; and in
Scott, being more than usually intense, and accompanied with
infinite affection and quickness of sympathy, it enables him to
conquer all tendencies to the pathetic fallacy, and, instead of
making Nature anywise subordinate to himself, he makes himself
subordinate to her—follows her lead simply — does not venture
to bring his own cares and thoughts into her pure and quiet
presence—paints her in her simple and universal truth, adding
no result of momentary passion or fancy, and appears, therefore,
at first shallower than other poets, being in reality wider and
healthier. " What am I ? " he says continually, " that I should
trouble this sincere nature with my thoughts. I happen to be
feverish and depressed, and I could see a great many sad and
strange things in those waves and flowers; but I have no busi-
ness to see such things. Gay Greta! sweet harebells! you are
not sad nor strange to most people; you are but bright water
and blue blossoms; you shall not be anything else to me, except
that I cannot help thinking you are a little alive, — no one can
help thinking that." And thus, as Nature is bright, serene, or
gloomy, Scott takes her temper, and paints her as she is ; nothing
of himself being ever intruded, except that far-away Eollan tone,
of which he is unconscious; and sometimes a stray syllable or
two, like that about Blackford Hill, distinctly stating personal
feeling, but all the more modestly for that distinctness, and for
the clear consciousness that it is not the chiming brook, nor the
cornfields, that are sad, but only the boy that rests by them; so

returning on the instant to reflect, in all honesty, the image of
Nature as she is meant by all men to be received; nor that in
fine words, but in the first that come; nor with comment of far-
fetched thoughts, but with easy thoughts, such as all sensible
men ought to have in such places, only spoken sweetly ; and
evidently also with an undercurrent of more profound reflection,
which here and there murmurs for a moment, and which I think,
if we choose, we may continually pierce down to, and drink
deeply from, but which Scott leaves us to seek, or shun, at our
pleasure.

And in consequence of this unselfishness and humility, Scott's
enjoyment of Nature is incomparably greater than that of any
other poet I know. All the rest carry their cares to her, and
begin maundering in her ears about their own affairs. Tennyson
goes out on a furzy common, and sees it is calm autumn sunshine,
but it gives him no pleasure. He only remembers that it is

He sees a thundercloud in the evening, and tuould have doted
and pored " on it, but cannot, for fear it should bring the ship
bad AA^eather. Keats drinks the beauty of Nature violently; but
has no more real sympathy Avith her than he has Avith a bottle of
claret. His palate is fine; but he " bursts joy's grape against it,"
gets nothing but misery, and a bitter taste of dregs, out of his
desperate draught.

Byron and Shelley are nearly the same, only Avith less truth of
perception, and even more troublesome selfishress. WordsAvorth
is more like Scott, and understands hoAv to be happy, but yet
cannot altogether rid himself of the sense that he is a phi-
losopher, and ought always to be saying something Avise. He
has also a vague notion that Nature Avould not be able to get on
Avell Avithout "WordsAvorth; and finds a considerable part of his
pleasure in looking at himself as Avell as at her. But Avith Scott
the love is entirely humble and unselfish. " I, Scott, am nothing,
and less than nothing; but these crags, and heaths, and clouds,

how great they are, how lovely, how for ever to be beloved, only
for their own silent, thoughtless sake !"

§ 39. This pure passion for nature in its abstract being, is still
increased in its intensity by the two elements above taken notice
of,—the love of antiquity, and the love of colour and beautiful
form, mortified in our streets, and seeking for food in the wilder-
ness and the ruin: both feelings, observe, instinctive in Scott from
his childhood, as everything that makes a man great is always.

" And well the lonely infant knew
Recesses where the wallflower grew,
And honeysuckle loved to crawl
Up the lone crag and ruined wall.
I deemed such nooks the sweetest shade
The sun in all its round surveyed."

Not that these could have been instinctive in a child in the
Middle Ages. The sentiments of a people increase or diminish
in intensity from generation to generation, — every disposition
of the parents affecting the frame of the mind in their offspring:
the soldier's child is born to be yet more a soldier, and the
politician's to be still more a politician; even the slightest
colours of sentiment and affection are transmitted to the heirs
of life; and the crowning expression of the mind of a people
is given when some infant of highest capacity, and sealed with
the impress of this national character, is born where providential
circumstances permit the full development of the powers it has
received straight from Heaven, and the passions which it has
inherited from its fathers.

§ 40. This love of ancientness, and that of natural beauty, associate
themselves also in Scott with the love of liberty, which was in-
deed at the root even of all his Jacobite tendencies in politics.
For, putting aside certain predilections about landed property, and
family name, and " gentlemanliness " in the club sense of the
word,—^respecting which I do not now inquire whether they were
weak or wise, — the main element which makes Scott like
Cavaliers better than Puritans is, that he thinks the former
free and masterful as well as loyal: and the latter formal and
slavish. He is loyal, not so much in respect for law, as in

unselfish love for the king; and his sympathy is quite as ready
for any active borderer who breaks the law, or fights the king,
in what Scott thinks a generous way, as for the king himself.
Rebellion of a rough, free, and bold kind he is always delighted
by; he only objects to rebellion on principle and in form: bare-
headed and open-throated treason he will abet to any extent,
but shrinks from it in a peaked hat and starched collar: nay,
politically, he only delights in kingship itself, because he looks
upon it as the head and centre of liberty; and thinks that,
keeping hold of a king's hand, one may get rid of the cramps
and fences of law ; and that the people may be governed by the
whistle, as a Highland clan on the open hill-side, instead of
being shut up into hurdled folds or hedged fields, as sheep or
cattle left masterless.

And thus Nature becomes dear to Scott in a threefold way:
dear to him, first, as containing those remains or memories of the
past, which he cannot find in cities, and giving hope of Prsetorian
mound or knight's grave, in every green slope and shade of its
desolate places; — dear, secondly, in its moorland liberty, which
has for him just as high a charm as the fenced garden had
for the mediieval;

" For I was wayward, bold, and wild,
A self-willed imp—a grandame's child ;
But, half a plague, and half a jest.
Was still endured, beloved, caressed :
For me, thus nurtured, dost thou ask
The classic poet's well-conned task ?
Nay, Erskine, nay. On the wild hill
Let the wild heathbell flourish still ;
Cherish the tulip, prune the vine ;
But freely let the woodbine twine.
And leave untrimmed the eglantine ;"

— and dear to him, finally, in that perfect beauty, denied alike in
cities and in men, for which every modern heart had begun at
last to thirst, and Scott's, in its freshness and power, of all men's,
most earnestly.

And in this love of beauty, observe, that (as I said we might
except) the love of colour is a leading element, his healthy mind

being incapable of losing, under any modern false teaching, its joy
in brilliancy of hue. Though not so subtle a colourist as Dante,
which, under the circumstances of the age, he could not be, he
depends quite as much upon colour for his power or pleasure.
And, in general, if he does not mean to say much about things,
the one character which he will give is colour, using it with the
most perfect mastery and faithfulness, up to the point of possible
modern perception. For instance, if he has a sea-storm to paint
in a single line, he does not, as a feebler poet would probably
have done, use any expression about the temper or form of the
waves; does not call them angry or mountainous. He is con-
tent to strike them out with two dashes of Tintoret's favourite
colours :

There is no form in this. Nay, the main virtue of it is,
that it gets rid of all form. The dark raging of the sea —
what form has that? But out of the cloud of its darkness those
lightning flashes of the foam, coming at their terrible intervals —
you need no more.

Again: where he has to describe tents mingled among oaks,
he says nothing about the form of either tent or tree, but only
gives the two strokes of colour:

" Thousand pavilions, white as snow,
Chequered the borough moor below,
Oft giving way, where still there stood
Some relics of the old oak wood.
That darkly huge did intervene.
And tamed the glaring white with green"

Encamped on Flodden edge.
The white pavilions made a show.
Like remnants of the winter snow.
Along the dusky ridge."

" Until, where Teith's young waters roll
Betwixt him and a wooded knoll,
That graced the sahle strath with green.
The chapel of St. Bride was seen."

Again: there is hardly any form, only smoke and colour, in
his celebrated description of Edinburgh:

" The wandering eye could o'er it go,
And mark the distant city glow
, With gloomy splendour red ;

For on the smoke-wreaths, huge and slow,
That round her sable turrets flow.
The morning beams were shed,
And tinged them with a lustre proud.
Like that which streaks a thunder-cloud.
Such dusky grandeur clothed the height,
Where the huge Castle holds its state,

And all the steep slope down,
Whose ridgy back heaves to the sky,
Piled deep and massy, close and high,

Mine own romantic town!
But northward far, with purer blaze,
On Ochil mountains fell the rays.
And as each heathy top they kissed,
It gleamed a purple amethyst.
Yonder the shores of Fife you saw ;
Here Preston Bay and Berwick Law :

And, broad between them rolled
The gallant Frith the eye might note.
Whose islands on its bosom float.
Like emeralds chased in gold."

I do not like to spoil a fine passage by italicizing' it; but ob-
serve, the only hints at form, given throughout, are in the some-
what vague words, " ridgy," " massy," " close," and " high ; "
the whole being still more obscured by modern mystery, in its
most tangible form of smoke. But the colours are all definite;
note the rainbow band of them—gloomy or dusky red, sable
(pure black), amethyst (pure purple), green, and gold—a noble
chord throughout; and then, moved doubtless less by the smoky
than the amethystine part of the group,

" Fitz Eustace' heart felt closely pent,
The spur he to his charger lent,
And raised his bridle hand,

And, making demivolte in air,
Cried, ' Where's the coward would not dare
To fight for such a land ?' "

I need not multiply examples: tlie reader can easily trace for
himself, through verse familiar to us all, the force of these colour
instincts. I will therefore add only two passages, not so com-
pletely known by heart as most of the poems in which they
occur.

" 'Twas silence all. He laid Iiini down
Where purple heath profusely strown.
And throatwort, with its azure bell,
And moss and thyme his cushion swell.
There, spent with toil, he listless eyed
The course of Greta's playful tide ;
Beneath her banks, now eddying dun,
Now brightly gleaming to the sun,
As, dancing over rock and stone,
In yellow light her currents shone,
Matching in hue the favourite gem
Of Albin's mountain diadem.
Then tired to watch the current play.
He turned his weary eyes away
To where the bank opposing showed
Its huge square cliffs through shaggy wood.
One, prominent above the rest,
Reared to the sun its pale grey breast;
Around its broken summit grew
Tlie hazel rude, and sable yew ;
A thousand varied lichens dyed
Its waste and weather-beaten side;
And round its rugged basis lay,
By time or thunder rent away,
Fragments, that, from its frontlet torn.
Were mantled now by verdant thorn."

§ 43. Note, first, what an exquisite chord of colour is given in the
succession of this passage. It begins with purple and blue; then
passes to gold, or cairngorm colour (topaz colour); then to pale
grey, through which the yellow passes into black; and the black,
through broken dyes of lichen, into green. Note, secondly,—
what is indeed so manifest throughout Scott's landscape as hardly
to need pointing out, — the love of rocks, and true understanding
of their colours and characters, opposed as it is in every con-
ceivable way to Dante's hatred and misunderstanding of them.

of this great difference; namely, first, the ruggedness of northern
temper (compare § 8. of the chapter on the Nature of Grothic
in the Stones of Venice); then the really greater beauty of the
northern rocks, as noted when we were speaking of the Apennine
limestone; then the need of finding beauty among them, if it
were to be found anywhere,—no well-arranged colours being any
more to be seen in dress, but only in rock lichens; and, finally,
the love of irregularity, liberty, and power springing up in
glorious opposition to laws of prosody, fashion, and the five orders.
§ 44. The other passage I have to quote is still more interesting;
because it has no form in it at all except in one word (chalice),
but wholly composes its imagery either of colour, or of that
delicate half-believed life which we have seen to be so important
an element in modern landscape.

" The summer dawn's reflected hue
To purple changed Loch Katrine blue ;
Mildly and soft the western breeze
Just kissed the lake, just stirred the trees ;
And the pleased lake, like maiden coy.
Trembled, but dimpled not, for joy.
The mountain-shadows on her breast
Were neither broken nor at rest ;
In bright micertainty they lie,
Like future joys to Fancy's eye.
The water-lily to the light
Her chalice reared of silver bright;
The doe awoke, and to the lawn,
Begemmed with dew-drops, led her fawn ;
The grey mist left the mountain side;
The torrent showed its glistening pride ;
Invisible in flecked sky.
The lark sent down her revelry ;
Tlie blackbird and the speckled thrush
Good-morrow gave from brake and bush';
In answer cooed the cushat dove
Her notes of peace, and rest, and love."

Two more considerations are, however, suggested by the
above passage. The first, that the love of natural history, ex-
cited by the continual attention now given to all wild landscape,
heightens reciprocally the interest of that landscape, and becomes
an important element in Scott's description, leading him to finish,
down to the minutest speckling of breast, and slightest shade

of attributed emotion, the portraiture of birds and animals; in
strange opposition to Homer's slightly named " sea-crows, who
have care of the works of the sea," and Dante's singing-birds,
of undefined species. Compare carefully a passage, too long to
be quoted, — the 2nd and 3rd stanzas of canto VI. of Rokeby.

The second, and the last point I have to note, is Scott's habit
of drawing a slight moral from every scene, just enough to
excuse to his conscience his want of definite religious feeling;
and that this slight moral is almost always melancholy. Here
he has stopped short without entirely expressing it —

His completed thought would be, that those future joys, like
the mountain shadows, were never to be attained. It occurs
fully uttered in many other places. He seems to have been
constantly rebuking his own worldly pride and vanity, but never
purposefully:

" The foam-globes on her eddies ride,
Thick as the schemes of human pride
That down life's current drive amain,
As frail, as frothy, and as vain."

" Her dai'k eye flashed ; she paused, and sighed j—
• Ah, what have I to do with pride I' "

And hear the thought he gathers from the sunset (noting first
the Turnerian colour,—as usual, its principal element):

" The sultry summer day is done.
Tlie western hills have hid the sun,
But mountain peak and village spire
Retain reflection of his fire.
Old Barnard's towers are purple still.
To those that gaze from Toller Hill;
Distant and high the tower of Bowes
Like steel upon the anvil glows;
And Stanmore's ridge, behind that lay,
Rich with the spoils of parting day,

In crimson and in gold arrayed,
Streaks yet awhile the closing shade ;
Then slow resigns to darkening heaven
The tints which brighter hours had given.
Thus, aged men, full loath and slow,
The vanities of life forego.
And count their youthful follies o'er
Till Memory lends her light no more."

That is, as far as I remember, one of the most finished pieces
of sunset he has given ; and it has a woful moral; yet one
which, with Scott, is inseparable from the scene.

" 'Twere sweet to mark the setting day
On Bourhope's lonely top decay ;
And, as it faint and feeble died
On the broad lake and mountain's side,
To say, ' Thus pleasures fade away ;
Youth, talents, beauty, thus decay.
And leave us dark, forlorn, and grey.' "

" Mine be the eve of tropic sun :
Witb disk like battle-target red,
He rushes to his burning bed.
Dyes the wide wave with bloody light.
Then sinks at once ; and all is night."

In all places of this kind, where a passing thought is suggested
by some external scene, that thought is at once a slight and
sad one. Scott's deeper moral sense is marked in the conduct
of his stories, and in casual reflections or exclamations arising
out of their plot, and therefore sincerely uttered; as that of
Marmion:

But the reflections which are founded, not on events, but
on scenes, are, for the most part, shallow, partly insincere, and,
as far as sincere, sorrowful. This habit of ineffective dreaming
and moralizing over passing scenes, of which the earliest type
I know is given in Jaques, is, as aforesaid, usually the satis-

faction made to our modern consciences for the want of a sincere
acknowledgment of God in nature: and Shakspere has marked
it as the characteristic of a mind " compact of jars" (Act li.
Sc. VII., As You Like It). That description attaches but too
accurately to all the moods which we have traced in the
moderns generally, and in Scott as the first representative of
them; and the question now is, what this love of landscape, so
composed, is likely to lead us to, and what use can be made
of it.

