above his poverty and physical weakness, whose lays have given at least a local immortality to the lovely scenes in his own neighbourhood. I allude to the late Mr. George Heath, and refer to his poem on Rudyard, a lake near Leek, where a loved object mingled with his day dreams and night visions, and in which the susceptibility of beauty and the power of association are strikingly expressed. "Glorious Rudyard; gorgeous picture, "Whether blushing Spring enwrap thee "Whether drooping Autumn flood thee "Whether storms sweep grandly o'er thee, Beauty then consists in grace and loveliness of form or colour; it is an assemblage of such properties of bodies as please the eye and agree with our natural perceptions; we must now inquire what those properties are. C 1 i : H ! Ο CHAPTER III. ELEMENTS OF BEAUTY. SECTION I. NE characteristic of beautiful objects is, that they are Small. Great objects belong to the sublime. The late learned and devout Mr. Hewitson, of Scotland, said, "The beautiful is the shadow of God's loveliness; the sublime is the shadow of God's majesty." Sometimes we see the blending of the two, as at the Falls of Niagara, or in a grand sunset or sun-rising by the sea-side, when every mountain is radiant with glory, and every little crested wavelet tipped with crimson. So have I seen them at Scarborough, by the old Castle in the northern bay. Neither the word beauty nor sublimity expresses the full idea of the scene; it is the rich vision of both, and we naturally exclaim, gazing on such a landscape, "It is sublimely beautiful.” A fine example of this is the Giant's Causeway, in the north of Ireland. The savage grandeur of the lofty and innumerable basaltic columns forming the organ and amphitheatre, is softened and smoothed into beauty by lichens and grasses. It affords me great pleasure here to quote the graphic words in which the late venerable Dr. Dixon, who visited Niagara in 1848, has recorded hisimpressions of that magnificent scene. "Our path across Goat Island brought us close to the American Fall. is grand! It is sublime! It is awful!' crossed my mind, but nothing definite had fixed itself there; all remained in the same confusion, chaos, stupefaction. At length, as if awaking from a dream, I exclaimed, 'How beautiful!' And then, in a moment, a thrill ran through my soul like an electrical shock, which at once scattered the mists; and I exclaimed, loud enough to have been heard, 'Ah, yes, that is it, that is it, it belongs to the beautiful!' This was a new idea, a revelation, and transformed the whole scene in an instant into perfect unity and glory. "With this general notion, this new instrument, I began to examine the several objects aroundendeavoured to analyse, to separate the elements, to watch the extraordinary movements of the liquid machine which was moving so majestically around me; and yet, at the same time, to combine, to grasp the whole. Is beauty compatible with sublimity ? Can the two attributes exist in one and the same object? Must the sublime be necessarily devoid of the beautiful? Must the beautiful be destitute, per se, of the sublime? These are questions which have engaged the attention of great authorities. c2 Generally speaking, they seem to have entertained the notion, that the ideas are incompatible; that the beautiful and the sublime belong to distinct and separate departments, whether of nature or of thought; and that no union, no harmony, no concord of circumstances, can blend the beautiful, with the sublime or the sublime with the beautiful, constituting them one and the same object. We venture to differ from these authorities; and our proof, our demonstration, is, the Falls of Niagara. "No one doubts as to their sublimity: the grandeur of the scene is too palpable, too imposing, too overwhelming, to admit of doubt on this point. The subject admits not of reasoning, it is a matter of mere sensation. No human being ever beheld these wonders without doing homage to this sentiment. Many have, probably, been unable to comprehend their own sensations as they have looked upon the astonishing phenomena; but they have felt their power, and been subdued into reverence and awe. It seemed almost impossible for me to stir for a great length of time; an irresistible fascination seizing all my faculties, as if overshadowed by the presence of a mystic power, whose voice was heard in the thunder of many waters, as well as His majesty seen in the grandeur of every object around. "But the sensations of pleasure and happiness are produced by the beautiful: and, at the time, I considered Niagara as the most sublimely beautiful object my eye ever beheld."* * "Methodism in America," p. 83. i It was remarked by Burke, that in most lan guages the objects of love are spoken of under Let me guard against possible misconstruction. † Burke: "The Sublime and Beautiful," p. 121. ! |