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this electrifying source of revivifying the too slumbering spirits. We would be able to walk "the great circle, and be still at home." We would create every gradation of light, and every gradation of darkness, to suit or to make every humour of the mind. We would have gardens such as few but Aladdin saw; and who less than a genie, or most consummate of geniuses, should complete our last unfinished window?--unfinished; for, with all this, it would still be a blessing to have something to do. And a pleasant thing to be the lord, master, emperor, in an architectural world of acres. Who does not love the lordly spirit of Wolsey? but we would go beyond him --would, as well as the imperial palace, have the poet's house, the painter's house; and in their works, all their works (we are becoming as ambitious as Alnaschar), be in daily familiarity with the great and wise of every age. Our libraries-we speak plurally, in the magnificence of the great ideaour picture-galleries, statue-galleries, should tax the skill of purveyors and architectural competitors without end. None that have ever yet been built or supplied with treasures would suffice, for they are for cramped positions. We would have no lack of space, and would not mind building a room for a single work. The idea of magic to construct, only shows the real want of man. Magic is but a prenomen to genius. Did we learn all this extravagance from our early story-books of princes and princesses, and their fairy palaces-from Arabian tales, and, in later time, from the enchantments of Boyardo and Ariosto? Whatever were the sources-though it should turn out to have been but an old nurse--we are heartily thankful for these variable, fanciful treasures; and, had we the riches, in reality would add a further extravagance of cost and fancy-a mausoleum to her bewitching bones. We remember thinking Menelaus, as pictured in the Agamemnon of Eschylus, happy even in his grief for the loss of Helen, in that he paced his galleries gazing upon her statues.

"Mu ritorniamo al nostro usato canto."

For more practical views and uses, we refer those who would build and decorate houses of pretensions and taste

to the good sense contained in Mr. Eastlake's Reply.

It seems to be scarcely a fable that beauty (as often personified in romantic poetry) is hid in an enchanted castle that few can reach; and those fortunate few either see but the skirts of her robe, as she majestically passes from corridor to corridor, or are so bewildered with the sight, that, having worshipped with downward eyes, they can give but a poor account of that "vultus nimium lubricus aspici ;" while many of the adventurers are at once overcome by the monsters of error that in every shape sentinel the bridge and turret; while others, scarcely on the verge of the precincts, gather a few flowers, and come away under the delusion that they have entered the true garden of all enchantment. Some are fascinated with the "false Duennas" that assume a shape of beauty, and lead them far away, to their utter bewilderment; and these never return to the real pursuit. There are who meet with fellow adventurers, accompany each other but a short way, dispute about the route they should take, breathe a combative atmosphere in the byepaths of error, and had rather slaughter each other than continue the adventure. Such seems to have been the thought of Mr. Eastlake, in the commencement of his fragment "On the Philosophy of the Fine Arts," which he has clothed in more sober prose becoming the combatant for Truth--for Truth and Beauty are one. He has been out upon the adventure--yet scarcely thinks himself safe from the weapons of combatants, old or new, the discomfited or the aspirant, and expects little credit will be given to the discoveries he professes to have made. "To hint at theories of taste," he asserts, "is to invite opposition. The reader who gives his attention to them at all is eager to be an objector; he sets out by fancying that his liberty is in danger, and instinctively prepares to resist the supposed aggression." We would by no means break a lance with one so skilful, and of such proofarmour, as that which this accomplished combatant wears; but we may venture to gather up the fragments of the broken lances that strew the field, and patch them up for other

