“What passion cannot music raise or quell?” says Dryden, or Pope, I forget which: and the same thought is so often expressed by other poets, and so generally adopted by all authors upon this subject, that it would be a bold attempt to contradict it, were there not an immediate appeal to general feeling, which I hope is superior to all authority. Thus supported then, I ask in my turn—“What passion can music raise or quell?” Who ever felt himself affected, otherwise than with pleasure, at those strains which are supposed to inspire grief—rage—joy—or pity? and this, in a degree, equal to the goodness of the composition and performance. The effect of music, in this instance, is just the same as of poetry. We attend—are pleased—delighted—transported—and when the heart can bear no more, “glow, tremble, and weep.” All these are but different degrees of pure pleasure. When a poet or musician has produced this last effect, he has attained the utmost in the power of poetry or music. Tears being a general expression of grief, pain, and pity; and music, when in its perfection, producing them, has occasioned the mistake, of its raising the passions of grief, &c. But tears, in fact, are nothing but the mechanical effect of every strong affection of the heart, and produced by all the passions; even joy and rage. It is this effect, and the pleasurable sensation together, which Offian (whether ancient or modern I care not) calls the “joy of grief.”——It is this effect, when produced by some grand image, which Dr. Blair, his Critic, styles the “sublime pathetic.”
I have chosen to illustrate these observations from poetry rather than from music, because it is more generally understood, and easier to quote—but the principle is equal in both the arts.
Adieu.
LETTER XVIII.
YOUR pictures came safe—my opinion of them you will in part know from the following observations, which, though made on another occasion, are equally applicable to this.
There is in landscape-painting and novel-writing a fault committed by some of the best artists and authors, which is as yet unnamed, because perhaps unnoticed, permit me to call it a bad association.
In a landscape, it is not sufficient that all the objects are such as may well be found together.—In a story, it is not enough that the incidents are such as may well happen—it is necessary in both, that all the circumstances should be of the same family.
Suppose a landscape had for its subject one of Gaspar Poussin’s Views of Tivoli—now, tho’ there is nothing more natural than to find mills by running water, yet a mill is not an object that can possibly agree with the other parts of the picture. Suppose in a landscape of Ruysdale there were introduced the ruins of a temple; tho’ a temple may be properly placed in a wood near water, yet it does not suit the rustic simplicity of the pictures of this artist.—Give the mill to Ruysdale and the temple to Gaspar—all will be right. These two painters were the most perfect in their different styles that ever existed. Both formed themselves upon the study of nature, both were correct, both excellent; and yet so totally different from each other, that there are scarce any parts of the pictures of one, that will bear being introduced into those of the other. Claude’s magnificent ideas frequently betrayed him into a bad association.——Large grand masses of trees agree but ill with sea and ships, unless they are removed to a distance.—An English painter, who formed himself upon the study of Gaspar, took his trees, rocks, and other circumstances from that master, but his buildings from the Gardiner’s huts at Newington.
A story which proceeds upon a regular circumscribed plan, chiefly consisting of dialogue and sentiment, where the scene is laid in London, and the characters such as are natural to the place; has a bad association if the author goes to Africa in quest of adventures. On the other hand, a novel which sets out upon the principle of variety, and where a frequent change of place is necessary to the execution of the design, has a bad association if the author in any part of it quits adventure for sentiment or satire. And yet, this has been done by Fielding and Smollet, the two best novel-writers of the age.