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expression, which characterized the other fea- CHAP. tures, in which it could be exhibited in forms;

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whereas, in the eyes, it could only arise from Perception. brightness or colours. The effect is, accordingly, the most animated and striking, that can be conceived, in the instances which we have remaining of bronze statues with silver eyes; of which there are many, and some of exquisite work, but all of a small size. From these, nevertheless, we may form some ideas of the imposing and commanding effects, which those of heroic or colossal dimensions must have had, when exhibited as objects of devotion in the temples. Those of Phidias and Lysippus musthave been sufficient to reconcile even a Jew or a Mahometan to idolatry.

14. Sculpture, being properly a simple imitation of form, does not seem intended to afford any merely sensual pleasure to the eye: for such pleasure can only arise from colour, or variation of light and shadow; whereas sculpture, considered abstractedly, has no colour, and the lights and shadows, in which it most delights, are regular, feeble, or harsh; so as to be always either too much, or too little broken to suit painting; and, therefore, certainly not in themselves pleasing to the eye. Rembrandt laughed at those artists, who talked of improving themselves in painting by studying the antique sculptures; and showed, as his cabinet

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of antiques, a room furnished with cloaks, hats, turbans, &c. of various stuffs and tissues. As a mere painter, whose object was to please the eye, Rembrandt was quite right; and, indeed, no man ever understood that branch of the imitative art better, or practised it with more delicacy and success; his works arriving nearer to abstract perfection, in what they pretend to, than those of any other modern artist in any branch of art.

15. As sculpture is to painting, so, in some respects at least, is the melody of poetry compared with that of music. Sculpture and poetry require order and regularity: painting and music delight in wild and irregular variety: sculpture and poetry, too, are addressed entirely to the imagination and the passions; while painting and music are, in a degree, addressed to the organs of sight and hearing, and calculated to produce pleasures merely sensual.

16. Articulate language is entirely artificial and acquired; as appears from the case of deaf persons, who never learn to speak; and as has been further proved by the learned author, who has written expressly upon the subject*. But, nevertheless, inarticulate notes are natural to men, as well as to other animals; wherefore music is, in its principle, natural, while poetry

Lord Monboddo.

is wholly artificial: for though the tones of the voice be from nature, the division of them into syllables and words is from acquired habit *.

17. In the habitual modes of distribution and combination of words into sentences, in order to express the sentiments and operations of the mind, the idiom of language consists; which thus depending upon accidental habit, is different in every different tongue. Rhythm is the disposition and arrangement of the long and short syllables in the order most easy and pleasant to the speaker, and most grateful and harmonious to the hearer; while prosody is a similar disposition and arrangement of the high and low syllables; that is, of those which the habitual idiom of the language has decreed to be respectively pronounced in a high or low tone of voice; which words high and low may mean either acute and base, as in the Greek prosody; or loud and its contrary, as in the modern.

18. In a just and skilful application of the variations of rhythm and prosody, such as arises from just feeling only, does the melody of language consist: but, nevertheless, this melody affords no gratification to the mere organs of hearing; but is solely perceived and felt by mental sympathy, as appears from our feeling

* See Origin and Progress of Language, by Lord Monboddo.

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it, when we read inwardly, and without any utterance of sound; and also from its varying Perception. with the habitual variations of idiom in different languages: for, if it were a pleasure of organic sensation, it must necessarily, as before observed, be the same in all languages.

19. Articulation is merely division of tone; which division may be either entire interruption, or only partial suppression, accordingly as the respective organs, by which it is produced, are entirely compressed, or only approximated to each other. The entire compression of the organs is signified in writing by the mute consonants, and the partial approximation by the liquids and aspirates; neither of which admit. of any variation in mode or degree beyond that respectively produced by the compression or approximation of the respective organs of speech; or the different degrees of force or emphasis, with which they are compressed or approximated, which different degrees constitute the differences between the consonants B and P, D and T, and G and K; which are commutable in all flexible tongues.

20. Verse, therefore, considered as a metrical and accentual arrangement of syllables, independent of any chant or melody of tone, with which it is uttered, has nearly the same relation to prose, as dancing has to walking, or other irregular exercise of the limbs. Both,

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considered thus abstractedly, are merely regulated divisions of motion; one of the organs of Of improved the mouth, and the other of the members of Perception. the body; and, as both are regulated by musical divisions of time, and graduated according to the emphasis, by which those divisions are marked, both are intimately connected with, and naturally accompanied by music; though both be in principle essentially different from it.

21. Articulation, being the means by which sound is made the vehicle of thought as well as of sentiment, the modulation of the tone, by which its intervals are filled up, is, in a great degree, regulated by the meaning, which it conveys; wherefore the melody of verse can neither be expressed nor felt by those, who do not understand the language: for, upon that modulation, the prosody depends entirely, and the rhythm in a great measure.

22. Poetry, so far as it consists in language, is the division of rhythm and prosody into certain limited and regular portions, so modified as to express, in the most appropriate sounds, and with the utmost facility and energy, that the respective idioms of the particular languages allow, the various affections, sentiments, and passions of the mind; and those images in nature or art which are the proper subjects and motives of its various passions, sentiments, and

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