99. Non satis est pulchra, etc.] Dr. Bentley objects to pulchra, because this, he says, is a general term, including under it every species of beauty, and therefore that of dulcis or the affecting. But the great critic did not sufficiently attend to the connexion, which, as F. Robortellus, in his paraphrase on the epistle, well observes, stands thus: “It is not enough, that tragedies have that kind of beauty, which arises from a pomp and splendor of diction, they must also be pathetic or affecting.” Objiciat se mihi hoc loco aliquis et dicat, si id fiat [i. e. si projiciantur ampullæ] corrumpi omnem venustatem et gravitatem poëmatis tragici, quod nihil nisi grande et elatum recipit. Huic ego ita respondendum puto, non satis esse, ut poëmata venusta sint et dignitatem suam servent: nam dulcedine quoque et suavitate quâdam sunt conspergenda, ut possint auditoris animum inflectere in quamcunque voluerint partem.
But a very ingenious person, who knows how to unite philosophy with criticism; and to all that is elegant in taste, to add what is most just and accurate in science, hath, in the following note, shewn the very foundation of Dr. Bentley’s criticism to be erroneous.
“There are a multitude of words in every language, which are sometimes used in a wider, sometimes in a more restrained sense. Of this kind are καλὸν of the Greeks, the pulchrum of the Romans, and the words by which they are translated in modern languages. To whatever subjects these epithets are applied, we always intend to signify that they give us pleasure: and we seldom apply them to any subjects, but those which please by means of impressions made on the fancy: including under this name the reception of images conveyed directly by the sight itself. As Poetry therefore always addresses itself to the imagination, every species of poetical excellence obtains the name of Beauty: and, among the rest, the power of pleasing us by affecting the passions; an effect which intirely depends on the various images presented to our view. In this sense of the word beautiful, it cannot be opposed to pathetic. Pulchrum enim quascunque carminis virtutes, etiam ipsam dulcedinem, in se continere meritò videatur.
But nothing, I think, can be plainer, than that this epithet is often used more determinately. Visible forms are not merely occasions of pleasure, in common with other objects, but they produce a pleasure of a singular kind. And the power they have of producing it, is properly denominated by the name of Beauty. Whether Regularity and Variety have been rightly assigned, as the circumstances on which it depends, is a question, which in this place we need not consider. It cannot at least be denied, that we make a distinction among the objects of sight, when the things themselves are removed from our view: and that we annex the names of Beauty and Deformity to different objects and different pictures, in consequence of these perceptions. I ask then, what is meant, when the words are thus applied? Is it only that we are pleased or displeased? This surely cannot be said. For the epithets would then be applied with equal propriety to the objects of different senses: and the fragrance of a flower, for instance, would be a species of beauty; the bitterness of wormwood a species of deformity.—Do we then mean, that we receive pleasure and pain by means of the Imagination? We may indeed mean this: but we certainly mean more than this. For the same names are used and applied, in a manner perfectly similar, by numbers of persons who never once thought of this artificial method of distinguishing their ideas. There is then some kind of perception, common to them and us, which has occasioned this uniformity in our ways of speaking: and whether you will chuse to consider the perceptive faculty as resulting only from habit, or allow it the name of a Sense of Beauty; whether these perceptions can, or cannot, be resolved into some general principle, imagination of private advantage, or sympathy with others, are, in the present case, circumstances wholly indifferent.
If it be admitted that the epithets, of which we are speaking, were originally used in this restrained sense, it is easy to see that they would readily obtain the more extended signification. For the species of pleasure to which they were first confined, was found always to arise from images impressed on the fancy: what then more natural, than to apply the same words to every species of pleasure resulting from the imagination, and to every species of images productive of pleasure? Thus the beauty of a human person might originally signify such combinations of figure and colour, as produced the peculiar perception above-mentioned. Pulchritudo corporis (says Cicero) aptâ compositione membrorum movet oculos, et eo ipso delectat, &c.—But from this signification to the other the transition was easy and obvious. If every beautiful form gave pleasure, every pleasing form might come to be called beautiful: not because the same perceptions are excited by all (the pleasures being apparently different) but because they are all excited in the same manner. And this is confirmed by a distinction which every one understands between beauties of the regular and irregular kind. When we would distinguish these from each other, we call the latter agreeable, and leave to the former only the name of beautiful: that is, we confine the latter term to its proper and original sense.—In much the same manner objects not visible may sometimes obtain the name of beauty, for no other reason than because the imagination is agreeably employed about them; and we may speak of a beautiful character, as well as a beautiful person: by no means intending that we have the same feeling from the one as the other, but that in both cases we are pleased, and that in both the imagination contributes to the pleasure.
Now as every representative art is capable of affording us pleasure, and this pleasure is occasioned by images impressed on the fancy; every pleasing production of art, will of course obtain the name of beautiful. Yet this hinders us not from considering beauty as a distinct excellence in such productions. For we may distinguish, either in a picture or poem, between the pleasures we receive directly from the imitation of visible forms, and those which principally depend on other kinds of imitation: And we may consider visible forms themselves either as occasions of pleasure, in common with other objects; or as yielding us that peculiar delight which they alone are capable of yielding. If we use the word beautiful in this limited sense, it is very intelligibly opposed to pathetic. Images of Groves, Fields, Rocks and Water, afford us a pleasure extremely different from that which we find in the indulgence of our tender affections: nor can there be any danger of confounding the agreeable perception received from a masterly statue of an Apollo or a Venus, with that which arises from a representation of the terrors men feel under a storm or a plague.
It is no objection to what has been said, that the objects we call beautiful may also in some cases be occasions of passion. The sight, for instance, of a beautiful person may give birth to the passion of Love: yet to perceive the beauty and to feel the passion are two different things. For every beautiful object does not produce love in every observer, and the same passion is sometimes excited by objects not beautiful; I mean not called beautiful by the persons themselves who are affected by them. And the distinction between these feelings, would receive further confirmation (if indeed there could be any doubt of it) from observing that people frequently speak of beauty, and as far as appears intelligibly, in persons of their own sex; who feel perhaps no passion but that of envy: which will not surely be thought the same with the perception of beauty.
There is then no room for an objection to the text of Horace, as it stood before Dr. B.’s emendation: unless it should be thought an impropriety to oppose two epithets which are capable of being understood in senses not opposite. But there is not the least ground for this imagination. For when a word of uncertain signification is opposed to another whose signification is certain; the opposition itself determines the sense. The word day in one of its senses includes the whole space of twenty-four hours: yet it is not surely an impropriety to oppose day to night.—In like manner the words pulchra poëmata, if we were not directed by the context, might signify good poems in general: but when the beauty of a poem is distinguished from other excellences, this distinction will lead us to confine our idea to beautiful imagery; and, we know it is agreeable to the sentiments which Horace expresses in other places, to declare that this kind of merit is insufficient in dramatic writers, from whom we expect a pleasure of very different kind. Indeed the most exquisite painting, if it is not constantly subordinate to this higher end, becomes not only insufficient, but impertinent: serving only to divert the attention, and interrupt the course of the passions.
It may seem perhaps that the force of a Latin expression cannot be ascertained from reflections of this sort, but must be gathered from citations of particular passages. And this indeed is true with regard to the peculiarities of the language. But the question before us is of a different kind. It is a question of Philosophy rather than Criticism: as depending on those differences of ideas, which are marked by similar forms of expression in all languages.”