We began our investigation, it will be remembered, in order
to determine whether landscape-painting was worth studying
or not. We have now reviewed the three principal phases
of temper in the civilized human race, and Ave find that land-
scape has been mostly disregarded by great men, or cast into
a second place, until now ; and that now it seems dear to
us, partly in consequence of our faults, and partly owing to
accidental circumstances, soon, in all likelihood, to pass away:
and there seems great room for question still, whether our love
of it is a permanent and healthy feeling, or only a healthy crisis
in a generally diseased state of mind. If the former, society
will for ever hereafter be affected by its results; and Turner,
the first great landscape-painter, must take a place in the his-
tory of nations corresponding in art accurately to that of Bacon
in philosophy ; — Bacon having first opened the study of the laws
of material nature, when, formerly, men had thought only of the
laws of human mind; and Turner having first opened the study
of the aspect of material nature, when, before, men had thought
only of the aspect of the human form. Whether, therefore,
the love of landscape be trivial and transient, or important and
permanent, it now becomes necessary to consider. We have, I
think, data enough before us for the solution of the question,
and we will enter upon it, accordingly, in the following chapter.

§ 1. Supposing then the preceding conclusions correct, respecting the
grounds and component elements of the pleasure which the
moderns take in landscape, we have here to consider what are
the probable or usual effects of this pleasure. Is it a safe or a
seductive one? May we wisely boast of it, and unhesitatingly
indulge it ? or is it rather a sentiment to be despised when it is
slight, and condemned when it is intense; a feeling which dis-
inclines us to labour, and confuses us in thought; a joy only to
the inactive and the visionary, incompatible with the duties of
life, and the accuracies of reflection ?

§ 2. It seems to me that, as matters stand at present, there is
considerable ground for the latter opinion. We saw, in the pre-
ceding chapter, that our love of nature had been partly forced
upon us by mistakes in our social economy, and led to no distinct
issues of action or thought. And when we look to Scott—the
man who feels it most deeply—for some explanation of its effect
upon him, Ave find a curious tone of apology (as if for an invo-
luntary folly) running through his confessions of such sentiment,
and a still more curious inability to define, beyond a certain point,
the character of this emotion. He has lost the company of his
friends among the hills, and turns to these last for comfort.
He says, " there is a pleasure in the pain" consisting in such
thoughts

but, when we look for some definition of these thoughts, all that
we are told is, that they compose

a sentiment which, I suppose, many people can attain to on
the loss of their friends, without the help of lakes or mountains;
while Wordsworth definitely and positively affirms that thought
has nothing whatever to do with the matter, and that though, in
his youth, the cataract and wood " haunted him like a passion,"
it was without the help of any " remoter charm, by thought
supplied."

§ 3. There is not, however, any question, but that both Scott and
Wordsworth are here mistaken in their analysis of their feelings.
Their delight, so far from being without thought, is more than
half made up of thought, but of thought in so curiously languid
and neutralized a condition that they cannot trace it. The
thoughts are beaten to a powder so small that they know not
what they are; they know only that in such a state they are
not good for much, and disdain to call them thoughts. But the
way in which thought, even thus broken, acts in producing the
delight will be understood by glancing back to §§ 9. and 10. of
the tenth chapter, in which we observed the power of the imagi-
nation in exalting any visible object, by gathering round it, in
farther vision, all the facts properly connected with it; this being,
as it were, a spiritual or second sight, multiplying the power of
enjoyment according to the fulness of the vision. For, indeed,
although in all lovely nature there is, first, an excellent degree
of simple beauty, addressed to the eye alone, yet often what
impresses us most will form but a very small portion of that
visible beauty. That beauty may, for instance, be composed of
lovely flowers and glittering streams, and blue sky and white
clouds; and yet the thing that impresses us most, and which we
should be sorriest to lose, may be a thin grey film on the extreme
horizon, not so large, in the space of the scene it occupies, as

a piece of gossamer on a near at hand bush, nor in any wise
prettier to the eye than the gossamer ; but, because the gossamer
is known by us for a little bit of spider's work, and the other
grey film is known to mean a mountain ten thousand feet high,
inhabited by a race of noble mountaineers, we are solemnly
impressed by the aspect of it; and yet, all the while, the
thoughts and knowledge which cause us to receive this impres-
sion are so obscure that we are not conscious of them; we think
we are only enjoying the visible scene; and the very men whose
minds are fullest of such thoughts absolutely deny, as we have
just heard, that they owe their pleasure to anything but the
eye, or that the pleasure consists in anything else than " Tran-
quillity."

§ 4. And observe, farther, that this comparative Dimness and
Untraceableness of the thoughts which are the sources of our
admiration, is not a fault in the thoughts, at such a time. It is,
on the contrary, a necessary condition of their subordination to
the pleasure of Sight. If the thoughts were more distinct we
should not see so well; and beginning definitely to think, we must
comparatively cease to see. In the instance just supposed, as
long as we look at the film of mountain or Alp, with only an
obscure consciousness of its being the source of mighty rivers,
that consciousness adds to our sense of its sublimity; and if we
have ever seen the Rhine or the Rhone near their mouths, our
knowledge, so long as it is only obscurely suggested, adds to
our admiration of the Alp; but once let the idea define itself, —
once let us begin to consider seriously what rivers flow from
that mountain, to trace their course, and to recall determinately
our memories of their distant aspects, — and we cease to behold
the Alp; or, if we still behold it, it is only as a point in a map
which we are painfully designing, or as a subordinate object
which we strive to thrust aside, in order to make room for our
remembrances of Avignon or Rotterdam.

Again: so long as our idea of the multitudes who inhabit the
ravines at its foot remains indistinct, that idea comes to the aid
of all the other associations which increase our delight. But let
it once arrest us, and entice us to follow out some clear course

of thought respecting the causes of the prosperity or misfortune
of the Alpine villagers, and the snowy peak again ceases to bo
visible, or holds its place only as a white spot upon the retina,
while we pursue our meditations upon the religion or the political
economy of the mountaineers.

§ 5. It is thus evident that a curiously balanced condition of the
powers of mind is necessary to induce full admiration of any
natural scene. Let those powers be themselves inert, and the
mind vacant of knowledge, and destitute of sensibility; and the
external object becomes little more to us than it is to birds or
insects; Ave fall into the temper of the clown. On the other
hand, let the reasoning powers be shrewd in excess, the know-
ledge vast, or sensibility intense, and it will go hard but that
the visible object will suggest so much that it shall be soon itself
forgotten, or become, at the utmost, merely a kind of key-note to
the course of purposeful thought. Newton, probably, did not
perceive whether the apple which suggested his meditations on
gravity was withered or rosy; nor could Howard be affected by
the picturesqueness of the architecture which held the sufferers
it was his occupation to relieve.

§ 6. This wandering away in thought from the thing seen to the
business of life, is not, however, peculiar to men of the highest
reasoning powers, or most active benevolence. It takes place
more or less in nearly all persons of average mental endowment.
They see and love Avhat is beautiful, but forget their admiration
of it in following some train of thought which it suggested, and
which is of more personal interest to them. Suppose that three
or four persons come in sight of a group of pine-trees, not having
seen pines for some time. One, perhaps an engineer, is struck
by the manner in which their roots hold the ground, and sets
himself to examine their fibres, in a feAV minutes retaining little
more consciousness of the beauty of the trees than if he were a
rope-maker untwisting the strands of a cable: to another, the
sight of the trees calls up some happy association, and presently
he forgets them, and pursues the memories they summoned: a
third is struck by certain groupings of their colours, useful to
him as an artist, which he proceeds immediately to note mecha-
VOL. III. u

nically for future use, with as little feeling as a cook setting
down the constituents of a newly discovered dish; and a fourth,
impressed by the wild coiling of boughs and roots, will begin
to change them in his fancy into dragons and monsters, and lose
his grasp of the scene in fantastic metamorphosis: while, in the
mind of the man who has most the power of contemplating the
thing itself, all these perceptions and trains of idea are partially
present, not distinctly, but in a mingled and perfect harmony.
He Avill not see the colours of the tree so well as the artist, nor
its fibres so well as the engineer; he Avill not altogether share
the emotion of the sentimentalist, nor the trance of the idealist;
but fancy, and feeling, and perception, and imagination, will all
obscurely meet and balance themselves in him, and he will see
the pine-trees somewhat in this manner:

" Worthier still of note
Are those fraternal Four of Borrowclalc,
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove ;
Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine
Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved ;
Nor uninformed with Phantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane; a pillared shade,
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged
Perennially, — beneath whose sable roof
Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked
With uurejoicing berries, ghostly Shapes
May meet at noontide ; Fear and trembling Hope,
Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton,
And Time the Shadow; there to celebrate.
As in a natural temple scattered o'er
With altars undisturbed of mossy stone.
United worship."

The power, tlierefore, of thus fully perceiving any natural
object depends on our being able to group and fasten all our
fancies about it as a centre, making a garland of thoughts for
it, in which each separate thought is subdued and shortened
of its own strength, in order to fit it for harmony with others;
the intensity of our enjoyment of the object depending, first,
on its own beauty, and then on the richness of the garland.
And men who have this habit of clustering and harmonizing

their thoughts are a little too apt to look scornfully upon the
harder workers who tear the bouquet to pieces to examine the
stems. This was the chief narrowness of Wordsworth's mind;
he could not understand that to break a rock with a hammer
in search of crystal may sometimes be an act not disgraceful to
human nature^ and that to dissect a flower may sometimes be as
proper as to dream over it; whereas all experience goes to teach
us, that among men of average intellect the most useful members
of society are the dissectors, not the dreamers. It is not that
tliey love nature or beauty less, but that they love result, effect,
and progress more; and when we glance broadly along the starry
crowd of benefactors to the human race, and guides of human
thought, we shall find that this dreaming love of natural beauty
— or at least its expression — has been more or less checked by
them all, and subordinated either to hard work or watching of
human nature. Thus in all the classical and mediasval periods,
it was, as we have seen, subordinate to agriculture, war, and
religion; and in the modern period, in which it has become far
more powerful, observe in what persons it is chiefly manifested.

§ 8. I have purposely omitted the names of Wordsworth, Tenny-
son, and Scott, in the second list, because, glancing at the
two columns as they now stand, we may, I think, draw some
useful conclusions from the high honourableness and dignity of
the names on one side, and the comparative slightness of those
on the other, — conclusions which may help us to a better un^

derstanding of Scott and Tennyson themselves. Glancing, I
say, down those columns in their present form, we shall at once
perceive that the intense love of nature is, in modern times,
characteristic of persons not of the first order of intellect, but
of brilliant imagination, quick sympathy, and undefined religious
principle, suffering also usually under strong and ill-governed
passions: while in the same individual it will be found to vary
at different periods, being, for the most part, strongest in youth,
and associated with force of emotion, and with indefinite and
feeble powers of thought; also, throughout life, perhaps develop-
ing itself most at times when the mind is slightly unhinged by
love, grief, or some other of the passions.

§ 9. But, on the other hand, while these feelings of delight in
natural objects cannot be construed into signs of the highest
mental powers, or purest moral principles, we see that they are
assuredly indicative of minds above the usual standard of power,
and endowed with sensibilities of great preciousness to humanity;
so that those who find themselves entirely destitute of them,
must make this want a subject of humiliation, not of pride.
The apathy which cannot perceive beauty is very different from
the stern energy which disdains it; and the coldness of heart
which receives no emotion from external nature, is not to be
confounded Avith the wisdom of purpose which represses emotion
in action. In the case of most men, it is neither acuteness of
the reason, nor breadth of humanity, which shields them from
the impressions of natural scenery, but rather low anxieties,
vain discontents, and mean pleasures ; and for one who is blinded
to the works of God by profound abstraction or lofty purpose,
tens of thousands have their eyes sealed by vulgar selfishness,
and their intelligence crushed by impious care.

Observe, then : we have, among mankind in general, the three
orders of being;—the lowest, sordid and selfish, which neither
sees nor feels ; the sccond, noble and symimthetic, but which sees
and feels without concluding or acting; the third and highest,
which loses sight in resolution, and feeling in work.'

• The investigation of this subject becomes, therefore, difficult beyond all other
parts of our inquiry, since precisely the same sentiments may arise in diiferent minds

Thiis^ even in Scott and Wordsworth themselves, the love of
nature is more or less associated with their weaknesses. Scott
shows it most in the cruder compositions of his youth, his perfect
powers of mind being displayed only in dialogues with which
description has nothing whatever to do. Wordsworth's distinc-
tive work was a war Avith pomp and pretence, and a display
of the majesty of simple feelings and humble hearts, together
Avith high reflective truth in his analysis of the courses of politics
and ways of men; without these, his love of nature would have
been comparatively worthless.

" If this be so, it is not well to encourage the observance of
landscape, any more than other ways of dreamily and ineffectually
spending time?"

from totally opposite causes; and the extreme of frivolity may sometimes for a
moment desire the same things as the extreme of moral power and dignity. In the
following extract from " Marriage," the sentiment expressed by Lady Juliana (the
ineffably foolish and frivolous heroine of the story) is as nearly as possible what
Dante would have felt, under the same circumstances :

" The air was soft and genial; not a cloud stained the bright azure of the heavens ;
and the sun shone out in all his splendour, shedding life and beauty even over the
desolate heath-clad hills of Glenfern. But, after they had journeyed a few miles»
suddenly emerging from the valley, a scene of matchless beauty bm-st at once upoii
the eye. Before them lay the dark blue waters of Lochmarlie, reflecting, as in a
mirror, every surrounding object, and bearing on its placid, transparent bosom a
fleet of herring-boats, the drapery of whose black, suspended nets contrasted, with
picturesque effect, the white sails of the larger vessels, which were vainly spread to
catch a breeze. All around, rocks, meadows, woods, and liills mingled in wild and
lovely irregularity.

" Not a breath was stirring, not a sound was heard, save the rushing of a waterfall,
the tinkling of some silver rivulet, or the calm rippling of the tranquil lake ; now
and then, at intervals, the fisherman's Gaelic ditty, chanted as he lay stretched on the
sand in some sunny nook or the shrill, distant sound of childish glee. How delicious
to tlie feeling heart to behold so fair a scene of unsophisticated nature, and to listen to
l>er voice alone, breathing the accents of innocence and joy ! But none of the party
who now gazed on it had minds capable of being touched with the emotions it was
calculated to inspire.

" Henry, indeed, was rapturous in his expressions of admiration ; but he concluded
liis panegyrics by wondering his brother did not keep a cutter, and resolving to pass
a night on board one of the herring-boats, that he might eat the fish in perfection.

" Lady Juliana thought it might be very pretty, if, instead of those frightful rocks
and shabby cottages, there could be villas, and gardens, and lawns, and conserva-
tories, and summer-houses, and statues.

" Miss Bella observed, if it M'as hers, she would cut down the woods, and level the
hills, and have races."

natural beauty only as it distinguishes one man from another,
not as it acts for good or evil on those minds to which it neces-
sarily belongs. It may, on the whole, distinguish weaker men
from stronger men, and yet in those weaker men may be of some
notable use. It may distinguish Byron from St. Bernard, and
Shelley from Sir Isaac Newton, and yet may, perhaps, be the
best thing that Byron and Shelley possess — a saving element in
them; just as a rush may be distinguished from an oak by its
bending, and yet the bending may be the saving element in the
rush, and an admirable gift in its place and way. So that,
although St. Bernard journeys all day by the Lake of Geneva,
and asks at evening " where it is," and Byron learns by it " to
love earth only for its earthly sake"^ it does not follow that
Byron, hating men, was the worse for loving the earth, nor that
St. Bernard, loving men, was the better or wiser for being blind
to it. And this will become still more manifest if we examine
somewhat farther into the nature of this instinct, as characteristic
especially of youth.

