tain sounds, one other remark remains to be made here. -It will be recollected, that the doctrine which we are opposing is, that all the power which musical sounds have, considered as a source of beauty, is wholly resolva ble into association. If this be true, then it seems to be the proper business of professed composers of music to study the nature and tendency of associations rather than of sounds. The common supposition in this matter undoubtedly is, that the musical composer exercises his invention and taste, in addition to the general conception or outline of his work, in forming perfect chords, varied modulation, and accurate rythm. This is a principal, not the only one, but a principal field of his labours; the theatre on which his genius is especially displayed; and without these results of chord, modulation, and rythm, it is certain that his efforts will fail to please. But if the doctrine which we are opposing be true, would it not be the fact, that he could bring together the most harsh and discordant sounds, and compose, by means of them, the great works of his art, provided he took the pains to cover their deformity by throwing over them some fascinating dress of association? But we presume it will not be pretended that mere association possesses this power as a general thing, even in the hands of genius.-Furthermore, we do not hesitate to say, that from the nature of the case, the musical genius which composes its works for immortality must deal chiefly with the elements and essentialities of things, and not with the mere incidents and accessories. Permanency in the works of art, of course, implies a corresponding permanency in their foundation. Associations are correctly understood to be, from their very nature, uncertain and changeable, while the beauty of some musical compositions (we speak but the common sentiment of mankind in saying it) is imperishable; a fact which seems to be inconsistent with its being founded on an unfixed and evanescent basis.

◊ 268. Of motion as an element of beauty.

Motion also, a new and distinct object of contemplation, has usually been reckoned a source of the beautiful, and very justly.—A forest or a field of grain, gently waved

by the wind, affects us pleasantly. The motion of a winding river pleases; and this, not only because the river is serpentine, but because it is never at rest. We are delighted with the motion of a ship as it cleaves the sea under full sail. We look on as it moves like a thing of life, and are pleased without being able to control our feelings, or to tell why they exist. And the waves, too, around it, which are continually approaching and departing, and curling upward in huge masses, and then breaking asunder into fragments of every shape, present a much more pleasing appearance than they would if profoundly quiet and stagnant.

With what happy enthusiasm we behold the foaming cascade, as it breaks out from the summit of the mountain and dashes downward to its base! With what pleasing satisfaction we gaze upon a column of smoke ascending from a cottage in a wood; a trait in outward scenery which landscape painters, who must certainly be accounted good judges of what is beautiful in the aspects of external nature, are exceedingly fond of introducing. It may be said in this case, we are aware, that the pleasure arising from beholding the ascending smoke of the cottage is caused by the favourite suggestions which are connected with it, of rural seclusion, peace, and abundance. But there is much reason to believe that the feeling would be, to some extent, the same, if it were known to ascend from the uncomfortable wigwam of the Savage, from an accidental conflagration, or from the fires of a wandering horde of gipsies. And if motion, on the limited scale on which we are accustomed to view it, be beautiful, how great would be the ecstasy of our feelings if we could be placed on some pinnacle of the universe, and could take in at one glance the regular and unbroken movement of the worlds and systems of infinite space.

§ 269. Explanation of the beauty of motion from Kaimes. The author of the Elements of Criticism, who studied our emotions with great care, has the following explanations on this subject.-" Motion is certainly agreeable in all its varieties of quickness and slowness; but motion long continued admits some exceptions. That degree of

continued motion which corresponds to the natural course of our perceptions is the most agreeable. The quickest motion is for an instant delightful; but it soon appears to be too rapid: it becomes painful by forcibly accelerating the course of our perceptions. Slow, continued motion becomes disagreeable for an opposite reason, that it retards the natural course of our perceptions.

"There are other varieties in motion, besides quickness and slowness, that make it more or less agreeable: regular motion is preferred before what is irregular; witness the motion of the planets in orbits nearly circular: the motion of the comets in orbits less regular is less agreeable.

