latter is a loud expression of the former; and it was justly observed, even by the ancient critics, that though the works of both produce a similar effect on our fancy, yet they are dissimilar both in their productions, and in their manner of imitating nature. The limited nature of Painting and Sculpture compared with Poetry. The boundaries which the ancients have fixed to the productions of art, are:-1. Beautiful objects, so as to exclude from its efforts the mere pleasure to be produced by a true imitation only, when the object represented is not pleasing on account of the beauty of its form. To this strict rule the Greek artists particularly adhered. They, moreover, condemned every effort to represent a likeness by exaggerating the ugly parts of the original; in other words, they condemned caricature. To represent beauty in all its forms was the chief rule of the Greek artists, with but few exceptions. The general characteristic in the painting and sculpture of the Greeks is, according to Mr. Winkelman, a graceful naïveté and a solemn grandeur, both in the attitude and expression of the objects represented. As the depth of the sea remains continually calm amidst the rage which reigns on its surface, in the same manner does the expression in the statues of the Greeks, under the dominion of the passions, exhibit a great and steady soul. 2. The distinguishing boundaries of art, in comparison with poetry, were, with the Greeks in particular,-never to represent the extreme expression of the various passions, but always to confine their imitations of them to some degrees lower, and to leave it to the imagination of the beholder to guess at the rest.-Those degrees of the various passions which manifest themselves by an awkward distortion of the face, and which cause the whole body to assume such a posture, that the beautiful lines, by which the human figure is circumscribed, are lost, were either not represented at all, or, at least, some fainter exhibition of the same passions were fixed upon by the Greek painter or sculptor. Rage and despair are never represented in their masterpieces; and it may be said, that they never depicted a fury. They lowered indignation to mere earnestness. According to their poets, it is the indignant Jupiter who slings the lightning, but their artists represent him as merely grave. Lamentation was softened into sorrow by these artists, and where this softening could not be effected, as in the picture of Timanthes, representing the sacrificing of Iphigenia, in which sorrow, in all its various degrees, is depicted in the faces of the bystanders, the countenance of the father, which must have expressed the highest degree of it, is, as has been well remarked, veiled, in order to hide the distorted face of Agamemnon, which must otherwise have been so represented. In a word, this covering of the father's face, far from considering it, as some have supposed it, a prudent step of the painter not to strive to represent the sorrow of a father on such an occasion, which must be above all representation, should be rather considered as a sacrifice on his part to the forms of beauty, in only depicting that in which beauty as well as dignity could be maintained; but that which he could not, in compliance with the rules of beauty, represent, he left to the imagination to guess. However, modern artists have enlarged the aforesaid limits in their representations, and extended their efforts at imitation to all visible objects in nature, of which those which are beautiful form but a small part; and have conceived that as nature itself generally sacrifices beauty to higher purposes, in like manner must the artist allow beauty of form to yield to expression and truth; and never follow beauty farther, but rest satisfied that in realizing the latter, he has made a deformed object of nature a handsome one of art. But even allowing these ideas to remain undisputed, still the artist must in some measure be restricted in representing the expressions of the mind, and never fix upon the highest degree of expression in any human action. The reason for this is as obvious as it is indisputable for as the artist can imitate nature, which is ever changing, in one of her single moments only, and even that single moment can be represented by the painter only from one point of view; therefore, if both the sculptor and the painter wish their performances to be perceived not only at one time, but to be repeatedly contemplated, and to be reflected upon for a long interval of time, it must be obvious, that the single moment, and the single point of view of that single moment, in the imitation of the catastrophe, can never be chosen too prolific for the fancy of the observer, and that that image alone can be considered as such which leaves ample scope for the imagination. The more the beholder sees, the more he must be able to add to the parts of the object represented; the more he fancies, the more must he imagine to find in the work. But in considering any effect whatever, in all its various degrees, we shall not find one single moment less favourable in effecting the former object, as when the utmost extreme of such an effect in nature is represented; for beyond that is nothing more, and to shew to the eye the uttermost is to clip the wings of the observer's fancy, and to force the imagination to occupy itself with weaker images beneath the representation, as it is impossible for it to overreach the impression produced on the senses by the representation, the