213 THE POETRY OF PAINTING. Is turning our attention to the poetry of painting, we enter upon a subject which forms. the first connecting link between the physical and the intellectual world. So far as painting is a faithful representation of external nature, it belongs to the sphere of the senses; but as it holds intimate connection with some of the noblest efforts and affections of the human mind, it is scarcely inferior to the art of poetry itself, in the value it derives from the diffusion of poetic feeling, through the countless varieties of style and character, in which it is exhibited. to mankind. The poetry of painting is perhaps more felt, and less understood, than that of any other subject to which we can apply our thoughts; easy to define what is the nature of the nor is it pressure of grief, this sympathy is most perceptible and most availing, because sorrow has a greater tendency than joy to excite the imagination, and thus it multiplies its own associations by identifying itself with everything that wears the slightest shadow of gloom. I will not say that the world in general is more productive of images of sadness than of pleasure; but from the misuse of our own faculties, and the consequent tendency of our own minds, we are more apt to look for such amongst the objects around us; and thus in our daily observation, passing over what is lovely, and genial, and benign, we fix our minds upon the desolating floods, the anticipated storm, the early blight, the cankered blossom, the faded leaf, the broken bough, or the premature decay of autumn fruit. This, however, is no fault of nature's, but our own; nor does it prove anything against the argument, that, whether happy or miserable, we may find a responding voice in nature, to echo back our gladness, and to answer to our sighs; that every feeling of which we are capable, in its purest and least vitiated state, may meet with similitude, and companionship, and association in the natural world; and above all, that he who desires to rise out of the low cares of artificial life, whose soul a-pires above the gross elements of mere bodily existence, and whose highest ambition is to render up that soul, purified rather than polluted, may find in nature a congenial, faithful, and untiring friend. I cannot better conclude these remarks, than by quoting a passage from the writings of one, who possessed the enviable art of combining science with sublimity, and philosophy with poetic feeling. "Nature," says Sir Humphry Davy, “never deceives us; the rocks, the mountains, the streams, always speak the same language; a shower of snow may hide the verdant woods in spring, a thunder storm may render the blue limpid streams foul and turbulent; but these effects are rare and transient-in a few hours, or at least days, all the sources of beauty are renovated. And nature affords no continued trains of misfortunes and miseries, such as depend upon the constitution of humanity, no hopes for ever blighted in the bud, no beings full of life, beauty, and promise, taken from us in the prime of youth. Her fruits are all balmy, bright, and sweet; she affords none of those blighted ones so common in the life of man, and so like the fabled apples of the Dead Sea, fresh and beautiful to the sight, but when tasted, full of bitterness and ashes." 213 THE POETRY OF PAINTING. Is turning our attention to the poetry of painting, we enter upon a subject which forms. the first connecting link between the physical and the intellectual world. So far as painting is a faithful representation of external nature, it belongs to the sphere of the senses; but as it holds intimate connection with some of the noblest efforts and affections of the human mind, it is scarcely inferior to the art of poetry itself, in the value it derives from the diffusion. of poetic feeling, through the countless varieties of style and character, in which it is exhibited to mankind. The poetry of painting is perhaps more felt, and less understood, than that of any other subject to which we can apply our thoughts; nor is it easy to define what is the nature of the |