OF CRITICISM. THE EIGHTH EDITION, WITH THE AUTHOR'S LAST CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS. C. N. Starcke. VOL. II. LONDON: PRINTED FOR VERNOR AND HOOD, 31, POULTRY, BY ALEX. LAWRIE AND CO. EDINBURGÉ, 122447 ELEMENTS OF CRITICISM. CHAP. XVIII. BEAUTY OF LANGUAGE. OF F all the fine arts, painting only and sculpture are in their nature imitative. An ornamented field is not a copy, or imitation of nature, but nature itself embellished. Architecture is productive of originals, and copies not from nature. Sound and motion may in some measure be imitated by music; but, for the most part, music, like architecture, is productive of originals: Language copies not from nature, more than music or architecture; unless where, like music, it is imitative of sound or motion. Thus, in the description of particular sounds, language sometimes furnisheth words, which, besides their customary power of exciting ideas, resemble by their softness or harshness the sounds described; and there are words which, by the celerity or slowness of pronunciation, have some resemblance to the motion they signify. The imitative power of words goes one step farther: VOL. II. A |