Jack Solid is a man of much reading, who utters nothing but quotations; but having been, I suppose, too confident of his memory, he has for some time neglected his books, and his stock grows every day more scanty. Mr. Solid has found an opportunity every night to repeat, from Hudibras.

Doubtless the pleasure is as great
Of being cheated, as to cheat;

and from Waller.

this imitation being merely mechanical, in which the slowest intellect is always sure to succeed best; for the painter of genius cannot stoop to drudgery, in which the understanding has no part; and what pretence has the art to claim kindred with poetry, but by its powers over the imagination? To this power the painter of genius directs his aim; in this sense he studies nature, and often arrives at his end, even by being unnatural in the confined sense of the word.

The grand style of painting requires this minute attention to be carefully avoided, and must be kept as separate from it as the style of Poets lose half the praise they would have got, Were it but known what they discretely blot. poetry from that of history. Poetical ornaments destroy that air of truth and plainness Dick Misty is a man of deep research, and which ought to characterise history; but the forcible penetration. Others are content with very being of poetry consists in departing superficial appearances: but Dick holds, that from this plain narration, and adopting every there is no effect without a cause, and values ornament that will warm the imagination. To himself upon his power of explaining the diffi- desire to see the excellencies of each style culty, and displaying the abstruse. Upon a dis- united, to mingle the Dutch with the Italian pute among us, which of two young strangers school, is to join contrarieties which cannot was more beautiful, "You," says Mr. Misty, subsist together, and which destroy the efficaturning to me, "like Amaranthia better than cy of each other. The Italian attends only Chloris. I do not wonder at the preference, to the invariable, the great and general ideas for the cause is evident; there is in man a per- which are fixed and inherent in universal naception of harmony, and a sensibility of per- ture; the Dutch, on the contrary, to literal fection, which touches the finer fibres of the truth, and a minute exactness in the detail, as mental texture; and before reason can de- I may say of nature modified by accident. scend from her throne, to pass her sentence The attention to these petty peculiarities is upon the things compared, drives us towards is the very cause of this naturalness, so much the object proportioned to our faculties, by an admired in the Dutch pictures, which, if we impulse gentle, yet irresistible; for the har- suppose it to be a beauty, is certainly of a monic system of the universe, and the recipro-lower order, which ought to give place to a cal magnetism of similar natures, are always operating towards conformity and union; nor can the powers of the soul cease, from agitation, till they find something on which they can repose." To this nothing was opposed; and Amaranthia was acknowledged to excel Chloris.

Of the rest you may expect an account from,
Sir, yours,

ROBIN SPRITELY.

No. 79.] SATURDAY, OCT. 20, 1759.

TO THE IDLER.

SIR, YOUR acceptance of a former letter on painting, gives me encouragement to offer a few more sketches on the same subject.

beauty of a superior kind, since one cannot be obtained but by departing from the other.

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

If this opinion should be thought one of the wild extravagancies of enthusiasm, I shall only say, that those who censure it are not conversant in the works of the great masters. It is very difficult to determine the exact degree of enthusiasm that the arts of painting and poeAmongst the painters and the writers on try may admit. There may perhaps be too painting, there is one maxim universally ad- great an indulgence, as well as too great a remitted, and continually inculcated. Imitate straint of imagination; and if the one pronature is the invariable rule; but I know none duces incoherent monsters, the other produwho have explained in what manner this rule ces what is full as bad, lifeless insipidity. is to be understood; the consequence of which An intimate knowledge of the passions, and is, that every one takes it in the most obvious good sense, but not common sense, must at sense, that objects are represented naturally last determine its limits. It has been thought, when they have such relief that they seem real. and I believe with reason, that Michael Angelo It may appear strange, perhaps, to hear this sometimes transgressed those limits, and I sense of the rule disputed; but it must be con- think I have seen figures of him of which it sidered, that, if the excellence of a painter was very difficult to determine whether they consisted only in this kind of imitation, paint- were in the highest degree sublime or exing must lose its rank, and be no longer con-tremely ridiculous. Such faults may be said sidered as a liberal art, and sister to poetry, to be the ebullitions of genius; but at least

he had this merit, that he never was insipid,
and whatever passion his works may excite,
they will always escape contempt.
What I have had under consideration is the
sublimest style, particularly that of Michael
Angelo, the Homer of painting. Other kinds
may admit of this naturalness, which of the
lowest kind is the chief merit; but in painting,
as in poetry, the highest style has the least of

common nature.

