sions as the sublime beauties of nature, or of the sacred Scriptures;-but has added, in express terms, that, "to oppose the beautiful to the sublime, or to the picturesque, strikes him as something analogous to a contrast between the beautiful and the comic-the beautiful and the tragic-the beautiful and the pathetic -or the beautiful and the romantic." are mirrors that may reflect all shades and all | Beautiful, already referred to, has oɔserved, colours; and, in point of fact, do seldom reflect not only that there appears to him to be ne the same hues twice. No two interesting inconsistency or impropriety in such expres objects, perhaps, whether known by the name of Beautiful, Sublime, or Picturesque, ever produced exactly the same emotion in the beholder; and no one object, it is most probable, ever moved any two persons to the very same conceptions. As they may be associated with all the feelings and affections of which the human mind is susceptible, so they may suggest those feelings in all their variety, and, in fact, do daily excite all sorts of emotions-running through every gradation, from extreme gaiety and elevation, to the borders of horror and disgust. The only other advantage which we shall specify as likely to result from the general adoption of the theory we have been endeavouring to illustrate is, that it seems calculated to put an end to all these perplexing Now, it is certainly true, that all the variety and vexatious questions about the standard of emotions raised in this way, on the single of taste, which have given occasion to so basis of association, may be classed, in a rude much impertinent and so much elaborate disway, under the denominations of sublime, cussion. If things are not beautiful in thembeautiful, and picturesque, according as they selves, but only as they serve to suggest inpartake of awe, tenderness, or admiration: teresting conceptions to the mind, then every and we have no other objection to this nomen- thing which does in point of fact suggest such clature, except its extreme imperfection, and a conception to any individual, is beautiful to the delusions to which we know that it has that individual; and it is not only quite true given occasion. If objects that interest by that there is no room for disputing about their association with ideas of power, and tastes, but that all tastes are equally just and danger, and terror, are to be distinguished by correct, in so far as each individual speaks the peculiar name of sublime, why should only of his own emotions. When a man calls there not be a separate name also for objects a thing beautiful, however, he may indeed that interest by associations of mirth and mean to make two very different assertions; gaiety-another for those that please by sug--he may mean that it gives him pleasure by gestions of softness and melancholy-another suggesting to him some interesting emotion; for such as are connected with impressions of comfort and tranquillity-and another for those that are related to pity, and admiration, and love, and regret, and all the other distinct emotions and affections of our nature? These are not in reality less distinguishable from each other, than from the emotions of awe and veneration that confer the title of sublime on their representatives; and while all the former are confounded under the comprehensive appellation of beauty, this partial attempt at distinction is only apt to mislead us into an erroneous opinion of our accuracy, and to make us believe, both that there is a greater conformity among the things that pass under the same name, and a greater difference between those that pass under different names, than is really the case. We have seen already, that the radical error of almost all preceding inquirers, has lain in supposing that every .hing that passed under the name of beautiful, must have some real and inherent quality in common with every thing else that obtained that name: And it is scarcely necessary for us to observe, that it has been almost as general an opinion, that sublimity was not only something radically different from beauty, but actually opposite to it; whereas the fact is, that it is far more nearly related to some sorts of beauty, than many sorts of beauty are to each other; and that both are founded exactly upon the same principle of suggesting some past or possible emotion of some sentient being. Upon this important point, we are happy to find our opinions confirmed by the authority of Mr Stewart, who, in his Essay on the and, in this sense, there can be no doubt that, if he merely speak truth, the thing is beautiful; and that it pleases him precisely in the same way that all other things please those to whom they appear beautiful. But if he mean farther to say that the thing possesses some quality which should make it appear beautiful to every other person, and that it is owing to some prejudice or defect in them if it appear otherwise, then he is as unreasonable and absurd as he would think those who should attempt to convince him that he felt no emotion of beauty. All tastes, then, are equally just and true, in so far as concerns the individual whose taste is in question; and what a man feels distinctly to be beautiful, is beautiful to him, whatever other people may think of it. All this follows clearly from the theory now in question: but it does not follow, from it, that all tastes are equally good or desirable, or that there is any difficulty in describing tha which is really the best, and the most to be envied. The only use of the faculty of taste is to afford an innocent delight, and to assist in the cultivation of a finer morality; and that man certainly will have the most delight from this faculty, who has the most numerous and the most powerful perceptions of beauty. But, if beauty consist in the reflection of our affections and sympathies, it is plain that he will always see the