We saw above that Wordsworth described the feeling as inde-
pendent of thought, and, in the particular place then quoted, he
therefore speaks of it depreciatingly. But in other places he does
not speak of it depreciatingly, but seems to think the absence
of thought involves a certain nobleness, as in the passage already
quoted, Vol. IT. p. 108.:

And he refers to the intense delight which he himself felt^ and
which he supposes other men feel, in nature, during their
thoughtless youth, as an intimation of their immortality, and a
joy which indicates their having come fresh from the hand of
God.

in some degree common to all men, and most vivid In youth,
we may question if it can be entirely explained as I have now
tried to explain it. For if it entirely depended on multi-
tudes of ideas, clustering about a beautiful object, it might
seem that the youth could not feel it so strongly as the man,
because the man knows more, and must have more ideas to
make the garland of. Still less can we suppose the pleasure
to be of that melancholy and languid kind, which Scott defines
as "Resignation" and "Content;" boys being not distinguished
for either of those characters, but for eager effort, and delight-
some discontent. If Wordsworth is at all right in this matter,
therefore, there must surely be some other element in the feeling
not yet detected.

§ 12. Now, in a question of this subtle kind, relating to a period of
life when self-examination is rare, and expression imperfect, it
becomes exceedingly difficult to trace, witli any certainty, the
movements of the minds of others, nor always easy to remember
tliose of our own. I cannot, from observation, form any decided
opinion as to the extent in which this strange delight in nature
influences the hearts of young persons in general; and, in stating
what has passed in my own mind, I do not mean to draw any posi-
tive conclusion as to the nature of the feeling in other children;
but the inquiry is clearly one in which personal experience is
the only safe ground to go upon, though a narrow one; and I
will make no excuse for talking about myself with reference to
this subject, because, though there is much egotism in the world,
it is often the last thing a man thinks of doing, — and, though
there is much work to be done in the world, it is often the best
thincr a man can do,— to tell the exact truth about the movements

of his own mind ; and there is this farther reason, that whatever
other faculties I may or may not possess, this gift of taking plea-
sure in landscape I assuredly possess in a greater degree than most
men; it having been the ruling passion of my life, and the reason
for the choice of its field of labour.

§ 13, The first thing which I remember, as an event in life, was
being taken by my nurse to the brow of Friar's Crag on Der-
wentwater; the intense joy, mingled with awe, that I had in

looking tlirougli the hollows in the mossy roots, over the crag,
into the dark lake, has associated itself more or less with all
twining roots of trees ever since. Two other things I remember,
as, in a sort, beginnings of life;—crossing Shapfells (being let
out of the chaise to run up the hills), and going through Glen-
farg, near Kinross, in a winter's morning, when the rocks were
hung with icicles; these being culminating points in an early
life of more travelling than is usually indulged to a child. In
such journeyings, whenever they brouglit me near hills, and in
all mountain ground and scenery, I had a pleasure, as early as
I can remember, and continuing till I was eighteen or twenty,
infinitely greater than any which has been since possible to me
in anything; comparable for intensity only to the joy of a lover
in being near a noble and kind mistress, but no more explicable
or definable than that feeling of love itself. Only thus much
I can remember, respe'cting it, which is important to our present
subject.

§ 14. First: it was never independent of associated thought. Al-
most as soon as I could see or hear, I had got reading enougli
to give me associations with all kinds of scenery; and moun-
tains, in particular, were always partly confused with those of
my favourite book, Scott's Monastery; so that Glenfarg and all
other glens were more or less enchanted to me, filled with forms
of hesitating creed about Christie of the Clint Hill, and the
monk Eustace; and with a general presence of White Lady
everywhere. I also generally knew, or was told by my father
and mother, such simple facts of history as were necessary to
give more definite and justifiable association to other scenes
which chiefly interested me, such as the ruins of Lochleven and
Kenilworth; and thus my pleasure in mountains or ruins was
never, even in earliest childhood, free from a certain awe and
melancholy, and general sense of the meaning of death, though,
in its principal influence, entirely exhilarating and gladdening.

§ 15^ Secondly : it was partly dependent on contrast with a very
simple and unamused mode of general life: I Avas born in Lon-
don, and accustomed, for two or three years, to no other pros-
pect than that of the brick walls over the way; had no brothers

nor sisters, nor companions; and though I could always make
myself happy in a quiet way, the beauty of the mountains had
an additional charm of change and adventure which a country-
bred child would not have felt.

§ 16. Thirdly: there was no definite religious feeling mingled with
it. I partly believed in ghosts and fairies ; but supposed that
angels belonged entirely to the Mosaic dispensation, and cannot
remember any single thought or feeling connected with them.
I believed tliat God was in heaven, and could hear me and
see me; but this gave me neither pleasure nor pain, and I
seldom thought of it at all. I never thought of nature as
God's work, but as a separate fact or existence.

§ 17. Fourthly : it was entirely unaccompanied by powers of re-
flection or invention. Every fancy that I had about nature
was put into my head by some book; and I never reflected about
anything till I grew older; and then, the more I reflected, the
less nature was precious to me : I could then make myself happy,
by thinking, in the dark, or in the dullest scenery ; and the
beautiful scenery became less essential to my pleasure.

§ 18. Fifthly: it was, according to its strength, inconsistent with
every evil feeling, with spite, anger, covetousness, discontent, and
every other hateful passion ; but would associate itself deeply
with every just and noble sorrow, joy, or affection. It had not,
however, always the power to repress what was inconsistent with
it; and, though only after stout contention, might at last be
crushed by what it had partly repressed. And as it only acted
by setting one impulse against another, though it had much
power in moulding the character, it had hardly any in strengthen-
ing it; it formed temperament, but never instilled principle; it
kept me generally good-humoured and kindly, but could not teach
me perseverance or self-denial: what firmness or principle I had
was quite independent of it; and it came itself nearly as often
in the form of a temptation as of a safeguard, leading me to
ramble over hills when I should have been learning lessons, and
lose days in reveries which I might have spent in doing kind-
nesses.

mingled with it, there was a continual perception of Sanctity
in the whole of nature, from the slightest thing to the vastest; —
an instinctive awe, mixed with delight; an indefinable thrill,
such as we sometimes imagine to indicate the presence of a
disembodied spirit. I could only feel this perfectly when I
was alone; and then it would often make me shiver from head
to foot with the joy and fear of it, when after being some
time away from hills, I first got to the shoi'e of a mountain
river, where the brown water circled among the pebbles, or
when I saw the first swell of distant land against the sunset,
or the first low broken wall, covered with mountain moss. I
cannot in the least describe the feeling; but I do not think
this is my fault, nor that of the English language, for, I am
afraid, no feeling is describable. If Ave had to explain even the
sense of bodily hunger to a person who had never felt it, we
should be hard put to it for words; and this joy in nature
seemed to me to come of a sort of heart-hunger, satisfied with
the presence of a Great and Holy Spirit. These feelings re-
mained in their full intensity till I was eighteen or twenty, and
then, as the reflective and practical power increased, and the
" cares of this woi'ld" gained upon me, faded gradually away,
in the manner described by Wordsworth in his Intimations of
Immortality.

§ 20, I cannot, of course, tell how far I am justified in sujiposing
that these sensations may be reasoned upon as common to chil-
dren in general. In the same degree they are not of course
common, otherwise children would be, most of them, very dif-
ferent from what they are in their choice of pleasures. But,
as far as such feelings exist, I apprehend they are more or less
similar in their nature and influence; only producing different
characters according to the elements with which they are min-
gled. Thus, a very religious child may give up many pleasures
to which its instincts lead it, for the sake of irksome duties ; and
an inventive child would mingle its love of nature with watch-
fulness of human sayings and doings: but I believe the feelings
I have endeavoured to describe are the pure landscape-instinct;
and the likelihoods of good or evil resulting from them may

be reasoned upon as generally indicating the usefulness or danger
of the modern love and study of landscape.

§ 21. And, first, observe that the charni of romantic association
(§ 14.) can be felt only by the modern European child. It
rises eminently out of the contrast of the beautiful past with
the frightful and monotonous present; and it depends for its
force on the existence of ruins and traditions, on the remains
of architecture, the traces of battle fields, and the precursorship
of eventful history. The instinct to which it appeals can hardly
be felt in America, and every day that either beautifies our
present architecture and dress, or overthrows a stone of me-
diieval monument, contributes to weaken it in Europe. Of its
influence on the mind of Turner and Front, and the permanent
results which, through them, it is likely to effect, I shall have
to speak presently.

§ 22. Again: the influence of surprise in producing the delight,
is to be noted as a suspicious or evanescent element in it. Ob-
serve, my pleasure was chiefly (§ 19.) when I Jirs^f got into
beautiful scenery, out of London, The enormous influence of
novelty — the way in which it quickens observation, sharpens
sensation, and exalts sentiment — is not half enough taken note of
by us, and is to me a very sorrowful matter. I think that what
Wordsworth speaks of as a glory in the child, because it has
come fresh from God's hands, is in reality nothing more than
the freshness of all things to its newly opened sight. I find
that by keeping long away from bills, I can in great part still
restore the old childish feeling about them; and the more I live
and work among them, the more it vanishes.

§ 23. This evil is evidently common to all minds; Wordsworth
himself mourning over it in the same poem :

And if we grow impatient under it, and seek to recover the
mental energy by more quickly repeated and brighter novelty,
it is all over with our enjoyment. There is no cure for this
evil, any more than for the weariness of the imagination already

described, but in patience and rest: if we try to obtain per-
petual change, change itself will become monotonous; and then
we are reduced to that old despair, " If water chokes, what will
you drink after it?" And the two points of practical wisdom
in this matter are, first, to be content with as little novelty as
possible at a time; and, secondly, to preserve, as much as pos-
sible in the world, the sources of novelty.

§ 24. I say, first, to be content with as little change as possible.
If the attention is awake, and the feelings in proper train, a
turn of a country road, with a cottage beside it, which we have
not seen before, is as much as we need for refreshment; if we
hurry past it, and take two cottages at a time, it is already
too much: hence, to any person wdio has all his senses about
him, a quiet walk along not more than ten or twelve miles of
road a day, is the most amusing of all travelling ; and all
travelling becomes dull in exact proportion to its rapidity.
Going by railroad I do not consider as travelling at all; it is
merely " being sent" to a place, and very little different from
becoming a pai'cel ; the next step to it would of course be
telegraphic transport, of which, however, I suppose it has been
truly said by Octave Feuillet,

If Ave walk more than ten or twelve miles, it breaks up the
day too much; leaving no time for stopping at the stream sides
or shady banks, or for any work at tlie end of the day; besides
that the last few miles are apt to be done in a hurry, and
may then be considered as lost ground. But if, advancing thus
slowly, after some days we approach any more interesting sce-
nery, every yard of the changeful ground becomes precious
and piquant; and the continual increase of hope, and of sur-
rounding beauty, affords one of the most exquisite enjoyments
possible to the healthy mind; besides that real knowledge is ac-
quired of whatever it is the object of travelling to learn, and a
certain sublimity given to all places, so attained, by the true sense
of the spaces of earth that separate them. A man who really

loves travelling would as soon consent to pack a day of such
happiness into an hour of railroad, as one who loved eating
would agree, if it were possible, to concentrate his dinner into
a pill.

§ 25. And, secondly, I say that it is wisdom to preserve as much
as possible the innocent sources of novelty;—not definite in-
feriorities of one place to another, if such can be done away; but
differences of manners and customs, of language and architecture.
The greatest effort ought especially to be made by all wise and
far-sighted persons, in the present crisis of civilization, to enforce
the distinction between wholesome reform, and heartless abandon-
ment of ancestral custom; between kindly fellowship of nation
with nation, and ape-like adoption, by one, of the habits of another.
It is ludicrously woful to see the luxurious Inhabitants of London
and Paris rushing over the Continent (as they say, to see it), and
transposing every place, as far as lies in their power, instantly
into a likeness of Regent Street and the Rue de la Paix, which
they need not certainly have come so far to see. Of this evil
I shall have more to say hereafter; meantime I return to our
main subject.

§ 26. The next character we have to note in the landscape-instinct
(and on this much stress is to be laid), is its total inconsistency
with all evil passion; its absolute contrariety (whether in the
contest it were crushed or not) to all care, hatred, envy, anxiety,
and moroseness. A feeling of this kind is assuredly not one to
be lightly repressed, or treated with contempt.

But how, if it be so, the reader asks, can it be characteristic
of passionate and unprincipled men, like Byron, Shelley, and
such others, and not characteristic of the noblest and most
highly principled men ?

First, because it is itself a passion, and therefore likely to be
characteristic of passionate men. Secondly, because it is (§ 18.)
wholly a separate thing from moral principle, and may or may
not be joined to strength of Avill, or rectitude of purpose '; only,

' Compare the cliaractcrs of Fleur dc Marie and Iligolette, in the MystSrcs de
Taris. I know no other instance in which the two tempers are so exquisitely de-
lineated and opposed. Eead carefully the beautiful pastoral, in the eighth chapter of

this much is always observable in the men whom it character-
izes, that, whatever their faults or failings, they always under-
stand and love noble qualities of character; they can conceive
(if not certain phases of piety), at all events, self-devotion of the
highest kind; they delight in all that is good, gracious, and
noble; and, though warped often to take delight also in what
is dark or degraded, that delight is mixed with bitter self-
reproach ; or else is wanton, careless, or affected, while their
delight in noble things is constant and sincere.

§ 27. Look back to the two lists given above, § 7. I have not
lately read anything by Mrs. Radclyffe or George Sand, and
cannot, therefore, take instances from them. Keats hardly in-
troduced human character into his work; but glance over the
others, and note the general tone of their conceptions. Take
St. Pierre's Virginia, Byron's Myrrha, Angiolina, and Marina,
and Eugene Sue's Fleur de Marie; and out of the other list
you will only be able to find Pamela, Clementina, and, I
suppose, Clarissa^ to put beside them; and these will not
more than match Myrrha and Marina; leaving Fleur de Marie
and Virginia rivalless. Then meditate a little, with all jus-
tice and mercy, over the two groups of names; and I think
you will, at last, feel that there is a pathos and tenderness
of heart among the lovers of nature in the second list, of
which it is nearly impossible to estimate either the value or
the danger; that the sterner consistency of the men in the first
may, in great part, have arisen only from the, to them, most
merciful, appointment of having had religious teaching or dis-
ciplined education in their youth; while their want of love for
nature, whether that love be originally absent, or artificially
repressed, is to none of them an advantage. Johnson's indolence.
Goldsmith's improvidence. Young's worldliness, Milton's severity,

the first Part, where Fleur de Marie is first taken into the fiehla under Montmartre,
and compare it with the sixth of the second Part, its accurately traced companion
sketch, noting carefully Eigolette's " Non, je deleste la campagne" She docs not,
however, dislike flowers, or birds : " Cette caisse de bois, que Eigolette appellait le
jardin de ses oiseaux, etait remplie de terre rccouverte de mousse, pendant I'hiver.
Elle travaillait aupres de la fenetre ouvertc, a-demi-voilec par un rerdoyant rideiiu de
pois de scnteur roses, de capuciucs oranges, dc volubills bleus et blancs."

and Bacon's servility, might all have been less^ if they could in
anywise have sympathized with Byron's lonely joy in a Jura
storm S or with Shelley's interest in floating paper boats down the
Serchio.

§ 28. And then observe, farther, as I kept the names of Words-
worth and Scott out of the second list, I withdrew, also, certain
names from the first; and for this reason, that in all the men
who are named in that list, there is evidently some degree
of love for nature, which may have been originally of more
power than we suppose, and may have had an infinitely hallow-
ing and protective influence upon them. But there also lived
certain men of high intellect in that age who had no love of
nature whatever. They do not appear ever to have received
the smallest sensation of ocular delight from any natural scene,
but would have lived haj)pily all their lives in drawingrooms
or studies. And, therefore, in these men we shall be able to
determine, with the greatest chance of accuracy, what the real
influence of natural beauty is, and what the character of a mind
destitute of its love. Take, as conspicuous instances, Le Sage
and Smollett, and you will find, in meditating over their works,
that they are utterly incapable of conceiving a human soul as
endowed with any nobleness whatever; their heroes are simply
beasts endowed with some degree of human intellect; ~ cun-
ning, false, passionate, reckless, ungrateful, and abominable, inca-
pable of noble joy, of noble sorrow, of any spiritual perception
or hope. I said, '' beasts with human intellect;" but neither Gil
Bias nor Roderick Random reach, morally, anything near the
level of dogs; while the delight which the writers themselves
feel in mere filth and pain, with an unmitigated foulness and
cruelty of heart, is just as manifest in every sentence as the dis-
tress and indignation with which pain and injustice are seen by
Shelley and Byron.