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

No. 80.] SATURDAY, OCT. 27, 1759.

THAT every day has its pains and sorrows is universally experienced, and almost universally confessed; but let us not attend only to mournful truths; if we look impartially about us, we shall find that every day has likewise its pleasures and its joys.

its fabours, than whole shops of silk busy the fancy.

But happiness is nothing if it is not known, and very little if it is not envied. Before the day of departure a week is always appropriated to the payment and reception of ceremonial visits, at which nothing can be mentioned but the delights of London. The lady who is hastening to the scene of action, flutters her wings, displays her prospect of felicity, tells how she grudges every moment of delay, and, in the presence of those whom she knows condemned to stay at home, is sure to wonder by what arts life can be made supportable through a winter in the country, and to tell how often, amidst the ecstacies of an opera, she shall pity those friends whom she has left behind. Her hope of giving pain is seldom disappointed; the affected indifference of one, the faint congratulations of another, the wishes of some openly confessed, and the silent dejection of the rest, all exalt her opinion of her own superiority.

But, however we may labour for our own deception, truth, though unwelcome, will sometimes intrude upon the mind. They who have already enjoyed the crowds and noise of the great city, know that their desire to return is little more than the restlessness of a vacant mind, that they are not so much led by hope as driven by disgust, and wish rather to leave the country than to see the town. There is commonly in every coach a passenger enwrapped in silent expectation, whose joy is more sincere, and whose hopes are more ea alted. The virgin whom the last summer released from her governess, and who is now going between her mother and her aunt to try the fortune of her wit and beauty, suspects no fallacy in the gay representation. She believes herself passing into another world, and images London as an Elysian region, where every hour has its proper pleasure, where nothing is seen but the blaze of wealth, and nothing heard but merriment and flattery; where the morning always rises on a show, and the evening closes on a ball; where the eyes are used only to sparkle, and the feet only to dance.

The time is now come when the town is again beginning to be full, and the rusticated beauty sees an end of her banishment. Those whom the tyranny of fashion had condemned to pass the summer among shades and brooks, are now preparing to return to plays, balls, and assemblies, with health restored by retire-hears them as they heard their predecessors, ment, and spirits kindled by expectation.

Her aunt and her mother amuse themselves on the road, with telling her of dangers to be dreaded, and cautions to be observed. She

with incredulity or contempt. She sees that they have ventured and escaped; and one of the pleasures which she promises herself is, to detect their falsehoods, and be freed from their admonitions.

Many a mind, which has languished some months without emotion or desire, now feels a sudden renovation of its faculties. It was long ago observed by Pythagoras, that ability and necessity dwell near each other. She We are inclined to believe those whom we that wandered in the garden without sense of do not know, because they have never deceivits fragrance, and lay day after day stretched ed us. The fair adventurer may perhaps lisupon a couch behind a green curtain, unwill-ten to the Idler, whom she cannot suspect of ing to wake and unable to sleep, now summons her thoughts to consider which of her last year's clothes shall be seen again, and to anticipate the raptures of a new suit; the day and the night are now filled with occupation; the laces, which were too fine to be worn among rustics, are taken from the boxes, and reviewed, and the eye is no sooner closed after |

rivalry or malice; yet he scarcely expects to be credited when he tells her, that her expectations will likewise end in disappointment.

