I have, in a former essay, ascertained one principle of taste or excellence in the arts of imitation, where it was shown that objects of sense are not as it were simple and self-evident propositions, but admit of endless analysis and the most subtle investigation. We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts. To suppose that we see the whole of any object, merely by looking at it, is a vulgar error: we fancy that we do, because we are, of course, conscious of no more than we see in it, but this circle of our knowledge enlarges with further acquaintance and study, and we then perceive that what we perhaps barely distinguished in the gross, or regarded as a dull blank, is full of beauty, meaning, and curious details. He sees most of nature who understands its language best, or connects one thing with the greatest number of other things. Expression is the key to the human countenance, and unfolds a thousand imperceptible distinctions. How, then, should every one be a judge of pictures, when so few are of faces? A merely ignorant spectator, walking through a gallery of pictures, no more distinguishes the finest than your dog would, if he was to accompany you. Do not even the most experienced dispute on the preference, and shall the most ignorant decide? A vulgar connoisseur would even prefer a Denner to a Titian, because there is more of merely curious and specific detail. We may hence account for another circumstance, why things please in the imitation which do not in reality. If we saw the whole of anything, or if the object in nature were merely one thing, this could not be the case. But the fact is, that in the imitation, or in the scientific study of any object, we come to an analysis of the details or some other abstract view of the subject which we had overlooked in a cursory examination, and these may be beautiful or curious, though the object in the gross is disgusting, or connected with disagreeable or uninteresting associations. Thus, in a picture of still life, as a shell or a marble chimney-piece, the stains or the gradations of colour may be delicate, and subjects for a new and careful imitation, though the tout ensemble has not, like a living face, the highest beauty of intelligence and expression. Here lie and here return the true effects and triumphs of art. It is not in making the eye a microscope, but in making it the interpreter and organ of all that can touch the soul and the affections, that the perfection of fine art is shown. Taste, then, does not place in the first rank of merit what merely proves difficulty or gratifies curiosity, unless it is combined with excellence and sentiment, or the pleasures of imagination and the moral sense. In this case the pleasure is more than doubled, where not only the imitation but the thing imitated, is fine in itself. Hence the preference given to Italian over Dutch pictures.
In respect to the imitation of nature, I would further observe that I think Sir Joshua Reynolds was wrong in making the grandeur of the design depend on the omission of the details, or the want of finishing. This seems also to proceed on the supposition that there cannot be two views of nature, but that the details are opposed to and inconsistent with an attention to general effect. Now this is evidently false, since the two things are undoubtedly combined by nature. For instance, the grandeur of design or character in the arch of an eyebrow is not injured or destroyed in reality by the hair-lines of which it is composed. Nor is the general form or outline of the eyebrow altered in the imitation, whether you make it one rude mass or descend into the minutiæ of the parts, which are arranged in such a manner as to produce the arched form and give the particular expression. So the general form of a nose, say an aquiline one, is not affected, whether I paint a wart which may happen to be on it or not, and so of the outline and proportions of the whole face. That is, general effect is consistent with individual details, and though these are not necessary to it, yet they often assist it, and always confirm the sense of verisimilitude. The most finished paintings, it is true, are not the grandest in effect; but neither is it true that the greatest daubs are the most sublime in character and composition. The best painters have combined an eye to the whole with careful finishing, and as there is a medium in all things, so the rule here seems to be not to go on ad infinitum with the details, but to stop when the time and labour necessary seem, in the judgment of the artist, to exceed the benefit produced.
Beauty does not consist in a medium, but in gradation or harmony. It has been the fashion of late to pretend to refer everything to association of ideas (and it is difficult to answer this appeal, since association, by its nature, mixes up with everything), but as Hartley has himself observed, who carried this principle to the utmost extent, and might be supposed to understand its limits, association implies something to be associated, and if there is a pleasing association, there must be first something naturally pleasing from which the secondary satisfaction is reflected, or to which it is conjoined. The chirping of a sparrow is as much a rural and domestic sound as the notes of the robin or the thrush, but it does not serve as a point to link other interests to because it wants beauty in itself; and, on the other hand, the song of the nightingale draws more attention to itself as a piece of music, and conveys less sentiment than the simple note of the cuckoo, which, from its solitary singularity, acts as the warning voice of time. Those who deny that there is a natural and pleasing softness arising from harmony or gradation, might as well affirm that sudden and abrupt transitions do not make our impressions more distinct as that they do not make them more harsh and violent. Beauty consists in gradation of colours or symmetry of form (conformity): strength or sublimity arises from the sense of power, and is aided by contrast. The ludicrous is the incoherent, arising, not from a conflicting power, but from weakness or the inability of any habitual impulse to sustain itself. The ideal is not confined to creation, but takes place in imitation, where a thing is subjected to one view, as all the parts of a face to the same expression. Invention is only feigning according to nature, or with a certain proportion between causes and effects. Poetry is infusing the same spirit into a number of things, or bathing them all as it were, in the same overflowing sense of delight (making the language also soft and musical), as the same torch kindles a number of lamps. I think invention is chiefly confined to poetry and words or ideas, and has little place in painting or concrete imagery, where the want of truth, or of the actual object, soon spoils the effect and force of the representation. Indeed, I think all genius is, in a great measure, national and local, arising out of times and circumstances, and being sustained at its full height by these alone, and that originality is not a deviation from, but a recurrence to nature. Rules and models destroy genius and art; and the excess of the artificial in the end cures itself, for it in time becomes so uniform and vapid as to be altogether contemptible, and to seek perforce some other outlet or purchase for the mind to take hold of.
