But, without affecting unnecessary severity of remark, may not the

wisdom of such a tribute be justly doubted? The Romans, though the

principle of their power was conquest, and though their security was

almost incompatible with peace, yet are said to have never repaired

a triumphal arch. It is true that they built those arches (in the

latter period of the Empire) so solidly as to want no repairs. But

we have no triumphal monuments of the Republic surviving. Why should

it be the constant policy of Continental governments to pamper

their people with the food of that most dangerous and diseased of

all vanities, the passion for war? And this is not said in the

declamatory spirit of the "Peace Congress," which seems to be

nothing more than a pretext for a Continental ramble, an expedient

for a little vulgar notoriety among foreigners, and an opportunity

of getting rid of the greatest quantity of common-place in the

shortest time. But, why should not France learn common sense from

the experience of England? It is calculated that, of the last five

hundred years of French history, two hundred and fifty have been

spent in hostilities. In consequence, France has been invaded,

trampled, and impoverished by war; while England, during the last

three hundred years, has never seen the foot of a foreign invader.

Let the people of France abolish the _Conscription_, and they

will have made one advance to liberty. Till cabinets are deprived

of that material of _aggressive_ war, they will leave war at the

caprice of a weak monarch, an ambitious minister, or a vainglorious

people. It is remarkable that, among all the attempts at reforming

the constitution of France, her reformers have never touched upon

the ulcer of the land, the Conscription, the legacy of a frantic

Republic, taking the children of the country from their industry, to

plunge them into the vices of idleness or the havoc of war, and at

all times to furnish the means, as well as afford the temptation,

to aggressive war. There is not at this hour a soldier of England

who has been _forced_ into the service! Let the French, let all the

Continental nations, abolish the Conscription, thus depriving their

governments of the means of making war upon each other; and what an

infinite security would not this illustrious abolition give to the

whole of Europe!--what an infinite saving in the taxes which are now

wrung from nations by the fear of each other!--and what an infinite

triumph to the spirit of peace, industry, and mutual good-will!

_The Theatres._--In the evening I wandered along the Boulevard,

the great centre of the theatres, and was surprised at the crowds

which, in a hot summer night, could venture to be stewed alive,

amid the smell of lamps, the effluvia of orange-peel, the glare of

lights, and the breathing of hundreds or thousands of human beings.

I preferred the fresh air, the lively movement of the Boulevard, the

glitter of the Cafés, and the glow, then tempered, of the declining

sun--one of the prettiest moving panoramas of Paris.

The French Government take a great interest in the popularity of

the theatres, and exert that species of superintendence which is

implied in a considerable supply of the theatrical expenditure. The

French Opera receives annually from the National Treasury no less

than 750,000 francs, besides 130,000 for retiring pensions. To the

Théâtre Français, the allowance from the Treasury is 240,000 francs

a-year. To the Italian Opera the sum granted was formerly 70,000,

but is now 50,000. Allowances are made to the Opera Comique, a most

amusing theatre, to the Odeon, and perhaps to some others--the whole

demanding of the budget a sum of more than a million of francs.

It is curious that the drama in France began with the clergy. In the

time of Charles VI., a company, named "Confrères de la Passion,"

performed plays founded on the events of Scripture, though grossly

disfigured by the traditions of Monachism. The originals were

probably the "_Mysteries_," or plays in the Convents, a species of

absurd and fantastic representation common in all Popish countries.

At length the life of Manners was added to the life of Superstition,

and singers and grimacers were added to the "Confrères."

In the sixteenth century an Italian company appeared in Paris, and

brought with them their opera, the invention of the Florentines

fifty years before. The cessation of the civil wars allowed France

for a while to cultivate the arts of peace; and Richelieu, a man

who, if it could be said of any statesman that he formed the mind

of the nation, impressed his image and superscription upon his

country, gave the highest encouragement to the drama by making it

the fashion. He even wrote, or assisted in writing, popular dramas.

Corneille now began to flourish, and French Tragedy was established.

Mazarin, when minister, and, like Richelieu, master of the nation,

invited or admitted the Italian Opera once more into France; and

Molière, at the head of a new company, obtained leave to perform

before Louis XIV., who thenceforth patronised the great comic

writer, and gave his company a theatre. The Tragedy, Comedy, and

Opera of France now led the way in Europe.

In France, the Great Revolution, while it multiplied the theatres

with the natural extravagance of the time, yet, by a consequence

equally inevitable, degraded the taste of the nation. For a

long period the legitimate drama was almost extinguished: it

was unexciting to a people trained day by day to revolutionary

convulsion; the pageants on the stage were tame to the processions

in the streets; and the struggles of kings and nobles were

ridiculous to the men who had been employed in destroying a dynasty.

Napoleon at once perceived the evil, and adopted the only remedy. He

found no less than _thirty_ theatres in Paris. He was not a man to

pause where he saw his way clearly before him; he closed twenty-two

of those theatres, leaving but eight, and those chiefly of the old

establishments, making a species of compensation to the closed

houses.

On the return of the Bourbons the civil list, as in the old

times, assisted in the support of the theatres. On the accession

of Louis Philippe, the popular triumph infused its extravagance

even into the system of the drama. The number of the theatres

increased, and a succession of writers of the "New School" filled

the theatres with abomination. Gallantry became the _spirit_ of

the drama--everything before the scene was intrigue; married life

was the perpetual burlesque. Wives were the habitual heroines of

the intrigue, and husbands the habitual dupes! To keep faith with

a husband was a standing jest on the stage, to keep it with a

seducer was the height of human character. The former was always

described as brutal, gross, dull, and born to be duped; the latter

was captivating, generous, and irresistible by any matron alive.

In fact, wives and widows were made for nothing else but to give

way to the fascinations of this class of professors of the arts

of "good society." The captivator was substantially described as

a scoundrel, a gambler, and a vagabond of the basest kind, but

withal so honourable, so tender, and so susceptible, that his

atrocities disappeared, or rather were transmuted into virtues, by

the brilliancy of his qualifications for seducing the wife of his

friend. Perjury, profligacy, and the betrayal of confidence in the

most essential tie of human nature, were supreme in popularity in

the Novel and on the Stage.

The direct consequence is, that the crime of adultery is lightly

considered in France; even the pure speak of it without the

abhorrence which, for every reason, it deserves. Its notoriety is

rather thought of as an anecdote of the day, or the gossiping of the

soirée; and the most acknowledged licentiousness does not exclude a

man of a certain rank from general reception in good society.

One thing may be observed on the most casual intercourse with

Frenchmen--that the vices which, in our country, create disgust

and offence in grave society, and laughter and levity in the more

careless, seldom produce either the one or the other in France.

The topic is alluded to with neither a frown nor a smile; it is

treated, in general, as a matter of course, either too natural to

deserve censure, or too common to excite ridicule. It is seldom

peculiarly alluded to, for the general conversation of "Good

Society" is decorous; but to denounce it would be unmannered. The

result is an extent of illegitimacy enough to corrupt the whole

rising population. By the registers of 1848, of 30,000 children born

in Paris in that year, there were 10,000 illegitimate, of which but

1700 were acknowledged by their parents!

The theatrical profession forms an important element in the

population. The actors and actresses amount to about 5000. In

England they are probably not as many hundreds. And though the

French population is 35,000,000, while Great Britain has little

more than twenty, yet the disproportion is enormous, and forms a

characteristic difference of the two countries. The persons occupied

in the "working" of the theatrical system amount perhaps to 10,000,

and the families dependent on the whole form a very large and very

influential class among the general orders of society.

But if the Treasury assists in their general support, it compels

them to pay eight per cent of their receipts as a contribution to

the hospitals. This sum averages annually a million of francs, or

£40,000 sterling.

In England we might learn something from the theatrical regulations

of France. The trampling of our crowds at the doors of theatres, the

occasional losses of life and limb, and the general inconvenience

and confusion of the entrance on crowded nights, might be avoided by

the were adoption of French _order_.

But why should not higher objects be held in view? The drama is a

public _necessity_; the people will have it, whether good or bad.

Why should not Government offer prizes to the best drama, tragic or

comic? Why should the most distinguished work of poetic genius find

no encouragement from the Government of a nation boasting of its

love of letters? Why shall that encouragement be left to the caprice

of managers, to the finances of struggling establishments, or to the

tastes of theatres, forced by their poverty to pander to the rabble.

Why should not the mischievous performances of those theatres be put

down, and dramas, founded on the higher principles of our nature,

be the instruments of putting them down? Why should not heroism,

honour, and patriotism, be taught on the national stage, as well as

the triumphs of the highroad, laxity among the higher ranks, and

vice among all? The drama has been charged with corruption. Is that

corruption essential? It has been charged with being a _nucleus_

of the loose principles, as its places of representation have been

haunted by the loose characters, of society. But what are these

but excrescences, generated by the carelessness of society, by

the indolence of magistracy, and by the general misconception of

the real purposes and possible power of the stage? That power is

magnificent. It takes human nature in her most _impressible_ form,

in the time of the glowing heart and the ready tear, of the senses

animated by scenery, melted by music, and spelled by the living

realities of representation. Why should not impressions be made

in that hour which the man would carry with him through all the

contingencies of life, and which would throw a light on every period

of his being?

The conditions of recompense to authors in France make _some_

advance to justice. The author of a Drama is entitled to a profit on

its performance in every theatre of France during his life, with a

continuance for ten years after to his heirs. For a piece of three

or five acts, the remuneration is _one twelfth part_ of the gross

receipts, and for a piece in one act, one twenty-fourth. A similar

compensation has been adopted in the English theatre, but seems to

have become completely nugatory, from the managers' purchasing the

author's rights--the transaction here being made a private one, and

the remuneration being at the mercy of the manager. But in France

it is a public matter, an affair of law, and looked to by an agent

in Paris, who registers the performance of the piece at all the

theatres in the city, and in the provinces.

Still, this is injustice. Why should the labour of the intellect

be less permanent than the labour of the hands? Why should not the

author be entitled to make his full demand instead of this pittance?

If his play is worth acting, why is it not worth paying for?--and

why should he be prohibited from having the fruit of his brain as an

inheritance to his family, as well as the fruit of any other toll?

If, instead of being a man of genius, delighting and elevating the

mind of a nation, he were a blacksmith, he might leave his tools and

his trade to his children without any limit; or if, with the produce

of his play, he purchased a cow, or a cabin, no man could lay a

claim upon either. But he must be taxed for being a man of talent;

and men of no talent must be entitled, by an absurd law and a

palpable injustice, to tear the fruit of his intellectual supremacy

from his children after ten short years of possession.

No man leaves Paris without regret, and without a wish for the

liberty and peace of its people.

MR RUSKIN'S WORKS.

_Modern Painters_, vol. i. Second edition.----_Modern Painters_,

vol. ii.----_The Seven Lamps of Architecture._----_The Stones of

Venice._----_Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds._ By JOHN

RUSKIN, M.A.

On the publication of the first volume of Mr Ruskin's work on Modern

Painters, a notice appeared of it in this Magazine. Since that

time a second volume has been published of the same work, with two

other works on architecture. It is the second volume of his _Modern

Painters_ which will at present chiefly engage our attention. His

architectural works can only receive a slight and casual notice; on

some future occasion they may tempt us into a fuller examination.

Although the second volume of the _Modern Painters_ will be the

immediate subject of our review, we must permit ourselves to glance

back upon the first, in order to connect together the topics treated

by the two, and to prevent our paper from wearing quite the aspect

of a metaphysical essay; for it is the nature of the sentiment of

the beautiful, and its sources in the human mind, which is the main

subject of this second volume. In the first, he had entered at once

into the arena of criticism, elevating the modern artists, and one

amongst them in particular, at the expense of the old masters, who,

with some few exceptions, find themselves very rudely handled.