most beauty whose affections are the warmest and most exercisedwhose imagination is the most powerful, and who has most accustomed himself to attend to the objects by which he is surrounded. In so far as mere feeling and enjoyment are con eerned, therefore, it seems evident, that the best taste must be that which belongs to the best affections, the most active fancy, and the most attentive habits of observation. It will follow pretty exactly too, that all men's perceptions of beauty will be nearly in proportion to the degree of their sensibility and social sympathies; and that those who have no affections towards sentient beings, will be as certainly insensible to beauty in external objects, as he, who cannot hear the sound of his friend's voice, must be deaf to its echo. of theirs that the public would be astonished or offended, if they were called upon to join in that admiration. So long as no such call is made, this anticipated discrepancy of feeling need give them no uneasiness; and the suspicion of it should produce no contempt in any other persons. It is a strange aberration indeed of vanity that makes us despise persons for being happy-for having sources of enjoyment in which we cannot share:-and yet this is the true source of the ridicule, which is so generally poured upon individuals In so far as the sense of beauty is regarded who seek only to enjoy their peculiar tastes as a mere source of enjoyment, this seems to unmolested :-for, if there be any truth in the be the only distinction that deserves to be theory we have been expounding, no taste is attended to; and the only cultivation that bad for any other reason than because it is taste should ever receive, with a view to the peculiar as the objects in which it delights gratification of the individual, should be must actually serve to suggest to the indithrough the indirect channel of cultivating vidual those common emotions and universal the affections and powers of observation. If affections upon which the sense of beauty is we aspire, however, to be creators, as well as every where founded. The misfortune is, observers of beauty, and place any part of however, that we are apt to consider all per our happiness in ministering to the gratifica- sons who make known their peculiar relishes, tion of others as artists, or poets, or authors and especially all who create any objects for of any sort then, indeed, a new distinction their gratification, as in some measure dicof tastes, and a far more laborious system of tating to the public, and setting up an idol for cultivation, will be necessary. A man who general adoration; and hence this intolerant pursues only his own delight, will be as much interference with almost all peculiar percepcharmed with objects that suggest powerful tions of beauty, and the unsparing derision emotions in consequence of personal and ac- that pursues all deviations from acknowledged cidental associations, as with those that intro- standards. This intolerance, we admit, is often duce similar emotions by means of associa-provoked by something of a spirit of proselyttions that are universal and indestructible.ism and arrogance, in those who mistake their To him, all objects of the former class are own casual associations for natural or univerreally as beautiful as those of the latter and sal relations; and the consequence is, that for his own gratification, the creation of that sort of beauty is just as important an occupation: but if he conceive the ambition of creating beauties for the admiration of others, he must be cautious to employ only such objects as are the natural signs, or the inseparable concomitants of emotions, of which the greater part of mankind are susceptible; and his taste will then deserve to be called bad and false, if he obtrude upon the public, as beautiful, objects that are not likely to be associated in common minds with any interesting impressions. For a man himself, then, there is no taste that is either bad or false; and the only difference worthy of being attended to, is that between a great deal and a very little. Some who have cold affections, sluggish imaginations, and no habits of observation, can with difficulty discern beauty in any thing; while others, who are full of kindness and sensibility, and who have been accustomed to attend to all the objects around them, feel it almost in every thing. It is no matter what other people may think of the objects of their admiration; nor ought it to be any concern mortified vanity ultimately dries up, even for them, the fountain of their peculiar enjoyment; and disenchants, by a new association of general contempt or ridicule, the scenes that had been consecrated by some innocent but accidental emotion. As all men must have some peculiar associations, all men must have some peculiar notions of beauty, and, of course, to a certain extent, a taste that the public would be entitled to consider as false or vitiated. For those who make no demands on public admiration, however, it is hard to be obliged to sacrifice this source of enjoyment; and, even for those who labour for applause, the wisest course, perhaps, if it were only practicable, would be, to have two tastes one to enjoy, and one to work by-one founded upon uni versal associations, according to which they finished those performances for which they challenged universal praise-and another guid ed by all casual and individual associations, through which they might still look fondly upon nature, and upon the objects of thei secret admiration. (November, 1812.) De la Littérature considérée dans ses Rapports avec les Institutions Sociales. Par MAD. DE STAEL-HOLSTEIN. Avec un Précis de la Vie et les Ecrits de l'Auteur. 2 tomes. 12mo. pp. 600. London: 1812.