growth, there is a comparative roughness and intricacy, which, unless counteracted by great skill in the improver, will always prevent absolute monotony: yet the dif ference 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

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 or 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

These

inflames nor irritates, his heart seems to dilate with happiness, he is disposed to every act of kindness and benevolence, to love and cherish all around him. are the sensations which beauty considered generally, and without any regard to the sex or to the nature of the object in which it resides, does, and ought to excite. A mind in such a state may be compared to the surface of a pure and tranquil lake, into which if the smallest pebble be cast, the waters, like the affections, seem gently to expand themselves on every side: but when the mind is carried on by any eager pursuit, the still voice of the milder affections is as little heard, and its effect as short lived, as the sound or effect of a pebble, when thrown into a rapid and rocky stream.

Repose is always used in a good sense; as a state, if not of positive pleasure, at least as one of freedom from all pain and uneasiness: irritation, almost always in an opposite sense, and yet, contradictory as it may appear, we must ac knowledge it to be the source of our most

active and lively pleasures: it's nature, however, is eager and hurrying, and such are the pleasures which spring from it. Let those who have been used to observe the works of nature, reflect on their sensations when viewing the smooth and tranquil scene of a beautiful lake, or the wild abrupt and noisy one of a picturesque river: I think they will own them to have been as different as the scenes themselves, and that nothing but the poverty of language makes us call two sensations so distinct from each other, by the common name of pleasure.

All that has been said in this chapter with respect to the effects of roughness and smoothness, of light and shadow, in producing either irritation or repose, will receive much additional illustration from that art, by means of which the most striking characters of visible objects have been pointed out to our notice, and impressed on our minds. I now therefore shall take a view of the practice and principles of some of the most eminent painters, and

shall endeavour to strengthen the posi tions which I have ventured to advance, by their examples and authority.

The genius of Rubens was strongly turned to the picturesque disposition of his figures, so as often to sacrifice every other consideration to the intricacy, contrast, and striking variations of their forms and groups. Such a disposition of objects, seems to call for something similar in the management of the light and shade; and accordingly we owe some of the most striking examples of both, to his fertile invention. In point of brilliancy, of extreme splendour of light* no pictures can stand in competition with those of Rubens: sometimes those lights are almost unmixed with shade; at other times they burst from dark shadows, they glance on

* I speak of those pictures (and they are very numerous) in which he aimed at great brilliancy. As no painter possessed more entirely all the principles of his art, the solemn breadth of his light and shade is, on some occasions, no less striking than its force and splendour on others.