> It might be thonght that Young could have sympathized with it. He would have
made better use of it, but he would not have had the same delight in it. He turns
his solitude to good accotint; but this is becausc, to him, solitude is sorrow, and his
real enjoyment would have been of amiable society, and a place at court.

nature, yet an evidence much less clear than that for any of
those named even in the first list, stand Cervantes, Pope, and
Moliere. It is not easy to say how much the character of these
last depended on their epoch and education; but it is noticeable
that the first two agree thus far in temper with Le Sage and
Smollett,—that they delight in dwelling upon vice, misfortune, or
folly, as subjects of amusement; while yet they are distinguished
from Le Sage and Smollett by capacity of conceiving nobleness of
character, only in a humiliating and hopeless way; the one repre-
senting all chivalry as insanity, the other placing the wisdom
of man in a serene and sneering reconciliation of good with evil.
Of Moliere I think very differently. Living in the blindest
period of the world's history, in the most luxurious city, and
the most corrupted court, of the time, he yet manifests through
all his writings an exquisite natural wisdom; a capacity for the
most simple enjoyment; a high sense of all nobleness, honour,
and purity, variously marked throughout his slighter work, but
distinctly made the theme of his two perfect plays — the Tartuffe
and Misanthrope; and in all that he says of art or science he
has an unerring instinct for what is useful and sincere, and uses
his whole power to defend it, with as keen a hatred of every-
thing affected and vain. And, singular as it may seem, the first
definite lesson read to Europe, in that school of simplicity of
which Wordsworth was the supposed originator among the moun-
tains of Cumberland, was, in fact, given in the midst of the
court of Louis XIV., and by Moliere. The little canzonet,
" J'aime mieux ma raie," is, I believe, the first Wordsworthian
poem brought forward on philosophical principles, to oppose the
schools of art and affectation.
^^ § 30, I do not know if, by a careful analysis, I could point out any

evidences of a capacity for the love of natural scenery in Moliere
stealing forth through the slightness of his pastorals; but, if not,
we must simply set him aside as exceptional, as a man uniting
Wordsworth's philosophy with Le Sage's wit, turned by circum-
stances from the observance of natural beauty to that of human
frailty. And thus putting him aside for the moment, I think Ave
cannot doubt of our main conclusion, that, though the absence

of the love of nature is not an assured condemnation, its presence
is an invariable sign of goodness of heart and justness of moral
perception, though by no means of moral "practice; that in pro-
portion to the degree in which it is felt, will probably be the
degree in which all nobleness and beauty of character will also be
felt; that when it is originally absent from any mind, that mind
is in many other respects hard, worldly, and degraded; that
where, having been originally present, it is repressed by art or
education, that repression appears to have been detrimental to
the person suffering it; and that wherever the feeling exists, it
acts for good on the character to which it belongs, though, as
it may often belong to characters weak in other respects, it may
carelessly be mistaken for a source of evil in them.

§ 31. And having arrived at this conclusion by a review of facts,
which I hope it will be admitted, whether accurate or not, has at
least been candid, these farther considerations may confirm our
belief in its truth. Observe: the whole force of education, until
very lately, has been directed in every possible way to the
destruction of the love of nature. The only knowledge which
has been considered essential among us is that of words, and,
next after it, of the abstract sciences; while every liking shown
by children for simple natural history has been either violently
checked, (if it took an inconvenient form for the housemaids,)
or else scrupulously limited to hours of play: so that it has
really been impossible for any child earnestly to study the works
of God but against its conscience ; and the love of nature
has become inherently the characteristic of truants and idlers.
While also the art of drawing, which is of more real importance
to the human race than that of writing (because people can hardly
draw anything without being of some use both to themselves
and others, and can hardly write anything without wasting their
own time and that of others), — this art of drawing, I say, which
on plain and stern system should be taught to every child, just
as writing is, — has been so neglected and abused, that there
is not one man in a thousand, even of its professed teachers, who
knows its first principles: and thus it needs much ill-fortune or
obstinacy — much neglect on the part of his teachers, or rebellion
VOL. III. X

on his own—before a boy can get leave to use liis eyes or his
fingers; so that those who can use them are for the most part
neglected or rebellious lads — runaways and bad scholars —
passionate, erratic, self-willed, and restive against all forms of
education; while your well-behaved and amiable scholars are
disciplined into blindness and palsy of half their faculties.
Wherein there is at once a notable ground for what difference
we have observed between the lovers of nature and its despisers ;
between the somewhat immoral and unrespectable watchfulness
of the one, and the moral and respectable blindness of the
other.

§32. One more argument remains, and that, I believe, an unan-
swerable one. As, by the accident of education, the love of
nature has been, among us, associated with wilfulness, so, by
the accident of time, it has been associated with faithlessness.
I traced, above, the peculiar mode in which this faithlessness
was indicated; but I never intended to imply, therefore, that
it Avas an invariable concomitant of the love. Because it happens
that, by various concurrent operations of evil, we have been led,
according to those words of the Greek poet already quoted, to
" dethrone the gods, and crown the whirlwind," it is no reason
that we should forget there was once a time when " the Lord
answered Job out of the whirlwind." And if we now take final
and full view of the matter, we shall find that the love of nature,
wherever it has existed, has been a faithful and sacred element of
human feeling; that is to say, supposing all circumstances other-
wise the same with respect to two individuals, the one who loves
nature most will be always found to have move faith in God than
the other. It is intensely difficult, owing to the confusing and
counter influences which always mingle in the data of the pro-
blem, to make this abstraction fairly; but so far as we can do it,
so far, I boldly assert, the result is constantly the same: the
nature-worship will be found to bring with it such a sense of
the presence and power of a Great Spirit as no mere reasoning
can either induce or controvert; and where that nature-worship
is innocently pursued, — i.e. with due respect to other claims on
tinic, feeling, and exertion, and associated with the higher prin-

ciples of religion, — it becomes the channel of certain sacred
truths, which by no other means can be conveyed.

§ 33. This is not a statement which any investigation is needed to
prove. It comes to us at once from the highest of all autho-
rity. The greater number of the words w^Jiich are recorded in
Scripture, as directly spoken to men by the lips of the Deity, are
either simple revelations of His law, or special threatenings, com-
mands, and promises relating to special events. But two passages
of God's speaking, one in the Old and one in the New Tes-
tament, possess, it seems to me, a different character from any
of the rest, having been uttered, the one to effect the last
necessary change in the mind of a man whose piety was in
other respects perfect; and the other, as the first statement to
all men of the principles of Christianity by Christ Himself—I
mean the 38th to 41st chapters of the book of Job, and the
Sermon on the Mount. Now the first of these passages is, from
beginning to end, nothing else than a direction of the mind
which was to be perfected to humble observance of the works
of God in nature. And the other consists only in the incul-
cation of three things: 1st, right conduct; 2nd, looking for
eternal life; 3rd, trusting God, through watchfulness of His deal-
ings with His creation: and the entire contents of the book of
Job, and of the Sermon on the Mount, will be found resolvable
simply into these three requirements from all men, — that they
should act rightly, hope for heaven, and watch God's wonders
and work in the earth; the right conduct being always summed
up under the three heads of justice, mercy, and truth, and no men-
tion of any doctrinal point whatsoever occurring in either piece of
divine teaching.

§ 34. As far as I can judge of the ways of men, it seems to me
that the simplest and most necessary truths are always the last
believed; and I suppose that well-meaning people in general
would rather regulate their conduct and creed by almost any
other portion of Scripture whatsoever, than by that Sermon on
the Mount which contains the things that Christ thought it
first necessary for all men to understand. Nevertheless, I be-
lieve the time will soon come for the full force of these two pas-

sages of Scripture to be accepted. Instead of supposing the
love of nature necessarily connected with the faithlessness of the
age, I believe it is connected properly with the benevolence and
liberty of the age ; that it is precisely the most healthy element
which distinctively l?elongs to us; and that out of it, cultivated
no longer in levity or ignorance, but in earnestness, and as a
duty, results will spring of an importance at present inconceiv-
able ; and lights arise, which, for the first time in man's history,
will reveal to him the true nature of his life, the true field
for his energies, and the true relations between him and his
Maker.

§ 35. I will not endeavour here to trace the various modes in which
these results are likely to be effected, for this would involve
an essay on education, on the uses of natural history, and the
probable future destiny of nations. Somewhat on these subjects
I have spoken in other places; and I hope to find time, and
proper place, to say more. But one or two observations may
be made merely to suggest the directions in which the reader
may follow out the subject for himself.

The great mechanical impulses of the age, of which most of
us are so proud, are a mere passing fever, half-speculative,
half-childish. People will discover at last that royal roads to
anything can no more be laid in iron than they can in dust;
that there are, in fact, no royal roads to anywhere worth
going to; that if there were, it would that instant cease to be
worth going to, — I mean, so far as the things to be obtained
are in any way estimable in terms of price. For there are two
classes of precious things in the world: those that God gives
us for nothing — sun, air, and life (both mortal life and im-
mortal); and the secondarily precious things which He gives
us for a price: these secondarily precious things, worldly wine
and milk, can only be bought for definite money; they never
can be cheapened. No cheating nor bargaining will ever
get a single thing out of nature's " establishment" at half-
price. Do we want to be strong?—we must work. To be
hungry?—we must starve. To be happy?—we must be kind.
To be wise?—we must look and think. No changing of place

at a hundred miles an hour, nor making of stuffs a thousand
yards a minute, will make us one whit stronger, happier, or
wiser. There was always more in the world than men could
see, walked they ever so slowly; they will see it no better
for going fast. And they will at last, and soon too, find out
that their grand inventions for conquering (as they think) space
and time, do, in reality, conquer nothing; for space and time are,
in their own essence, unconquerable, and besides did not want
any sort of conquering; they wanted using. A fool always wants
to shorten space and time: a wise man wants to lengthen both.
A fool wants to kill space and kill time: a wise man, first to
gain them, then to animate them. Your railroad, when you
come to understand it, is only a device for making the world
smaller: and as for being able to talk from place to place,
that is, indeed, well and convenient; but suppose you have,
originally, nothing to say.^ We shall be obliged at last to
confess, what we should long ago have known, that the really
precious things are thought and sight, not pace. It does a
bullet no good to go fast; and a man, if he be truly a man,
no harm to go slow; for his glory is not at all in going, but
in being.

§ 36. Well; but railroads and telegraphs are so useful for com-
municating knowledge to savage nations." Yes, if you have any
to give them. If you know nothing but railroads, and can com-
municate nothing but aqueous vapour and gunpowder, — what
then ? But if you have any other thing than those to give, then
the railroad is of use only because it communicates that other
thing; and the question is — what that other thing may be.
Is it religion? I believe if we had really wanted to commu-
nicate that, we could have done it in less than 1800 years,
without steam. Most of the good religious communication that
I remember, has been done on foot; and it cannot be easily done
faster than at foot pace. Is it science ? But what science — of

motion, meat, and medicine? Well; when you have moved
your savage, and dressed your savage, fed him with white
bread, and shown him how to set a limb, — what next ? Follow
out that question. Suppose every obstacle overcome; give your
savage every advantage of civilization to the full; suppose that
you have put the Red Indian in tight shoes; taught the Chinese
how to make Wedgwood's ware, and to paint it with colours that
will rub off; and persuaded all Hindoo women that it is more
pious to torment their husbands into graves than to burn them-
selves at the burial, — what next ? Gradually, thinking on
from point to point, we shall come to perceive that all true
happiness and nobleness are near us, and yet neglected by us;
and that till we have learned how to be happy and noble we
have not much to tell, even to Red Indians. The delights
of horse-racing and hunting, of assemblies in the night instead
of the day, of costly and wearisome music, of costly and burden-
some dress, of chagrined contention for place or power, or wealth,
or the eyes of the multitude; and all the endless occupation
without purpose, and idleness without rest, of our vulgar world,
are not, it seems to me, enjoyments we need be ambitious to
communicate. And all real and wholesome enjoyments possibla
to man have been just as possible to him, since first he was made
of the earth, as they are now; and they are possible to him chiefly
in peace. To watch the corn grow, and the blossoms set; to
draw hard breath over ploughshare or spade; to read, to think,
to love, to hope, to pray, — these are the things that make men
happy; they have always had the power of doing these, they
never will have power to do more. The world's prosperity or
adversity depends upon our knowing and teaching these few
things: but upon iron, or glass, or electricity, or steam, in no
wise.

And I am Utopian and enthusiastic enough to believe, that the
time will come when the world will discover this. It has now
made its experiments in every possible direction but the right
one; and it seems that it must, at last, try the right one, in a
mathematical necessity. It has tried fighting, and preaching, and
fasting, buying and selling, pomp and parsimony, pride and humi-

liation, — every possible manner of existence in which it could
conjecture there was any happiness or dignity; and all the while,
as it bought, sold, and fought, and fasted, and wearied itself with
policies, and ambitions, and self-denials, God had placed its real
happiness in the keeping of the little mosses of the wayside, and
of the clouds of the firmament. Now and then a wearied king, or
a tormented slave, found out where the true kingdoms of the
world were, and possessed himself, in a furrow or two of garden
ground, of a truly infinite dominion. But the world would not
believe their report, and went on trampling down the mosses,
and forgetting the clouds, and seeking happiness in its own way,
until, at last, blundering and late, came natural science; and
in natural science not only the observation of things, but the
finding out of new uses for them. Of course the world, having a
choice left to it, went wrong as usual, and thought that these
mere material uses were to be the sources of its happiness. It
got the clouds packed into iron cylinders, and made them carry
its wise self at their own cloud pace. It got weavable fibres out
of the mosses, and made clothes for itself, cheap and fine, — here
was happiness at last. To go as fast as the clouds, and manu-
facture everything out of anything, —here was paradise, indeed!

§ 38. And now, when, in a little while, it is unparadised again, if
there were any other niistake that the world could make, it would
of course make it. But I see not that there is any other; and,
standing fairly at its wits' end, having found that going fast, when
it is used to it, is no more paradisiacal than going slow; and that
all the prints and cottons in Manchester cannot make it comfort-
able in its mind, I do verily believe it will come, finally, to under-
stand that God paints the clouds and shapes the moss-fibres,
that men may be happy in seeing Him at His work, and that in
resting quietly beside Him, and watching His working, and—ac-
cording to the power He has communicated to ourselves, and the
guidance He grants,—in carrying out His purposes of peace and
charity among all His creatures, are the only real happinesses
that ever were, or will be, possible to mankind.

§ 39. How far art is capable of helping us in such happiness we
hardly yet know; but I hope to be able, in the subsequent parts

of this work^ to give some data for arriving at a conclusion in the
matter. Enough has been advanced to relieve the reader from
any lurking suspicion of unworthiness in our subject, and to
induce him to take interest in the mind and work of the great
painter who has headed the landscape school among us. What
farther considerations may, within any reasonable limits, be put
before him, respecting the effect of natural scenery on the human
heart, I will introduce in their proper places either as we exa-
mine, under Turner's guidance, the different classes of scenery,
or at the close of the whole work; and therefore I have only one
point more to notice here, namely, the exact relation between
landscape-painting and natural science, properly so called.

