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in reality as well as in representation. If any thing were yet wanting to account for the painter's choice of ruined buildings, the effect of association might be added; by which faculty we prolong the train of ideas on all that was once grand, magnificent, and festive, and comparing times past and present, snatch a thousand pleasures beyond the reach of vision.

The figures selected by landscape painters remain to be considered. And here Mr. Price is extremely ingenious. In his dialogues he describes (p. 262) a sudden turn upon a heathy common, which discovered some gypsies sitting over a half extinguished fire, which every now and then, as one of them stooped down to blow it, feebly blazed up for an instant, and shewed their sooty faces and black tangled locks. An old male gypsey stood at the entrance, with a countenance that well expressed his three-fold occupation of beggar, thief, and fortune teller; and by him two worn-out asses, one loaded with rusty panniers, the other with old tattered clothes and furniture.' This scene is at once acknowledged to be picturesque; but in what does that character consist? and where is the attraction? How Mr. Knight would answer, we have already seen; and Mr. Price of course fixes the picturesqueness to the rugged lines of the countenances, the harshness of the tints, the intricacy of the hair in the gypsies, and the rough coats of their asses. We attribute the effect to the character of the scene, and the persons. The former is rude and wild, and excites ideas different from our ordinary train, but interesting and romantic: the latter are of an extraordinary race, differing in their habitations, their dress, their mode of life, and their occupations, from the men with whom we have daily converse; and, moreover, having that difference so strongly impressed upon their countenance and mien, that the first glance of the eye gives us the whole character. If then, a painter were to turn suddenly upon this group, it would at once occur to him that such a party would make an interesting picture in themselves; but would be still more useful as a foreground to any wild, rocky, or savage subject which he might wish to represent, and add the interest of stirring life to his general scene.

The same principle of assortment determines universally the choice of judicious painters respecting all animals. The ass is more picturesque than the horse, and the rough forrester than the pampered steed,' because it is met with in that wild scenery, in which for reasons already stated, painters delight to indulge. So the shaggy goat is more picturesque than the sheep,' because it is met with in more romantic situations; and the sheep than the deer, because the latter is chiefly known to us as the inhabitant of parks and ornamented scenery, where nature is not suffered to reign undis

turbed. For the same reason the peasant and the woodman, 'the beggar and ragged old woman' are more congenial to the painter's purpose than the well dressed inhabitant of cities; the one is in character with the rural scene, and adds expression to it; the other is an interloper, and inclines us, away from the general subject, to ask his business there. No one can read Wheatley's characteristic description of the New Weir on the Wye, without observing how much the forgemen and lime burners, and the fishermen with their truckles suit such a scene, and accumulate its effect; nor can we conceive a painter of the slightest taste who would omit these natural and significant accompaniments, to introduce the newly painted boat, the wondering traveller, or even the beautiful women who frequently visit that sublime scene. If we could examine the studies of different painters, we should doubtless find them accompanied, not, according to Mr. Price's rules of the picturesque, with objects broken, rugged and intricate, merely because they were so, but because such objects assorted with their respective styles. Claude's book would be full of shepherds and shepherdesses with their pipes and crooks, in all the undisturbed enjoyment of pastoral life. Salvator would have the worn out soldier, the hermit, or assassin :— Berghem the boor in sheepskin; Gainsborough the ass and gypsey; and Rubens every animal; for there is no object which that versatile genius could not reduce to its proper place and attitude. If the war horse, or sleek steed, or greyhound, or milkwhite hind would be seldom met with, it is not because their smooth coats are less suited to the art, but because they are less congenial to the subjects of most painters; they are not found in the spots which a painter is fond of representing, and therefore would destroy the character which it is his purpose to establish or preserve. Similar considerations will direct the painter in the management of water, .. and the choice of his trees; whether he represent the one rough or calm, the others flourishing or decayed. It has been elegantly observed, that so various are the characters which water can assume, that there is scarely an idea in which it may not concur, or an impression which it cannot inforce: it may spread in a calm expanse to sooth the tranquillity of a peaceful scene; or hurrying along a devious course, add splendor to a gay, and extravagance to a romantic situation.' It is the same with trees. When nature is in repose, the heads and principal branches of most species are round and smooth, which the agitation of the wind throws into a thou

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* Professor Stewart, in his late publication, makes a distinction between the beauty of objects, considered as intrinsically, or relatively pleasing with this view he accounts for the picturesqueness of the ass and goat, at more length, but on the same principles as those which we have cursorily advanced.

sand fantastic forms. The sweeping crown therefore of the ilex or pine, and still more, an imaginary form characteristic of no particular species, suited the repose of Claude; while the shaken sapling, or blasted trunk, assorted with the wild situations and wilder imagination of Salvator.

If the principles, the source of which we have thus cursorily traced, were pursued through the different windings and deviations into which so copious a subject runs, they would be found to account for the apparent caprice of our admiration of external nature, as well as for the corresponding habits of painters, without the intervention of that new and distinct character which Mr. Price has embodied. As a flowing outline is recommended' to produce a beautiful human figure, because in a state of health accompanying youth, the outlines are waving, flowing, and serpentine; but at the same time,' if you mean to preserve the most perfect beauty in its most perfect state, you cannot express the passions: so in inanimate nature, flowing lines represent calmness and repose; but as calms grow monotonous, and repose insipid, the serpentine yields to the irregular and the flowing to the rugged line, as characteristic of motion, and therefore of expression.

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To describe objects in which these marked characters may appear, or which may be fitted to express them, by the word picturesque, can never be objectionable, as long as the word continues to be understood in that sense as clearly and generally as it is at present: but let it be used as an analogical term, not as an essential quality.

