we should not have observed them in the reality; and I conceive that none of these sources of pleasure are in any way expressed or intimated by the term "imitation." But there is one source of pleasure in works of art totally different from all these, which I conceive to be properly and accurately expressed by the word "imitation:" one which, though constantly confused in reasoning, because it is always associated in fact, with other means of pleasure, is totally separated from them in its nature, and is the real basis of whatever complicated or various meaning may be afterward attached to the word in the minds of men. I wish to point out this distinct source of pleasure clearly at once, and only to use the word "imitation" in reference to it. of the term. Whenever anything looks like what it is not, the resemblance being so great as nearly to deceive, we feel a kind of pleasurable surprise, an agreeable $ 2. Real meaning excitement of mind, exactly the same in its nature as that which we receive from juggling. Whenever we perceive this in something produced by art, that is to say, whenever the work is seen to resemble something which we know it is not, we receive what I call an idea of imitation. Why such ideas are pleasing, it would be out of our present purpose to inquire; we only know that there is no man who does not feel pleasure in his animal nature from gentle surprise, and that such surprise can be excited in no more distinct manner than by the evidence that a thing is not what it appears to be.* Now two things are requisite to our complete and more pleasurable perception uisite to the sense of this: first, that the resemblance be so perfect as to amount to a deception; secondly, that there § 3. What is req of imitation. * συλλογισμός έττιγ, ὅτι τοῦτο ἐκεῖνο Arist. Rhet. 1, 11, 23. be some means of proving at the same moment that it is a deception. The most perfect ideas and pleasures of imitation are, therefore, when one sense is contradicted by another, both bearing as positive evidence on the subject as each is capable of alone; as when the eye says a thing is round, and the finger says it is flat; they are, therefore, never felt in so high a degree as in painting, where appearance of projection, roughness, hair, velvet, etc., are given with a smooth surface, or in waxwork, where the first evidence of the senses is perpetually contradicted by their experience; but the moment we come to marble, our definition checks us, for a marble figure does not look like what it is not: it looks like marble, and like the form of a man, but then it is marble, and it is the form of a man. It does not look like a man, which it is not, but like the form of a man, which it is. Form is form, bona fide and actual, whether in marble or in flesh-not an imitation or resemblance of form, but real form. The chalk outline of the bough of a tree on paper, is not an imitation; it looks like chalk and paper -not like wood, and that which it suggests to the mind is not properly said to be like the form of a bough, it is the form of a bough. Now, then, we see the limits of an idea of imitation; it extends only to the sensation of trickery and deception occasioned by a thing's intentionally seeming different from what it is; and the degree of the pleasure depends on the degree of difference and the perfection of the resemblance, not on the nature of the thing resembled. The simple pleasure in the imitation would be precisely of the same degree, (if the accuracy could be equal,) whether the subject of it were the hero or his horse. There are other collateral sources of pleasure, which are necessarily associated with this, but that part of the pleasure which depends on the imitation is the same in both. Ideas of imitation, then, act by producing the simple These § 4. The pleasure resulting from im itation the most contemptible that can be derived from art. pleasure of surprise, and that not of surprise in its highest sense and function, but of the mean and paltry surprise which is felt in jugglery. ideas and pleasures are the most contemptible which can be received from art; first, because it is necessary to their enjoyment that the mind should reject the impression and address of the thing represented, and fix itself only upon the reflection that it is not what it seems to be. All high or noble emotion or thought are thus rendered physically impossible, while the mind exults in what is very like a strictly sensual pleasure. We may consider tears as a result of agony or of art, whichever we please, but not of both at the same moment. If we are surprised by them as an attainment of the one, it is impossible we can be moved by them as a sign of the other. $5. Imitation is We can Ideas of imitation are contemptible in the second place, because not only do they preclude the spectator from enjoying inherent beauty in the subject, but they can only be received from only of contempt ible subjects. mean and paltry subjects, because it is impossible to imitate anything really great. "paint a cat or a fiddle, so that they look as if we could take them up; " but we cannot imitate the ocean, or the Alps. We can imitate fruit, but not a tree; flowers, but not a pasture; cut-glass, but not the rainbow. All pictures in which deceptive powers of imitation are displayed are therefore either of contemptible subjects, or have the imitation shown in contemptible parts of them, bits of dress, jewels, furniture, etc. Thirdly, these ideas are contemptible, because no ideas of power are associated with them; to the ignorant, imitation, indeed, seems difficult, and its suc § 6. Imitation is be cess praiseworthy, but even they can by contemptible no possibility see more in the artist than cause it is easy. they do in a juggler, who arrives at a strange end by means with which they are unacquainted. To the instructed, the juggler is by far the more respectable artist of the two, for they know sleight of hand to be an art of mensely more difficuit acquirement, and to imply more quity in the artist than a power of deceptive imitainting, which requires nothing more for its atthan a The ere, a steady hand, and moderate mlines which in no degree separate the imi21st roma vatch-maker, pin-maker, or any other These remarks do not apply to r the stage, where the pleasure 1 te imitation, but is the same which mature herself, only far inferior in esare; but we shall see in the both that it is inferior to ven there is no deception at all, I speak of ideas of imitado mean the immediate and on that something prois not what it seems to be. what it seems to be," to what it is not," because we es be, and the idea of Measure, result from the ing something else-flat, t was round CHAPTER V. OF IDEAS OF TRUTH. THE word truth, as applied to art, signifies the faithful statement, either to the mind or senses, of any fact of nature. We receive an idea of truth, then, when we perceive the faithfulness of such a § 1. Meaning of the word "truth" as applied to art. statement. The difference between ideas of truth and of imitation lies chiefly in the following points. $2. First differ ence between truth and imita tion. First,-Imitation can only be of something material, but truth has reference to statements both of the qualities of material things, and of emotions, impressions, and thoughts. There is a moral as well as material truth,-a truth of impression as well as of form,-of thought as well as of matter; and the truth of impression and thought is a thousand times the more important of the two. Hence, truth is a term of universal application, but imitation is limited to that narrow field of art which takes cognizance only of material things. § 3. Second differ ence. Secondly,-Truth may be stated by any signs or symbols which have a definite signification in the minds of those to whom they are addressed, although such signs be themselves no image nor likeness of anything. Whatever can excite in the mind the conception of certain facts, can give ideas of truth, though it be in no degree the imitation or resemblance of those facts. If there be-we do not say there is-but if there be in painting anything which operates, |