As we have already intimated, we do not hold Mr Ruskin to be a

safe guide in matters of art, and the present volume demonstrates

that he is no safe guide in matters of philosophy. He is a man of

undoubted power and vigour of mind; he feels strongly, and he thinks

independently: but he is hasty and impetuous; can very rarely, on

any subject, deliver a calm and temperate judgment; and, when he

enters on the discussion of general principles, shows an utter

inability to seize on, or to appreciate, the wide generalisations

of philosophy. He is not, therefore, one of those men who can ever

become an authority to be appealed to by the less instructed in any

of the fine arts, or on any topic whatever; and this we say with the

utmost confidence, because, although we may be unable in many cases

to dispute his judgment--as where he speaks of paintings we have not

seen, or technicalities of art we do not affect to understand--yet

he so frequently stands forth on the broad arena where general and

familiar principles are discussed, that it is utterly impossible _to

be mistaken in the man_. On all these occasions he displays a very

marked and rather peculiar combination of power and weakness--of

power, the result of natural strength of mind; of weakness, the

inevitable consequence of a passionate haste, and an overweening

confidence. When we hear a person of this intellectual character

throwing all but unmitigated abuse upon works which men have long

consented to admire, and lavishing upon some other works encomiums

which no conceivable perfection of human art could justify, it is

utterly impossible to attach any weight to his opinion, on the

ground that he has made an especial study of any one branch of art.

Such a man we cannot trust out of our sight a moment; we cannot give

him one inch of ground more than his reasoning covers, or our own

experience would grant to him.

We shall not here revive the controversy on the comparative merits

of the ancient and modern landscape-painters, nor on the later

productions of Mr Turner, whether they are the eccentricities of

genius or its fullest development; we have said enough on these

subjects before. It is Mr Ruskin's book, and not the pictures of

Claude or Turner, that we have to criticise; it is his style, and

his manner of thinking, that we have to pass judgment on.

In all Mr Ruskin's works, and in almost every page of them, whether

on painting, or architecture, or philosophy, or ecclesiastical

controversy, two characteristics invariably prevail: an extreme

dogmatism, and a passion for singularity. Every man who thinks

earnestly would convert all the world to his own opinions; but while

Mr Ruskin would convert all the world to his own tastes as well as

opinions, he manifests the greatest repugnance to think for a moment

like any one else. He has a mortal aversion to mingle with a crowd.

It is quite enough for an opinion to be commonplace to insure it his

contempt: if it has passed out of fashion, he may revive it; but

to think with the existing multitude would be impossible. Yet that

multitude are to think with him. He is as bent on unity in matters

of taste as others are on unity in matters of religion; and he sets

the example by diverging, wherever he can, from the tastes of others.

Between these two characteristics there is no real contradiction;

or rather the contradiction is quite familiar. The man who most

affects singularity is generally the most dogmatic: he is the very

man who expresses most surprise that others should differ from him.

No one is so impatient of contradiction as he who is perpetually

contradicting others; and on the gravest matters of religion those

are often found to be most zealous for unity of belief who have

some pet heresy of their own, for which they are battling all their

lives. The same overweening confidence lies, in fact, at the basis

of both these characteristics. In Mr Ruskin they are both seen in

great force. No matter what the subject he discusses,--taste or

ecclesiastical government--we always find the same combination of

singularity, with a dogmatism approaching to intolerance. Thus, the

Ionic pillar is universally admired. Mr Ruskin finds that the fluted

shaft gives an appearance of weakness. No one ever felt this, so

long as the fluted column is manifestly of sufficient diameter to

sustain the weight imposed on it. But this objection of apparent

insecurity has been very commonly made to the spiral or twisted

column. Here, therefore, Mr Ruskin abruptly dismisses the objection.

He was at liberty to defend the spiral column: we should say here,

also, that if the weight imposed was evidently not too great for

even a spiral column to support, _this_ objection has no place;

but why cast the same objection, (which perhaps in all cases was

a mere after-thought) against the Ionic shaft, when it had never

been felt at all? It has been a general remark, that, amongst other

results of the railway, it has given a new field to the architect,

as well as to the engineer. Therefore Mr Ruskin resolves that our

railroad stations ought to have no architecture at all. Of course,

if he limited his objections to inappropriate ornament, he would

be agreeing with all the world: he decides there should be no

architecture whatever; merely buildings more or less spacious,

to protect men and goods from the weather. He has never been so

unfortunate, we suppose, as to come an hour too soon, or the unlucky

five minutes too late, to a railway station, or he would have been

glad enough to find himself in something better than the large shed

he proposes. On the grave subject of ecclesiastical government he

has stepped forward into controversy; and here he shows both his

usual propensities in _high relief_. He has some quite peculiar

projects of his own; the appointment of some hundreds of bishops--we

know not what--and a Church discipline to be carried out by trial

by jury. Desirable or not, they are manifestly as impracticable as

the revival of chivalry. But let that pass. Let every man think

and propose his best. But his dogmatism amounts to a disease,

when, turning from his own novelties, he can speak in the flippant

intolerant manner that he does of the national and now time-honoured

Church of Scotland.

It will be worth while to make, in passing, a single quotation

from this pamphlet, _Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds_. He

tells us, in one place, that in the New Testament the ministers

of the Church "are called, and call themselves, with absolute

indifference, Deacons, Bishops, Elders, Evangelists, according to

what they are doing at the time of speaking." With such a writer

one might, at all events, have hoped to live in peace. But no. He

discovers, nevertheless, that Episcopacy is the Scriptural form of

Church government; and, having satisfied his own mind of this, no

opposition or diversity of opinion is for a moment to be tolerated.

"But how," he says, "unite the two great sects of paralysed

Protestants? By keeping simply to Scripture. _The members of

the Scottish Church have not a shadow of excuse for refusing

Episcopacy_: it has indeed been abused among them, grievously

abused; but it is in the Bible, and that is all they have a

right to ask.

"_They have also no shadow of excuse for refusing to employ

a written form of prayer._ It may not be to their taste--it

may not be the way in which they like to pray; but it is no

question, at present, of likes or dislikes, but of duties; and

the acceptance of such a form on their part would go half way

to reconcile them with their brethren. Let them allege such

objections as they can reasonably advance against the English

form, and let these be carefully and humbly weighed by the

pastors of both Churches: some of them ought to be at once

forestalled. For the English Church, on the other hand, _must_,"

&c.

Into Mr Ruskin's own religious tenets, further than he has chosen to

reveal them in his works, we have no wish to pry. But he must cease

to be Mr Ruskin if they do not exhibit some salient peculiarity,

coupled with a confidence, unusual even amongst zealots, that his

peculiar views will speedily triumph. If he can be presumed to

belong to any sect, it must be the last and smallest one amongst

us--some sect as exclusive as German mysticism, with pretensions as

great as those of the Church of Rome.

One word on the style of Mr Ruskin: it will save the trouble of

alluding to it on particular occasions. It is very unequal. In

both his architectural works he writes generally with great ease,

spirit, and clearness. There is a racy vigour in the page. But when

he would be very eloquent, as he is disposed to be in the _Modern

Painters_, he becomes very verbose, tedious, obscure, extravagant.

There is no discipline in his style, no moderation, no repose. Those

qualities which he has known how to praise in art he has not aimed

at in his own writing. A rank luxuriance of a semi-poetical diction

lies about, perfectly unrestrained; metaphorical language comes

before us in every species of disorder; and hyperbolical expressions

are used till they become commonplace. Verbal criticism, he would

probably look upon a very puerile business: he need fear nothing

of the kind from us; we should as soon think of criticising or

pruning a jungle. To add to the confusion, he appears at times to

have proposed to himself the imitation of some of our older writers:

pages are written in the rhythm of Jeremy Taylor; sometimes it is

the venerable Hooker who seems to be his type; and he has even

succeeded in combining whatever is most tedious and prolix in both

these great writers. If the reader wishes a specimen of this sort of

_modern antique_, he may turn to the fifteenth chapter of the second

volume of the _Modern Painters_.

Coupled with this matter of style, and almost inseparable from it,

is the violence of his manner on subjects which cannot possibly

justify so vehement a zeal. We like a generous enthusiasm on any

art--we delight in it; but who can travel in sympathy with a writer

who exhausts on so much paint and canvass every term of rapture

that the Alps themselves could have called forth? One need not be

a utilitarian philosopher--or what Mr Ruskin describes as such--to

smile at the lofty position on which he puts the landscape-painter,

and the egregious and impossible demands he makes upon the art

itself. And the condemnation and opprobrium with which he overwhelms

the luckless artist who has offended him is quite as violent. The

bough of a tree, "in the left hand upper corner" of a landscape of

Poussin's, calls forth this terrible denunciation:--

"This latter is a representation of an ornamental group of

elephants' tusks, with feathers tied to the ends of them.

Not the wildest imagination could ever conjure up in it the

remotest resemblance to the bough of a tree. It might be the

claws of a witch--the talons of an eagle--the horns of a fiend;

but it is a full assemblage of every conceivable falsehood

which can be told respecting foliage--a piece of work so

barbarous in every way _that one glance at it ought to prove

the complete charlatanism and trickery of the whole system of

the old landscape-painters_.... I will say here at once, that

such drawing as this is as ugly as it is childish, and as

painful as it is false; and that the man who could tolerate,

much more, who could deliberately set down such a thing on his

canvass, _had neither eye nor feeling for one single attribute

or excellence of God's works_. He might have drawn _the other

stem_ in excusable ignorance, or under some false impression of

being able to improve upon nature, but this is conclusive and

unpardonable."--(P. 382.)

The great redeeming quality of Mr Ruskin--and we wish to give it

conspicuous and honourable mention--is his love of nature. Here

lies the charm of his works; to this may be traced whatever virtue

is in them, or whatever utility they may possess. They will send

the painter more than ever to the study of nature, and perhaps they

will have a still more beneficial effect on the art, by sending the

critic of painting to the same school. It would be almost an insult

to the landscape-painter to suppose that he needed this lesson; the

very love of his art must lead him perpetually, one would think,

to his great and delightful study amongst the fields, under the

open skies, before the rivers and the hills. But the critic of the

picture-gallery is often one who goes from picture to picture, and

very little from nature to the painting. Consequently, where an

artist succeeds in imitating some effect in nature which had not

been before represented on the canvass, such a critic is more likely

to be displeased than gratified; and the artist, having to paint

for a conventional taste, is in danger of sacrificing to it his own

higher aspirations. Now it is most true that no man should pretend

to be a critic upon pictures unless he understands the art itself

of painting; he ought, we suspect, to have handled the pencil or

the brush himself; at all events, he ought in some way to have been

initiated into the mysteries of the pallet and the easel. Otherwise,

not knowing the difficulties to be overcome, nor the means at hand

for encountering them, he cannot possibly estimate the degree of

merit due to the artist for the production of this or that effect.

He may be loud in applause where nothing has been displayed but

the old traditions of the art. But still this is only one-half the

knowledge he ought to possess. He ought to have studied nature,

and to have loved the study, or he can never estimate, and never

feel, that _truth_ of effect which is the great aim of the artist.

Mr Ruskin's works will help to shame out of the field all such

half-informed and conventional criticism, the mere connoisseurship

of the picture gallery. On the other hand, they will train men who

have always been delighted spectators of nature to be also attentive

observers. Our critics will learn how to admire, and mere admirers

will learn how to criticise. Thus a public will be educated; and

here, if anywhere, we may confidently assert that the art will

prosper in proportion as there is an intelligent public to reward it.