§ 40. For it may be thought that I have rashly assumed that the
Scriptural authorities above quoted apply to that partly super-
ficial view of nature which is taken by the landscape-painter,
instead of to the accurate view taken by the man of science.
So far from there being rashness in such an assumption, the whole
language, both of the book of Job and the Sermon on the
Mount, gives precisely the view of nature which is taken by
the uninvestigating affection of a humble, but powerful mind.
There is no dissection of muscles or counting of elements, but
the boldest and broadest glance at the apparent facts, and the
most magnificent metaphor in expressing them. "His eyes are
like the eyelids of the morning. In his neck remaineth strength,
and sorrow is turned into joy before him." And in the often
repeated, never obeyed, command, " Consider the lilies of the
field," observe there is precisely the delicate attribution of life
which we have seen to be the characteristic of the modern view
of landscape,—" They toil not." There is no science, or hint of
science; no counting of petals, nor display of provisions for
sustenance: nothing but the expression of sympathy, at once the
most childish, and the most profound,—"They toil not."

§ 41, And we see in this, therefore, that the instinct which leads us
thus to attribute life to the lowest forms of organic nature, does
not necessarily spring from faithlessness, nor the deducing a
moral out of them from an irregular and languid conscientious-
ness. In this, as in almost all things connected with moral

discipline, the same results may follow from contrary causes;
and as there are a good and evil contentment, a good and evil
discontent, a good and evil care, fear, ambition, and so on, there
are also good and evil forms of this sympathy with nature, and
disposition to moralize over it.^ In general, active men, of
strong sense and stern principle, do not care to see anything in
a leaf, but vegetable tissue, and are so well convinced of useful
moral truth, that it does not strike them as a new or notable
thing when they find it in any way symbolized by material
nature; hence there is a strong presumption, when first we per-
ceive a tendency in any one to regard trees as living, and enun-
ciate moral aphorisms over every pebble they stumble against,
that such tendency proceeds from a morbid temperament, like
Shelley's, or an inconsistent one, like Jaques's. But when the
active life is nobly fulfilled, and the mind is then raised beyond
it into clear and calm beholding of the world around us, the
same tendency again manifests itself in the most sacred way ;
the simplest forms of nature are strangely animated by the sense
of the Divine presence ; the trees and flowers seem all, in a sort,
children of God; and we ourselves, their fellows, made out of
the same dust, and greater than they only in having a greater
portion of the Divine power exerted on our frame, and all the
common uses and palpably visible forms of things, become subor-
dinate in our minds to their inner glory, — to the mysterious
voices in which they talk to us about God, and the changeful
and typical aspects by which they witness to us of holy truth,
and fill us with obedient, joyful, and thankful emotion.

It is in raising us from the first state of inactive reverie to the
second of useful thought, that scientific pursuits are to be chiefly
praised. But in restraining us at this second stage, and checking
the impulses towards higher contemplation, they are to be feared
or blamed. They may in certain minds be consistent with such

' Compare what is said before in various places of good and bad finish, good and
bad mystery, &c. If a man were disposed to system-making, he could easily throw
together a counter-system to Aristotle's, showing that in all things there were two
extremes which exactly resembled each other, but of which one was bad, the other
good; and a mean, resembling neither, but better than the one, and worse than the
other.

contemplation; but only by an effort: in their nature they are
always adverse to it, having a tendency to chill and subdue the
feelings, and to resolve all things into atoms and numbers. For
most men, an ignorant enjoyment is better than an informed one;
it is better to conceive the sky as a blue dome than a dark cavity,
and the cloud as a golden throne than a sleety mist. I much
question whether any one who knows optics, however religious he
may be, can feel in equal degree the pleasure or reverence which
an unlettered peasant may feel at the sight of a rainbow. And it
is mercifully thus ordained, since the law of life, for a finite
being, with respect to the works of an infinite one, must be
always an infinite ignorance. We cannot fathom the mystery
of a single flower, nor is it intended that we should; but that the
pursuit of science should constantly be stayed by the love of
beauty, and accuracy of knowledge by tenderness of emotion.

§ 43. Nor is it even just to speak of the love of beauty as in all
respects unscientific; for there is a science of the aspects of
things, as well as of their nature; and it is as much a fact to
be noted in their constitution, that they produce such and such
an effect upon the eye or heart (as, for instance, that minor
scales of sound cause melancholy), as that they are made up of
certain atoms or vibrations of matter.

It is as the master of this science of Aspects, that I said, some
time ago. Turner must eventually be named always with Bacon,
the master of the science of Essence, As the first poet who has,
in all their range, understood the grounds of noble emotion which
exist in landscape, his future influence will be of a still more
subtle and important character. The rest of this work will
therefore be dedicated to the explanation of the principles on
which he composed, and of the aspects of nature which he was
the first to discern.

§ 1. The first step to the understanding either the mind or posi-
tion of a great man ought, I think, to be an inquiry into the
elements of his early instruction, and the mode in which he
was affected by the circumstances of surrounding life. In
making this inquiry, with respect to Turner, we shall be neces-
sarily led to take note of the causes which had brought landscape-
painting into the state in which he found it; and, therefore,
of those transitions of style which, it will be remembered, we
overleaped (hoping for a future opportunity of examining them)
at the close of the j&fteenth chapter.

§ 2. And first, I said, it will be remembered, some way back, that
the relations between Scott and Turner would probably be
found to differ very curiously from those between Dante and
Giotto. They differ primarily in this,—that Dante and Giotto,
living in a consistent age, were subjected to one and the same
influence, and may be reasoned about almost in similar terms.
But Scott and Turner, living in an inconsistent age, became
subjected to inconsistent influences; and are at once distin-
guished by notable contrarieties, requiring separate examination
in each.

§ 3, Of these, the chief was, that Scott, having had the blessing of
a totally neglected education, was able early to follow most of
his noble instincts; but Turner, having suffered under the in-
struction of the Royal Academy, had to pass nearly; thirty years

of his life in recovering from its consequences *; this perma-
nent result following for both, — that Scott never was led into
any fault foreign to his nature, but spoke what was in him, in
rugged or idle simplicity; erring only where it was natural to
err, and failing only where it was impossible to succeed. But
Turner, from the beginning, was led into constrained and un-
natural error; diligently debarred from every ordinary help to
success. The one thing which the Academy ought to have
taught him (namely, the simple and safe use of oil colour), it
never taught him ; but it carefully repressed his perceptions
of truth, his capacities of invention, and his tendencies of choice.
For him it was impossible to do right but in a spirit of defiance;
and the first condition of his progress in learning, was the
power to forget.

§ 4, One most important distinction in their feelings throughout
life was necessitated by this difference in early training. Scott
gathered what little knowledge of architecture he possessed, in
wanderings among the rocky walls of Crichtoun, Lochleven, and
Linlithgow, and among the delicate pillars of Holyrood, Roslin,
and Melrose. Turner acquired his knowledge of architecture at
the desk, from academical elevations of the Parthenon and St.
Paul's; and spent a large portion of his early years in taking
views of gentlemen's seats, temples of the Muses, and other
productions of modern taste and imagination; being at the same
time directed exclusively to classical sources for all information
as to the proper subjects of art. Hence, while Scott was at once
directed to the history of his native land, and to the Gothic
fields of imagination; and his mind was fed in a consistent,
natural, and felicitous way from his youth up, poor Turner
for a long time knew no inspiration but that of Twickenham;
no sublimity but that of Virginia "Water. All the history and
poetry presented to him at the age when the mind receives its
dearest associations, were those of the gods and nations of long

' The education here spoken of is, of course, that bearing on the main work of life.
In other respects, Turner's education was more neglected than Scott's, and that not
beneiBicently. See the close of the third of my Edinburgh Lectures.

ago; and his models of sentiment and style were the worst and
last wrecks of the Renaissance affectations.

§ 5. Therefore (though utterly free from affectation), his early
works are full of an enforced artificialness, and of things ill-
done and ill-conceived, because foreign to his own instincts;
and, throughout life, whatever he did, because he thought he
ought to do it, was wrong; all that he planned on any principle,
or in supposed obedience to canons of taste, was false and. abor-
tive : he only did right when he ceased to reflect; was powerful
only when he made no effort, and successful only when he had
taken no aim.

§ 6. And it is one of the most interesting things connected with
the study of his art, to watch the way in which his own strength
of English instinct breaks gradually through fetter and for-
malism; how from Egerian wells he steals aAvay to Yorkshire
streamlets; how from Homeric rocks, with laurels at the top and
caves in the bottom, he climbs, at last, to Alpine precipices
fringed with pine, and fortified with the slopes of their own
ruins; and how from Temples of Jupiter and Gardens of the
Hesperides, a spirit in his feet guides him, at last, to the lonely
arches of Whitby, and bleak sands of Holy Isle.

§ 7. As, however, is the case with almost all inevitable evil, in its
effect on great minds, a certain good rose even out of this warped
education; namely, his power of more completely expressing all
the tendencies of his epoch, and sympathizing with many feelings
and many scenes which must otherwise have been entirely profit-
less to him. Scott's mind was just as large and full of sympathy
as Turner's; but, having been permitted always to take his own
choice among sources of enjoyment, Scott was entirely incapable
of entering into the spirit of any classical scene. He was strictly
a Goth and a Scot, and his sphere of sensation may be almost
exactly limited by the growth of heather. But Turner had been
forced to pay early attention to whatever of good and right there
was even in things naturally distasteful to him. The charm of
early association had been cast around much that to other men
would have been tame: while making'drawings of flower-gardens
and Palladian mansions, he had been taught sympathy with

whatever grace or refinement the garden or mansion could display,
and to the close of life could enjoy the delicacy of trellis and
parterre, as well as the wildness of the wood and the moorland;
and watch the staying of the silver fountain at its appointed
height in the sky, with an interest as earnest, if not as intense, as
that with which he followed the crash of the Alpine cataract
into its clouds of waywar(^ rage.

§ 8. The distinct losses to be weighed against this gain are, first,
the waste of time during youth in painting subjects of no inte-
rest whatsoever,—parks, villas, and ugly architecture in general:
secondly, the devotion of his utmost strength in later years to
meaningless classical compositions, such as the Fall and Rise of
Carthage, Bay of Baite, Daphne and Leucippus, and such others,
which, with infinite accumulation of material, are yet utterly
heartless and emotionless, dead to the very root of thought, and
incapable of producing wholesome or useful effect on any human
mind, except only as exhibitions of technical skill and graceful
arrangement: and, lastly, his incapacity, to the close of life, of
entering heartily into the spirit of any elevated architecture;
for those Palladian and classical buildings which he had been
taught that it was right to admire, being wholly devoid of inte-
rest, and in their own formality and barrenness quite unmanage-
able, he was obliged to make them manageable in his pictures by
disguising them, and to use all kinds of playing shadows and
glittering lights to obscure their ugly details; and as in their
best state such buildings are white and colourless, he associated
the idea of whiteness with perfect architecture generally, and was
confused and puzzled when he found it grey. Hence he never
got thoroughly into the feeling of Gothic; its darkness and com-
plexity embarrassed him; he was very apt to whiten by way of
idealizing it, and to cast aside its details in order to get breadth
o/ delicate light. In Venice, and the towns of Italy generally,
he fastened on the Avrong buildings, and used those which he
chose merely as kind of white clouds, to set off his brilliant
groups of boats, or burning spaces of lagoon. In various other
minor ways, which we shall trace in their proper place, his
classical education hindered or hurt him; but I feel it very

difficult to say how far the loss was balanced by the general grasp
it gave his mind; nor am I able to conceive what would have
been the result, if his aims had been made at once narrower and
more natural, and he had been led in his youth to delight in
Gothic legends instead of classical mythology; and, instead of
the porticos of the Parthenon, had studied in the aisles of Notre
Dame.

§ 9. It is still more difficult to conjecture whether he gathered most
good or evil from the pictorial art which surrounded him in his
youth. What that art was, and how the European schools had
arrived at it, it now becomes necessary briefly to inquire.

It will be remembered that, in the 14th chapter, we left our
mediaeval landscape (§ 18.) in a state of severe formality, and
perfect subordination to the interest of figure-subject. I will
now rapidly trace the mode and progress of its emancipation.

§ 10. The formalized conception of scenery remained little altered
until the time of Eaphael, being only better executed as the
knowledge of art advanced; that is to say, though the trees were
still stiff, and often set one on each side of the principal figures,
their colour and relief on the sky Avere exquisitely imitated, and
all groups of near leaves and flowers drawn with the most tender
care, and studious botanical accuracy. The better the subjects
were painted, however, the more logically absurd they became:
a background wrought in Chinese confusion of towers and rivers,
was in early times passed over carelessly, and forgiven for the
sake of its pleasant colour; but it appealed somewhat too far to
imaginative indulgence when Ghirlandajo drew an exquisite per-
spective view of Venice and her lagoons behind an Adoration of
the Magi ^; and the impossibly small boats which might be par-
doned in a mere illumination, representing the miraculous draught
of fishes, became, whatever may be said to the contrary, inex-
cusably absurd in Raphael's fully realized landscape; so as at oncc
to destroy the credibility of every circumstance of the event.

§ 11. A certain charm, however, attached itself to many forms of
this landscape, owing to their very unnaturalness, as I have

endeavoured to explain already in the last chapter of the second
volume, §§ 9. to 12.; noting, however, there, that it was in no
wise to be made a subject of imitation; a conclusion which I
have since seen more and more ground for holding finally. The
longer I think over the subject, the more I perceive that the
pleasure we take in such unnatural landscapes is intimately con-
nected with our habit of regarding the New Testament as a
beautiful poem, instead of a statement of plain facts. He who
believes thoroughly that the events are true will expect, and
ought to expect, real olive copse behind real Madonna, and no
sentimental absurdities in either.

§ 12. Nor am I at all sure how far the delight which we take (when
I say loe, I mean, in general, lovers of old sacred art) in such
quaint landscape, arises from its peculiar falsehood, and how far
from its peculiar truth. For as it falls into certain errors more
boldly, so, also, what truth it states, it states more firmly, than
subsequent work. No engravings, that I know, render the back-
grounds of sacred pictures with sufficient care to enable the
reader to judge of this matter unless before the works them-
selves. I have, therefore, engraved, on the opposite page, a bit
of the background of Raphael's Holy Family, in the Tribune of
the TJffizii, at Florence. I copied the trees leaf for leaf, and
the rest of the Avork with the best care I could; the engraver,
Mr. Armytage, has admirably rendered the delicate atmosphere
which partly veils the distance. Now I do not know how far
it is necessary to such pleasure as we receive from this land-
scape, that the trees should be both so straight and formal in
stem, and should have branches no thicker than threads; or that
the outlines of the distant hills should approximate so closely to
those on any ordinary Wedgwood's china pattern. I know that,
on the contrary, a great part of the pleasure arises from the
sweet expression of air and sunshine; from the traceable resem-
blance of the city and tower to Florence and Fesole; from the
fact that, though the boughs are too thin, the lines of ramifica-
tion are true and beautiful; and from the expression of con-
tinually varied form in the clusters of leafage. And although
all lovers of sacred art would shrink in horror from the idea

of substituting for such a landscape a bit of Cuyp or Eubens, I
do not think that the horror they feel is because Cuyp and
Rubens's landscape is truer^ but because it is coarser and more
vulgar in associated idea than Raphael's; and I think it possible
that the true forms of hills, and true thicknesses of boughs,
might be tenderly stolen into this background of Raphael's
without giving offence to any one.

§ 13. Take a somewhat more definite instance. The rock in Fig. 5.,
at the side, is one put by Ghir-
landajo into the background of
his Baptism of Christ. I have
no doubt Ghirlandajo's own
rocks and trees are better, in
several respects, than those
here represented, since I have
copied them from one of La-
sinio's execrable engravings;
still, the harsh outline and
generally stiff and uninventful
blankness of the design are true
enough, and characteristic of
all rock-painting of the period.
In the plate opposite I have
etched^ the outline of a frag-
ment of one of Turner's cliffs,
out of his drawing of Bolton
Abbey; and it does not seem
to me that, supposing them
properly introduced in the com-
position, the substitution of the
soft natural lines for the hard
unnatural ones would make
Ghirlandajo's background one
whit less sacred. Pjg

' This etching is prepared for receiving mezzotint in the next volume; it is there-
fore much heavier in line, especially in the water, than I should have made it, if
intended to be complete as it is.