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hands-nay, offer them, with the humility of a runner in the field, to Mr. Eastlake himself, who will, on good occasion, show of what wood and metal they are made. To carry on this idea of enchantment, it is possible that Mr. Eastlake may resemble the happy prince in search of the ninth statue. Eight had been set up (we are not quite sure of the number): there they stood on their pedestals of finest marble, but they were cold to the touch. The prince in the tale found the ninth he was commanded to discover to be a living beauty. If we mistake not, Mr. Eastlake considers beauty but the type of life. "Life is pre-eminently an element of beauty: the word itself presents at once to the imagination the ideas of movement, of energy, and of bloom: the fact itself constitutes the greatest and most admirable attribute of nature." Again, establishing the curve, though not the precise curve of Hogarth, as the line of beauty, "a variously undulating curve may therefore be proposed as the visible type of life: such a form is constantly found in nature, as the indication and concomitant of life itself. It was this which Hogarth detected in various examples, without tracing it to its source. His illustrations are often excellent, but the type itself he adopted was singularly unfortunate. His line of beauty" constantly repeats itself, and is therefore devoid of variety or elasticity -the never-failing accompaniments of perfect vitality. Variation, whether of line or of other elements, has on all hands been admitted as an ingredient of beauty. Mr. Burke's illustration of the dove is good: "Here we see the head increasing insensibly to the middle, from whence it lessens gradually until it mixes with the neck; the neck loses itself in a larger swell, which continues to the middle of the body, when the whole decreases again to the tail. The tail takes a new direction, but it soon varies its new course; it blends again with the other parts, and the line is perpetually changing above, below, upon every side." Burke adds to this the other element-softness-which, we suspect, Mr. Eastlake will admit only in a minor degree; for Mr. Burke considers not only softness, but a

certain degree of weakness-a delicacy almost amounting to it, at least—as necessary to the idea of beauty; and they would ill agree with the perfect "vitality" of our author.

But simply as to lines, we are inclined to believe with Burke, that though the varied line is that in which beauty is found most complete, there is no particular line which constitutes it. Mr. Eastlake, in referring that line to its resemblance to life, or to the antagonistic principles that make and destroy life, if we mistake not, cautiously abstracts this line of beauty from ideas of association; whereas his whole argument, in form and matter, appears to be one of association only. But such an association of life may be, if it existed, often destructive of that impression which a beautiful object is intended to make. Lassitude, death itself, may be beautiful in form. When Virgil compares Euryalus dying to the flower cut down

to the poppies drooping, weighed down with rain-he has in his eye objects beautiful in themselves; rather than life, they express Burke's idea of a certain weakness and faintness. Inque humeros cervix collapsa recumbit

Purpureus veluti cam flos succisus aratro,
Languescit moriens; lassove papavera collo,
Demisere caput, pluviâ cùm fortè gravantur.

Perhaps Mr. Eastlake may reply, that the simile expresses privation of life, and therefore shows the matter capable of receiving it; but this appears further to involve the necessity of association, which denies the beauty of the line per se. The idea of privation is a sentiment; but the question is, if there be a line of beauty independent of sentiment or association. Let us attempt to answer it by another

the opposite. Is there a line of ugliness? We think there is not: if there be, what line? certainly not a straight line (we must not here refer any to an object). Perhaps we may not be very wrong in saying that a line per se is one of" indifference"-similar to that state of the mind before, as Burke says, we receive either pain or pleasure. May we not further say that, very strictly speaking, there is no one line but the straight-that every figure is made up of its inclinations, which are other or equivalent to other lines? If there be any truth

in this, the "line of beauty" (here adopting for a moment the word) is not a single but a complicated thing the straight line has no parts, until we make them by divisions: the curved line has parts by its deviations, which constitute a kind of division, without the abruptness which the divided straight line would have. The organ of sight requires a moving instinct that instinct is curiosity; but that is of an inquiring, progressive nature. Without some variety, therefore, in the object, it would die ere it could give birth to pleasurable sensation. It is too suddenly set to rest by a straight line per se; but when that line is combined with others, the sense is kept awake, is exercised; and it is from the exercise of a sense that pleasure arises. Too sudden divisions, by multiplying one object, distract; but in the curve, in the very variety, the unity of the object is preserved. A real cause may possibly here exist for what we will still call a "line of beauty," without referring it at all to so complicated a machinery of thought as that of life, with its antagonistic principle, with which it continually contends. This is, doubt less, physically and philosophically true; but it is altogether a thought which gives beauty to the idea of the line after we have contemplated it not before. The line may rather give rise to and illustrate the philosophical thought, than be made what it is by that thought, which it altogether precedes.