We like that bold enterprise of Mr Ruskin's which distinguishes the

first volume, that daring enumeration of the great palpable facts

of nature--the sky, the sea, the earth, the foliage--which the

painter has to represent. His descriptions are often made indistinct

by a multitude of words; but there is light in the haze--there is

a genuine love of nature felt through them. This is almost the

only point of sympathy we feel with Mr Ruskin; it is the only hold

his volumes have had over us whilst perusing them; we may be,

therefore, excused if we present here to our readers a specimen or

two of his happier descriptions of nature. We will give them _the

Cloud_ and _the Torrent_. They will confess that, after reading Mr

Ruskin's description of the clouds, their first feeling will be an

irresistible impulse to throw open the window, and look upon them

again as they roll through the sky. The torrent may not be so near

at hand, to make renewed acquaintance with. We must premise that he

has been enforcing his favourite precept, the minute, and faithful,

and perpetual study of nature. He very justly scouts the absurd

idea that trees and rocks and clouds are, under any circumstances,

to be _generalised_--so that a tree is not to stand for an oak or a

poplar, a birch or an elm, but for a _general tree_. If a tree is

at so great a distance that you cannot distinguish what it is, as

you cannot paint more than you see, you must paint it indistinctly.

But to make a purposed indistinctness where the kind of tree would

be very plainly seen is a manifest absurdity. So, too, the forms

of clouds should be studied, and as much as possible taken from

nature, and not certain _general clouds_ substituted at the artist's

pleasure.

"But it is not the outline only which is thus systematically

false. The drawing of the solid form is worse still; for it

is to be remembered that, although clouds of course arrange

themselves more or less into broad masses, with a light side

and a dark side, both their light and shade are invariably

composed of a series of divided masses, each of which has in

its outline as much variety and character as the great outline

of the cloud; presenting, therefore, a thousand times repeated,

all that I have described as the general form. Nor are these

multitudinous divisions a truth of slight importance in the

character of sky, for they are dependent on, and illustrative

of, a quality which is usually in a great degree overlooked--the

enormous retiring spaces of solid clouds. Between the illumined

edge of a heaped cloud and that part of its body which turns

into shadow, there will generally be a clear distance of several

miles--more or less, of course, according to the general size

of the cloud; but in such large masses as Poussin and others of

the old masters, which occupy the fourth or fifth of the visible

sky, the clear illumined breadth of vapour, from the edge to

the shadow, involves at least a distance of five or six miles.

We are little apt, in watching the changes of a mountainous

range of cloud, to reflect that the masses of vapour which

compose it are linger and higher than any mountain-range of the

earth; and the distances between mass and mass are not yards of

air, traversed in an instant by the flying form, but valleys

of changing atmosphere leagues over; that the slow motion of

ascending curves, which we can scarcely trace, is a boiling

energy of exulting vapour rushing into the heaven a thousand

feet in a minute; and that the topling angle, whose sharp edge

almost escapes notice in the multitudinous forms around it, is

a nodding precipice of storms, three thousand feet from base to

summit. It is not until we have actually compared the forms of

the sky with the hill-ranges of the earth, and seen the soaring

alp overtopped and buried in one surge of the sky, that we begin

to conceive or appreciate the colossal scale of the phenomena of

the latter. But of this there can be no doubt in the mind of any

one accustomed to trace the forms of cloud among hill-ranges--as

it is there a demonstrable and evident fact--that the space of

vapour visibly extended over an ordinarily clouded sky is not

less, from the point nearest to the observer to the horizon,

than twenty leagues; that the size of every mass of separate

form, if it be at all largely divided, is to be expressed in

terms of _miles_; and that every boiling heap of illuminated

mist in the nearer sky is an enormous mountain, fifteen or

twenty thousand feet in height, six or seven miles over in

illuminated surface, furrowed by a thousand colossal ravines,

torn by local tempests into peaks and promontories, and changing

its features with the majestic velocity of a volcano."--(Vol. i.

p. 228.)

The forms of clouds, it seems, are worth studying: after reading

this, no landscape-painter will be disposed, with hasty slight

invention, to sketch in these "_mountains_" of the sky. Here is his

description, or part of it, first of falling, then of running water.

With the incidental criticism upon painters we are not at present

concerned:--

"A little crumbling white or lightly-rubbed paper will soon give

the effect of indiscriminate foam; but nature gives more than

foam--she shows beneath it, and through it, a peculiar character

of exquisitely studied form, bestowed on every wave and line of

fall; and it is this variety of definite character which Turner

always aims at, rejecting as much as possible everything that

conceals or overwhelms it. Thus, in the Upper Fall of the Tees,

though the whole basin of the fall is blue, and dim with the

rising vapour, yet the attention of the spectator is chiefly

directed to the concentric zones and delicate curves of the

falling water itself; and it is impossible to express with what

exquisite accuracy these are given. They are the characteristic

of a powerful stream descending without impediment or break, but

from a narrow channel, so as to expand as it falls. They are the

constant form which such a stream assumes as it descends; and

yet I think it would be difficult to point to another instance

of their being rendered in art. You will find nothing in the

waterfalls, even of our best painters, but springing lines of

parabolic descent, and splashing and shapeless foam; and, in

consequence, though they may make you understand the swiftness

of the water, they never let you feel the weight of it: the

stream, in their hands, looks _active_, not _supine_, as if

it leaped, not as if it fell. Now, water will leap a little

way--it will leap down a weir or over a stone--but it _tumbles_

over a high fall like this; and it is when we have lost the

parabolic line, and arrived at the catenary--when we have lost

the spring of the fall, and arrived at the _plunge_ of it--that

we begin really to feel its weight and wildness. Where water

takes its first leap from the top, it is cool and collected,

and uninteresting and mathematical; but it is when it finds

that it has got into a scrape, and has farther to go than it

thought for, that its character comes out; it is then that it

begins to writhe and twist, and sweep out, zone after zone, in

wilder stretching as it falls, and to send down the rocket-like,

lance-pointed, whizzing shafts at its sides sounding for the

bottom. And it is this prostration, the hopeless abandonment

of its ponderous power to the air, which is always peculiarly

expressed by Turner....

"When water, not in very great body, runs in a rocky bed much

interrupted by hollows, so that it can rest every now and then

in a pool as it goes long, it does not acquire a continuous

velocity of motion. It pauses after every leap, and curdles

about, and rests a little, and then goes on again; and if, in

this comparatively tranquil and rational state of mind, it meets

with any obstacle, as a rock or stone, it parts on each side of

it with a little bubbling foam, and goes round: if it comes to a

step in its bed, it leaps it lightly, and then, after a little

splashing at the bottom, stops again to take breath. But if its

bed be on a continuous slope, not much interrupted by hollows,

so that it cannot rest--or if its own mass be so increased by

flood that its usual resting-places are not sufficient for it,

but that it is perpetually pushed out of them by the following

current before it has had time to tranquillise itself--it of

course gains velocity with every yard that it runs; the impetus

got at one leap is carried to the credit of the next, until the

whole stream becomes one mass of unchecked accelerating motion.

Now, when water in this state comes to an obstacle, it does not

part at it, but clears it like a racehorse; and when it comes

to a hollow, it does not fill it up, and run out leisurely at

the other side, but it rushes down into it, and comes up again

on the other side, as a ship into the hollow of the sea. Hence

the whole appearance of the bed of the stream is changed, and

all the lines of the water altered in their nature. The quiet

stream is a succession of leaps and pools; the leaps are light

and springy and parabolic, and make a great deal of splashing

when they tumble into the pool; then we have a space of quiet

curdling water, and another similar leap below. But the stream,

when it has gained an impetus, takes the shape of its bed,

never stops, is equally deep and equally swift everywhere, goes

down into every hollow, not with a leap, but with a swing--not

foaming nor splashing, but in the bending line of a strong

sea-wave, and comes up again on the other side, over rock and

ridge, with the ease of a bounding leopard. If it meet a rock

three or four feet above the level of its bed, it will neither

part nor foam, nor express any concern about the matter, but

clear it in a smooth dome of water without apparent exertion,

coming down again as smoothly on the other side, the whole

surface of the surge being drawn into parallel lines by its

extreme velocity, but foamless, except in places where the

form of the bed opposes itself at some direct angle to such a

line of fall, and causes a breaker; so that the whole river

has the appearance of a deep and raging sea, with this only

difference, that the torrent waves always break backwards, and

sea-waves forwards. Thus, then, in the water which has gained

an impetus, we have the most exquisite arrangement of curved

lines, perpetually changing from convex to concave, following

every swell and hollow of the bed with their modulating grace,

and all in unison of motion, presenting perhaps the most

beautiful series of inorganic forms which nature can possibly

produce."--(Vol. i. p. 363.)

It is the object of Mr Ruskin, in his first volume of _Modern

Painters_, to show what the artist has to do in his imitation of

nature. We have no material controversy to raise with him on this

subject; but we cannot help expressing our surprise that he should

have thought it necessary to combat, with so much energy, so very

primitive a notion that the imitation of the artist partakes of

the nature of a _deception_, and that the highest excellence is

obtained when the representation of any object is taken for the

object itself. We thought this matter had been long ago settled. In

a page or two of Quatremère de Quincy's treatise on _Imitation in

the Fine Arts_, the reader, if he has still to seek on this subject,

will find it very briefly and lucidly treated. The aim of the artist

is not to produce such a representation as shall be taken, even

for a moment, for a real object. His aim is, by imitating certain

qualities or attributes of the object, to reproduce for us those

pleasing or elevating impressions which it is the nature of such

qualities or attributes to excite. We have stated very briefly

the accepted doctrine on this subject--so generally accepted and

understood that Mr Ruskin was under no necessity to avoid the

use of the word imitation, as he appears to have done, under the

apprehension that it was incurably infected with this notion of an

attempted deception. Hardly any reader of his book, even without a

word of explanation, would have attached any other meaning to it

than what he himself expresses by representation of certain "truths"

of nature.

With respect to the imitations of the landscape-painter, the

notion of a deception cannot occur. His trees and rivers cannot be

mistaken, for an instant, for real trees and rivers, and certainly

not while they stand there in the gilt frame, and the gilt frame

itself against the papered wall. His only chance of deception is to

get rid of the frame, convert his picture into a transparency, and

place it in the space which a window should occupy. In almost all

cases, deception is obtained, not by painting well, but by those

artifices which disguise that what we see _is_ a painting. At the

same time, we are not satisfied with an expression which several

writers, we remark, have lately used, and which Mr Ruskin very

explicitly adopts. The imitations of the landscape-painter are not

a "language" which he uses; they are not mere "signs," analogous

to those which the poet or the orator employs. There is no analogy

between them. Let us analyse our impressions as we stand before the

artist's landscape, not thinking of the artist, or his dexterity,

but simply absorbed in the pleasure which he procures us--we do not

find ourselves reverting, in imagination, to _other_ trees or other

rivers than those he has depicted. We certainly do not believe them

to be real trees, but neither are they mere signs, or a language to

recall such objects; but _what there is of tree there_ we enjoy.

There is the coolness and the quiet of the shaded avenue, and we

feel them; there is the sunlight on that bank, and we feel its

cheerfulness; we feel the serenity of his river. He has brought

the spirit of the trees around us; the imagination rests in the

picture. In other departments of art the effect is the same. If we

stand before a head of Rembrandt or Vandyke, we do not think that

it lives; but neither do we think of some other head, of which that

is the type. But there is majesty, there is thought, there is calm

repose, there is some phase of humanity expressed before us, and we

are occupied with so much of human life, or human character, as is

then and there given us.

Imitate as many qualities of the real object as you please, but

always the highest, never sacrificing a truth of the mind, or the

heart, for one only of the sense. Truth, as Mr Ruskin most justly

says--truth always. When it is said that truth should not be

always expressed, the maxim, if properly understood, resolves into

this--that the higher truth is not to be sacrificed to the lower. In

a landscape, the gradation of light and shade is a more important

truth than the exact brilliancy (supposing it to be attainable,)

of any individual object. The painter must calculate what means he

has at his disposal for representing this gradation of light, and

he must pitch his tone accordingly. Say he pitches it far below

reality, he is still in search of truth--of contrast and degree.

Sometimes it may happen that, by rendering one detail faithfully,

an artist may give a false impression, simply because he cannot

render other details or facts by which it is accompanied in nature.

Here, too, he would only sacrifice truth _in the cause of truth_.