The metaphysical theory above premised will account not only for the difficulty of imitating nature, but for the excellence of various masters, and the diversity and popularity of different styles. If the truth of sense and nature were one, there could be but one mode of representing it, more or less correct. But nature contains an infinite variety of parts, with their relations and significations, and different artists take these, and altogether do not give the whole. Thus Titian coloured, Raphael designed, Rubens gave the florid hue and motions, Rembrandt chiaro-scuro, &c.; but none of these reached perfection in their several departments, much less with reference to the whole circumference of art. It is ridiculous to suppose there is but one standard or one style. One artist looks at objects with as different an eye from another, as he does from the mathematician. It is erroneous to tie down individual genius to ideal models. Each person should do that, not which is best in itself, even supposing this could be known, but that which he can do best, which he will find out if left to himself. Spenser could not have written Paradise Lost, nor Milton the Faerie Queene. Those who aim at faultless regularity will only produce mediocrity, and no one ever approaches perfection except by stealth, and unknown to themselves. Did Correggio know what he had done when he had painted the ‘St. Jerome’—or Rembrandt when he made the sketch of ‘Jacob’s Dream?’ Oh, no! Those who are conscious of their powers never do anything.
ON THE PRESENT STATE OF PARLIAMENTARY ELOQUENCE
| The London Magazine.] | [October 1820. |
It was a fine impertinence of the younger Pliny, to try to persuade Tacitus, in one of his epistles, that the diffuse style was better than the concise. ‘Such a one,’ says he, ‘aims at the throat of his adversary: now I like to strike him wherever I can.’ I may be thought guilty of a like piece of officiousness in the remarks here offered on several of the most prominent of our parliamentary speakers. In general, to suggest advice, or hazard criticism, is to recommend it to others to do something, which we know they either will not or cannot do: or it is to desire them either to please us, or do nothing. The present article may be considered as a marginal note or explanatory addition to a former one, on nearly the same subject—like one of Lord Castlereagh’s long parentheses: but I hope there will be more in it. It is a subject of which I wish to make clear work as I go; for it is one to which, if I can once get rid of it, I am not likely to recur.
The haughty tone of invective which I have already ascribed to Lord Chatham, was very different from that didactic style of parliamentary oratory which has since been imported from northern colleges and lecture-rooms. Of this school Sir James Mackintosh and Mr. Brougham may be reckoned at the head.
This method consists, not so much in taking a side, as in stating a question. The speaker takes upon him to be the judge rather than the advocate; and if he had the authority of a judge, or could direct the decision, as well as sum up the evidence, it would be all very well. An orator of this stamp does not seat himself on the Opposition side of the House to urge or to reply to particular points, but in a Professor’s chair of Humanity, to read a lecture to the tyros of the Treasury-Bench, on the elementary principles and all the possible bearings, the objections and answers, the difficulties and the solutions of every question in philosophy, jurisprudence, politics, and political economy,—on war, peace, ‘domestic treason, foreign levy,’ colonial produce, copy-right of authors, prison discipline, the hulks, the corn-bill, the penitentiary, prostitutes, and pick-pockets. Nothing comes amiss to him that can puzzle himself or pose his hearers; and he lets out all his knowledge indiscriminately, whether it makes for or against him, with deliberate impartiality and scrupulous exactness. Such persons might be called Orators of the Human Mind. They are a little out of their place, it must be owned, in the House of Commons. The object there is—not to put the majority in possession of the common grounds of judging, as in a class of students—(these are taken for granted as already known)—but to carry a point, to gain a verdict for yourself or for truth, by throwing the weight of eloquence and argument into the scale against interest, prejudice, or sophistry. There are retainers enough on the other side to manage for the crown, who are ready to take all advantages without your volunteering to place yourself in their power, or to put excuses in their mouths, to help them out at a dead-lift. If they were candid, if they were disinterested, if they were not hostilely disposed, it might be a feasible scheme to consider a debate as an amicable communication of doubts and lights, as a comparison of strength or a confession of weakness: but why hint a doubt, or start a difficulty needlessly in your own path, which will be eagerly caught at, and made use of in the most insulting manner to defeat a host of real proofs, and overturn the most legitimate conclusions? Why tamper with your own cause? Why play at fast and loose with your object? Why restore the weapons into your enemies’ hands, which you have just wrested