Mr. Eastlake objects to Hogarth's line that it repeats itself. We are not quite satisfied of the validity of this objection: for we find a certain repetition the constant rule of nature -a repetition not of identity, but similarity-an imitation rather, which constitutes symmetry-which, again, is a kind of correspondence, or, to clothe it with a moral term, a sympathy. To this symmetry, when a freedom of action is given, it but makes a greater variety; for we never lose sight of the symmetry, the balancing quantity always remaining. Thus, though a man move one arm up, the other down, the balance of the symmetry is not destroyed by the motion. We know that the alternation may take place,—that the arms

may shift positions: we never lose sight of the correspondence, of the similarity. Every exterior swell in the limb has its corresponding interior swell. The enlargement by a joint is not onesided. Every curve has its opposite. The face exemplifies it, which, as it is the most beautiful part, has the least flexible power of shifting its symmetry. Mark how the oval is completed by the height of the forehead and the declination of the chin. In nature it will be mostly found that, when one line rises, there is an opposite that falls,-that where a line contracts to a point, its opposite contracts to meet it. And this is the pervading principle of the curve carried out, and is most complete when the circle or oval is formed, for then the symmetrical or sympathetic line is perfected. Let us see how nature paints herself. Let us suppose the lake a mirror, as her material answering to our canvas. We see this repetition varied only by a faintness or law of perspective, which, to the eye, in some degree changes the line from its perfect exactness. As we see, we admire. There is no one insensible to this beauty. Nay, we would go further, and say that the artist cannot at random draw any continuous set of lines that, as forms, shall be ugly, if he but apply to them this imitation principle of nature, which, as it is descriptive of the thing, may be termed the principle of Reflexion, and which we rather choose, because it seems to include two natural propensities not very unlike each other-imitation and sympathy. We say "not very unlike each other," because they strictly resemble each other only in humanity. The brute may have the one-imitation, as in the monkey; but he imitates without sympathy, therefore we love him not: and it is this lack which makes his imitation mostly mischievous, for evil acts are the more visible,-the good discernible by feeling, by sympathy. The sympathy of the symmetry of nature is its sentiment, and may therefore be at least an ingredient in beauty, and thus exhibited in lines. Lines similar, that approach or recede from each other, do so by means of their similarity in a kind of relation to each other; and by this they acquire a purpose, a meaning, as it were,

a sentient feeling, or, as we may say, a sympathy. A line of itself is nothing-it has no vital being, no form, until it bear relation to some other, or, by its combination with another, becomes a figure; and because it is a figure, it pleases, and we in some degree sympathize with it, as a part, with ourselves, of things created. Thus the curve, or Hogarth's line of beauty, which we assume to be made up of straight lines, whose joining is imperceptible, is the first designated figure of such lines, and in it we first recognise form, the first essential of organic being and beauty. It is like order dawning through chaos,-life not out of death, but out of that unimaginable nothing,before death was or could be. It is the Aphrodite discarding the unmeaning froth and foam, and rising altogether admirable. Now again as to Hogarth's line-carried but a little further, it would be strictly according to this principle of Reflexion. Divide it by an imaginary line, and you see it as in a mirror. If the serpentine line, then, as Hogarth called it, be a line of beauty, let us see in what that line is rendered most beautiful. Let us take the caduceus of Hermes as the mystic symbol of beauty. Here we see strictly the principle of reflexion (for it matters not whether lateral or perpendicular), and here, as a separation, how beautiful is the straight line? Take away either serpent, where is the beauty? We have a natural love of order as well as of variety,—of balancing one thing with another. If we remember, Hogarth falls into the error of making it a principle of art to shun regularity, and recommends a practice, which painters of architectural subjects have, as we think, erroneously adopted, of taking their views away from a central point. The principle of reflexion of nature would imply that they lose thereby more than they gain, for they lose that complete order which was in the design of the architect, and which, by not disturbing, so aids the sense of repose a source of greatness as well as beauty. But to return to this Reflexion. It has its resemblance to Memory, which gives pleasure simply by reflecting the past by imitating through sympathy. We are pleased with similitudes, when placed in oppo

sition. They are, like the two sides of Apollo's lyre, divided only by lines that, through them, discourse music, harmony or agreement making one out of many things. The painter knows well that he requires his balancing lines to bring all intermediate parts into the idea of an embracing whole. If any of Hogarth's lines, as given examples in his plate (though he gives the preference to one), had its corresponding, as in the caduceus, it would at once become a beautiful line.