The admirers of Constable will perhaps dispute the aptness of our

illustration. Nevertheless his works appear to us to afford a

curious example of a scrupulous accuracy or detail producing a false

impression. Constable, looking at foliage under the sunlight, and

noting that the leaf, especially after a shower, will reflect so

much light that the tree will seem more white than green, determined

to paint all the white he saw. Constable could paint white leaves.

So far so well. But then these leaves in nature are almost always in

motion: they are white at one moment and green the next. We never

have the impression of a white leaf; for it is seen playing with

the light--its mirror, for one instant, and glancing from it the

next. Constable could not paint motion. He could not imitate this

shower of light in the living tree. He must leave his white paint

where he has once put it. Other artists before him had seen the same

light, but, knowing that they could not bring the breeze into their

canvass, they wisely concluded that less white paint than Constable

uses would produce a more truthful impression.

But we must no longer be detained from the more immediate task

before us. We must now follow Mr Ruskin to his second volume of

_Modern Painters_, where he explains his theory of the beautiful;

and although this will not be to readers in general the most

attractive portion of his writings, and we ourselves have to

practise some sort of self-denial in fixing our attention upon

it, yet manifestly it is here that we must look for the basis or

fundamental principles of all his criticisms in art. The order in

which his works have been published was apparently deranged by a

generous zeal, which could brook no delay, to defend Mr Turner

from the censures of the undiscerning public. If the natural or

systematic order had been preserved, the materials of this second

volume would have formed the first preliminary treatise, determining

those broad principles of taste, or that philosophical theory of

the beautiful, on which the whole of the subsequent works were to

be modelled. Perhaps this broken and reversed order of publication

has not been unfortunate for the success of the author--perhaps it

was dimly foreseen to be not altogether impolitic; for the popular

ear was gained by the bold and enthusiastic defence of a great

painter; and the ear of the public, once caught, may be detained

by matter which, in the first instance, would have appealed to it

in vain. Whether the effect of chance or design, we may certainly

congratulate Mr Ruskin on the fortunate succession, and the

fortunate rapidity with which his publications have struck on the

public ear. The popular feeling, won by the zeal and intrepidity of

the first volume of _Modern Painters_, was no doubt a little tried

by the graver discussions of the second. It was soon, however, to be

again caught, and pleased by a bold and agreeable miscellany under

the magical name of "The Seven Lamps;" and these Seven Lamps could

hardly fail to throw some portion of their pleasant and bewildering

light over a certain rudimentary treatise upon building, which was

to appear under the title of "The Stones of Venice."

We cannot, however, congratulate Mr Ruskin on the manner in which

he has acquitted himself in this arena of philosophical inquiry,

nor on the sort of theory of the Beautiful which he has contrived

to construct. The least metaphysical of our readers is aware that

there is a controversy of long standing upon this subject, between

two different schools of philosophy. With the one the beautiful

is described as a great "idea" of the reason, or an intellectual

intuition, or a simple intuitive perception; different expressions

are made use of, but all imply that it is a great primary feeling,

or sentiment, or idea of the human mind, and as incapable of

further analysis as the idea of space, or the simplest of our

sensations. The rival school of theorists maintain, on the contrary,

that no sentiment yields more readily to analysis; and that the

beautiful, except in those rare cases where the whole charm lies

in one sensation, as in that of colour, is a complex sentiment.

They describe it as a pleasure resulting from the presence of the

visible object, but of which the visible object is only in part the

immediate cause. Of a great portion of the pleasure it is merely

the vehicle; and they say that blended reminiscences, gathered from

every sense, and every human affection, from the softness of touch

of an infant's finger to the highest contemplations of a devotional

spirit, have contributed, in their turn, to this delightful

sentiment.

Mr Ruskin was not bound to belong to either of these schools of

philosophy; he was at liberty to construct an eclectic system

of his own;--and he has done so. We shall take the precaution,

in so delicate a matter, of quoting Mr Ruskin's own words for

the exposition of his own theory. Meanwhile, as some clue to the

reader, we may venture to say that he agrees with the first of

these schools in adopting a primary intuitive sentiment of the

beautiful; but then this primary intuition is only of a sensational

or "animal" nature--a subordinate species of the beautiful, which

is chiefly valuable as the necessary condition of the higher and

truly beautiful; and this last he agrees with the opposite school

in regarding as a derived sentiment--derived by contemplating the

objects of external nature as types of the Divine attributes. This

is a brief summary of the theory; for a fuller exposition we shall

have recourse to his own words.

The term _Æsthetic_, which has been applied to this branch of

philosophy, Mr Ruskin discards; he offers as a substitute _Theoria_,

or _The Theoretic Faculty_, the meaning of which he thus explains:--

"I proceed, therefore, first to examine the nature of what

I have called the theoretic faculty, and to justify my

substitution of the term 'Theoretic' for 'Æsthetic,' which is

the one commonly employed with reference to it.

"Now the term 'æsthesis' properly signifies mere sensual

perception of the outward qualities and necessary effects of

bodies; in which sense only, if we would arrive at any accurate

conclusions on this difficult subject, it should always be used.

But I wholly deny that the impressions of beauty _are in any

way sensual_;--they are neither sensual nor intellectual, _but

moral_; and for the faculty receiving them, whose difference

from mere perception I shall immediately endeavour to explain,

no terms can be more accurate or convenient than that employed

by the Greeks, 'Theoretic,' which I pray permission, therefore,

always to use, and to call the operation of the faculty itself,

Theoria."--(P. 11.)

We are introduced to a new faculty of the human mind; let us see

what new or especial sphere of operation is assigned to it. After

some remarks on the superiority of the mere sensual pleasures of the

eye and the ear, but particularly of the eye, to those derived from

other organs of sense, he continues:--

"Herein, then, we find very sufficient ground for the higher

estimation of these delights: first, in their being eternal

and inexhaustible; and, secondly, in their being evidently

no meaner instrument of life, but an object of life. Now, in

whatever is an object of life, in whatever may be infinitely

and for itself desired, we may be sure there is something of

divine: for God will not make anything an object of life to his

creatures which does not point to, or partake of himself,"--[a

bold assertion.] "And so, though we were to regard the pleasures

of sight merely as the highest of sensual pleasures, and though

they were of rare occurrence--and, when occurring, isolated and

imperfect--there would still be supernatural character about

them, owing to their self-sufficiency. But when, instead of

being scattered, interrupted, or chance-distributed, they are

gathered together and so arranged to enhance each other, as by

chance they could not be, there is caused by them, not only a

feeling of strong affection towards the object in which they

exist, but a perception of purpose and adaptation of it to our

desires; a perception, therefore, of the immediate operation of

the Intelligence which so formed us and so feeds us.

"Out of what perception arise Joy, Admiration, and Gratitude?

"Now, the mere animal consciousness of the pleasantness I call

Æsthesis; but the exulting, reverent, and grateful perception

of it I call Theoria. For this, and this only, is the full

comprehension and contemplation of the beautiful as a gift

of God; a gift not necessary to our being, but adding to and

elevating it, and twofold--first, of the desire; and, secondly,

of the thing desired."

We find, then, that in the production of the full sentiment of the

beautiful _two_ faculties are employed, or two distinct operations

denoted. First, there is the "animal pleasantness which we call

Æsthesis,"--which sometimes appears confounded with the mere

pleasures of sense, but which the whole current of his speculations

obliges us to conclude is some separate intuition of a sensational

character; and, secondly, there is "the exulting, reverent, and

grateful perception of it, which we call Theoria," which alone is

the truly beautiful, and which it is the function of the Theoretic

Faculty to reveal to us. But this new Theoretic Faculty--what can

it be but the old faculty of Human Reason, exercised upon the great

subject of Divine beneficence?

Mr Ruskin, as we shall see, discovers that external objects are

beautiful because they are types of Divine attributes; but he

admits, and is solicitous to impress upon our minds, that the

"meaning" of these types is "learnt." When, in a subsequent part

of his work, he feels himself pressed by the objection that many

celebrated artists, who have shown a vivid appreciation and a great

passion for the beautiful, have manifested no peculiar piety, have

been rather deficient in spiritual-mindedness, he gives them over to

that instinctive sense he has called Æsthesis, and says--"It will

be remembered that I have, throughout the examination of typical

beauty, asserted our instinctive sense of it; the moral _meaning_

of it being only discoverable by reflection," (p. 127.) Now, there

is no other conceivable manner in which the meaning of the type can

be learnt than by the usual exercise of the human reason, detecting

traces of the Divine power, and wisdom, and benevolence, in the

external world, and then associating with the various objects of the

external world the ideas we have thus acquired of the Divine wisdom

and goodness. The rapid and habitual regard of certain facts or

appearances in the visible world, as types of the attributes of God,

_can_ be nothing else but one great instance (or class of instances)

of that law of association of ideas on which the second school of

philosophy we have alluded to so largely insist. And thus, whether

Mr Ruskin chooses to acquiesce in it or not, his "Theoria" resolves

itself into a portion, or fragment, of that theory of association

of ideas, to which he declares, and perhaps believes, himself to be

violently opposed.

In a very curious manner, therefore, has Mr Ruskin selected his

materials from the two rival schools of metaphysics. His _Æsthesis_

is an intuitive perception, but of a mere sensual or animal

nature--sometimes almost confounded with the mere pleasure of

sense, at other times advanced into considerable importance, as

where he has to explain the fact that men of very little piety have

a very acute perception of beauty. His _Theoria_ is, and can be,

nothing more than the results of human reason in its highest and

noblest exercise, rapidly brought before the mind by a habitual

association of ideas. For the lowest element of the beautiful he

runs to the school of intuitions;--they will not thank him for

the compliment;--for the higher to that analytic school, and that

theory of association of ideas, to which throughout he is ostensibly

opposed.

This _Theoria_ divides itself into two parts. We shall quote Mr

Ruskin's own words and take care to quote from them passages where

he seems most solicitous to be accurate and explanatory:--

"The first thing, then, we have to do," he says, "is accurately

to discriminate and define those appearances from which we are

about to reason as belonging to beauty, properly so called, and

to clear the ground of all the confused ideas and erroneous

theories with which the misapprehension or metaphorical use of

the term has encumbered it.

"By the term Beauty, then, properly are signified two things:

first, that external quality of bodies, already so often spoken

of, and which, whether it occur in a stone, flower, beast,

or in man, is absolutely identical--which, as I have already

asserted, may be shown to be in some sort typical of the Divine

attributes, and which, therefore, I shall, for distinction's

sake, call Typical Beauty; and, secondarily, the appearance

of felicitous fulfilment of functions in living things, more

especially of the joyful and right exertion of perfect life in

man--and this kind of beauty I shall call Vital Beauty."--(P.

26.)

The Vital Beauty, as well as the Typical, partakes essentially, as

far as we can understand our author, of a religious character. On

turning to that part of the volume where it is treated of at length,

we find a universal sympathy and spirit of kindliness very properly

insisted on, as one great element of the sentiment of beauty; but

we are not permitted to dwell upon this element, or rest upon it

a moment, without some reference to our relation to God. Even the

animals themselves seem to be turned into types for us of our moral

feelings or duties. We are expressly told that we cannot have this

sympathy with life and enjoyment in other creatures, unless it takes

the form of, or comes accompanied with, a sentiment of piety. In

all cases where the beautiful is anything higher than a certain

"animal pleasantness," we are to understand that it has a religious

character. "In all cases," he says, summing up the functions of

the Theoretic Faculty, "_it is something Divine_; either the

approving voice of God, the glorious symbol of Him, the evidence

of His kind presence, or the obedience to His will by Him induced

and supported,"--(p. 126.) Now it is a delicate task, when a man

errs by the exaggeration of a great truth or a noble sentiment, to

combat his error; and yet as much mischief may ultimately arise from

an error of this description as from any other. The thoughts and

feelings which Mr Ruskin has described, form the noblest part of our

sentiment of the beautiful, as they form the noblest phase of the

human reason. But they are not the whole of it. The visible object,

to adopt his phraseology, does become a type to the contemplative

and pious mind of the attribute of God, and is thus exalted to our

apprehension. But it is not beautiful solely or originally on this

account. To assert this, is simply to falsify our human nature.

