CHAPTER V.

Such are the scenes, which Nature exhibits, in a few favoured spots, to raise our wonder and exalt our gratitude. Scenes which, in their power of giving delight, rank next to the observance of the great and illustrious actions of men. In common landscapes, however, Nature permits herself principally to be embellished by the art' and industry of man. Hence arise the impressions, which we derive from various kinds of buildings;-the house, the palace, and the cottage; mills, churches, forges, bridges, pillars and temples; towers, castles and abbeys. But even those objects become more endeared to the eye of taste, when Nature has, in a measure, made them her own, by covering them with moss, lychens, vines, or ivy. Thus art and nature, which are so neces sary in the formation of a true poet, extend their union of effect to architecture and landscape, by imparting a mutual grace and harmony to both.

The species of architecture, most gratifying to the lover of the picturesque, are the Roman, and the Gothic and few, gifted with imagination or genius, would prefer the light and elegant erections of Greece, seated in a vale, or rising on a knoll, to those proud and noble specimens of Gothic and Roman grandeur, frowning upon mountains, or embattled among woods,

Si la vue de la rivière embellit le château, il faut avouer que la vue du château, qui s'elève presqu'à demicôte, embellit beaucoup le bord de la rivière. La Spectacle de la Nature.

as they are exhibited in the awful ruins of towers and monasteries, abbeys and castles. The grace and majesty of the Ionic; the simplicity of the Tuscan ; the magnificence of the Corinthian; the solemnity of the Doric; and the profuseness of the Composite; well suited, as they are, to buildings in shrubberies, in parks, and to public erections, in the neighbourhood of large cities, are, for the most part, entirely out of character, when observed amid the wild and more untameable scenes of Nature. There the rudeness of the British; the greatness of the Roman; the circular tower of the Saxon; and the pointed arch' of the Anglo Norman styles, assimilate, in a far greater degree, with the bold and romantic features of the surrounding scenery; and carry us back to those tumultuous times, in which the tower and long winding passage were equally useful, as securities against the humble banditti of the forest; as from the titled ruffian of a neighbouring castle.

But of all the degrees of modern architecture, most grateful to the lover of the more placid style of land

The pointed arch was doubtless introduced by the Crusaders ; although some have asserted, that there are no pointed arches in any of the Saracenic remains in Spain. Its antiquity in the east must be considerable; since it is found in the temples of Chandi Sira, in the Isle

of Java.

The first temple of Apollo at Delphi was a mere cottage, covered with boughs of laurel. From this rude origin it rose to be all that can be esteemed graceful in religious architecture: chaste, simple, and symmetrical, it addresses itself to taste. But the gothic, associating the spirit of honour, chivalry, and romantic love, speaks to genius. Schlegel calls the one classical: the other romantic.

scape, and to the philosophic and elegant mind, the cottage' has the most attractive claim. With one of those delightful little mansions, situated on the borders of a lake, or near the sea-shore, over which mountains rear themselves into vast natural amphitheatres; a small garden, with a clear stream, winding through it; a library of all that is useful in art and science, or elegant and just in poetry and philosophy; a friend, whom we esteem, and a woman, whom we love; who would exchange for the Escurial, or St. Cloud, the palace of the Grand Seigneur, or even the Castle of Windsor itself?

CHAPTER VI.

As all that is captivating in scenery may be reduced to the three orders of the beautiful, the picturesque, and the sublime, so may beauty of form and countenance be divided into the three orders of the graceful, the harmonic, and the magnificent. The magnificent applies to the indication of mind and manner in man: the graceful to softness, delicacy, and benevolence in woman: the harmonic consists in

1 How beautiful must have been the cottages of Greece! The Grecians, says Le Roy, (from Vitruvius) disposed their cottages with so much taste and wisdom, that they preserved the form of them, even in their most magnificent buildings. Diverse Maniere d' adornare i cammani.— Roma, 1769, p. 30. In the Brazils, almost every cottage is concealed beneath leaves of forest trees, overtopped by cocoas.

that exquisite indication of every shade of feeling, and in that union of the graceful and the magnificent in both, which, as it is the most uncommon, is more captivating than either. Admiration of beauty, whether in bodies, morals, or in scenery, may be denominated instructive: hence Plato called beauty Nature's masterpiece; and believed that the pleasure, arising from it, was the result of a remembrance of visions, enjoyed in a former state of existence. Theophrastus esteemed it a silent fraud; and the Carneades called it a silent rhetoric. "It is a quality," says Xenophon, 66 upon which Nature has affixed the stamp of royalty;" and the reason, it has been so much admired in every age, is, because our souls are essences from the very source of beauty, harmony and perfection. Aristotle defined beauty "order in grandeur;" order involving symmetry; and grandeur uniting simplicity and majesty. Father André defined it "variety reduced to unity by symmetry and harmony." One description of theorists however maintain, that beauty is nothing but illusion; having no more positive existence, than colour. As well may we assert, that the nerves are conductors of electric fluids; that all matter is representative; or that all virtue is illusive; as to doubt the existence of beauty and deformity. Beauty, "bear witness earth and heaven!" by being

1 In association we may trace the Linda of the Spaniard; the Buona Roba of the Italian; and the je ne sais quoi of the French. Were it otherwise, beauty could never be understood, for in Africa a black com

the result of association,1 is not the less positive on that account. For every object, which awakens pleasure in the mind, is beautiful; since it possesses some internal or external quality, which produces the sensation of pleasure. Whatever excites agreeable emotion, therefore, possesses some intrinsic quality of beauty.' Hence the term beauty may be applied to every thing, which gives serenity or pleasure to the mind; from a woman to a problem; from a planet to a tree or a flower. Hence arises the intimate connexion between beauty and virtue'; and as nothing produces so many agreeable emotions, as the practice of virtue (for virtue is a medal, whose reverse is happiness), whatever is virtuous, or condu

plexion is indispensable; the Arabs of the desert esteem large dark eyes; the Chinese and Peruvians small eyes and small feet; the Ladrones black teeth and white hair; the Turks red hair, dark eyelashes, and rose-coloured nails: while the Greenlanders paint their faces blue, and not unfrequently blue and yellow. The Moors of Senegal regard beauty and corpulence as synonimous terms the Indians of Louisiana depress the foreheads of infants to make them more comely; in many parts of the east a large head is esteemed a great beauty; the Japanese admire "golden" hair; and the Javanese a "golden" complexion: and a Circassian to be exquisitely beautiful to a Persian must have a small nose and mouth;, white teeth; dark hair; large black antelope eyes, and a delicate figure.

1 The man, however, who was born blind, and recovered his sight by couching, did not esteem those the most beautiful, whom he had most loved. Nor did he consider those articles of food most agreeable to his vision, which had been the most agreeable to his palate.

2 Hence the Celtic proverb, that no falsehood can dwell in the soul of the lovely.