It would be injustice to ourselves if we were to conclude without expressing our regret, that the only part of this interesting work which we have thought ourselves entitled to analyze, is the only part of it with which we cannot agree. There is an animation in Mr. Price's style, which, joined to the variety of reading which he occasionally displays, and his facility of apt quotation, renders his book a delightful companion to such as have an acquaintance with paintings, an eye for improvement, or even a taste for rural scenery. Whoever, indeed, has not a taste for these things, loses one of the most pure and unexpensive pleasures which life affords a pleasure possessed of this peculiar value, that it is universal, and unalloyed. Unalloyed, at least, it has been hitherto thought: and we have always acquiesced in the observation, that the pleasures received from things great, beautiful, or new, from imitation, or from the liberal arts, are in some measure not only superadded, but unmixed gratifications, having no pains to balance them. But the bitterness with which Mr. Price harasses and pursues into every

Sir Josh. Reyn. Disc. 4, and Note 56, on Du Fresnoy.

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retreat the great advocate of serpentine and waving outlines in land. scape, can only proceed from the positive pain which he has re ceived from witnessing the extent and success of Mr. Brown's ex ertions.* With a very sincere detestation of the clump and ring fence, we must be of opinion that the alterations at Blenheim expi ate a multitude of errors; for though it be true, as Mr. Price argues, that it is an obvious improvement to dam up a stream which flows on a gentle level through a valley, and to place the head in the narrowest and most concealed part, yet it should be remem bered that for the larger half of a century that improvement had not been suggested, and there had remained only a monstrous bridge over a vast hollow.'

But we forbear-for every desultory step in a book of this kind makes it at once more dangerous to advance, and more difficult to recede.

ART. VII. Musa Cantabrigienses; seu Carmina quædam Numismate aureo Cantabrigie ornata, et Procancellarii permissu edita. 8vo. pp. 232. Veneunt apud Lunn, Londinensem ; et Bibliopolas Cantabrigienses, Oxonienses et Etoneuses. 1810.

OETRY is certainly not altogether uncongenial with science;

P and it appears rational to expect, that in un university, devoted

to the cultivation of every branch of literature, it should meet with a due share of encouragement. Till the middle of the eighteenth century, however, the University of Cambridge never ventured upon the patronage of any thing but the mathematics. About that time classical learning was promoted to some degree of considera tion by the institution of the Chancellor's medals; and a Mr. Seaton left a small estate for the encouragement of sacred poetry. Even this, however, was confined to the Masters of Arts, to those, whose mathematical days were past, and in whom therefore poetry, or at least an annual attempt at it, could not be accounted a very heinous sin. The gradual advancement of the classics introduced a better taste and a speculation less confined: it is now about half a century since Sir William Brown directed an annual distribution of three gold medals for the encouragement of poetry in the undergraduates of the University. Of these the first is given for a Greek ode in imitation of Sappho, the second for a Latin Alcaic ode, and the third for a pair of epigrams, the one Greek and the other

As an instance, it is said, p. 322. Every thing I have seen of Mr. Brown's works convinces me that he had, in a figurative sense, no eye: and if he had had none in the literal sense, it would have only been a private misfortune, and partial evil, universal good,'

Latin, on the model of Martial, and, we believe, the Greek Anthology.

To include such discordant styles as the point of one, and the Pa of the other, under one prize, seems to intimate an expectation of qualities which are rarely found to reside in the same persons: leaving this, however, we cannot but regret that a compoIsition in English verse was not substituted in the place of the two epigrams; since the young student is now left without any honorary inducement to cultivate poetry in his own language; the encouragement held out by the Seatonian prize being, as we have already observed, confined to the Masters of Arts. Instead, however, of upbraiding the donor for what he has left undone, let us give him due credit for what he has done. The design was certainly laudable, and the success of it has not been contemptible. These annual offerings, seasoned as they occasionally are with poetical beauties, are at least sufficient to keep alive the memory of the man, at whose shrine they are presented; and when it is considered at how cheap a rate this species of immortality may be purchased, we cannot but be astonished, that prizes for competitions of this nature are not more numerous in both our Universities.

The present volume (the first that has appeared) contains eighteen of the Latin odes, fifteen of the Greek, and about thirty of the epigrams, which have been distinguished by Sir William Browne's prize. These are to be followed by the remainder, as the Editor informs us in a preface written throughout in a style of the most polished elegance.

'Diù multùmque nobis cogitantibus tandem visum est non omnia simul in lucem edere, sed potiùs carminum faciculum, quem si placidâ fronte exceperit juventus nostra studiosa, reliqua etiam, et præclara quidem ea, aliquandò edi fortè possint: nonnulla etiam omisimus, quæ antehac publici juris facta sunt.'-Præf. p. 2.

Far from objecting to the omission of those odes which have been already published, we are rather inclined to ask, why all such are not excluded? As it is, several of the best ornaments of the volume have been long known and admired in Tweddell's Prolusiones Juveniles: but of this anon.-The Editor proceeds:

'Atqui nos non satis officio functuros fore judicavimus, si hæc ad literam scripta prodire sineremus, cùm inter ea haud pauca pravæ monetæ deprendissemus. Id enim sedulò cavendum esse statuimus, ne quid apertè solocum, aut BagBagópavov in lucem daretur; nosque cum auctoribus ipsis gratiam inituros fore credidimus, si graviores mendas, quæ per opuscula hic illic spargerentur, mutatione, quâ licuit levissimâ, sustulissemus.'

Why the latter part of this sentence differs, in its construction,

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