Before, however, we enter into these _types_, or this typical

beauty, it will be well to notice how Mr Ruskin deals with previous

and opposing theories. It will be well also to remind our readers

of the outline of that theory of association of ideas which is here

presented to us in so very confused a manner. We shall then be

better able to understand the very curious position our author has

taken up in this domain of speculative philosophy.

Mr Ruskin gives us the following summary of the "errors" which he

thinks it necessary in the first place to clear from his path:--

"Those erring or inconsistent positions which I would at once

dismiss are, the first, that the beautiful is the true; the

second, that the beautiful is the useful; the third, that it is

dependent on custom; and the fourth, that it is dependent on the

association of ideas."

The first of these theories, that the beautiful is the true, we

leave entirely to the tender mercies of Mr Ruskin; we cannot gather

from his refutation to what class of theorists he is alluding. The

remaining three are, as we understand the matter, substantially one

and the same theory. We believe that no one, in these days, would

define beauty as solely resulting either from the apprehension

of Utility, (that is, the adjustment of parts to a whole, or the

application of the object to an ulterior purpose,) or to Familiarity

and the affection which custom engenders; but they would regard both

Utility and Familiarity as amongst the sources of those agreeable

ideas or impressions, which, by the great law of association, became

intimately connected with the visible object. We must listen,

however, to Mr Ruskin's refutation of them:--

"That the beautiful is the _useful_ is an assertion evidently

based on that limited and false sense of the latter term which

I have already deprecated. As it is the most degrading and

dangerous supposition which can be advanced on the subject, so,

fortunately, it is the most palpably absurd. It is to confound

admiration with hunger, love with lust, and life with sensation;

it is to assert that the human creature has no ideas and no

feelings, except those ultimately referable to its brutal

appetites. It has not a single fact, nor appearance of fact, to

support it, and needs no combating--at least until its advocates

have obtained the consent of the majority of mankind that the

most beautiful productions of nature are seeds and roots; and of

art, spades and millstones.

"Somewhat more rational grounds appear for the assertion that

the sense of the beautiful arises from _familiarity_ with the

object, though even this could not long be maintained by a

thinking person. For all that can be alleged in defence of such

a supposition is, that familiarity deprives some objects which

at first appeared ugly of much of their repulsiveness; whence

it is as rational to conclude that familiarity is the cause of

beauty, as it would be to argue that, because it is possible to

acquire a taste for olives, therefore custom is the cause of

lusciousness in grapes....

"I pass to the last and most weighty theory, that the

agreeableness in objects which we call beauty is the result of

the association with them of agreeable or interesting ideas.

"Frequent has been the support and wide the acceptance of

this supposition, and yet I suppose that no two consecutive

sentences were ever written in defence of it, without involving

either a contradiction or a confusion of terms. Thus Alison,

'There are scenes undoubtedly more beautiful than Runnymede,

yet, to those who recollect the great event that passed

there, there is no scene perhaps which so strongly seizes on

the imagination,'--where we are wonder-struck at the bold

obtuseness which would prove the power of imagination by its

overcoming that very other power (of inherent beauty) whose

existence the arguer desires; for the only logical conclusion

which can possibly be drawn from the above sentence is, that

imagination is _not_ the source of beauty--for, although no

scene seizes so strongly on the imagination, yet there are

scenes 'more beautiful than Runnymede.' And though instances

of self-contradiction as laconic and complete as this are

rare, yet, if the arguments on the subject be fairly sifted

from the mass of confused language with which they are always

encumbered, they will be found invariably to fall into one of

these two forms: either association gives pleasure, and beauty

gives pleasure, therefore association is beauty; or the power of

association is stronger than the power of beauty, therefore the

power of association _is_ the power of beauty."

Now this last sentence is sheer nonsense, and only proves that the

author had never given himself the trouble to understand the theory

he so flippantly discards. No one ever said that "association gives

pleasure;" but very many, and Mr Ruskin amongst the rest, have said

that associated thought adds its pleasure to an object pleasing in

itself, and thus increases the complex sentiment of beauty. That it

is a complex sentiment in all its higher forms, Mr Ruskin himself

will tell us. As to the manner in which he deals with Alison, it

is in the worst possible spirit of controversy. Alison was an

elegant, but not a very precise writer; it was the easiest thing

in the world to select an unfortunate illustration, and to convict

_that_ of absurdity. Yet he might with equal ease have selected many

other illustrations from Alison, which would have done justice to

the theory he expounds. A hundred such will immediately occur to

the reader. If, instead of a historical recollection of this kind,

which could hardly make the stream itself of Runnymede look more

beautiful, Alison had confined himself to those impressions which

the generality of mankind receive from river scenery, he would have

had no difficulty in showing (as we believe he has elsewhere done)

how, in this case, ideas gathered from different sources flow into

one harmonious and apparently simple feeling. That sentiment of

beauty which arises as we look upon a river will be acknowledged by

most persons to be composed of many associated thoughts, combining

with the object before them. Its form and colour, its bright surface

and its green banks, are all that the eye immediately gives us;

but with these are combined the remembered coolness of the fluent

stream, and of the breeze above it, and of the pleasant shade of its

banks; and beside all this--as there are few persons who have not

escaped with delight from town or village, to wander by the quiet

banks of some neighbouring stream, so there are few persons who do

not associate with river scenery ideas of peace and serenity. Now

many of these thoughts or facts are such as the eye does not take

cognisance of, yet they present themselves as instantaneously as the

visible form, and so blended as to seem, for the moment, to belong

to it.

Why not have selected some such illustration as this, instead of

the unfortunate Runnymede, from a work where so many abound as apt

as they are elegantly expressed? As to Mr Ruskin's utilitarian

philosopher, it is a fabulous creature--no such being exists.

Nor need we detain ourselves with the quite departmental subject

of Familiarity. But let us endeavour--without desiring to pledge

ourselves or our readers to its final adoption--to relieve the

theory of association of ideas from the obscurity our author has

thrown around it. Our readers will not find that this is altogether

a wasted labour.

With Mr Ruskin we are of opinion that, in a discussion of this kind,

the term Beauty ought to be limited to the impression derived,

mediately or immediately, from the visible object. It would be

useless affectation to attempt to restrict the use of the word,

in general, to this application. We can have no objection to the

term Beautiful being applied to a piece of music, or to an eloquent

composition, prose or verse, or even to our moral feelings and

heroic actions; the word has received this general application,

and there is, at basis, a great deal in common between all these

and the sentiment of beauty attendant on the visible object. For

music, or sweet sounds, and poetry, and our moral feelings, have

much to do (through the law of association) with our sentiment of

the Beautiful. It is quite enough if, speaking of the subject of

our analysis, we limit it to those impressions, however originated,

which attend upon the visible object.

One preliminary word on this association of ideas. It is from

its very nature, and the nature of human life, of all degrees

of intimacy--from the casual suggestion, or the case where the

two ideas are at all times felt to be distinct, to those close

combinations where the two ideas have apparently coalesced into

one, or require an attentive analysis to separate them. You see a

mass of iron; you may be said _to see its weight_, the impression

of its weight is so intimately combined with its form. The _light_

of the sun, and the _heat_ of the sun are learnt from different

senses, yet we never see the one without thinking of the other, and

the reflection of the sunbeam seen upon a bank immediately suggests

the idea of _warmth_. But it is not necessary that the combination

should be always so perfect as in this instance, in order to

produce the effect we speak of under the name of Association of

Ideas. It is hardly possible for us to abstract the _glow_ of the

sunbeam from its light; but the fertility which follows upon the

presence of the sun, though a suggestion which habitually occurs

to reflective minds, is an association of a far less intimate

nature. It is sufficiently intimate, however, to blend with that

feeling of admiration we have when we speak of the beauty of the

sun. There is the golden harvest in its summer beams. Again, the

contemplative spirit in all ages has formed an association between

the sun and the Deity, whether as the fittest symbol of God, or as

being His greatest gift to man. Here we have an association still

more refined, and of a somewhat less frequent character, but one

which will be found to enter, in a very subtle manner, into that

impression we receive from the great luminary.

And thus it is that, in different minds, the same materials of

thought may be combined in a closer or laxer relationship. This

should be borne in mind by the candid inquirer. That in many

instances ideas from different sources do coalesce, in the manner

we have been describing, he cannot for an instant doubt. He seems

_to see_ the coolness of that river; he seems _to see_ the warmth on

that sunny bank. In many instances, however, he must make allowance

for the different habitudes of life. The same illustration will not

always have the same force to all men. Those who have cultivated

their minds by different pursuits, or lived amongst scenery of a

different character, cannot have formed exactly the same moral

association with external nature.

These preliminaries being adjusted, what, we ask, is that first

original charm of the _visible object_ which serves as the

foundation for this wonderful superstructure of the Beautiful, to

which almost every department of feeling and of thought will be

found to bring its contribution? What is it so pleasurable that the

eye at once receives from the external world, that round _it_ should

have gathered all these tributary pleasures? Light--colour--form;

but, in reference to our discussion, pre-eminently the exquisite

pleasure derived from the sense of light, pure or coloured. Colour,

from infancy to old age, is one original, universal, perpetual

source of delight, the first and constant element of the Beautiful.

We are far from thinking that the eye does not at once take

cognisance of form as well as colour. Some ingenious analysts have

supposed that the sensation of colour is, in its origin, a mere

mental affection, having no reference to space or external objects,

and that it obtains this reference through the contemporaneous

acquisition of the sense of touch. But there can be no more reason

for supposing that the sense of touch informs us immediately of an

external world than that the sense of colour does. If we do not

allow to all the senses an intuitive reference to the external

world, we shall get it from none of them. Dr Brown, who paid

particular attention to this subject, and who was desirous to limit

the first intimation of the sense of sight to an abstract sensation

of unlocalised colour, failed entirely in his attempt to obtain

from any other source the idea of space or _outness_; Kant would

have given him certain subjective _forms of the sensitive faculty_,

space and time. These he did not like: he saw that, if he denied

to the eye an immediate perception of the external world, he must

also deny it to the touch; he therefore prayed in aid certain

muscular sensations from which the idea of _resistance_ would be

obtained. But it seems to us evident that not till _after_ we have

acquired a knowledge of the external world can we connect _volition_

with muscular movement, and that, until that connection is made,

the muscular sensations stand in the same predicament as other

sensations, and could give him no aid in solving his problem. We

cannot go further into this matter at present.[6] The mere flash of

light which follows the touch upon the optic nerve represents itself

as something _without_; nor was colour, we imagine, ever felt, but

under some _form_ more or less distinct; although in the human being

the eye seems to depend on the touch far more than in other animals,

for its further instruction.

[6] It is seldom any action of a limb is performed without the

concurrence of several muscles; and, if the action is at all

energetic, a number of muscles are brought into play as an equipoise

or balance; the infant, therefore, would be sadly puzzled amongst

its muscular sensations, supposing that it had them. Besides, it

seems clear that those movements we see an infant make with its

arms and legs are, in the first instance, as little _voluntary_ as

the muscular movements it makes for the purpose of respiration.

There is an animal life within us, dependent on its own laws of

irritability. Over a portion of this the developed thought or reason

gains dominion; over a large portion the will never has any hold;

over another portion, as in the organs of respiration, it has an

intermittent and divided empire. We learn voluntary movement by

doing that instinctively and spontaneously which we afterwards do

from forethought. We have moved our arm; we wish to do the like

again, (and to our wonder, if we then had intelligence enough to

wonder,) we do it.