perceivable plenitude of which the imagination dislikes. When the sculptor represents Laocoon as sighing, our imagination is able to hear him crying out; had he represented him as crying out, the imagination would not be able to advance a step higher, or to descend lower, without changing the whole into an uninteresting scene. Our fancy would then either hear him but sobbing, or perceive him already dead. Further, as the single moment of the effect obtains by the representation of the artist an immutable durability, it is certain that the former ought not to express such as cannot be conceived by the mind, except as transitory. All those phenomena, to the nature of which we think it essential that they can only for one moment be what they appear to be, all such phenomena, whether they produce an agreeable or a horrible effect, obtain by the permanency which the artist gives them such an unnatural appearance, that with each repeated contemplation their impression becomes weaker, and we are at last either disgusted or shocked by the representation. La Metrie, who has been represented by the painter and engraver as a second Democritus, laughs at the first sight; but if we look at him often, the philosopher appears like a fool, and his laughter like a grin. It is the same with the representation of one crying out with pain, &c. The violent pain which forces a man to cry out, either subsides soon, or it destroys the suffering object. Although, therefore, the bravest man may sometimes cry out, yet he does not do so incessantly, and it was owing to the seeming continuity produced by the imitation of art, that the artist was prevented from representing Laocoon as crying out, although it might not in any way have injured the beauty of the form, and it would be the same if it had been allowed to the artist to express a state of suffering without a beautiful form. Among the ancient painters Timomachus seems to have best chosen the moment of the utmost effect in his representations. His raving Ajax, his infanticide Medea, were much admired paintings. He represented them so that the observer had to imagine the utmost, but not to behold it; he chose such moments as we do not necessarily connect with the idea of being of but transitory duration. He represents the Medea, not in that moment when she actually murders her children, but at some minutes previous to the murder-at a time when motherly love still struggles with jealousy. The artist makes us but anticipate the catastrophe that ensues, and our imagination outstretches every thing which the painter could have exhibited to us relating to that horrible moment. But so far from blaming the painter for representing Medea to us in a moment when the struggle is undecided, we rather wish it would have remained so in the real occurrence, that the combat of the passions had either remained undetermined, or at least had lasted sufficiently long for time to subdue her rage, and at length insure a victory to maternal feelings. As to his Ajax, Timomachus does not represent him when he is raging, but sitting down, exhausted after having performed his mad deeds, and forming the design to kill himself; and this is really the raging Ajax, not because we see him in a rage, but because we perceive that he has raged, because we are forcibly struck with the magnitude of his previous rage, which we conjecture from his being now driven to despair by shame, of which he himself appears to be sensible; in like manner as we perceive the violence of a storm by the wrecks and corpses which are thrown on the shore. As to Poetry and the extent of its efforts, without at present entering into an examination how far the poet can succeed in describing corporal beauty, this must be considered as indisputable, that the whole of the immense region of perfection is open to his imitation; that the imperceptible covering under which he makes an accomplished object to appear beautiful, is but one of his feeblest efforts to render his subjects interesting to us. Beauty, so far from being a principal object with the poet, is often entirely neglected by him, assured that his hero, to gain our affections, must so much occupy our attention by his more noble qualities, that we shall not even think of his bodily form, or that they will so far prepossess us in his favour, as to lead him to suppose we shall imagine him handsome. Much less will the poet have regard to the perception of our senses in the delineation of those features which do not immediately belong to the face. When Virgil describes his Laocoon as crying out with pain, who when reading it will imagine, that, in order to a person's crying out, an enlargement of the mouth is necessary, and that such a mouth disfigures the face?