The uniform necessities of human nature produce in a great measure uniformity of life, and for part of the day make one place like another; to dress and undress, to eat and to sleep, are the same in London as in the coun

"Many years and ages are supposed to have been thus passed in plenty and security; when, at last, a new race of men entered our country from the great ocean. They inclosed themselves in habitations of stene, which our ancestors could neither enter by violence, nor destroy by fire. They issued from those fastnesses, sometimes, covered like the armadillo with shells, from which the lance rebounded on the striker, and sometimes carried by mighty beasts which had never been seen in our vales or forests, of such strength and swift ness, that flight and opposition were vain alike. Those invaders ranged over the continent, slaughtering in their rage those that re

try. The supernumerary hours have indeed a greater variety both of pleasure and of pain. The stranger gazed on by multitudes at her first appearance in the Park, is perhaps on the highest summit of female happiness: but how great is the anguish when the novelty of another face draws her worshippers away! The heart may leap for a time under a fine gown; but the sight of a gown yet finer puts an end to rapture. In the first row at an opera, two hours may be happily passed in listening to the music on the stage, and watching the glances of the company; but how will the night end in despondency when she that imagined herself the sovereign of the place, sees lords contending to lead Iris to her chair!sisted, and those that submitted, in their mirth. There is little pleasure in conversation to her whose wit is regarded but in the second place; and who can dance with ease or spirit that sees Amaryllis led out before her? She that fancied nothing but a succession of pleasures, will find herself engaged without design in num-have destroyed the natives, they supply their berless competitions, and mortified without provocation with numberless afflictions.

But I do not mean to extinguish that ardour which I wish to moderate, or to discourage those whom I am endeavouring to restrain. To know the world is necessary, since we are born for the help of one another; and to know it early is convenient, if it be only that we may learn early to despise it. She that brings to London a mind well prepared for improvement, though she misses her hope of uninterrupted happiness, will gain in return an opportunity of adding knowledge to vivacity, and enlarging innocence to virtue.

As the English army was passing towards Quebec, along a soft savanna between a mountain and a lake, one of the petty chiefs of the inland regions stood upon a rock surrounded by his clan, and from behind the shelter of the bushes contemplated the art and regularity of European war. It was evening, the tents were pitched: he observed the security with which the troops rested in the night, and the order with which the march was renewed in the morning. He continued to pursue them with his eye till they could be seen no longer, and then stood for some time silent and pensive.

Then turning to his followers, "My children," said he, "I have often heard from men hoary with long life, that there was a time when our ancestors were absolute lords of the woods, the meadows, and the lakes, wherever the eye can reach, or the foot can pass. They fished and hunted, feasted and danced, and, when they were weary lay down under the first thicket, without danger, and without fear. They changed their habitations as the seasons required, convenience prompted, or curiosity allured them; and sometimes gathered the fruits of the mountain, and sometimes sported in canoes along the coast.

Of those that remained, some were buried in caverns, and condemned to dig metals for their masters; some were employed in tilling the ground, of which foreign tyrants devour the produce; and, when the sword and the mines

place by human beings of another colour, brought from some distant country to perish here under toil and torture.

"Some there are who boast their humanity, and content themselves to seize our chases and fisheries, who drive us from every track of ground where fertility and pleasantness invite them to settle, and make no war upon us, ex cept when we intrude upon our own lands.

"Others pretend to have purchased a right of residence and tyranny; but surely the insolence of such bargains is more offensive than the avowed and open dominion of force. What reward can induce the possessor of a country to admit a stranger more powerful than himself? Fraud or terror must operate in such contracts; either they promised protection which they never have afforded, or instruction which they never imparted. We hoped to be secured by their favour from some other evil, or to learn the arts of Europe, by which we might be able to secure ourselves. Their power they never have exerted in our defence, and their arts they have studiously concealed from us. Their treaties are only to deceive, and their traffic only to defraud us. They have a written law among them, of which they boast as derived from Him who made the earth and sea, and by which they profess to believe that man will be made happy when life shall forsake him. Why is not this law communicated to us? It is concealed because it is violated. For how can they preach it to an Indian nation, when I am told that one of its first precepts forbids them to do to others what they would not that other should do to them?

"But the time perhaps is now approaching when the pride of usurpation shall be crushed, and the cruelties of invasion shall be revenged. The sons of rapacity have now drawn their swords upon each other, and referred their claims to the decision of war; let us look unconcerned upon the slaughter and remember that the death of every European delivers the country from a tyrant and a robber; for what is the claim of either nation, but the claim of the vulture to the leveret, of the tiger to the fawn? Let them then continue to dispute

their title to regions which they cannot people, I continually inclining, like various lines termito purchase by danger and blood the empty dignity of dominion over mountains which they will never climb, and rivers which they will never pass. Let us endeavour in the mean time, to learn their discipline, and to forge their weapons; and, when they shall be weakened with mutual slaughter, let us rush down upon them, force their remains to take shelter in their ships, and reign once more in our native country."