But although the eye is cognisant of form as well as colour, it is

in the sensation of colour that we must seek the primitive pleasure

derived from this organ. And probably the first reason why form

pleases is this, that the boundaries of form are also the lines

of contrast of colour. It is a general law of all sensation that,

if it be continued, our susceptibility to it declines. It was

necessary that the eye should be always open. Its susceptibility is

sustained by the perpetual contrast of colours. Whether the contrast

is sudden, or whether one hue shades gradually into another, we

see here an original and primary source of pleasure. A constant

variety, in some way produced, is essential to the maintenance of

the pleasure derived from colour.

It is not incumbent on us to inquire how far the beauty of form

may be traceable to the sensation of touch;--a very small portion

of it we suspect. In the human countenance, and in sculpture,

the beauty of form is almost resolvable into expression; though

possibly the soft and rounded outline may in some measure be

associated with the sense of smoothness to the touch. All that we

are concerned to show is, that there is here in colour, diffused

as it is over the whole world, and perpetually varied, a _beauty_

at once showered upon the visible object. We hear it said, if you

resolve all into association, where will you begin? You have but a

circle of feelings. If moral sentiment, for instance, be not itself

the beautiful, why should it become so by association. There must

be something else that is _the beautiful_, by association with

which it passes for such. We answer, that we do not resolve _all_

into association; that we have in this one gift of colour, shed so

bountifully over the whole world, an original beauty, a delight

which makes the external object pleasant and beloved; for how can we

fail, in some sort, to love what produces so much pleasure?

We are at a loss to understand how any one can speak with

disparagement of colour as a source of the beautiful. The sculptor

may, perhaps, by his peculiar education, grow comparatively

indifferent to it: we know not how this may be; but let any man,

of the most refined taste imaginable, think what he owes to this

source, when he walks out at evening, and sees the sun set amongst

the hills. The same concave sky, the same scene, so far as its form

is concerned, was there a few hours before, and saddened him with

its gloom; one leaden hue prevailed over all; and now in a clear sky

the sun is setting, and the hills are purple, and the clouds are

radiant with every colour that can be extracted from the sunbeam. He

can hardly believe that it is the same scene, or he the same man.

Here the grown-up man and the child stand always on the same level.

As to the infant, note how its eye feeds upon a brilliant colour, or

the living flame. If it had wings, it would assuredly do as the moth

does. And take the most untutored rustic, let him be old, and dull,

and stupid, yet, as long as the eye has vitality in it, will he look

up with long untiring gaze at this blue vault of the sky, traversed

by its glittering clouds, and pierced by the tall green trees around

him.

Is it any marvel now that round the _visible object_ should

associate tributary feelings of pleasure? How many pleasing and

tender sentiments gather round the rose! Yet the rose is beautiful

in itself. It was beautiful to the child by its colour, its texture,

its softly-shaded leaf, and the contrast between the flower and the

foliage. Love, and poetry, and the tender regrets of advanced life,

have contributed a second dower of beauty. The rose is more to the

youth and to the old man than it was to the child; but still to the

last they both feel the pleasure of the child.

The more commonplace the illustration, the more suited it is to our

purpose. If any one will reflect on the many ideas that cluster

round this beautiful flower, he will not fail to see how numerous

and subtle may be the association formed with the visible object.

Even an idea painful in itself may, by way of contrast, serve

to heighten the pleasure of others with which it is associated.

Here the thought of decay and fragility, like a discord amongst

harmonies, increases our sentiment of tenderness. We express, we

believe, the prevailing taste when we say that there is nothing,

in the shape of art, so disagreeable and repulsive as artificial

flowers. The waxen flower may be an admirable imitation, but it

is a detestable thing. This partly results from the nature of the

imitation; a vulgar deception is often practised upon us: what is

not a flower is intended to pass for one. But it is owing still

more, we think, to the contradiction that is immediately afterwards

felt between this preserved and imperishable waxen flower, and the

transitory and perishable rose. It is the nature of the rose to bud,

and blossom, and decay; it gives its beauty to the breeze and to the

shower; it is mortal; it is _ours_; it bears our hopes, our loves,

our regrets. This waxen substitute, that cannot change or decay, is

a contradiction and a disgust.

Amongst objects of man's contrivance, the sail seen upon the calm

waters of a lake or a river is universally felt to be beautiful. The

form is graceful, and the movement gentle, and its colour contrasts

well either with the shore or the water. But perhaps the chief

element of our pleasure is all association with human life, with

peaceful enjoyment--

"This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing,

To waft me from distraction."

Or take one of the noblest objects in nature--the mountain. There

is no object except the sea and the sky that reflects to the sight

colours so beautiful, and in such masses. But colour, and form, and

magnitude, constitute but a part of the beauty or the sublimity of

the mountain. Not only do the clouds encircle or rest upon it, but

men have laid on it their grandest thoughts: we have associated

with it our moral fortitude, and all we understand of greatness

or elevation of mind; our phraseology seems half reflected from

the mountain. Still more, we have made it holy ground. Has not God

himself descended on the mountain? Are not the hills, once and

for ever, "the unwalled temples of our earth?" And still there is

another circumstance attendant upon mountain scenery, which adds a

solemnity of its own, and is a condition of the enjoyment of other

sources of the sublime--solitude. It seems to us that the feeling of

solitude almost always associates itself with mountain scenery. Mrs

Somerville, in the description which she gives or quotes, in her

_Physical Geography_, of the Himalayas, says--

"The loftiest peaks being bare of snow gives great variety of

colour and beauty to the scenery, which in these passes is at

all times magnificent. During the day, the stupendous size of

the mountains, their interminable extent, the variety and the

sharpness of their forms, and, above all, the tender clearness

of their distant outline melting into the pale blue sky,

contrasted with the deep azure above, is described as a scene of

wild and wonderful beauty. At midnight, when myriads of stars

sparkle in the black sky, and the pure blue of the mountains

looks deeper still below the pale white gleam of the earth and

snow-light, the effect is of unparalleled sublimity, and no

language can describe the splendour of the sunbeams at daybreak,

streaming between the high peaks, and throwing their gigantic

shadows on the mountains below. There, far above the habitation

of man, no living thing exists, no sound is heard; the very

echo of the traveller's footsteps startles him in the awful

_solitude and silence_ that reigns in those august dwellings of

everlasting snow."

No one can fail to recognise the effect of the last circumstance

mentioned. Let those mountains be the scene of a gathering of any

human multitude, and they would be more desecrated than if their

peaks had been levelled to the ground. We have also quoted this

description to show how large a share _colour_ takes in beautifying

such a scene. Colour, either in large fields of it, or in sharp

contrasts, or in gradual shading--the play of light, in short, upon

this world--is the first element of beauty.

Here would be the place, were we writing a formal treatise upon

this subject, after showing that there is in the sense of sight

itself a sufficient elementary beauty, whereto other pleasurable

reminiscences may attach themselves, to point out some of these

tributaries. Each sense--the touch, the ear, the smell, the

taste--blend their several remembered pleasures with the object

of vision. Even taste, we say, although Mr Ruskin will scorn

the gross alliance. And we would allude to the fact to show the

extreme subtilty of these mental processes. The fruit which you

think of eating has lost its beauty from that moment--it assumes

to you a quite different relation; but the reminiscence that there

is sweetness in the peach or the grape, whilst it remains quite

subordinate to the pleasure derived from the sense of sight, mingles

with and increases that pleasure. Whilst the cluster of ripe grapes

is looked at only for its beauty, the idea that they are pleasant

to the taste as well steals in unobserved, and adds to the complex

sentiment. If this idea grow distinct and prominent, the beauty of

the grape is gone--you eat it. Here, too, would be the place to take

notice of such sources of pleasure as are derived from adaptation

of parts, or the adaptation of the whole to ulterior purposes;

but here especially should we insist on human affections, human

loves, human sympathies. Here, in the heart of man, his hopes,

his regrets, his affections, do we find the great source of the

beautiful--tributaries which take their name from the stream they

join, but which often form the main current. On that sympathy with

which nature has so wonderfully endowed us, which makes the pain and

pleasure of all other living things our own pain and pleasure, which

binds us not only to our fellow-men, but to every moving creature

on the face of the earth, we should have much to say. How much, for

instance, does its _life_ add to the beauty of the swan!--how much

more its calm and placid life! Here, and on what would follow on

the still more exalted mood of pious contemplation--when all nature

seems as a hymn or song of praise to the Creator--we should be

happy to borrow aid from Mr Ruskin; his essay supplying admirable

materials for certain _chapters_ in a treatise on the beautiful

which should embrace the whole subject.

No such treatise, however, is it our object to compose. We have said

enough to show the true nature of that theory of association, as a

branch of which alone is it possible to take any intelligible view

of Mr Ruskin's _Theoria_, or "Theoretic Faculty." His flagrant error

is, that he will represent a part for the whole, and will distort

and confuse everything for the sake of this representation. Viewed

in their proper limitation, his remarks are often such as every

wise and good man will approve of. Here and there too, there are

shrewd intimations which the psychological student may profit by. He

has pointed out several instances where the associations insisted

upon by writers of the school of Alison have nothing whatever to

do with the sentiment of beauty; and neither harmonise with, nor

exalt it. Not all that may, in any way, _interest_ us in an object,

adds to its beauty. "Thus," as Mr Ruskin we think very justly says,

"where we are told that the leaves of a plant are occupied in

decomposing carbonic acid, and preparing oxygen for us, we begin to

look upon it with some such indifference as upon a gasometer. It

has become a machine; some of our sense of its happiness is gone;

its emanation of inherent life is no longer pure." The knowledge of

the anatomical structure of the limb is very interesting, but it

adds nothing to the beauty of its outline. Scientific associations,

however, of this kind, will have a different æsthetic effect,

according to the degree or the enthusiasm with which the science has

been studied.

It is not our business to advocate this theory of association of

ideas, but briefly to expound it. But we may remark that those who

adopt (as Mr Ruskin has done in one branch of his subject--his

_Æsthesis_) the rival theory of an intuitive perception of the

beautiful, must find a difficulty where to _insert_ this intuitive

perception. The beauty of any one object is generally composed

of several qualities and accessories--to which of these are we

to connect this intuition? And if to the whole assemblage of

them, then, as each of these qualities has been shown by its own

virtue to administer to the general effect, we shall be explaining

again by this new perception what has been already explained.

Select any notorious instance of the beautiful--say the swan.

How many qualities and accessories immediately occur to us as

intimately blended in our minds with the form and white plumage

of the bird! What were its arched neck and mantling wings if it

were not _living_? And how the calm and inoffensive, and somewhat

majestic life it leads, carries away our sympathies! Added to

which, the snow-white form of the swan is imaged in clear waters,

and is relieved by green foliage; and if the bird makes the river

more beautiful, the river, in return, reflects its serenity and

peacefulness upon the bird. Now all this we seem to see as we look

upon the swan. To which of these facts separately will you attach

this new intuition? And if you wait till all are assembled, the bird

is already beautiful.

We are all in the habit of _reasoning_ on the beautiful, of

defending our own tastes, and this just in proportion as the beauty

in question is of a high order. And why do we do this? Because,

just in proportion as the beauty is of an elevated character, does

it depend on some moral association. Every argument of this kind

will be found to consist of an analysis of the sentiment. Nor is

there anything derogatory, as some have supposed, in this analysis

of the sentiment; for we learn from it, at every step, that in the

same degree as men become more refined, more humane, more kind,

equitable, and pious, will the visible world become more richly

clad with beauty. We see here an admirable arrangement, whereby the

external world grows in beauty, as men grow in goodness.

We must now follow Mr Ruskin a step farther into the development

of his _Theoria_. All beauty, he tell us, _is such_, in its high

and only true character, because it is a type of one or more of

God's attributes. This, as we have shown, is to represent one class

of associated thought as absorbing and displacing all the rest.