§ 14. But, be this as it may, the fact is, as ill luck would have it,
that profanity of feeling, and skill in art, increased together;
so that we do not find the backgrounds rightly painted till the
figures become irreligious and feelingless: and hence we associate
necessarily the perfect landscape with want of feeling. The first
great innovator was either Masaccio or Filippino Lippi: their
works are so confused together in the Chapel of the Carmine, that
I know not to whom I may attribute,—or whether, without being
immediately quarrelled with, and contradicted, I may attribute to
anybody,—the landscape background of the fresco of the Tribute
Money. But that background, with one or two other fragments
in the same chapel, is far in advance of all other work I have
seen of the period, in expression of the rounded contours and
large slopes of hills, and the association of their summits with the
clouds. The opposite engraving will give some better idea of
its character than can be gained from the outlines commonly
published; though the dark spaces, which in the original are
deep blue, come necessarily somewhat too harshly on the eye
when translated into light and shade. I shall have occasion to
speak with greater speciality of this background in examining the
forms of hills; meantime, it is only as an isolated work that it can
be named in the history of pictorial progress, for Masaccio died
too young to carry out his purposes; and the men around him
were too ignorant of landscape to understand or take advantage
of the little he had done. Raphael, though he borrowed from
him in the human figure, never seems to have been influenced
by his landscape, and retains either, as in Plate 11., the upright
formalities of Perugino; or, by way of being natural, expands
his distances into flattish flakes of hill, nearly formless, as in
the backgrounds of the Charge to Peter and Draught of Fishes ;
and thenceforward the Tuscan and Roman schools grew more and
more artificial, and lost themselves finally under round-headed
niches and Corinthian porticos.

§ 15. It needed, therefore, the air of the northern mountains and
of the sea to brace the hearts of men to the development of the
true landscape schools. I sketched by chance one evening the line
of the Apennines from the ramparts of Parma, and I have put
the rough note of it, and the sky that was over it, in Plate 14.,

and next to this (Plate 15.) a moment of sunset, behind the
Euganean hills at Yenice. I shall have occasion to refer to both
hereafter; but they have some interest here as types of the kind
of scenes which were daily set before the eyes of Correggio and
Titian, and of the sweet free spaces of sky through which rose
and fell, to them, the coloured rays of the morning and evening.

§ 16. And they are connected, also, with the forms of landscape
adopted by the Lombardic masters, in a very curious way. "We
noticed that the Flemings, educated entirely in flat land, seemed
to be always contented with the scenery it supplied; and we
should naturally have expected that Titian and Correggio, living
' in the midst of the levels of the lagoons, and of the plain of
Lombardy, would also have expressed, in their backgrounds, some
pleasure in such level scenery, associated, of course, with the
sublimity of the far-away Apennine, Euganean, or Alp. But not
a whit. The plains of mulberry and maize, of sea and shoal, by
which they were surrounded, never occur in their backgrounds
but in cases of necessity; and both of them, in all their important
landscapes, bury themselves in wild wood; Correggio delighting
to relieve with green darkness of oak and ivy the golden hair
and snowy flesh of his figures; and Titian, whenever the choice
of a scene was in his power, retiring to the narrow glens and
forests of Cadore.

§ 17. Of the vegetation introduced by both, I shall have to speak
at length in the course of the chapters on Foliage; meantime, I
give in Plate 16. one of Titian's slightest bits of background, from
one of the frescoes in the little chapel behind St. Antonio, at
Padua, which may be compared more conveniently than any of
his more elaborate landscapes with the purist work from Raphael.
For in both these examples the trees are equally slender and
delicate, only the formality of mediaeval art is, by Titian, en-
tirely abandoned, and the old conception of the aspen grove and
meadow done away with for ever. We are now far from cities:
the painter takes true delight in the desert; the trees grow wild
and free ; the sky also has lost its peace, and is writhed into folds
of motion, closely impendent upon earth, and somewhat threaten-
ing, through its solemn light.

§ 18. Althougli, however, this example is characteristic of Titian in
its wildnessj it is not so in its looseness. It is only in the distant
backgrounds of his slightest work, or when he is in a hurry,
that Titian is vague: in all his near and studied work he com-
pletes every detail with scrupulous care. The next Plate, 17., a
background of Tintoret's, from his picture of the Entombment at
Parma, is more entirely characteristic of the Venetians. Some
mistakes made in the reduction of my drawing during the course
of engraving have cramped the curves of the boughs and leaves,
of which I will give the true outline farther on; meantime the
subject, which is that described in § 16. of the chapter on Penetra-
tive Imagination, Vol. II., will just as well answer the purpose of
exemplifying the Venetian love of gloom and wildness, united
with perfect definition of detail. Every leaf and separate blade
of grass is drawn; but observe how the blades of grass are broken,
how completely the aim at expression of faultlessness and felicity
has been withdrawn, as contrary to the laws of the existent world.

§ 19. From this great Venetian school of landscape Turner received
much important teaching,—almost the only healthy teaching which
he owed to preceding art. The designs of the Liber Studiorum
are founded first on nature, but in many cases modified by forced
imitation of Claude, and fond imitation of Titian. All the worst
and feeblest studies in the book—as the pastoral with the nymph
playing the tambourine, that with the long bridge seen through
trees, and with the flock of goats on the walled road—owe the
principal part of their imbecilities to Claude; another group
(Solway Moss, Peat Bog, LaufFenbourg, &c.) is taken with hardly
any modification by pictorial influence, straight from nature ; and
the finest works in the book — the Grande Chartreuse, Rizpah,
Jason, Cephalus, and one or two more—are strongly under the
influence of Titian.

§ 20, The Venetian school of landscape expired with Tintoret, in
the year 1594; and the sixteenth century closed, like a grave,
over the great art of the world. There is no entirely sincere or
great art in the seventeenth century. Rubens and Rembrandt
are its two greatest men, both deeply stained by the errors and
affectations of their age. The influence of the Venetians hardly

f 1

extended to them; the tower of the Titianesque art fell south-
wards ; and on the dust of its ruins grew various art-weeds,
such as Domenichino and the Carraccis. Their landscape,
which may in few words be accurately defined as " Scum of
Titian," possesses no single merit, nor any ground for the for-
giveness of demerit; they are to be named only as a link through
which the Venetian influence came dimly down to Claude and
Salvator.

§ 21. Salvator possessed real genius, but was crushed by misery
in his youth, and by fashionable society in his age. He had
vigorous animal life, and considerable invention, but no depth
either of thought or perception. He took some hints directly
from nature, and expressed some conditions of the grotesque
of terror with original power; but his baseness of thought, and
bluntness of sight, were unconquerable; and his works possess
no value whatsoever for any person versed in the walks of noble
art. They had little, if any, influence on Turner; if any, it was
in blinding him for some time to the grace of tree trunks, and
making him tear them too much into splinters.

§ 22. Not so Claude, who may be considered as Turner's principal
master. Claude's capacities were of the most limited kind; but
he had tenderness of perception, and sincerity of purpose, and
he effected a revolution in art. This revolution consisted mainly
in setting the sun in heaven.' Till Claude's time no one had
seriously thought of painting the sun but conventionally; that
is to say, as a red or yellow star, (often) with a face in it, under
which type it was constantly represented in illumination; else
it was kept out of the picture, or introduced in fragmentary
distances, breaking through clouds with almost definite rays.
Perhaps the honour of having first tried to represent the real
effect of the sun in landscape belongs to Bonifazio, in his pictures
of the camps of Israel.^ Rubens followed in a kind of bravado.

» Compare Vol. L Part IL Sec. I. Chap. VIL I repeat here some things that
were then said; but it is necessary now to review them in connection with Turner's
education, as well as for the sake of enforcing them by illustration.
® Now in the old library of Venice.

sometimes making the rays issue from anything but the orb of
the sun; — here, for instance. Fig. 6., is an outline of the position

of the sun (at s) with respect to his own rays, in a sunset behind a
tournament in the Louvre : and various interesting effects of sun-
light issuing from the conventional face-filled orb occur in contem-
porary missal-painting; for instance, very richly in the Harleian
MS. Brit. Mus. 3469. But all this was merely indicative of
the tendency to transition which may always be traced in any
age before the man comes who is to accomplish the transition.
Claude took up the new idea seriously, made the sun his subject,
and painted the effects of misty shadows cast by his rays over
the landscape, and other delicate aerial transitions, as no one had
ever done before, and, in some respects, as no one has done in
oil colour since.

" But, how, if this were so, could his capacities be of the
meanest order ?" Because doing one thing well, or better than
others have done it, does not necessarily imply large capacity.
Capacity means breadth of glance, understanding of the rela-
tions of things, and invention, and these are rare and precious;
but there are very few men who have not done something, in
the course of their lives, better than other people. I could
point out many engravers, draughtsmen, and artists, who have
each a particular merit in their manner, or particular field of
perception, that nobody else has, or ever had. But this does

not make them great men, it only indicates a small special
capacity of some kind: and all the smaller if the gift be very
peculiar and single; for a great man never so limits himself to
one thing, as that we shall be able to say, "That is all he can do."
If Claude had been a great man he would not have been so
steadfastly set on painting effects of sun; he would have looked
at all nature, and at all art, and would have painted sun effects
somewhat worse, and nature universally much better.

§ 24. Such as he was, however, his discovery of the way to make
pictures look warm was very delightful to the shallow con-
noisseurs of the age. Not that they cared for sunshine; but
they liked seeing jugglery. They could not feel Titian's noble
colour, nor Veronese's noble composition; but they thought it
highly amusing to see the sun brought into a picture: and
Claude's works were bought and delighted in by vulgar people
then, for their real-looking suns, as pictures are now by vulgar
people for having real timepieces in their church towers.

§ 25. But when Turner arose, with an earnest desire to paint the
whole of nature, he found that the existence of the sun was
an important fact, and by no means an easily manageable
one. He loved sunshine for its own sake; but he could not
at first paint it. Most things else, he would more or less manage
without much technical difficulty ; but the burning orb and the
golden haze could not, somehow, be got out of the oil paint.
Naturally he went to Claude, who really had got them out of
oil paint; approached him with great reverence, as having done
that which seemed to Turner most difficult of all technical
matters, and he became his faithful disciple. How much he
learned from him of manipulation, I cannot tell; but one thing
is certain, that he never quite equalled him in that particular
forte of his. I imagine that Claude's way of laying on oil
colour was so methodical that it could not possibly be imitated
by a man whose mechanism was interfered with by hundreds of
thoughts and aims totally different from Claude's; and, besides,
I suppose that certain useful principles in the management of
paint, of which our schools are now wholly ignorant, had come
down as far as Claude, from the Venetians. Turner at last

gave up the attempt, and adopted a manipulation of his own,
which indeed eiFected certain objects attainable in no other way,
but which still was in many respects unsatisfactory, dangerous,
and deeply to be regretted.

§ 26. But meantime his mind had been strongly warped by Claude's
futilities of conception. It was impossible to dwell on such
works for any length of time without being grievously harmed by
them; and the style of Turner's compositions was for ever after-
wards weakened or corrupted. For, truly, it is almost beyond
belief into what depth of absurdity Claude plunges continually
in his most admired designs. For instance ; undertaking to paint
Moses at the Burning Bush, he represents a graceful landscape
with a city, a river, and a bridge, and plenty of tall trees, and
the sea, and numbers of people going about their business and
pleasure in every direction; and the bush burning quietly upon a
bank in the corner; rather in the dark, and not to be seen with-
out close inspection. It would take some pages of close writing
to point out, one by one, the inanities of heart, soul, and brain
which such a conception involves; the ineffable ignorance of the
nature of the event, and of the scene of it; the incapacity of con-
ceiving anything, even in Ignorance, which should be impressive;
the dim, stupid, serene, leguminous enjoyment of his sunny
afternoon—burn the bushes as much as they liked—these I leave
the reader to think over at his leisure, either before the picture
in Lord Ellesmere's gallery, or the sketch of it in the Liber
Verltatis. But all these kinds of fallacy sprung more or less
out of the vices of the time in which Claude lived; his own
peculiar character reaches beyond these, to an incapacity of
understanding the main point in anything he had to represent,
down to the minutest detail, which is quite unequalled, as far
as I know, in human nugatoriness. For instance; here, in Fig. 7.,
IS the head, with half the body, of
Eneas drawing his Bow, from No.
180. of the Liber Yeritatis. Ob-
serve, the string is too long by half;
for if the bow were unbent, it would
be two feet longer than the whole bow.

Then the arrow is too long by half, has too heavy a head by half;
and finally, it actually is under the bow4iand, instead of above
it. Of the ideal and heroic refinement of the head and drapery
I will say nothing; but look only at the wretched archery, and
consider if it would be possible for any child to draw the thing
with less understanding, or to make more mistakes in the given
compass.^

§ 27. And yet, exquisite as is Claude's instinct for blunder, he has
not strength of mind enough to blunder in a wholly original
manner, but must needs falter out of his way to pick up other
people's puerilities, and be absurd at second-hand. I have been
obliged to laugh a little—though I hope reverently — at Ghir-
landajo's landscapes, which yet we saw had a certain charm of
quaintness in them when contrasted with his grand figures; but
could any one have believed that Claude, with all the noble
landscapes of Titian set before him, and all nature round about
him, should yet go back to Ghirlandajo for types of form. Yet
such is the case. I said that the Venetian influence came dimly
down to Claude: but the old Florentine influence came clearly.
The Claudesque landscape is not, as so commonly supposed, an
idealized abstract of the nature about Rome. It is an ultimate
condition of the Florentine conventional landscape, more or less
softened by reference to nature. Fig. 8. (on next page), from No.
145. of the Liber Veritatis, is sufficiently characteristic of Claude's
rock-drawing; and compared with Fig. 5. (p. 321.) above, will
show exactly the kind of modification he made on old and re-
ceived types. We shall see other instances of it hereafter.

' My old friend Blackwood complains bitterly, in his laat number, of my having
given this illustration at one of my late lectures, saying, that I " have a disagreeable
knack of finding out the joints in my opponent's armour," and that " I never fight
for love." I never do. I fight for truth, earnestly, and in no wise for jest; and
against all lies, earnestly, and in no wise for love. They complain that " a noble
adversaiy is not in Mr. Ruskin's way." No; a noble adversary never was, never
will be. With all that is noble I have been, and shall be, in perpetual peace; with
all that is ignoble and false everlastingly at war. And as for these Scotch bourgeois
gentilshommes, with their " Tu n'as pas la patience que je pare," let them look to
their fence. But truly, if they will tell me where Claude's strong points are, I will
strike there, and be thankful.

done worst, and this kind of misunderstanding of all that he saw
himself in nature, carried out
in Claude's trees, rocks, ships,
•—in everything that he touch-
ed,— and then consider what
kind of school this work was
for a young and reverent dis-
ciple. As I said. Turner
never recovered the effects of
it; his compositions were al-
ways mannered, lifeless, and
even foolish; and he only did
noble things when the imme-
diate presence of nature had
overpowered the reminiscences
of his master.

Of the influence of Gaspar
and Nicolo Poussin on Turner,
there is hardly anything to be
said, nor much respecting that
which they had on landscape
generally. Nicolo Poussin had
noble powers of design, and
might have been a thoroughly
great painter had he been
trained in Venice ; but his
Roman education kept him
tame; his trenchant severity

was contrary to the tendencies of the age, and had few imi-
tators compared to the dashing of Salvator, and the mist of
Claude. Those few imitators adopted his manner without pos-
sessing either his science or invention; and the Italian school
of landscape soon expired. Reminiscences of him occur some-
times in Turner's compositions of sculptured stones for fore-
ground; and the beautiful Triumph of Flora, in the Louvre,
probably first showed Turner the use of definite flower, or
blossom-painting, in landscape. I doubt if he took anything

from Gaspar; whatever he might have learned from lilm re-
specting masses of foliage and golden distances, could have been
learned better, and, I believe, was learned, from Titian.

