Puslapio vaizdai
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an image of stillness and repose when he

says,

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon yon bank! Nothing in that line gives any indication what sort of a bank it was; but if you fancy it broken and abrupt, the moon might indeed shine, but it could no longer sleep upon it.

The same kind of sympathy that takes place in smaller objects, in broken ground, roots, stones, thorns, or briars, where a certain degree of difficulty and irritation is common and familiar, seems to continue whatever be the scale. A fall from a great height, as from the side of a precipice, is equally destructive whether the surface upon which you would fall be rugged, or plain: yet the imagination would be differently affected by looking down upon an even surface, or on sharp pointed rocks; and some feeling of that kind I believe is always connected, though we may not at all times be conscious of it, with broken and pointed forms.

But although it seems highly probable

that such forms produce a kind of stimulus from sympathy, not unlike that which broken lights excite in the organ, yet the most constant and manifest stimulus which rough and abrupt objects produce in picturesque scenery, is that of curiosity. This will clearly appear, if we consider in how much greater a degree all that must excites and nourishes curiosity abounds in scenes where the lines and forms are broken and abrupt, than in those where they are smooth and flowing.

If, by way of example, we take any If, smooth object, the lines of which are flowing, such as a down of the finest turf, with gentle swelling knolls and hillocks of every soft and undulating formthough the eye may repose on this with pleasure, yet the whole is seen at once, and no further curiosity is excited. But let those swelling knolls (without altering the scale) be broken into abrupt rocky projections, with deep hollows and coves beneath the overhanging stones; instead of the smooth turf, let there be furze, heath, or fern, with open patches

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between, and fragments of the rock and large stones lying in irregular masses-it is clear, if you suppose these two spots of the same extent, and on the same scale, that the whole of the one may be comprehended immediately, and that if you tra verse it in every direction, little new can occur; while in the other, every step changes, the composition. Then each of these broken projections and fragments, have as many suddenly varying forms and aspects as they have breaks, even when the sun is hidden; but when it does shine upon them, each break is the occasion of some brilliant light, opposed to some sudden shadow. All such deep coves, and hollows, as are usually found in this style of scenery, invite the eye to penetrate into their recesses, yet keep its curiosity alive and unsatisfied; whereas in the other, the light and shadow has the same uniform, unbroken character as the ground itself...

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I have in both these scenes avoided any mention of trees; for in all trees of every

growth, there is a comparative roughness and intricacy, which, unless counteracted by great skill in the improver, will always prevent absolute monotony: yet the difference between those which appear planted or cleared for the purpose of beauty, with the ground made perfectly smooth about them, and those which are wild and uncleared, with the ground of the same character, is very apparent. Take, for instance, any open grove, where the trees, though neither in rows nor at equal distances, are detached from each other, and cleared from all underwood; the turf on which they stand smooth and level; and their stems distinctly seen. Such a grove, of full-grown flourishing trees, that have had room to extend their heads and branches, is deservedly called beautiful; and if a gravel road winds easily through it, the whole will be in character. But how different is the scenery in forests! whoever has been among them, and has attentively observed the character of those parts,

where wild tangled thickets open into

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glades, half seen across the stems of old stag-headed oaks and twisted beeches; has remarked the irregular tracks of wheels, and the foot-paths of men and animals, how they seem to have been seeking and forcing their way, in every directionmust have felt how differently the stimulus of curiosity is excited in such scenes, and how much likewise the varied effects of light and shadow are promoted, by the variety and intricacy of the objects.

If it be true that a certain irritation of stimulus is necessary to the picturesque, it is equally so that a soft and pleasing repose is the effect, and the characteristic of the beautiful; and what in my mind places this position in a very favourable. light is, that the peculiar excellence of the painter who most studied the beautiful in landscape, is characterised by il riposo di Claudio; and when the mind of man is in the delightful state of repose, of which Claude's pictures are the image; when he feels that mild and equal sunshine of the soul which warms and cheers, but neither

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