We protest against this egregious exaggeration of a great and

sacred source of our emotions. With Mr Ruskin's own piety we can

have no quarrel; but we enter a firm and calm protest against a

falsification of our human nature, in obedience to one sentiment,

however sublime. No good can come of it--no good, we mean, to

religion itself. It is substantially the same error, though assuming

a very different garb, which the Puritans committed. They disgusted

men with religion, by introducing it into every law and custom, and

detail of human life. Mr Ruskin would commit the same error in

the department of taste, over which he would rule so despotically:

he is not content that the highest beauty shall be religious; he

will permit nothing to be beautiful, except as it partakes of a

religious character. But there is a vast region lying between the

"animal pleasantness" of his Æsthesis and the pious contemplation of

his Theoria. There is much between the human animal and the saint;

there are the domestic affections and the love they spring from,

and hopes, and regrets, and aspirations, and the hour of peace and

the hour of repose--in short, there is human life. From all human

life, as we have seen, come contributions to the sentiment of the

beautiful, quite as distinctly traced as the peculiar class on which

Mr Ruskin insists.

If any one descanting upon music should affirm, that, in the first

place, there was a certain animal pleasantness in harmony or melody,

or both, but that the real essence of music, that by which it truly

becomes music, was the perception in harmony or melody of types of

the Divine attributes, he would reason exactly in the same manner

on music as Mr Ruskin does on beauty. Nevertheless, although sacred

music is the highest, it is very plain that there is other music

than the sacred, and that all songs are not hymns.

Chapter v. of the present volume bears this title--_Of

Typical Beauty. First, of Infinity, or the type of the Divine

Incomprehensibility._--A boundless space will occur directly to

the reader as a type of the infinite; perhaps it should be rather

described as itself the infinite under one form. But Mr Ruskin finds

the infinite in everything. That idea which he justly describes

as the incomprehensible, and which is so profound and baffling a

mystery to the finite being, is supposed to be thrust upon the mind

on every occasion. Every instance of variety is made the type of the

infinite, as well as every indication of space. We remember that,

in the first volume of the _Modern Painters_, we were not a little

startled at being told that the distinguishing character of every

good artist was, that "he painted the infinite." Good or bad, we now

see that he could scarcely fail to paint the infinite: it must be by

some curious chance that the feat is not accomplished.

"Now, not only," writes Mr Ruskin, "is this expression of

infinity in distance most precious wherever we find it, however

solitary it may be, and however unassisted by other forms and

kinds of beauty; but it is of such value that no such other

forms will altogether recompense us for its loss; and much

as I dread the enunciation of anything that may seem like a

conventional rule, I have no hesitation in asserting that

no work of any art, in which this expression of infinity is

possible, can be perfect or supremely elevated without it; and

that, in proportion to its presence, _it will exalt and render

impressive even the most tame and trivial themes_. And I think

if there be any one grand division, by which it is at all

possible to set the productions of painting, so far as their

mere plan or system is concerned, on our right and left hands,

it is this of light and dark background, of heaven-light and

of object-light.... There is a spectral etching of Rembrandt,

a presentation of Christ in the Temple, where the figure of

a robed priest stands glaring by its gems out of the gloom,

holding a crosier. Behind it there is a subdued window-light

seen in the opening, between two columns, without which

the impressiveness of the whole subject would, I think, be

incalculably diminished. I cannot tell whether I am at present

allowing too much weight to my own fancies and predilections;

but, without so much escape into the outer air and open heaven

as this, I can take permanent pleasure in no picture.

"And I think I am supported in this feeling by the unanimous

practice, if not the confessed opinion, of all artists. The

painter of portrait _is unhappy without his conventional white

stroke under the sleeve_, or beside the arm-chair; the painter

of interiors feels like a caged bird unless he can throw a

window open, or set the door ajar; the landscapist dares not

lose himself in forest without a gleam of light under its

farthest branches, nor ventures out in rain unless he may

somewhere pierce to a better promise in the distance, or cling

to some closing gap of variable blue above."--(P. 39.)

But if an open window, or "that conventional white stroke under the

sleeve," is sufficient to indicate the Infinite, how few pictures

there must be in which it is not indicated! and how many "a tame

and trivial theme" must have been, by this indication, exalted and

rendered impressive! And yet it seems that some very celebrated

paintings want this open-window or conventional white stroke. The

Madonna della Sediola of Raphael is known over all Europe; some

print of it may be seen in every village; that virgin-mother, in her

antique chair, embracing her child with so sweet and maternal an

embrace, has found its way to the heart of every woman, Catholic or

Protestant. But unfortunately it has a dark background, and there

is no open window--nothing to typify infinity. To us it seemed that

there was "heaven's light" over the whole picture. Though there

is the chamber wall seen behind the chair, there is nothing to

intimate that the door or the window is closed. One might in charity

have imagined that the light came directly through an open door or

window. However, Mr Ruskin is inexorable. "Raphael," he says, "_in

his full_, betrayed the faith he had received from his father and

his master, and substituted for the radiant sky of the Madonna del

Cardellino the chamber wall of the Madonna della Sediola, and the

brown wainscot of the Baldacchino."

Of other modes in which the Infinite is represented, we have an

instance in "The Beauty of Curvature."

"The first of these is the curvature of lines and surfaces,

wherein it at first appears futile to insist upon any

resemblance or suggestion of infinity, since there is certainly,

in our ordinary contemplation of it, no sensation of the kind.

But I have repeated again and again that the ideas of beauty

are instinctive, and that it is only upon consideration, and

even then in doubtful and disputable way, that they appear in

their typical character; neither do I intend at all to insist

upon the particular meaning which they appear to myself to bear,

but merely on their actual and demonstrable agreeableness; so

that in the present case, which I assert positively, and have

no fear of being able to prove--that a curve of any kind is

more beautiful than a right line--I leave it to the reader to

accept or not, as he pleases, _that reason of its agreeableness

which is the only one that I can at all trace: namely, that

every curve divides itself infinitely by its changes of

direction_."--(P. 63.)

Our old friend Jacob Boehmen would have been delighted with this

Theoria. But we must pass on to other types. Chapter vi. treats _of

Unity, or the Type of the Divine Comprehensiveness_.

"Of the appearances of Unity, or of Unity itself, there are

several kinds, which it will be found hereafter convenient to

consider separately. Thus there is the unity of different and

separate things, subjected to one and the same influence, which

may be called Subjectional Unity; and this is the unity of the

clouds, as they are driven by the parallel winds, or as they

are ordered by the electric currents; this is the unity of the

sea waves; this, of the bending and undulation of the forest

masses; and in creatures capable of Will it is the Unity of

Will, or of Impulse. And there is Unity of Origin, which we may

call Original Unity, which is of things arising from one spring

or source, and speaking always of this their brotherhood; and

this in matter is the unity of the branches of the trees, and

of the petals and starry rays of flowers, and of the beams of

light; and in spiritual creatures it is their filial relation

to Him from whom they have their being. And there is Unity of

Sequence," &c.--

down another half page. Very little to be got here, we think. Let

us advance to the next chapter. This is entitled, _Of Repose, or the

Type of Divine Permanence_.

It will be admitted on all hands that nothing adds more frequently

to the charms of the visible object than the associated feeling of

repose. The hour of sunset is the hour of repose. Most beautiful

things are enhanced by some reflected feeling of this kind. But

surely one need not go farther than to human labour, and human

restlessness, anxiety, and passion, to understand the charm of

repose. Mr Ruskin carries us at once into the third heaven:--

"As opposed to passion, changefulness, or laborious exertion,

Repose is the especial and separating characteristic of the

eternal mind and power; it is the 'I am' of the Creator, opposed

to the 'I become' of all creatures; it is the sign alike of the

supreme knowledge which is incapable of surprise, the supreme

power which is incapable of labour, the supreme volition which

is incapable of change; it is the stillness of the beams of the

eternal chambers laid upon the variable waters of ministering

creatures."

We must proceed. Chapter viii. treats _Of Symmetry, or the Type

of Divine Justice_. Perhaps the nature of this chapter will be

sufficiently indicated to the reader, now somewhat informed of Mr

Ruskin's mode of thinking, by the title itself. At all events, we

shall pass on to the next chapter, ix.--_Of Purity, or the Type

of Divine Energy_. Here, the reader will perhaps expect to find

himself somewhat more at home. One type, at all events, of Divine

Purity has often been presented to his mind. Light has generally

been considered as the fittest emblem or manifestation of the Divine

Presence,

"That never but in unapproachëd light

Dwelt from eternity."

But if the reader has formed any such agreeable expectation he

will be disappointed. Mr Ruskin travels on no beaten track. He finds

some reasons, partly theological, partly gathered from his own

theory of the Beautiful, for discarding this ancient association of

Light with Purity. As the _Divine_ attributes are those which the

visible object typifies, and by no means the _human_, and as Purity,

which is "sinlessness," cannot, he thinks, be predicted of the

Divine nature, it follows that he cannot admit Light to be a type of

Purity. We quote the passage, as it will display the working of his

theory:--

"It may seem strange to many readers that I have not spoken

of purity in that sense in which it is most frequently used,

as a type of sinlessness. I do not deny that the frequent

metaphorical use of it in Scripture may have, and ought to have,

much influence on the sympathies with which we regard it; and

that probably the immediate agreeableness of it to most minds

arises far more from this source than from that to which I have

chosen to attribute it. But, in the first place, _if it be

indeed in the signs of Divine and not of human attributes that

beauty consists_, I see not how the idea of sin can be formed

with respect to the Deity; for it is the idea of a relation

borne by us to Him, and not in any way to be attached to His

abstract nature; while the Love, Mercifulness, and Justice of

God I have supposed to be symbolised by other qualities of

beauty: and I cannot trace any rational connection between them

and the idea of Spotlessness in matter, nor between this idea

nor any of the virtues which make up the righteousness of man,

except perhaps those of truth and openness, which have been

above spoken of as more expressed by the transparency than the

mere purity of matter. So that I conceive the use of the terms

purity, spotlessness, &c., on moral subjects, to be merely

metaphorical; and that it is rather that we illustrate these

virtues by the desirableness of material purity, than that we

desire material purity because it is illustrative of those

virtues. I repeat, then, that the only idea which I think can be

legitimately connected with purity of matter is this of vital

and energetic connection among its particles."

We have been compelled to quote some strange passages, of most

difficult and laborious perusal; but our task is drawing to an

end. The last of these types we have to mention is that _Of

Moderation, or the Type of Government by Law_. We suspect there are

many persons who have rapidly perused Mr Ruskin's works (probably

_skipping_ where the obscurity grew very thick) who would be very

much surprised, if they gave a closer attention to them, at the

strange conceits and absurdities which they had passed over without

examination. Indeed, his very loose and declamatory style, and the

habit of saying extravagant things, set all examination at defiance.

But let any one pause a moment on the last title we have quoted

from Mr Ruskin--let him read the chapter itself--let him reflect

that he has been told in it that "what we express by the terms

chasteness, refinement, and elegance," in any work of art, and more

particularly "that finish" so dear to the intelligent critic, owe

their attractiveness to being types of God's government by law!--we

think he will confess that never in any book, ancient or modern, did

he meet with an absurdity to outrival it.

We have seen why the curve in general is beautiful; we have here the

reason given us why one curve is more beautiful than another:--

"And herein we at last find the reason of that which has been so

often noted respecting the subtilty and almost invisibility of

natural curves and colours, and why it is that we look on those

lines as least beautiful which fall into wide and far license

of curvature, and as most beautiful which approach nearest (so

that the curvilinear character be distinctly asserted) to the

government of the right line, as in the pure and severe curves

of the draperies of the religious painters."

