( much variety as any regular figure can well have: the eye too is less strongly conducted, than by the parallel lines in the Grecian style, from the top of one aperture to that of another: and every person must be struck with the extreme richness and intricacy of some of the principal windows of our cathedrals and ruined abbeys. In these last is displayed the triumph of the picturesque; and their charms to a painter's eye are often so great, as to rival those which arise from the chaste ornaments, and the noble and elegant simplicity of Grecian archi tecture. Some people may, perhaps, be unwilling to allow, that in ruins of Grecian and Gothic architecture, any considerable part of the spectator's pleasure arises from the picturesque circumstances; and may choose to attribute the whole, to what may justly claim a great share in that pleasure—the elegance or grandeur of their forms-the veneration of high antiquity-or the solemnity of religious awe; in a word, to the mixture of the two other characters. But were this true, yet there are many buildings highly interesting to all who have united the study of art with that of nature, in which beauty and grandeur are equally out of the question; such as hovels, cottages, mills, insides of old barns, stables, &c. whenever they have any marked and peculiar effect of form, tint, or light and shadow. In mills particularly, such is the extreme intricacy of the wheels and the wood work; such the singular variety of forms and of lights and shadows, of mosses and weather stains from the constant moisture, of plants springing from the rough joints of the stones; such the assemblage of every thing which most conduces to picturesqueness, that even without the addition of water, an old mill has the greatest charm for a painter. It is owing to the same causes, that a building with scaffolding has often a more picturesque appearance, than the building itself when the scaffolding is taken away; that old, mossy, rough-hewn park pales of . unequal heights are an ornament to landscape, especially when they are partially concealed by thickets; while a neat post and rail, regularly continued round a field, and seen without any interruption, is one of the most unpicturesque, as being one of the most uniform of all boundaries. But among all the objects of nature, there is none in which roughness and smoothness more strongly mark the distinction between the two characters, than in water. A calm, clear lake, with the reflections of all that surrounds it, viewed under the influence of a setting sun, at the close of an evening clear and serene as its own surface, is perhaps, of all scenes, the most congenial to our ideas of beauty in its strictest, and in its most general acceptation. Nay though the scenery around should be the most wild and picturesque (I might almost say the most savage) every thing is so softened and melted together by the reflection of such a mirror, that the prevailing idea, even then, might possibly be that of beauty, so long as the water itself was chiefly regarded. On the other hand, all water of which the surface is broken, and the motion abrupt and irregular, as universally accords with our ideas of the picturesque; and whenever the word is mentioned, rapid and stony torrents and waterfalls, and waves dashing against rocks, are among the first objects that present themselves to our imagination. The two characters also approach and balance each other, as roughness or smoothness, as gentle undulation or abruptness prevail. Among trees, it is not the smooth young beech, nor the fresh and tender ash, but the rugged old oak, or knotty wych elm that are picturesque: nor is it necessary they should be of great bulk; it is sufficient if they are rough, mossy, with a character of age, and with sudden variations in their forms. The limbs of huge trees shattered' by lightning or tempestuous winds, are in the highest degree picturesque; but whatever is caused by those dreaded powers of destruction, must always have a tincture of the sublime*. If we next take a view of those animals that are called picturesque, the same qualities will be found to prevail. The ass is generally thought to be more picturesque than the horse; and among horses, it is the wild and rough forester, or the wornout cart-horse to which that title is applied. The sleek pampered steed, with his *There is a simile in Ariosto, in which the two characters are finely united: Quale stordito, et stupido aratore, Poi ch'e passato il fulmine, si leva Presso agli uccisi buoi steso l'aveva; Che mira sensa fronde, et senza onore, Il Pin che da lontan veder soleva, Tal si levo'l Pagano. Milton seems to have thought of this simile; but the sublimity both of his subject and of his own genius, made him reject those picturesque circumstances, the variety of which, while it amuses, distracts the mind, and has kept it fixed on a few grand and awful images: As when heaven's fire |