I was led into the subject of this letter by endeavouring to fix the original cause of this conduct of the Italian masters. If it can be proved that by this choice they selected the most beautiful part of the creation, it will show how much their principles are founded on reason, and, at the same time, discover the origin of our ideas of beauty.

nating in the centre; or it may be compared to pendulumns vibrating in different directions over one central point, and as they all cross the centre, though only one passes through any other point, so it will be found that perfect beauty is oftener produced by nature than deformity; I do not mean than deformity in general, but than any one kind of deformity. To instance in a particular part of a feature: the line that forms the ridge of the nose is beautiful when it is straight; this then is the central form, which is oftener found than either concave, convex, or any other irregular form, that shalĺ be proposed. As we are then more accustomed to beauty than deformity, we may conclude that to be the reason why we approve and admire it as we approve and admire customs, and fashions of dress for no other reason than that we are used to them, so that though habit and custom cannot be said to be the cause of beauty, it is certainly the cause of our liking it; and I have no doubt but that, if we were more used to deformity than beauty, deformity would then lose the idea now annexed it, and take that of beauty: as, if the whole world should agree that yes and no should change their meanings, yes would then deny, and no would affirm.

Whoever undertakes to proceed farther in this argument, and endeavours to fix a general criterion of beauty respecting different speI suppose it will be easily granted, that no cies, or to show why one species is more beauman can judge whether any animal be beauti-tiful than another, it will be required from him ful in its kind, or deformed, who has seen only one of that species; that is as conclusive in regard to the human figure; so that if a man, born blind, was to recover his sight, and the most beautiful woman was brought before him, he could not determine whether she was handsome or not; nor, if the most beautiful and most deformed were produced, could he any better determine to which he should give the preference, having seen only those two. To distinguish beauty, then, implies the having seen many individuals of that species. If it is asked, how is more skill acquired by the observation of greater numbers? I answer, that, in consequence of having seen many, the power is acquired, even without seeking after it, of distinguishing between accidental blemishes and excrescences which are continually varying the surface of Nature's works, and the invariable general form which nature most frequently produces, and always seems to intend in her productions.

first to prove that one species is more beautiful than another. That we prefer one to the other, and with very good reason, will be readily granted; but it does not follow from thence that we think it a more beautiful form; for we have no criterion of form by which to deter mine our judgment. He who says a swan is more beautiful than a dove, means little more than he has more pleasure in seeing a swan than a dove, either from the stateliness of its motions, or its being a more rare bird; and he who gives the preference to the dove, does it from some association of ideas of innocence that he always annexes to the dove; but if he pretends to defend the preference he gives to one or the other by endeavouring to prove that this more beautiful form proceeds from a particular gradation of magnitude, andulation of a curve, or direction of a line, or whatever other conceit of his imagination he shall fix on as a criterion of form, he will be continually contradicting himself, and find at last that the great mother Thus amongst the blades of grass or leaves of nature will not be subjected to such narrow of the same tree, though no two can be found rules. Among the various reasons why we preexactly alike, yet the general form is invaria-fer one part of her works to another, the most ble: a naturalist, before he chose one as a sample, would examine many, since if he took the first that occurred, it might have by accident, or otherwise, such a form as that it would scarcely be known to belong to that species; he selects as the painter does, the most beautiful, that is, the most general form of nature.

Every species of the animal as well as the vegetable creation may be said to have a fixed or determinate form towards which nature is

general, I believe, is habit and custom; custom makes, in a certain sense, white black, and black white! it is custom alone determines our preference of the colour of the Europeans to the Ethiopians; and they, for the same reason, prefer their own colour to ours. I suppose nobody will doubt, if one of their painters were to paint the goddess of beauty, but that he would represent her black, with thick lips, flat nose, and woolly hair; and, it seems to me, he would act very unnaturally if he did not; for

by what criterion will any one dispute the pro- | deny me a place among the most faithful vota priety of his idea? We, indeed, say, that the form and colour of the European is preferable to that of the Ethiopian; but I know of no reason we have for it, but that we are more accustomed to it. It is absurd to say that beauty is possessed of attractive powers, which irresistibly seize the corresponding mind with love and admiration, since that argument is equally conclusive in the favour of the white and the black philosopher.

