most essential difference in the operations and qualities of music and painting, is the superior degree in which the one is indebted to the influence of imitation above the other. Without doubt, a great portion of the delight we experience in the contemplation of a well-executed picture, arises from the consideration of the skill of the artist displayed in the closeness of the imitation. But the particular laws of music do not admit, in any degree, of the artifices of imitation; and too close a resemblance between sounds and the passion or object described, is indecorous, if not trifling and ridiculous. This, however, is a negative difference, and not a positive and specific contrariety between the two arts.

"If we were to pursue still further our inquiries into this delicate connection that subsists between music and painting, or any or all of the finer arts, we should fall upon a great many more pleasing discoveries of a similar nature. We should find that the beautiful and sublime in the one, are the beautiful and sublime in the other; allowing for those differences which arise from accidental circumstances, from their external organization and mechanical procedure. In the objects which exercise the sense of seeing, beauty of figure may be resolved into uniformity, variety, and proportion: uniformity, because it produces facility of conception, and enables the whole to enter easily into the mind; variety, because it gratifies the appetite for novelty, and puts the mind into action by a transition from one contemplation to another; proportion, because it gratifies our moral sense of fitness and utility. Beauty in music results nearly from the same causes; that is, it addresses itself to the same seated principles of the mind. It is here that a variety in the parts and tones under the same key, that is, a particular variety subordinate to

a general uniformity, excites those pleasing sensations which constitute a sense of beauty. In harmony, this variety is more complicated; but it is still variety under the controul of a certain uniformity, and submitted to strict rules of proportion.

"Much of our pleasure in music, if I mistake not, is of a mixed nature, partly derived from the present sound or note, partly from a recollection of the last, and partly from an anticipation of the next; and it seems clear to me that a great deal of this sort of pleasure enters into the effects of poetry, and the arts of composition, in which the second reading is accompanied with more delight, if the piece be excellent, because we are then enabled to take in more of the connection by means of the same powers of recollection and anticipation. But as the great perfection of music lies in the expression, so is this expression that principal knot of fellowship by which music is connected with those other arts that make the same appeal. It is a general effect of its features, in which is pronounced that family resemblance, which shows it. to be of the sisterhood.

"When we talk of the principles on which taste is built, that we mean the general principles of our nature is proved, methinks, by their general application to all the objects on which the faculties and passions of the mind are exercised. There is an acknowledged connection between taste and morality; but on what is this connection built? On the same foundations to which we have traced the alliance subsisting between poetry, music, painting, and oratory. A mind incapable of expansion, of that expansion which fits it for the grand effects of the finer arts, is incapable of tasting with real delight instances of heroism, magnanimity, and universal benevolence, which are sublime from the ideas they inspire of ex

tension in their operations and effects; that is, from the same elemental causes which are productive, in the more immediate objects of taste, of what we more technically denominate the sublime. The writer of the Characteristics was so struck with this pleasing analogy, that in his love of singularity and system, he was hurried into too wide an adoption of it; and there are passages in his volumes which betray something like a wish to enrol virtue among the elegant arts, and to bring all the moral qualities of our actions to the standard of taste. But still the general principles on which taste is erected, have a wonderful latitude of application, if we take into our view all the various attributes of our nature. That extended chain of permanent rules, by which the mind of man, as its taste refines, is bound in a generous slavery, borrows a link from every object that gives employment to our rational and moral faculties."

"True," said Mr. Allworth, who took the advantage of a little pause to illustrate the traveller's observation; "our decisions on the characters and actions of mankind, though they are by no means left entirely to the principles on which taste is founded, but rest on a basis more broad, and on qualities more generally and equally distributed, do yet derive a great degree of delicacy, clearness, and precision, from the same sensibilities,-the same process of the heart and understanding. In the conduct and deportment of a person formed to please mankind, are required consistency, with a portion of versatility, and a certain regard to times and occasions, which will be found, on examination, to bear a close analogy to that uniformity, variety, and proportion, which constitute beauty of figure in the more immediate objects of taste. That magical grace of manner, which in certain characters captivate the fancy and the heart be

fore the reason has time to pronounce, may on cool analysis be resolved into that same correspondence and symmetry of parts, those same principles of proportion, uniformity, and variety, on which so much has been said. That binding connection of the parts with the whole, that particular aptitude to a general end, and that various constitution of particulars that have a common relationship in the great object to which they all conspire, are general laws of taste, which are as faithfully observed in that harmony of gesture, and that delicate combination of little elegancies which characterise a polished gentleman, as in the provinces themselves of the finer arts."

Here our new member resumed the discourse. "It must be owned, that in philosophy, when taste usurps too proud an ascendant, strength gives way to ornament, where strength is naturally the superior quality; and the love of proportion is apt to engender a love of system, to which truth can oppose but a slender barrier: but where it modestly claims only a secondary power, it is in no small degree subsidiary to the operations of reason; it judges not only of its modes of communication, but of its conclusions themselves, as well of the matter as of the manner of sciIt prompts and stimulates the exertions of our reason by the pleasure with which it crowns her discoveries; it corroborates her decisions by the testimony it lends to their correspondence, fitness, and perspicuity; and to the majesty of truth, it adds the graces of beauty.

ence.

"One of the monarchs of Egypt, while he admitted the truth of the Ptolemaic system, could not help accusing nature of want of taste in her modes arrangement, and means of accomplishing her

of

ends.

"On the whole then," continued our traveller,

"it appears to my understanding, that the principles of taste lie widely diffused through our general nature, and reach to every object on which the faculties of our minds can be exerted. Its sentiments are ultimately resolvable into original qualities which all possess, though not in equal proportions; and this difference of qualification, together with the influence of association and accidental varieties, account for those opposite decisions which have given birth to the opinion that taste has no certain criterion. In the same spirit it has been argued, that if an external object excites a sentiment from its congruity with certain qualities in the mind of the individual who contemplates it, in respect to that individual, whatever may be his condition, that sentiment is right, and the decision built upon it correct and just. Surely, however, that sentiment in one man may be founded on weaker qualities than in others, and consequently is weaker in itself. It might as well be maintained, that the stronger eye is not more correct in its reports than the weaker; taste is but a kind of second sight, a δεύτερον ομμα.

"Those who most strenuously assert the indisputable and uncertain nature of all taste, do yet palpably acknowledge a right and wrong in taste, when they challenge the taste of others; an inconsistency with their maxims which they are sure to commit. It is the consolation of those who have neither relish nor preference in their minds for the objects of taste, to maintain the total impossibility of bringing the opinions of mankind to any rational standard; and these are supported by others who, though sufficiently furnished by nature with the necessary qualifications, are negligent of principles, and too impatient of investigation, to arrive at the true standard which is supplied from the general constitution of our minds.