§ 29. Meantime, a lower, but more living school had developed
itself in the north; Cuyp had painted sunshine as truly as
Claude, gilding with it a more homely, but far more honestly
conceived landscape; and the effects of light of De Hooghe and
Kembrandt presented examples of treatment to which southern
art could show no parallel. Turner evidently studied these with
the greatest care, and with great benefit in every way; especially
this, that they neutralized the idealisms of Claude, and showed
the young painter what power might be in plain truth, even
of the most familiar kind. He painted several pictures in imi^
tation of these masters; and those in which he tried to rival
Cuyp are healthy and noble works, being, in fact, just what
most of Cuyp's own pictures are — faithful studies of Dutch boats
in calm weather, on smooth water. De Hooghe was too precise,
and Eembrandt too dark, to be successfully or affectionately
followed by him; but he evidently learned much from both.

§ 30. Finally, he painted many pictures in the manner of Van-
develde (who was the accepted authority of his time in sea
painting), and received much injury from him. To the close of
his life, Turner always painted the sea too grey, and too opaque,
in consequence of his early study of Yandevelde. He never
seemed to perceive colour so truly in the sea as he saw it
elsewhere. But he soon discovered the poorness of Vandevelde's
forms of waves, and raised their meanly divided surfaces into
massive surge, effecting rapidly other changes, of which more
in another place.

Such was the art to which Turner, in early years, devoted
his most earnest thoughts. More or less respectful contem-
plation of Reynolds, Loutherbourg, Wilson, Gainsborough, Mor-
land, and Wilkie, was incidentally mingled with his graver
study; and he maintained a questioning watchfulness of even
the smallest successes of his brother artists of the modern land-
scape school. It remains for us only to note the position of
that living school when Turner, helped or misled, as the case

may be, by the study of the older artists, began to consider what
remained for him to do, or design.

§ 31. The dead schools of landscape, composed of the works we
have just been examining, were broadly divisible into northern
and southern: the Dutch schools, more or less natural, but
vulgar; the Italian, more or less elevated, but absurd. There
was a certain foolish elegance in Claude, and a dull dignity
in Gaspar; but then their work resembled nothing that ever
existed in the world. On the contrary, a canal or cattle piece
of Cuyp's had many veracities about it; but they were, at best,
truths of the ditch and dairy. The grace of Nature, or her
gloom, her tender and sacred seclusions, or her reach of power
and wrath, had never been painted; nor had anything been
painted yet in true love of it; for both Dutch and Italians
agreed in this, that they always painted for the picture's sake,
to show how well they could imitate sunshine, arrange masses,
or articulate straws,—never because they loved the scene, or
wanted to carry away some memory of it.

And thus, all that landscape of the old masters is to be con-
sidered merely as a struggle of expiring skill to discover some
new direction in which to display itself. There was no love of
nature in the age; only a desire for something new. Therefore
those schools expired at last, leaving a chasm of nearly utter
emptiness between them and the true moderns, out of which
chasm the new school rises, not engrafted on that old one, but,
from the very base of all things, beginning with mere washes of
Indian ink, touched upon with yellow and brown; and gradually
feeling its way to colour.

But this infant school differed inherently from that ancienter
one, in that its motive was love. However feeble its elForts
might be, they were/or the sake of the nature^ not of the picture,
and therefore, having this germ of true life, it grew and throve.
Robson did not paint purple hills because he wanted to show
how he could lay on purple; but because he truly loved their
dark peaks. Fielding did not paint downs to show how dex-
terously he could sponge but mists; but because he loved downs.

landscape which has yet existed; the artificial Claude and Gaspar
work may be cast aside out of our way, — as I have said in
my Edinburgh lectures, under the general title of " pastoralism,"
— and from the last landscape of Tintoret, if we look for life,
we must pass at once to the first of Turner.

§ 32. What help Turner received from this or that companion of
his youth is of no importance to any one now. Of course
every great man is always being helped by everybody ^ for
his gift is to get good out of all things and all persons; and
also there were two men associated with him in early study, who
showed high promise in the same field, Cousen and Girtin
(especially the former), and there is no saying what these men
might have done had they lived; there might, perhaps, have
been a struggle between one or other of them and Turner, as
between Giorgione and Titian. But they lived not; and Turner
is the only great man whom the school has yet produced,—
quite great enough, as we shall see, for all that needed to be
done. To him, therefore, we now finally turn, as the sole object
of our inquiry. I shall first reinforce, with such additions as
they need, those statements of his general principles which I
made in the first volume, but could not then demonstrate fully,
for want of time to prepare pictorial illustration; and then pro-
ceed to examine, piece by piece, his representations of the facts
of nature, comparing them, as it may seem expedient, with what
had been accomplished by others.

I cannot close this volume without alluding briefly to a
subject of different interest from any that have occupied us in
its pages. For it may, perhaps, seem to a general reader heart-
less and vain to enter zealously into questions about our arts
and pleasures in a time of so great public anxiety as this.

But he will find, if he looks back to the sixth paragraph of the
opening chapter of the last volume, some statement of feelings,
which, as they made me despondent in a time of apparent national

' His first drawing-master was, I believe, that Mr. Lowe, whose daughters, now
aged and poor, have, it seems to me, some claim on public regard, being connected
distantly with the memory of Johnson, and closely with that of Turner.

prosperity, now cheer me in one which, though of stern trial,
I will not be so much a coward as to call one of adversity.
And I derive this encouragement first from the belief that the
War itself, with all its bitterness, is, in the present state of the
European nations, productive of more good than evil; and, se-
condly, because I have more confidence than others generally
entertain, in the justice of its cause.

I say, first, because I believe the war is at present pro-
ductive of good more than of evil. I will not argue this hardly
and coldly, as I might, by tracing in past history some of
the abundant evidence that nations have always reached their
highest virtue, and wrought their most accomplished works, in
times of straitening and battle; as, on the other hand, no nation
ever yet enjoyed a protracted and triumphant peace without
receiving in its own bosom ineradicable seeds of future decline.
I will not so argue this matter; but I will appeal at once to
the testimony of those whom the war has cost the dearest. I
know what would be told me, by those who have suffered
nothing; whose domestic happiness has been unbroken; whose
daily comfort undisturbed; whose experience of calamity con-
sists, at its utmost, in the incertitude of a speculation, the
dearness of a luxury, or the increase of demands upon their
fortune which they could meet fourfold without inconvenience.
From these, I can well believe, be they prudent economists, or
careless pleasure-seekers, the cry for peace will rise alike voci-
ferously, whether in street or senate. But I ask their witness, to
whom the war has changed the aspect of the earth, and imagery
of heaven, whose hopes it has cut off like a spider's web, whose
treasure it has placed, in a moment, under the seals of clay.
Those who can never more see sunrise, nor watch the climbing
light gild the Eastern clouds, without thinking what graves it has
gilded, first, far down behind the dark earth-line, — who never
more shall sec the crocus bloom in spring, without thinking what
dust it is that feeds the wild flowers of Balaclava. Ask their
witness, and see if they will not reply that it is well with them,
and with theirs; that they would have it no otherwise; would
not, if they might, receive back their gifts of love and life, nor

take again the purple of their blood out of the cross on the
breastplate of England. Ask them : and though they should
answer only with a sob, listen if it does not gather upon their
lips into the sound of the old Seyton war-cry— " Set on."

And this not for pride—not because the names of their lost
ones will be recorded to all time, as of those who held the breach
and kept the gate of Europe against the North, as the Spartans
did against the East; and lay down in the place they had to
guard, with the like home message, " Oh, stranger, go and tell
the English that we are lying here, having obeyed their words;"
— not for this, but because, also, they have felt that the spirit
which has discerned them for eminence in sorrow — the helmed
and sworded skeleton that rakes with its white fingers the sands of
the Black Sea beach into grave-heap after grave-heap, washed
by everlasting surf of tears — has been to them an angel of other
things than agony; that they have learned, with those hollow,
undeceivable eyes of his, to see all the earth by the sunlight of
deathbeds;—no inch-high stage for foolish griefs and feigned
pleasures; no dream, neither, as its dull moralists told them; —
Any^mg but that: a place of true, marvellous, inextricable
sorrow and power; a question-chamber of trial by rack and fire,
irrevocable decision recording continually; and no sleep, nor
folding of hands, among the demon-questioners; none among the
angel-watchers, none among the men who stand or fall beside
those hosts of God. They know now the strength of sacrifice, and
that its flames can illumine as well as consume; they are bound
by new fidelities to all that they have saved,—by new love to
all for whom they have suffered; every affection which seemed
to sink with those dim life-stains into the dust, has been delegated,
by those who need it no more, to the cause for which they have
expired; and every mouldering arm, which will never more
embrace the beloved ones, has bequeathed to them its strength
and its faithfulness.

For the cause of this quarrel is no dim, half-avoidable invo-
lution of mean interests and errors, as some would have us
believe. There never was a great war caused by such things.
There never can be. The historian may trace it, with ingenious

trifling, to a courtier's jest or a woman's glance; but he does
not ask — (and it is the sum of questions) — how the warring
nations had come to found their destinies on the course of the
sneer, or the smile. If they have so based them, it is time for
them to learn, through suffering, how to build on other founda-
tions ; — for great, accumulated, and most righteous cause, their
foot slides in due time"; and against the torpor, or the turpitude,
of their myriads, there is loosed the haste of the devouring sword
and the thirsty arrow. But if they have set their fortunes on
other than such ground, then the war must be owing to some
deep conviction or passion in their own hearts,— a conviction
which, in resistless flow, or reckless ebb, or consistent stay, is
the ultimate arbiter of battle, disgrace, or conquest.

Wherever there is war, there must be injustice on one side or
the other, or on both. There have been wars which were little
more than trials of strength between friendly nations, and in
which the injustice was not to each other, but to the God who
gave them life. But in a malignant war of these present ages
there is ^injustice of ignobler kind, at once to God and man,
which must be stemmed for both their sakes. It may, indeed, be
so involved with national prejudices, or ignorances, that neither
of the contending nations can conceive it as attaching to their
cause; nay, the constitution of their governments, and the
clumsy crookedness of their political dealings with each other,
may be such as to prevent either of them from knowing the
actual cause for which they have gone to war. Assuredly this
is, in a great degree, the state of things with us ; for I noticed
that there never came news by telegraph of the explosion of a
powder-barrel, or of the loss of thirty men by a sortie, but the
Parliament lost confidence immediately in the justice of the war;
reopened the question whether we ever should have engaged in it,
and remained in a doubtful and repentant state of mind until one
of the enemy's powder-barrels blew up also; upon which they were
immediately satisfied again that the war was a wise and necessary
one. How far, therefore, the calamity may have been brought
upon us by men whose political principles shoot annually like
the leaves, and change colour at every autumn frost:—how

ii-

loudly the blood that has been poured out round the walls of
that city, up to the horse-bridles, may now be crying from the
ground against men who did not know, when they first bade
shed it, exactly what war was, or what blood was, or what life
was, or truth, or what anything else was upon the earth; and
whose tone of opinions touching the destinies of mankind de-
pended entirely upon whether they were sitting on the right or
left side of the House of Commons;—this, I repeat, I know
not, nor (in all solemnity I say it) do I care to know. For
if it be so, and the English nation could at the present period
of its history be betrayed into a war such as this by the slip-
ping of a wrong word into a protocol, or bewitched into unex-
pected battle under the budding hallucinations of Its sapling
senators, truly it is time for us to bear the penalty of our base-
ness, and learn, as the sleepless steel glares close upon us, how
to choose our governors more wisely, and our ways more warily.
For that which brings swift punishment in war, must have
brought slow ruin in peace; and those who have now laid down
their lives for England, have doubly saved her ; they have
humbled at once her enemies and herself; and have done less for
her, in the conquest they achieve, than in the sorrow that they
claim.

But it is not altogether thus: we have not been cast into this
war by mere political misapprehensions, or popular ignorances. It
is quite possible that neither we nor our rulers may clearly under-
stand the nature of the conflict; and that we may be dealing
blows in the dark, confusedly, and as a soldier suddenly awakened
from slumber by an unknown adversary. But I believe the
struggle was inevitable, and that the sooner it came, the more
easily it Avas to be met, and the more nobly concluded. France
and England are both of them, from shore to shore, in a state
of Intense progression, change, and experimental life. They are
each of them beginning to examine, more distinctly than ever
nations did yet in the history of the world, the dangerous ques-
tion respecting the rights of governed, and the responsibilities of
governing, bodies; not, as heretofore, foaming over them in red
frenzy, with intervals of fetter and straw crown, but In health,

quietness, and daylight, with the help of a good Queen and a
great Emperor; and to determine them in a way Avhich, by just
so much as it is more effective and rational, is likely to produce
more permanent results than ever before on the policy of neigh-
bouring States, and to force, gradually, the discussion of similar
questions into their places of silence. To force it,—for true
liberty, like true religion, is always aggressive or persecuted; but
the attack is generally made upon it by the nation which is to be
crushed, — by Persian on Athenian, Tuscan on Roman, Austrian
on Swiss; or, as now, by Eussia upon us and our allies: her
attack appointed, it seems to me, for confirmation of all our
greatness, trial of our strength, purging and punishment of our
futilities, and establishment for ever, in our hands, of the leader-
ship in the political progress of the world.

Whether this its providential purpose be accomplished, must
depend on its enabling France and England to love one another,
and teaching these, the two noblest foes that ever stood breast to
breast among the nations, first to decipher the law of international
charities; first to discern that races, like individuals, can only
reach their true strength, dignity, or joy, in seeking each the
welfare, and exulting each in the glory, of the other. It is strange
how far we still seem from fully perceiving this. "We know that
two men, cast on a desert island, could not thrive in dispeace; we
can understand that four, or twelve, might still find their account
in unity; but that a multitude should thrive otherwise than by
the contentions of its classes, or two multitudes hold themselves
in anywise bound by brotherly law to serve, support, rebuke,
rejoice in one another, this seems still as far beyond our con-
ception, as that clearest of commandments, " Let no man seek his
own, but every man another's wealth," is beyond our habitual
practice. Yet, if once we comprehend that precept in its breadth,
and feeLthat what we now call jealousy for our country's honour,
is, so far as it tends to other countries' ti'whonour, merely one of
the worst, because most complacent and self-gratulatory, forms
of irreligion,— a newly breathed strength will, with the newly
interpreted patriotism, animate and sanctify the efforts of men.
Learning, unchecked by envy, will be accepted more frankly.

throned more firmly, guided more swiftly; charity, unchilled by
fear, will dispose the laws of each State, without reluctance to
advantage its neighbour by justice to itself; and admiration, un-
warped by prejudice, possess itself continually of new treasure
in the arts and the thoughts of the stranger.

If France and England fail of this, if again petty jealousies
or selfish interests prevail to unknit their hands from the
armoured grasp, then, indeed, their faithful children will have
fallen in vain; there will be a sound as of renewed lamentation
along those Euxine waves, and a shaking among the bones that
bleach by the mounds of Sebastopol. But if they fail not of
this, — if we, in our love of our queens and kings, remember
how France gave to the cause of early civilization, first the
greatest, then the holiest, of monarchs'; and France, in her love
of liberty, remembers how we first raised the standard of Com-
monwealth, trusted to the grasp of one good and strong hand,
witnessed for by victory; and so join in perpetual compact of
our different strengths, to contend for justice, mercy, and truth
throughout the world, — who dares say that one soldier has died
in vain ? The scarlet of the blood that has sealed this covenant
will be poured along the clouds of a new aurora, glorious in that
Eastern heaven; for every sob of wreck-fed breaker round those
Pontic precipices, the floods shall clap their hands between the
guarded mounts of the Prince-Angel; and the spirits of those
lost multitudes, crowned with the olive and rose among the
laurel, shall haunt, satisfied, the willowy brooks and peaceful
vales of England, and glide, triumphant, by the poplar groves and
sunned coteaux of Seine.