from them? Why ‘make a wanton’ of the First Minister of State? It is either vanity, weakness, or indifference to do so. You might as well in confidence tell an adversary where you meant to strike him, point out to him your own weak sides, or wait in courtesy for the blow. Gamesters do not show one another their hands: neither should politicians, who understand what they are about—that is, knaves will not, and honest men ought not. Others will find out the rotten parts of a question: do you stick to the sound—knowledge is said to be power: but knowledge, applied as we have seen it, neutralises itself. Mere knowledge, to be effectual, must act in vacuo: but the House of Commons is by no means a vacuum, and empty receiver for abstract truth and airy speculation. There is the resistance, the refrangibility of dense prejudice and crooked policy: you must concentrate, you must enforce, you must urge to glowing sympathy: and enthusiasm, zeal, perfect conviction on your part, is the only principle that can be brought into play against the cool calculations or gross incentives of selfishness and servility on the opposite side. A middle line of conduct does not excite respect, but contempt. They do not think you sincere, but lukewarm. They give you credit for affectation or timidity, but none for heartiness in a cause, or fidelity to a party. They have more hopes of you than fears. By everlasting subtle distinctions, and hesitating, qualified, retracting dissent from measures you would be thought most to reprobate, you do more harm than good. In theory there are infinite shades of difference, but in practice the question must be decided one way or other: either the Ayes or the Noes must have it. In all such cases, those who are not for us are against us. In political controversy, as in a battle, there are but two sides to chuse between; and those who create a diversion in favour of established abuses by setting up a third, fanciful, impracticable standard of perfection of their own, in the most critical circumstances, betray the cause they pretend to espouse with such overweening delicacy. For my own part, I hate a fellow who picks a hole in his own coat, who finds a flaw in his own argument, who treats his enemies as if they might become friends, or his friends as if they might become enemies. I hate your shuffling, shilly-shally proceedings, and diagonal sidelong movements between right and wrong. Fling yourself into the gap at once—either into the arms, or at the heads of Ministers!
I remember hearing, with some pain and uneasiness, Sir James Mackintosh’s maiden speech on the Genoa business. It was a great, but ineffectual effort. The mass of information, of ingenuity, and reasoning, was very prodigious; but the whole was misdirected, no impression whatever was made. It was like an inaugural dissertation on the general principles of ethics, on the laws of nature and nations, on ancient and modern history—a laboured treatise de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis. There were all the rules of moral arithmetic, all the items in a profligate political account; but the bill was not properly cast up, the case was not distinctly made out, the counsel got no damages for his client. Nothing was gained by this motion, nor could there be. When he had brought his heaviest artillery to bear with probable success upon a certain point, he stopped short like a scientific demonstrator (not like a skilful engineer) to show how it might be turned against himself. When he had wound up the charge of treachery or oppression to a climax, he gratuitously suggested a possible plea of necessity, accident, or some other topic, to break the force of his inference; or he anticipated the answers that might be made to it, as if he was afraid he should not be thought to know all that could be said on both sides of the question. This enlarged knowledge of good and evil may be very necessary to a philosopher, but it is very prejudicial to an orator. No man can play the whole game in this manner, blow hot and cold in a breath, or take an entire debate into his own hands, and wield it in which way he pleases. He will find his own load enough for his own shoulders to bear. The exceptions if you chuse to go into them, multiply faster than the rules: the various complications of the subject distract, instead of convincing: you do your adversary’s work for him; the battle is lost without a blow being struck; and a speech of this sceptical kind requires and receives no answer. It falls by its own weight, and buries any body but the Minister under its ruins—or it is left, not a triumphal arch, but a splendid mausoleum of the learning, genius, and eloquence of the speaker.—The Cock-pit of St. Stephen’s does not relish this scholastic refinement, this method of holding an argument with a man’s self: a little bear-garden, cut-and-thrust work would be much better understood. Sir James has of late improved his tact and knowledge of the House. He has taken up Sir Samuel Romilly’s department of questions relating to the amelioration of the penal code and general humanity, and I have no doubt Government will leave him in quiet possession of it. They concede these sort of questions as an amiable diversion, or friendly bonus, to the indefatigable spirit of Opposition.