There is still the subject of "vital beauty" before us, but we shall

probably be excused from entering further into the development of

"Theoria." It must be quite clear by this time to our readers, that,

whatever there is in it really wise and intelligible, resolves

itself into one branch of that general theory of association of

ideas, of which Alison and others have treated. But we are now

in a condition to understand more clearly that peculiar style of

language which startled us so much in the first volume of the

_Modern Painters_. There we frequently heard of the Divine mission

of the artist, of the religious office of the painter, and how

Mr Turner was delivering God's message to man. What seemed an

oratorical climax, much too frequently repeated, proves to be a

logical sequence of his theoretical principles. All true beauty is

religious; therefore all true art, which is the reproduction of the

beautiful, must be religious also. Every picture gallery is a sort

of temple, every great painter a sort of prophet. If Mr Ruskin is

conscious that he never admires anything beautiful in nature or art,

without a reference to some attribute of God, or some sentiment

of piety, he may be a very exalted person, but he is no type of

humanity. If he asserts this, we must be sufficiently courteous

to believe him; we must not suspect that he is hardly candid with

us, or with himself; but we shall certainly not accept him as a

representative of the _genus homo_. He finds "sermons in stones,"

and sermons always; "books in the running brooks," and always books

of divinity. Other men not deficient in reflection or piety do not

find it thus. Let us hear the poet who, more than any other, has

made a religion of the beauty of nature. Wordsworth, in a passage

familiar to every one of his readers, runs his hand, as it were,

over all the chords of the lyre. He finds other sources of the

beautiful not unworthy his song, besides that high contemplative

piety which he introduces as a noble and fit climax. He recalls the

first ardours of his youth, when the beautiful object itself of

nature seemed to him all, in all:--

"I cannot paint

What then I was. The sounding cataract

Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock,

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood.

Their colours and their forms were thus to me

An appetite; a feeling and a love

That had no need of a remoter charm

By thought supplied, nor any interest

Unborrowed from the eye. That time is past,

And all its aching joys are now no more,

And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this

Faint I, nor mourn, nor murmur; other gifts

Have followed. I have learned

To look on nature not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes

_The still sad music of humanity,

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power

To chasten and subdue_. And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

And the round ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man."

Our poet sounds all the chords. He does not muffle any; he honours

Nature in her own simple loveliness, and in the beauty she wins from

the human heart, as well as when she is informed with that sublime

spirit

"that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things."

Sit down, by all means, amongst the fern and the wild-flowers, and

look out upon the blue hills, or near you at the flowing brook, and

thank God, the giver of all this beauty. But what manner of good

will you do by endeavouring to persuade yourself that these objects

_are_ only beautiful because you give thanks for them?--for to this

strange logical inversion will you find yourself reduced. And surely

you learned to esteem and love this benevolence itself, first as

a human attribute, before you became cognisant of it as a Divine

attribute. What other course can the mind take but to travel through

humanity up to God?

There is much more of metaphysics in the volume before us; there

is, in particular, an elaborate investigation of the faculty of

imagination; but we have no inducement to proceed further with

Mr Ruskin in these psychological inquiries. We have given some

attention to his theory of the Beautiful, because it lay at the

basis of a series of critical works which, partly from their

boldness, and partly from the talent of a certain kind which

is manifestly displayed in them, have attained to considerable

popularity. But we have not the same object for prolonging our

examination into his theory of the Imaginative Faculty. "We say

it advisedly," (as Mr Ruskin always adds when he is asserting

anything particularly rash,) we say it advisedly, and with no

rashness whatever, that though our author is a man of great natural

ability, and enunciates boldly many an independent isolated truth,

yet of the spirit of philosophy he is utterly destitute. The

calm, patient, prolonged thinking, which Dugald Stewart somewhere

describes as the one essential characteristic of the successful

student of philosophy, he knows nothing of. He wastes his ingenuity

in making knots where others had long since untied them. He rushes

at a definition, makes a parade of classification; but for any

great and wide generalisation he has no appreciation whatever. He

appears to have no taste, but rather an antipathy for it; when it

lies in his way he avoids it. On this subject of the Imaginative

Faculty he writes and he raves, defines and poetises by turns; makes

laborious distinctions where there is no essential difference; has

his "Imagination Associative," and his "Imagination Penetrative;"

and will not, or cannot, see those broad general principles which

with most educated men have become familiar truths, or truisms. But

what clear thinking can we expect of a writer who thus describes his

"Imagination Penetrative?"--

"It may seem to the reader that I am incorrect in calling this

penetrating possession-taking faculty Imagination. Be it so:

the name is of little consequence; the Faculty itself, called

by what name it will, I insist upon as the highest intellectual

power of man. _There is no reasoning in it_; it works not by

algebra, nor by integral calculus; it is a piercing Pholas-like

mind's tongue, that works and tastes into the very rock-heart.

No matter what be the subject submitted to it, substance or

spirit--all is alike divided asunder, joint and marrow, whatever

utmost truth, life, principle, it has laid bare; and that which

has no truth, life, nor principle, dissipated into its original

smoke at a touch. The whispers at men's ears it lifts into

visible angels. Vials that have lain sealed in the deep sea a

thousand years it unseals, and brings out of them Genii."--(P.

156.)

With such a wonder-working faculty man ought to do much. Indeed,

unless it has been asleep all this time, it is difficult to

understand why there should remain anything for him to do.

Surveying Mr Ruskin's works on art, with the knowledge we have here

acquired of his intellectual character and philosophical theory, we

are at no loss to comprehend that mixture of shrewd and penetrating

remark, of bold and well-placed censure, and of utter nonsense in

the shape of general principles, with which they abound. In his

_Seven Lamps of Architecture_, which is a very entertaining book,

and in his _Stones of Venice_, the reader will find many single

observations which will delight him, as well by their justice, as by

the zeal and vigour with which they are expressed. But from neither

work will he derive any satisfaction if he wishes to carry away with

him broad general views on architecture.

There is no subject Mr Ruskin has treated more largely than that

of architectural ornament; there is none on which he has said more

good things, or delivered juster criticisms; and there is none on

which he has uttered more indisputable nonsense. Every reader of

taste will be grateful to Mr Ruskin if he can pull down from St

Paul's Cathedral, or wherever else they are to be found, those

wreaths or festoons of carved flowers--"that mass of all manner

of fruit and flowers tied heavily into a long bunch, thickest in

the middle, and pinned up by both ends against a dead wall." Urns

with pocket-handkerchiefs upon them, or a sturdy thick flame for

ever issuing from the top, he will receive our thanks for utterly

demolishing. But when Mr Ruskin expounds his principles--and he

always has principles to expound--when he lays down rules for the

government of our taste in this matter, he soon involves us in

hopeless bewilderment. Our ornaments, he tells us, are to be taken

from the works of nature, not of man; and, from some passages of his

writings, we should infer that Mr Ruskin would cover the walls of

our public buildings with representations botanical and geological.

But in this we must be mistaken. At all events, nothing is to be

admitted that is taken from the works of man.

"I conclude, then, with the reader's leave, that all ornament is

base which takes for its subject human work; that it is utterly

base--painful to every rightly toned mind, without, perhaps,

immediate sense of the reason, but for a reason palpable enough

when we do think of it. For to carve our own work, and set it up

for admiration, is a miserable self-complacency, a contentment

in our wretched doings, when we might have been looking at God's

doings."

After this, can we venture to admire the building itself, which is,

of necessity, man's own "wretched doing?"

Perplexed by his own rules, he will sometimes break loose from the

entanglement in some such strange manner as this:--"I believe the

right question to ask, with respect to all ornament, is simply this:

Was it done with enjoyment--_was the carver happy while he was about

it_?" Happy art! where the workman is sure to give happiness if

he is but happy at his work. Would that the same could be said of

literature!

How far _colour_ should be introduced into architecture is a

question with men of taste, and a question which of late has been

more than usually discussed. Mr Ruskin leans to the introduction

of colour. His taste may be correct; but the fanciful reasoning

which he brings to bear upon the subject will assist no one else in

forming his own taste. Because there is no connection "between the

spots of an animal's skin and its anatomical system," he lays it

down as the first great principle which is to guide us in the use of

colour in architecture--

"That it be _visibly independent of form_. Never paint a column

with vertical lines, but always cross it. Never give separate

mouldings separate colours," &c. "In certain places," he

continues, "you may run your two systems closer, and here and

there let them be parallel for a note or two, but see that the

colours and the forms coincide only as two orders of mouldings

do; the same for an instant, but each holding its own course. So

single members may sometimes have single colours; _as a bird's

head is sometimes of one colour, and its shoulders another, you

may make your capital one colour, and your shaft another_; but,

in general, the best place for colour is on broad surfaces, not

on the points of interest in form. _An animal is mottled on its

breast and back, and rarely on its paws and about its eyes_; so

put your variegation boldly on the flat wall and broad shaft,

but be shy of it on the capital and moulding."--(_Lamps of

Architecture_, p. 127.)

We do not quite see what we have to do at all with the "anatomical

system" of the animal, which is kept out of sight; but, in general,

we apprehend there is, both in the animal and vegetable kingdom,

considerable harmony betwixt colour and external form. Such

fantastic reasoning as this, it is evident, will do little towards

establishing that one standard of taste, or that "one school of

architecture," which Mr Ruskin so strenuously insists upon. All

architects are to resign their individual tastes and predilections,

and enrol themselves in one school, which shall adopt one style. We

need not say that the very first question--what that style should

be, Greek or Gothic--would never be decided. Mr Ruskin decides it

in favour of the "earliest English decorated Gothic;" but seems,

in this case, to suspect that his decision will not carry us far

towards unanimity. The scheme is utterly impossible; but he does his

duty, he tells us, by proposing the impossibility.

As a climax to his inconsistency and his abnormal ways of thinking,

he concludes his _Seven Lamps of Architecture_ with a most ominous

paragraph, implying that the time is at hand when no architecture of

any kind will be wanted: man and his works will be both swept away

from the face of the earth. How, with this impression on his mind,

could he have the heart to tell us to build for posterity? Will it

be a commentary on the Apocalypse that we shall next receive from

the pen of Mr Ruskin?

PORTUGUESE POLITICS.

The dramatic and singular revolution of which Portugal has recently

been the theatre, the strange fluctuations and ultimate success

of Marshal Saldanha's insurrection, the narrow escape of Donna

Maria from at least a temporary expulsion from her dominions, have

attracted in this country more attention than is usually bestowed

upon the oft-recurring convulsions of the Peninsula. Busy as the

present year has been, and abounding in events of exciting interest

nearer home, the English public has yet found time to deplore the

anarchy to which Portugal is a prey, and to marvel once more, as it

many times before has marvelled, at the tardy realisation of those

brilliant promises of order, prosperity, and good government, so

long held out to the two Peninsular nations by the promoters of the

Quadruple Alliance. The statesmen who, for nearly a score of years,

have assiduously guided Portugal and Spain in the seductive paths

of modern Liberalism, can hardly feel much gratification at the

results of their well-intended but most unprosperous endeavours.

It is difficult to imagine them contemplating with pride and

exultation, or even without a certain degree of self-reproach, the

fruits of their officious exertions. Repudiating partisan views of

Peninsular politics, putting persons entirely out of the question,

declaring our absolute indifference as to who occupies the thrones

of Spain and Portugal, so long as those countries are well-governed,

casting no imputations upon the motives of those foreign governments

and statesmen who were chiefly instrumental in bringing about the

present state of things south of the Pyrenees, we would look only to

facts, and crave an honest answer to a plain question. The question

is this: After the lapse of seventeen years, what is the condition

of the two nations upon which have been conferred, at grievous

expense of blood and treasure, the much vaunted blessings of rulers

nominally Liberal, and professedly patriotic? For the present we

will confine this inquiry to Portugal, for the reason that the War

of Succession terminated in that country when it was but beginning

in the neighbouring kingdom, since which time the vanquished party,

unlike the Carlists in Spain, have uniformly abstained--with the

single exception of the rising in 1846-7--from armed aggression, and

have observed a patient and peaceful policy. So that the Portuguese

Liberals have had seventeen years' fair trial of their governing

capacity, and cannot allege that their efforts for their country's

welfare have been impeded or retarded by the acts of that party whom

they denounced as incapable of achieving it,--however they may have

been neutralised by dissensions and anarchy in their own ranks.