* WHEN we say that Madame de Staël is decidedly the most eminent literary female of her age, we do not mean to deny that there may be others whose writings are of more direct and indisputable utility-who are distinguished by greater justness and sobriety of thinking, and may pretend to have conferred more practical benefits on the existing generation. But it is impossible, we think, to deny, that she has pursued a more lofty as well as a more dangerous career;-that she has treated of subjects of far greater difficulty, and far more extensive interest; and, even in her failures, has frequently given indication of greater powers, than have sufficed for the success of her more prudent contemporaries. While other female writers have contented themselves, for the most part, with embellishing or explaining the truths which the more robust intellect of the other sex had previously established-in making knowledge more familiar, or virtue more engaging-or, at most, in multiplying the finer distinctions which may be detected about the boundaries of taste or of morality-and in illustrating the importance of the minor virtues to the general happiness of life-this distinguished person has not only aimed at extending the boundaries of knowledge, and rectifying the errors of received opinions upon subjects of the greatest importance, but has vigorously applied herself to trace out the operation of general causes, and, by combining the past with the present, and pointing out the connection and reciprocal action of all coexistent phenomena, to develope the harmonious system which actually prevails in the apparent chaos of human affairs; and to gain something like an assurance as to the complexion of that futurity towards which our thoughts are so anxiously driven, by the selfish as well as the generous principles of our nature. We are not acquainted, indeed, with any writer who has made such bold and vigorous attempts to carry the generalizing spirit of true philosophy into the history of literature and manners; or who has thrown so strong a light upon the capricious and apparently unaccountable diversities of national taste, genius, and morality-by connecting them with the political structure of society, the accidents of climate and external relation, and the va riety of creeds and superstitions. In her lighter works, this spirit is indicated chiefly by the force and comprehensiveness of those general observations with which they abound; and which strike at once, by their justness and novelty, and by the great extent of their application. They prove also in how remarkable a degree she possesses the rare talent of embodying in one luminous proposition those sentiments and impressions which float unquestioned and undefined over many an understanding, and give a colour to the character, and a bias to the conduct, of multitudes, who are not so much as aware of their exist. ence. Besides all this, her novels bear testimony to the extraordinary accuracy and minuteness of her observation of human cha racter, and to her thorough knowledge of those dark and secret workings of the heart, by which misery is so often elaborated from the pure element of the affections. Her knowledge, however, we must say, seems to be more of evil than of good: For the predominating sentiment in her fictions is, despair of human happiness and human virtue; and their interest is founded almost entirely on the inherent and almost inevitable heartlessness of polished man. The impression which they leave upon the mind, therefore, though powerfully pathetic, is both painful and humiliating; at the same time that it proceeds, we are inclined to believe, upon the double error of supposing that the bulk of intelligent people are as selfish as those splendid victims of fashion and philosophy from whom her characters are selected; and that a sensibility to unkindness can long survive the extinction of all kindly emotions. The work before us, however, exhibits the fairest specimen which we have yet seen of the systematizing spirit of the author, as well as of the moral enthusiasm by which she seems to be pos sessed. I reprint this paper as containing a more comprehensive view of the progress of Literature, especially in the ancient world, than any other from The professed object of this work is to show which I could make the selection; and also, in that all the peculiarities in the literature of some degree, for the sake of the general discussion different ages and countries, may be explained on Perfectibility, which I still think satisfactorily conducted. I regret that, in the body of the article, by a reference to the condition of society, and the portions that are taken from Madame de Staël the political and religious institutions of each; are not better discriminated from those for which I and at the same time, to point out in what only am responsible. The reader, however, will not go far wrong, if he attribute to that distinguished person the greater part of what may strike him as bold, imaginative, and original; and leave to me the humbler province of the sober, corrective, and distrustful. way the progress of letters has in its turn modified and affected the government and religion of those nations among whom they have flourished. All this, however, is bot tomed upon the more fundamental and fa There is a very eloquent and high-toned Introduction, illustrating, in a general way the influence of literature on the morals, the glory, the freedom, and the enjoyments of the people among whom it flourishes. It is full of brilliant thoughts and profound observations; but we are most struck with those sentiments of mingled triumph and mortifi cation by which she connects these magnificent speculations with the tumultuous aspect of the times in which they were nourished. vourite proposition, that there is a progress, to produce these effects-that letters and intelligence are in a state of constant, universal, and irresistible advancement-in other words, that human nature is tending, by a slow and interminable progression, to a state of