The reader may not improbably hear it said, by persons who are inca-
pable of maintaining an honest argument, and, therefore, incapable of
understanding or believing the honesty of an adversary, that I have
caricatured, or unfairly chosen, the examples I give of the masters I
depreciate. It is evident, in the first place, that I could not, if I were
even cunningly disposed, adopt a worse policy than in so doing ; for
the discovery of caricature or falsity in my representations, would not
only invalidate the immediate statement, but the whole book; and
invalidate it in the most fatal way, by showing that all I had ever said
about " truth" was hypocrisy, and that in my own affairs I expected
to prevail by help of lies. Nevertheless it necessarily happens, that
in endeavours to facsimile any work whatsoever, bad or good, some
changes are induced from tl^e exact aspect of the original. These
changes are, of course, sometimes harmful, sometimes advantageous;
the bad thing generally gains ; the good thing always loses: so that
I am continually tormented by finding, in my plates of contrasts, the
virtue and vice I exactly wanted to talk about, eliminated from both
examples. In some cases, however, the bad thing will lose also, and
then I must either cancel the plate, or increase the cost of the work
by preparing another (at a similar risk), or run the chance of incurring
the charge of dishonest representation. I desire, therefore, very
earnestly, and once for all, to have it understood that whatever I
say in the text, bearing on questions of comparison, refers always
to the original works ; and that, if the reader has it in his power, I
would far rather he should look at those works than at my plates

of them; I only give the plates for his immediate help and convenience ;
and I mQntion this, with respect to ray plate of Claude's ramification,
because, if I have such a thing as a prejudice at all, (and, although
I do not myself think I have, people certainly say so,) it is against
Claude; and I might, therefore, be sooner suspected of some malice in
this plate than in others. But I simply gave the original engravings
from the Liber Veritatis to Mr. Le Keux, earnestly requesting that the
portions selected might be faithfully copied ; and I think he is much
to be thanked for so carefully and successfully accomplishing the task.
The figures are from the following plates: —

If, in fact, any change be effected in the examples in this plate, it is for
the better ; for, thus detached, they all look like small boughs, in which
the faults are of little consequence ; in the oi-iginal works they are seen
to be intended for large trunks of trees, and the errors are therefore
pronounced on a much larger scale.

The plate of mediaeval rocks (10.) has been executed with much
less attention in transcript, because the points there to be illustrated
were quite indisputable, and the instances were needed merely to show
the kind of thing spoken of, not the skill of particular masters. The
example from Leonardo was, however, somewhat carefully treated.
Mr. Cuff copied it accurately from the only engraving of the picture
which, I believe, exists, and with which, therefore, I suppose the world
is generally content. That engraving, however, in no respect seems
to me to give the look of the light behind Leonardo's rocks; so I
afterwards darkened the rocks, and put some light into the sky and
lily; and the effect is certainly more like that of the picture than it is
in the same portion of the old engraving.

Of the other masters represented in the plates of this volume, the
noblest, Tintoret, has- assuredly suffered the most (Plate 17.); first, in
my too hasty drawing from the original picture j and, secondly, through
some accidental errors of outline which occurred in the reduction to
the size of the page; lastly, and chiefly, in the withdrawal of the heads
of the four figures underneath, in the shadow, on which the composition
entirely depends. This last evil is unavoidable. It is quite impossible

to make extracts fx'om the great masters without partly spoiling every
separated feature ; the very essence of a noble composition being, that
none should bear separation from the rest.

The plate from Raphael (11) is I think, on the whole, satisfactory.
It cost me much pains, as I had to facsimile the irregular form of every
leaf; each being, in the original picture, executed with a somewhat
wayward pencil-stroke of vivid brown on the clear sky.

Of the other plates it would be tedious to speak in detail. Gene-
rally, it will be found that I have taken most pains to do justice to
the masters of whom I have to speak depreciatingly; and that, if
there be calumny at all, it is always of Turner, rather than of
Claude.

The reader might, however, perhaps suspect me of ill-will towards
Constable, owing to my continually introducing him for depreciatoi-y
comparison. So far from this being the case, I had, as will be seen in
various passages of the first volume, considerable respect for the feeling
with which he worked ; but I was compelled to do harsh justice upon him
now, because Mr. Leslie, in his unadvised and unfortunate rechauffe of
the fallacious art-maxims of the last century, has suffered his personal
regard for Constable so far to prevail over his judgment as to bring
him forward as a great artist, comparable in some kind with Turner.
As Constable's reputation was, even before this, most mischievous, in
giving countenance to the blotting and blundering of Modernism, I
saw myself obliged, though unwillingly, to carry the suggested com-
parison thoroughly out.

The reader must have noticed that I never speak of German art,
or German philosophy, but in depreciation. This, however, is not
because I cannot feel, or would not acknowledge, the value and power,
within certain limits, of both; but because I also feel that the imme-
diate tendency of the English mind is to rate them too highly; and,
therefore, it becomes a necessary task, at present, to mark what evil
and weakness there are in them, rather than what good. I also am
brought continually into collision with certain extravagances of the
German mind, by my own steady pursuit of Naturalism as opposed to
Idealism; and, therefore, I become unfortunately cognizant of the evil,
rather than of the good; which evil, so far as I feel it, I am bound to

declare. And it is not to the point to protest, as the Chevalier Bunsen
and other German writers have done, against the expression of opinions
respecting their philosophy by persons who have not profoundly or
carefully studied it; for the very resolution to study any system of
metaphysics profoundly, must be based, in any prudent man's mind,
on some preconceived opinion of its worthiness to be studied ; which
opinion of German metaphysics the naturalistic English cannot be led
to form. This is not to be murmured against, — it is in the simple
necessity of things. Men who have other business on their hands
must be content to choose what philosophy they have occasion for, by
the sample; and when, glancing into the second volume of "Hip-
polytus," we find the Chevalier Bunsen himself talking of a "finite
realization of the infinite" (a phrase considerably less rational than
" a black realization of whiteand of a triad composed of God,
Man, and Humanity ^ (which is a parallel thing to talking of a triad
composed of man, dog, and canineness), knowing those expressions to
be pure, definite, and highly finished nonsense, we do not in general
trouble ourselves to look any farther. Some one will perhaps answer
that if one always judged thus by the sample,'—as, for instance, if one
judged of Turner's pictures by the head of a figure cut out of one of
them,—very precious things might often be despised. Not, I think, often.
If any one went to Turner, expecting to learn figure-drawing from
him, the sample of his figure-drawing would accurately and justly
inform him that he had come to the wrong master. But if he came to
be taught landscape, the smallest fragment of Turner's work would
justly exemplify his power. It may sometimes unluckily happen that,
in such short trial, we strike upon an accidentally failing part of the
thing to be tried, and then we may be unjust ; but there is, never-
theless, in multitudes of cases, no other way of j udging or acting ; and
the necessity of occasionally being unjust is a law of life,—like that of
sometimes stumbling, or being sick. It will not do to walk at snail's
pace all our lives for fear of stumbling, nor to spend years in the in-
vestigation of everything which, by specimen, we must condemn. He
who seizes all that he plainly discerns to be valuable, and never is
unjust but when he honestly cannot help it, will soon be enviable in his
possessions, and venerable in his equity.

Nor can I think that the risk of loss is great in the matter under dis-
cussion. I have often been told that any one who will read Kant,

> I am truly sorry to have to introduce such words in an apparently iiTeverent way.
But it would be a guilty reverence which prevented us from exposing fallacy, precisely
where fallacy was most dangerous, and shrank from unveiling an error, just because
that error existed in parlance respecting the most solemn subjects to which it could
possibly be attached.

Strauss, and the rest of the German metaphysicians and divines, reso-
lutely through, and give his whole strength to the study of them, will,
after ten or twelve years' labour, discover that there is very little
harm in them; and this I can well believe ; but I believe also that
the ten or twelve years may be better spent; and that any man who
honestly wants philosophy not for show, but for use, and knowing the
Proverbs of Solomon, can, by way of commentary, afford to buy, in
convenient editions, Plato, Bacon, Wordsworth, Carlyle, and Helps, will
find that he has got as much as will be sufficient for him and his house-
hold during life, and of as good quality as need be.

It is also often declared necessary to study the German contro-
versialists, because the grounds of religion " must be inquired into."
I am sorry to hear they have not been inquired into yet; but if it be
so, thei'e are two ways of pursuing that inquiry; one for scholarly
men, who have leisure on their hands, by reading all that they have
time to read, for and against, and arming themselves at all points
for controversy with all persons; the other, — a shorter and simpler
way,—for busy and practical men, who want merely to find out how
to live and die. Now for the learned and. leisurely men I am not
writing; they know what and how to read better than I can tell
them. For simple and busy men, concerned much with art, which
is eminently a practical matter, and fatigues the eyes, so as to render
much reading inexpedient, I am writing; and such men I do, to the
utmost of my power, dissuade from meddling with German books;
not because I fear inquiry into the grounds of religion, but because
the only inquiry which is possible to them must be conducted in a
totally different way. They have been brought up as Christians, and
doubt if they should remain Christians. They cannot ascertain, by
investigation, if the Bible be true; but if it be, and Christ ever ex-
isted, and was God, then, certainly, the Sermon which He has per-
mitted for 1800 years to stand recorded as first of all His own
teaching in the New Testament, must be true. Let them take that
Sermon and give it fair practical trial: act out every verse of it, with
no quibbling, nor explaining away, except the reduction of such evi-
dently metaphorical expressions as "cut off thy foot," "pluck the
beam out of thine eye," to their effectively practical sense. Let them
act out, or obey, every verse literally for a whole year, so far as they
can, — a year being little enough time to give to an inquiry into
religion; and if, at the end of the year, they are not satisfied, and still
need to prosecute the inquiry, let them try the German system if they
choose.

Some time after I had written the concluding chapter of tiiis work,
the interesting and powerful poems of Emerson were brought under
my notice by one of the members of my class at the "Working Men's
College. There is much in some of these poems so like parts of
the chapter in question, even in turn of expression, that though I do
not usually care to justify myself from the charge of plagiarism, I felt
that a few words wex-e necessary in this instance.'

I do not, as aforesaid, justify myself, in general, because I know
there is internal evidence in my work of its originality, if people care
to examine it; and if they do not, or have not skill enough to know
genuine from borrowed work, my simple assertion would not convince
them, especially as the charge of plagiarism is hardly'ever made but
by plagiarists, and persons of the unhappy class who do not believe in
honesty but on evidence. Nevertheless, as my work is so much out of
doors, and among pictures, that I have time to read few modern books,
and am therefore in more danger than most people of repeating, as if
it were new, what others have said, it may be well to note, once for
all, that any such apparent plagiai'ism results in fact from my writings
being more original than I wish them to be, from my having worked
out my whole subject in unavoidable, but to myself hurtful, ignorance
of the labours of others. On the other hand, I should be very sorry if
I had not been continually taught and influenced by the writers whom
I love; and am quite unable to say to what extent my thoughts have
been guided by Wordsworth, Carlyle, and Helps; to whom (with
Dante and George Herbert, in olden time) I owe more than to any
other writers; — most of all, perhaps, to Carlyle, whom I read so con-
stantly, that, without wilfully setting myself to imitate him, I find
myself perpetually falling into his modes of expression, and saying
many things in a quite other," and, I hope, stronger, way, than I should
have adopted some years ago; as also there are things which I hope are
said more clearly and simply than before, owing to the influence upon
me of the beautiful quiet English of Helps. It would be both foolish
and wrong to struggle to cast off influences of this kind ; for they consist
mainly in a real and healthy help ;—the master, in writing as in paint-
ing, showing certain methods of language which it would be ridiculous,
and even affected, not to employ, when once shown; just as it would
have been ridiculous in Bonifazio to refuse to employ Titian's way of
laying on colour, if he felt it the best, because he had not himself

discovered it. There is all the difference in the world between this
receiving of guidance, or allowing of influence, and wilful imitation,
much more, plagiarism; nay, the guidance may even innocently reach
into local tones of thought, and must do so to some extent; so that
I find Carlyle's stronger thinking colouring mine continually; and
should be very sorry if I did not; otherwise I should have read him to
little purpose. But what I have of my own is still ail there, and, I
believe, better brought out, by far, than it would have been otherwise.
Thus, if we glance over the wit and satire of the popular writers of the
day, we shall find that the manner of it, so far as it is distinctive, is
always owing to Dickens; and that out of his first exquisite ii'onies
branched innumenible other forms of wit, varying with the disposition
of the writers; original in the matter and substance of them, yet never
to have been expressed as they now are, but for Dickens,

Many people will suppose that for several ideas in the chapters
on Landscape I was indebted to Humboldt's Kosmos, and Howitt's
Rural Scenery. I am indebted to Mr. Howitt's book for much plea-
sure, but for no suggestion, as it was not put into my hands till the
chapters in question were in type. I wish it had been ; as I should
have been glad to have taken farther note of the landscape of Theo-
critus, on which Mr. Howitt dwells with j ust delight. Other parts of
the book will be found very suggestive and helpful to the reader who
cares to pursue the subject. Of Humboldt's Kosmos I heard much
talk when it first came out, and looked through it cursorily; but
thinking it contained no material (connected with my subject)^ which I
had not already possessed myself of, I have never since referred to the
work. I may be mistaken in my estimate of it, but certainly owe it
absolutely nothing.

It is also often said that I borrow from Pugin. I glanced at Pugin's
Contrasts once, in the Oxford architectural reading-room, during an
idle forenoon. His " Remarks on Articles in the Rambler" were
brought under ray notice by some of the reviews. I never read a
word of any other of his works, not feeling, from the style of his
architecture, the smallest interest in his opinions.

I have so often spoken, in the preceding pages, of Holman Hunt's
picture of the Light of tlie World, that I may as well, in this place,
glance at the envious charge against it of being plagiarized from a
German print-

It is indeed true that there was a painting of the subject before;
and there were, of course, no paintings of the Nativity before Ra-
phael's time, nor of the Last Supper before Leonardo's, else those

masters could have laid no claim to originality. But what was still
more singular (the verse to be illustrated being, " Behold, I stand at
the door, and knock"), the principal figure in the antecedent picture
was knocking at a door, knocked with its right hand, and had its face
turned to the spectator! Nay, it was even robed in a long robe^ down
to its feet. All these circumstances were the same in Mr. Hunt's pic-
ture ; and as the chances evidently were a hundred to one that if he
had not been helped to the ideas by the German artist, he would have
represented the figure as not knocking at any door, as turning its back
to the spectator, and as dressed in a short robe, the plagiarism was
considered as demonstrated. Of course no defence is possible in such
a case. All I can say is, that I shall be sincerely grateful to any un-
conscientious persons who will adapt a few more German prints in the
same manner.

Finally, touching plagiarism in general, it is to be remembered that
all men who have sense and feeling are being continually helped: they
are taught by every person whom they meet, and enriched by every-
thing that falls in their way. The greatest is he who has been oftenest
aided; and, if the attainments of all human minds could be traced to
their real sources, it would be found that the world had been laid most
under contribution by the men of most original power, and that every
day of their existence deepened their debt to their race, while it enlarged
their gifts to it. The labour devoted to trace the origin of any thought,
or any invention, will usually issue in the blank conclusion that there is
nothing new under the sun : yet nothing that is truly great can ever be
altogether borrowed; and he is commonly the wisest, and is always the
happiest, who receives simply, and without envious question, whatever
good is offered him, with thanks to its immediate giver.

unsihLstofii
isrituui (XiST
i-fi^Jwn^^trsdei

UireM.

Bacon.	Mrs. RadclyfFe.
Milton,	St. Pierre.
Johnson.	Shenstone.
Richardson,	Byron.
Goldsmith.	Shelley,
Young.	Keats.
Newton.	Burns.
Howard.	Eugene Sue.
Fenelon.	George Sand.
Pascal.	Pumas.