"Motion uniformly accelerated, resembling an ascending series of numbers, is more agreeable than when uniformly retarded: motion upward is agreeable by the elevation of the moving body. What then shall we say of downward motion regularly accelerated by the force of gravity, compared with upward motion regularly retarded by the same force? Which of these is the most agreeable? This question is not easily solved.

"Motion in a straight line is no doubt agreeable: but we prefer undulating motion, as of waves, of a flame, of a ship under sail: such motion is more free and also more natural. Hence the beauty of a serpentine river."

CHAPTER III.

ASSOCIATED BEAUTY.

270. Associated beauty implies an antecedent or intrinsic beauty. THE views on the subject of beauty, which we think it important to enforce, involve the positions, FIRST, that there is an original or intrinsic beauty; and SECOND, that there is a beauty dependent on association. In opposition to those persons who may be disposed to maintain that no object is beautiful of itself, but that all its beauty depends on association, we wish, in this connexion, to introduce what we regard as an important remark of Mr.

Stewart. "The theory," he remarks, "which resolves the whole effect of beautiful objects into Association, must necessarily involve that species of paralogism, to which logicians give the name of reasoning in a circle. It is the province of association to impart to one thing the disagreeable or the agreeable effect of another; but association can never account for the origin of a class of pleasures different in kind from all the others we know. If there was nothing originally and intrinsically pleasing or beautiful, the associating principle would have no materials on which it could operate.'

This remark, if it be true, appears to be decisive on the subject before us. And that it is true, we think must appear from the very nature of association. What we term association, it will be recollected, does not so much express a state of the mind, a thought, a feeling, a passion, as it does a principle or law of the mind; in other words, the circumstance under which a new state of mind takes place. Association, therefore, as Mr. Stewart intimates, does not of itself originate or create anything; but acts in reference to what is already created or originated. Something must be given for it to act upon. If it imparts beauty to one object, it must find it in another. If the beauty exists in that other object in consequence of association, it must have been drawn from some other source still more remote. If, therefore, association merely takes the beauty on its wings, if we may be allowed the expression, and transfers it from place to place, there must, of necessity, be somewhere an original or intrinsic beauty, which is made the subject of such transfer.

§ 271. Objects may become beautiful by association merely. In accordance with what has thus far been said on this whole subject, it will be kept in mind, that some of the forms, of which matter is susceptible, are pleasing of themselves and originally; also that we are unable to behold certain colours, and to listen to certain sounds, and gaze upon particular expressions of the countenance, and to contemplate high intellectual and moral excellence, without emotions in a greater or less degree delightful. * Essay on the Beautiful, chapter vi.

At the same time, it must be admitted, that in the course of our experience we find a variety of objects, that seem, as they are presented to us, to be unattended with any emotion whatever; objects that are perfectly indifferent. And yet these objects, however wanting in beauty to the great mass of men, are found to be invested in the minds of some with a charm, allowedly not their own. These objects, which previously excited no feelings of beauty, may become beautiful to us in consequence of the associations which we attach to them. That is to say, when the objects are beheld, certain former pleasing feelings peculiar to ourselves are recalled.

The lustre of a spring morning, the radiance of a summer evening, may of themselves excite in us a pleasing emotion; but as our busy imagination, taking advantage of the images of delight which are before us, is ever at work and constantly forming new images, there is, in combination with the original emotion of beauty, a superadded delight. And if, in these instances, only a part of the beauty is to be ascribed to association, there are some others where the whole is to be considered as derived from that source.

Numerous instances can be given of the power of association, not only in heightening the actual charms of objects, but in spreading a sort of delegated lustre around those that were entirely uninteresting before. Why does yon decaying house appear beautiful to me, which is indifferent to another? Why are the desolate fields around it clothed with delight, while others see in them nothing that is pleasant? It is because that house formerly detained me as one of its inmates at its fireside, and those fields were the scenes of many youthful sports. When I now behold them after so long a time, the joyous emotions which the remembrance of my early days calls up within me, are, by the power of association, thrown around the objects which are the cause of the remembrances.

272. Further illustrations of associated feelings.

He who travels through a well-cultivated country town, cannot but be pleased with the various objects which he