perfection. This fascinating idea seems to have been kept constantly in view by Madame de Staël, from the beginning to the end of the work before us;-and though we conceive it to have been pursued with far too sanguine and assured a spirit, and to have led in this way to most of what is rash and questionable in her conclu"Que ne puis-je rappeler tous les esprits éclairés sions, it is impossible to doubt that it has also la jouissance des méditations philosophiques! Les contemporains d'une Révolution perdent souvent helped her to many explanations that are tout intérêt à la recherche de la vérité. Tant d'évé equally solid and ingenious, and thrown a nemens décidés par la force, tant de crimes absous light upon many phenomena that would other-par le succès, tant de vertus flétries par le blâme, wise have appeared very dark and unactant d'infortunes insultées par le pouvoir, tant de sentimens généreux devenus l'objet de la moquerie, tout lasse de l'espérance les hommes les plus fidèles tant de vils calculs philosophiquement commentés; au culte de la raison. Néanmoins ils doivent se ranimer en observant, dans l'histoire de l'esprit humain, qu'il n'a existé ni une pensée utile, ni une vérité profonde qui n'ait trouvé son siècle et ses admirateurs. C'est sans doute un triste effort que travers l'avenir, sur nos successeurs, sur les étran de transporter son intérêt, de reposer son attente, à gers bien loin de nous, sur les inconnus, sur tous les hommes enfin dont le souvenir et l'image ne peuvent se retracer à notre esprit. Mais, hélas ! si l'on en excepte quelques amis inaltérables, la plupart de ceux qu'on se rappelle après dix années de révolution, contristent votre cœur, étouffent vos mouvemens, en imposent à votre talent même, non par leur supériorité, mais par cette malveillance qui ne cause de la douleur qu'aux ames douces, et ne fait souffrir que ceux qui ne la méritent pas."-Tom. i. p. 27, 28. countable. In the range which she here takes, indeed, she has need of all the lights and all the aids that can present themselves;-for her work contains a critique and a theory of all the literature and philosophy in the world, from the days of Homer to the tenth year of the French revolution. She begins with the early learning and philosophy of Greece; and after characterizing the national taste and genius of that illustrious people, in all its departments, and in the different stages of their progress, she proceeds to a similar investigation of the literature and science of the Romans; and then, after a hasty sketch of the decline of arts and letters in the later days of the empire, and of the actual progress of the human mind during the dark ages, when it is supposed to have slumbered in complete inactivity, she enters upon a more detailed examination of the peculiarities, and the causes of the peculiarities, of all the different aspects of national taste and genius that characterize the literature of Italy, Spain, England, Germany, and France-entering, as to each, into a pretty minute exposition of its general merits and defects—and not only of the circumstances in the situation of the country that have produced those characteristics, but even of the authors and productions, in which they are chiefly exemplified. To go through all this with tolerable success, and without committing any very gross or ridiculous blunders, evidently required, in the first place, a greater allowance of learning than has often fallen to the lot of persons of the learned gender, who lay a pretty bold claim to distinction upon the ground of their learning alone; and, in the next place, an extent of general knowledge, and a power and comprehensiveness of thinking, that has still more rarely been the ornament of great scholars. Madame de Staël may be surpassed, perhaps, in scholarship (so far as relates to accuracy at least, if not extent,) by some-and in sound philosophy by others. But there are few indeed who can boast of having so much of both; and no one, so far as we know, who has applied the one to the elucidation of the other with so much boldness and success. But it is time to give a little more particular account of her lucubrations. The connection between good morals and that improved state of intelligence which Madame de Staël considers as synonymous with the cultivation of literature, is too obvi ous to require any great exertion of her talents for its elucidation. She observes, with great truth, that much of the guilt and the misery which are vulgarly imputed to great talents, really arise from not having talent enoughand that the only certain cure for the errors which are produced by superficial thinking, is to be found in thinking more deeply:-At the same time it ought not to be forgotten, that all men have not the capacity of thinking deeply-and that the most general cultivation of literature will not invest every one with talents of the first order. If there be a degree of intelligence, therefore, that is more unfavourable to the interests of morality and just opinion, than an utter want of intelligence, it may be presumed, that, in very enlightened times, this will be the portion of the greater multitude or at least that nations and individuals will have to pass through this troubled and dangerous sphere, in their way to the loftier and purer regions of perfect understanding. The better answer therefore probably is, that it is not intelligence that does the mischief in any case whatsoever, but the presumption that sometimes accompanies the lower degrees of it; and which is best disjoined from them, by making the higher degrees more attainable. It is quite true, as Madame de Staël observes, that the sions as the sublime beauties of nature, or of the sacred Scriptures;-but has added, in express terms, that, "to oppose the beautiful to the sublime, or to the picturesque, strikes him as something analogous to a contrast between the beautiful