The black and white nations must, in respect of beauty, be considered as of different kinds, at least a different species of the same kind; from one of which to the other, as I observed, no inference can be drawn.

ries of idleness, if you knew how often I have recollected my engagement, and contented myself to delay the performance for some reason which I durst not examine because I knew it to be false; how often I have sat down to write and rejoiced at interruption; and how often I have praised the dignity of resolution, determined at night to write in the morning, and deferred it in the morning to the quiet hours of night.

I have at last begun what I have long wished at an end, and find it more easy than I expected to continue my narration.

Our assembly could boast no such constellation of intellects as Clarendon's band of associates. We had among us no Selden, Falkland, or Waller; but we had men not less important in their own eyes, though less distinguished by the public; and many a time have we lamented the partiality of mankind, and agreed that men of the deepest inquiry sometimes let their dis

prehensive observers have seldom opportunities of imparting their remarks, and that modest merit passes in the crowd unknown and unheeded.

Novelty is said to be one of the causes of beauty: that novelty is a very sufficient reason why we should admire, is not denied; but because it is uncommon is it therefore beautiful? The beauty that is produced by colour, as when we prefer one bird to another, though of the same form, on account of its colour, has no-coveries die away in silence, that the most comthing to do with this argument, which reaches only to form. I have here considered the word beauty as being properly applied to form alone. There is a necessity of fixing this confined sense; for there can be no argument if the sense of the word is extended to every thing that is approved. A rose may as well be said to be beautiful because it has a fine smell, as a bird because of its colour. When we apply the word beauty, we do not mean always by it a more beautiful form, but something valuable on account of its rarity, usefulness, colour, or any other property. A horse is said to be a beautiful animal; but, had a horse as few good qualities as a tortoise, I do not imagine that he would be then esteemed beautiful.

;

A fitness to the end proposed, is said to be another cause of beauty but supposing we were proper judges of what form is the most proper in an animal to constitute strength or swiftness, we always determine concerning its beauty, before we exert our understanding to judge of its fitness.

From what has been said, it may be inferred, that the works of nature, if we compare one species with another, are all equally beautiful; and that preference is given from custom, or some association of ideas; and that, in creatures of the same species, beauty is the medium or centre of all various forms.

One of the greatest men of the society was Sim Scruple, who lives in a continual equipoise of doubt, and is a constant enemy to confidence and dogmatism. Sim's favourite topic of conversation is, the narrowness of the human mind, the fallaciousness of our senses, the prevalence of early prejudice, and the uncertainty of appearances. Sim has many doubts abou the nature of death, and is sometimes inclined to believe that sensation may survive motion, and that a dead man may feel though he cannot stir. He has sometimes hinted that man might perhaps have been naturally a quadruped; and thinks it would be very proper, that at the Foundling Hospital some children should be inclosed in an apartinent in which the nurses should be obliged to walk half upon four and half upon two, that the younglings, being bred without the prejudice of example, might have no other guide than nature, and might at last come forth into the world as genius should direct, erect or prone, on two legs or on four.

The next in dignity of mien and fluency of talk was Dick Wormwood, whose sole delight is, to find every thing wrong. Dick never enters a room but he shows that the door and the chimney are ill-placed. He never walks

To conclude, then, by way of corollary; if it has been proved, that the painter, by attending to the invariable and general ideas of na-into the fields but he finds ground ploughed ture, produces beauty, he must, by regarding minute particularities and accidental discriminations, deviate from the universal rule, and pollute his canvass with deformity.

which is fitter for pasture. He is always an enemy to the present fashion. He holds that all the beauty and virtue of women will soon be destroyed by the use of tea. He triumphs when he talks on the present system of educa tion, and tells us with great vehemence, that we are learning words when we should learn things. He is of opinion that we suck in er rors at the nurse's breast and thinks it extremely ridiculous that children should be taught to use the right hand rather than the left.

Bob Sturdy considers it as a point of honour to say again what he has once said, and wonders how any man that has been known to al