-it is sufficient that the poet powerfully strikes the ear with "clamores horrendos ad sidera tollit," however faint the effect may be on the eye. The next advantage the poet has over the artist is, that he is not obliged to concentrate his effects at one single moment; he assumes, at his pleasure, every action of the catastrophe, commencing at the origin, and following them through all their modifications to the end, and thus unites them in one description; whereas the artist is obliged to divide them into so many different representations. Owing to this succession of moments in the event he describes, the poet is able to soften some of the less agreeable ones, either by some subsequent or antecedent effects, so that the whole will produce the best impression. When, for instance, we read in Virgil that Laocoon cries out when bitten by the serpents, although it may be considered unbecoming for a man to cry out in the agony of pain; yet as this Laocoon is the very person whom the poet has previously caused us to admire as a prudent patriot, and a tender father, we do not attribute his crying out to his mental weakness, but solely to his insupportable sufferings. If it has been proved to be just in the painter not to represent his Laocoon as crying out, still it should be considered justifiable in the poet so to describe him. Another distinction between the poet and the artist is, that the artist ought not to represent his images as covered with garments; and to this rule we find that the ancients adhered. For instance, the poet describes his Laocoon as clothed with a pontifical dress, but the artist represents him as naked. The reason for this deviation in the latter is obvious: for though it may be considered as contrary to the rules of costume to represent the son of a king, who was also a priest, as undressed, yet no garment wrought by slavish hands can possess so much beauty as the work of eternal wisdom, expressed in an organized body. Necessity has given rise to dress, but what has the artist to do with that? Beauty is the highest object for the imitation of art; and although it be agreed that there is some beauty in dress, yet what is it when compared with the beauty of the human form? Should he who can accomplish the greater object satisfy himself with the less? It is not so with the poet; a garment with him is no garment, for it covers nothing: our imagination penetrates every thing. If the forehead of Laocoon, described by Virgil, is encircled with a priestly turban, so far from injuring, it strengthens the conception we have formed of the sufferer. But should the sculptor, in placing before us the group, represent the forehead of Laocoon as bound with a turban, he would considerably weaken the effect: for the forehead would be partially covered, and the forehead is the seat of expression. THE SOULS OF THE JUST. SOULS of the just! whose truth and love, But there are wistful eyes that find And there are exiled souls behind And shine with you, all bright and warm, T. D. ON KEEPING, OR COSTUME IN CHARACTER. "Servetur ad imum Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet." I AM not going to write a dramatic essay, as the language of my motto, and the source whence it is drawn, might seem to indicate: so the reader, if he pleases, in translating my quotation may substitute the indicative for the subjunctive mood. My business is with the actual existing drama of real life; and my office, not to prescribe, but to describe. A very general complaint is made respecting this said drama, of the want of consistency in most of its individual characters. But I shrewdly suspect that this complaint is unfounded, and that the inconsistency will be discovered to lie not in character, but in actions. Our friend Flaccus asserts that men in general not only differ from each other, but that the same man cannot remain for two hours like himself. This may be very true, as far as actions are concerned. The motives of human conduct are frequently very complicated, and generally, as well as the circumstances in which they originate, are hidden from our view. From childhood to youth, from youth to manhood, from manhood to old age, the character remains essentially the same in every individual. In all the vicissitudes of fortune, in all the varieties of conduct, the character is still the same; and the most opposite actions, could we discover their secret springs, would afford no argument of inconsistency in the person who performed them. Every man, even the weakest, possesses a portion of self-command, which he can use, when the motive is sufficiently urgent, to control his natural disposition, and conceal his real character. We sometimes see a man whose general conduct has been pusillanimous, act like a man of spirit. Do we conclude from this that he has changed his nature all of a sudden, and been transformed from a coward into a brave man? No! we naturally look into the circumstances of the case, to discover the cause of such singular discrepancy in his conduct, and to account for the unusual effort of volition. In like manner, when a man of approved courage behaves on one occasion like a coward, it is more philosophical, as well as more charitable, to attribute it to some peculiarity of predicament than to a change of character. Though, to be sure, the general cast of a man's conduct does not, in all instances, present us with the best criterion of his real character. Here a distinction is to be observed not very flattering to poor human nature:though the actions are in general praiseworthy, still the solitary lapse may betray the real character, for the motives to habitual dissimulation may be powerfully and generally operative; but, on the other hand, where vice is predominant in the conduct, the solitary virtue proves little in favour of the disposition. But I do not mean to enter deeply into this copious and important subject, which is well worthy of the powers of some one more profoundly versed in the philosophy of life. I shall confine myself to observing on the correspondencies that exist between the minute and apparently trivial particulars of conduct with the general and essential attributes of character. The harmony, the proportion, the keeping, as it were, that is found in the details of dress, manners, domestic habits, |