and the comic-the beautiful and the tragic-the beautiful and the pathetic -or the beautiful and the romantic." are mirrors that may reflect all shades and all | Beautiful, already referred to, has oɔserved, colours; and, in point of fact, do seldom reflect not only that there appears to him to be no the same hues twice. No two interesting inconsistency or impropriety in such expres objects, perhaps, whether known by the name of Beautiful, Sublime, or Picturesque, ever produced exactly the same emotion in the beholder; and no one object, it is most probable, ever moved any two persons to the very same conceptions. As they may be associated with all the feelings and affections of which the human mind is susceptible, so they may suggest those feelings in all their variety, and, in fact, do daily excite all sorts of emotions-running through every gradation, from extreme gaiety and elevation, to the borders of horror and disgust. The only other advantage which we shall specify as likely to result from the general adoption of the theory we have been endeavouring to illustrate is, that it seems calculated to put an end to all these perplexing Now, it is certainly true, that all the variety and vexatious questions about the standard of emotions raised in this way, on the single of taste, which have given occasion to so basis of association, may be classed, in a rude much impertinent and so much elaborate disway, under the denominations of sublime, cussion. If things are not beautiful in thembeautiful, and picturesque, according as they selves, but only as they serve to suggest inpartake of awe, tenderness, or admiration: teresting conceptions to the mind, then every and we have no other objection to this nomen- thing which does in point of fact suggest such clature, except its extreme imperfection, and a conception to any individual, is beautiful to the delusions to which we know that it has that individual; and it is not only quite true given occasion. If objects that interest by that there is no room for disputing about their association with ideas of power, and tastes, but that all tastes are equally just and danger, and terror, are to be distinguished by correct, in so far as each individual speaks the peculiar name of sublime, why should only of his own emotions. When a man calls there not be a separate name also for objects a thing beautiful, however, he may indeed that interest by associations of mirth and mean to make two very different assertions; gaiety-another for those that please by sug--he may mean that it gives him pleasure by gestions of softness and melancholy-another suggesting to him some interesting emotion; for such as are connected with impressions of comfort and tranquillity-and another for those that are related to pity, and admiration, and love, and regret, and all the other distinct emotions and affections of our nature? These are not in reality less distinguishable from each other, than from the emotions of awe and veneration that confer the title of sublime on their representatives; and while all the former are confounded under the comprehensive appellation of beauty, this partial attempt at distinction is only apt to mislead us into an erroneous opinion of our accuracy, and to make us believe, both that there is a greater conformity among the things that pass under the same name, and a greater difference between those that pass under different names, than is really the case. We have seen already, that the radical error of almost all preceding inquirers, has lain in supposing that every .hing that passed under the name of beautiful, must have some real and inherent quality in common with every thing else that obtained that name: And it is scarcely necessary for us to observe, that it has been almost as general an opinion, that sublimity was not only something radically different from beauty, but actually opposite to it; whereas the fact is, that it is far more nearly related to some sorts of beauty, than many sorts of beauty are to each other; and that both are founded exactly upon the same principle of suggesting some past or possible emotion of some sentient being. Upon this important point, we are happy to find our opinions confirmed by the authority of Mr Stewart, who, in his Essay on the and, in this sense, there can be no doubt that, if he merely speak truth, the thing is beautiful; and that it pleases him precisely in the same way that all other things please those to whom they appear beautiful. But if he mean farther to say that the thing possesses some quality which should make it appear beautiful to every other person, and that it is owing to some prejudice or defect in them if it appear otherwise, then he is as unreasonable and absurd as he would think those who should attempt to convince him that he felt no emotion of beauty. All tastes, then, are equally just and true, in so far as concerns the individual whose taste is in question; and what a man feels distinctly to be beautiful, is beautiful to him, whatever other people may think of it. All this follows clearly from the theory now in question: but it does not follow, from it, that all tastes are equally good or desirable, or that there is any difficulty in describing tha which is really the best, and the most to be envied. The only use of the faculty of taste is to afford an innocent delight, and to assist in the cultivation of a finer morality; and that man certainly will have the most delight from this faculty, who has the most numerous and the most powerful perceptions of beauty. But, if beauty consist in the reflection of our affections and sympathies, it is plain that he will always see the most beauty whose affections are the warmest and most exercisedwhose imagination is the most powerful, and who has most accustomed himself to attend to the objects by which he is surrounded. In so far as mere feeling and enjoyment are con |