We took occasion some years ago, in a paper in Maga, to notice the practice, according to this principle of nature, followed by perhaps as great a master of composition (of lines) as any that art has produced-Gaspar Poussin; and we exemplified the rule by reference to some of his pictures; and we remarked that, by this his practice, he made more available for variety and uniformity the space of his canvas. We have since, with much attention, noticed the lines of nature, when most beautiful,-have watched the clouds, how they have arched valleys, and promoted a correspondence of sentiment, and how in woods, the receding and approaching lines of circles have made the meetings and the hollows, which both make space, and are agreeable. We are not setting forth our line of beauty. We would rather suggest that it is possible the idea of the wave or curve, right in itself, may be carried to a still greater completeness. It may, in fact, only be a part of beauty, which must scarcely be limited to a single line, or rather figure. We should have hesitated, lest we should seem to have hazarded a crude theory, if it had appeared to be entirely in opposition to Mr. Eastlake. We think, upon the whole view, it rather advances his, and reconciles it as a part only with that of Burke and Hogarth. The thing stated may be true, when the reason given for it may be untrue, or at least insufficient. The notion of life and its antagonism is true; but its application may be more ingenious, and in the nature of a similitude, than an absolute foundation; for many similar referable correspondences of ideas may be given, as the range of similitude is large. But the objection

to them is that they are mental, and will not, therefore, apply unconditionally in a theory from which we set out by abstracting association.

Nor can we go so far as to carry this idea of "life" into the theory of colour.

"Colour,” says Mr. Eastlake, "viewed under the ordinary effects of light and atmosphere, may be considered according to the same general principles. It is first to be observed that, like forms, they may or may not be characteristic, and that no object would be improved by means, however intrinsically agreeable, which are never its own. Next, as to the

idea of life: creatures exhibit the hues with which nature has clothed them in greatest brilliancy during the period of consummate life and health. Bright red, which, by universal consent, represents the idea of life (perhaps from its identity with the hue of the blood), is the colour which most stimulates the organs of sight."

We doubt if any one colour, as we doubted if any one line, is the colour of beauty and as to red representing life, possibly by resemblance to blood, speaking to the eye of Art, we should not say that redness is the best exponent of the beautiful flesh of human life. If so, it is most seen in earliest infancy, when it positively displeases. The young bird and young mouse create even disgust from this too visi

ble blood-redness.

What is beauty? is quite another question from that of whether there is a line of beauty. Lines may be pleasing or displeasing, in a degree independent of the objects in which they happen to be. Lines that correspond in symmetry, as well as colours which agree in harmony, may exist in disagreeable objects, leaving yet the question of beauty to be answered; though beauty, whatever it is, may require this correspondence of parts, this order, this sympathy in symmetry.

Burke has separated the sublime from the beautiful. Mr. Eastlake has, we suppose intentionally, with a view to his ulterior object, in this fragment omitted any such distinction. He may be the more judicious in this, as Burke admits ugliness into his Sublime.

It has been supposed that the an

cient artists studied the forms of inferior animals for the purpose of embellishing the human. The bull and lion have been recognised in the heads of Jupiter and Hercules. Mr. Eastlake lays stress upon the necessity in avoiding, in representing the human, every characteristic of the brute; and quotes Sir Charles Bell, who says, "I hold it to be an inevitable consequence of such a comparison, that they should discover that the perfection of the human form was to be attained by avoiding what was characteristic of the inferior animals, and increasing the proportions of those features which belong to man."

This is doubtless well put; but there is an extraordinary fact that seems to remove this characteristic peculiarity from the idea of beauty, however it may add it to the idea of perfection. Man is the only risible animal risibility may be said, therefore, to be his distinguishing mark. If so, far from attributing any beauty to it, even when we admit its agreeability, we deny its beauty, we even see in it distortion. Painters universally avoid representing it. They prefer the

“Santo, onesto, e grave ciglio." Some have thought the smile, so successfully rendered by Correggio, the letting down of beauty into an inferior

grace.

sum

of the view

Perhaps the taken by Mr. Eastlake may be best shown by a quotation :

"We have now briefly considered the principal æsthetic attributes of the organic and inorganic world. We have traced the influence of two leading principles of beauty-the visible evidence of dence of the higher character of life. character in form, and the visible eviWe have endeavoured to separate these from other auxiliary sources of agreeable impressions-such as the effect of colours, and the influences derived from the memory of the other senses. Lastly, all these elements have been kept independent of accidental and remote associations, since a reference to such sources of interest could only serve to complicate the question; and render the interpretation of nature less possible.

"A third criterion remains; it is applicable to human beings, and to them only. Human beauty is then most complete, when it not only conforms to the arche

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