Volume Ii Part 6 (1/2)

_B_. Is this reasoning about degrees of probability just?--When Sir Joshua Reynolds, who is unequalled both in the theory and practice of his art, and who is a great master of the pen as well as the pencil, has a.s.serted in a discourse delivered to the Royal Academy, December 11, 1786, that ”the higher styles of painting, like the higher kinds of the Drama, do not aim at any thing like deception; or have any expectation, that the spectators should think the events there represented are really pa.s.sing before them.” And he then accuses Mr. Fielding of bad judgment, when he attempts to compliment Mr. Garrick in one of his novels, by introducing an ignorant man, mistaking the representation of a scene in Hamlet for a reality; and thinks, because he was an ignorant man, he was less liable to make such a mistake.

_P_. It is a metaphysical question, and requires more attention than Sir Joshua has bestowed upon it.--You will allow, that we are perfectly deceived in our dreams; and that even in our waking reveries, we are often so much absorbed in the contemplation of what pa.s.ses in our imaginations, that for a while we do not attend to the lapse of time or to our own locality; and thus suffer a similar kind of deception as in our dreams. That is, we believe things present before our eyes, which are not so.

There are two circ.u.mstances, which contribute to this compleat deception in our dreams. First, because in sleep the organs of sense are closed or inert, and hence the trains of ideas a.s.sociated in our imaginations are never interrupted or dissevered by the irritations of external objects, and can not therefore be contrasted with our sensations. On this account, though we are affected with a variety of pa.s.sions in our dreams, as anger, love, joy; yet we never experience surprize.--For surprize is only produced when any external irritations suddenly obtrude themselves, and dissever our pa.s.sing trains of ideas.

Secondly, because in sleep there is a total suspension of our voluntary power, both over the muscles of our bodies, and the ideas of our minds; for we neither walk about, nor reason in compleat sleep. Hence, as the trains of ideas are pa.s.sing in our imaginations in dreams, we cannot compare them with our previous knowledge of things, as we do in our waking hours; for this is a voluntary exertion; and thus we cannot perceive their incongruity. Thus we are deprived in sleep of the only two means by which we can distinguish the trains of ideas pa.s.sing in our imaginations, from those excited by our sensations; and are led by their vivacity to believe them to belong to the latter. For the vivacity of these trains of ideas, pa.s.sing in the imagination, is greatly increased by the causes above-mentioned; that is, by their not being disturbed or dissevered either by the appulses of external bodies, as in surprize; or by our voluntary exertions in comparing them with our previous knowledge, of things, as in reasoning upon them.

_B_. Now to apply.

_P_. When by the art of the Painter or Poet a train of ideas is suggested to our imaginations, which interests us so much by the pain or pleasure it affords, that we cease to attend to the irritations of common external objects, and cease also to use any voluntary efforts to compare these interesting trains of ideas with our previous knowledge of things, a compleat reverie is produced: during which time, however short, if it be but for a moment, the objects themselves appear to exist before us. This, I think, has been called by an ingenious critic ”the ideal presence” of such objects. (Elements of Criticism by Lord Kaimes). And in respect to the compliment intended by Mr. Fielding to Mr. Garrick, it would seem that an ignorant Rustic at the play of Hamlet, who has some previous belief in the appearance of Ghosts, would sooner be liable to fall into reverie, and continue in it longer, than one who possessed more knowledge of the real nature of things, and had a greater facility of exercising his reason.

_B_. It must require great art in the Painter or Poet to produce this kind of deception?

_P_. The matter must be interesting from its sublimity, beauty, or novelty; this is the scientific part; and the art consists in bringing these distinctly before the eye, so as to produce (as above-mentioned) the ideal presence of the object, in which the great Shakespear particularly excells.

_B_. Then it is not of any consequence whether the representations correspond with nature?

_P_. Not if they so much interest the reader or spectator as to induce the reverie above described. Nature may be seen in the market-place, or at the card-table; but we expect something more than this in the play-house or picture-room. The further the artists recedes from nature, the greater novelty he is likely to produce; if he rises above nature, he produces the sublime; and beauty is probably a selection and new combination of her most agreeable parts. Yourself will be sensible of the truth of this doctrine by recollecting over in your mind the works of three of our celebrated artists. Sir Joshua Reynolds has introduced sublimity even into its portraits; we admire the representation of persons, whose reality we should have pa.s.sed by unnoticed. Mrs. Angelica Kauffman attracts our eyes with beauty, which I suppose no where exists; certainly few Grecian faces are seen in this country. And the daring pencil of Fuseli transports us beyond the boundaries of nature, and ravishes us with the charm of the most interesting novelty. And Shakespear, who excells in all these together, so far captivates the spectator, as to make him unmindful of every kind of violation of Time, Place, or Existence. As at the first appearance of the Ghost of Hamlet, ”his ear must be dull as the fat weed, which roots itself on Lethe's brink,” who can attend to the improbablity of the exhibition. So in many scenes of the Tempest we perpetually believe the action pa.s.sing before our eyes, and relapse with somewhat of distaste into common life at the intervals of the representation.

_B_. I suppose a poet of less ability would find such great machinery difficult and c.u.mbersome to manage?

_P_. Just so, we should be mocked at the apparent improbabilities. As in the gardens of a Scicilian n.o.bleman, described in Mr. Brydone's and in Mr. Swinburn's travels, there are said to be six hundred statues of imaginary monsters, which so disgust the spectators, that the state had once a serious design of destroying them; and yet the very improbable monsters in Ovid's Metamorphoses have entertained the world for many centuries.

_B._ The monsters in your Botanic Garden, I hope, are of the latter kind?

_P._ The candid reader must determine.

THE

LOVES

OF THE

PLANTS.

CANTO II.

Again the G.o.ddess strikes the golden lyre, And tunes to wilder notes the warbling wire; With soft suspended step Attention moves, And Silence hovers o'er the listening groves; 5 Orb within orb the charmed audience throng, And the green vault reverberates the song.

”Breathe soft, ye Gales!” the fair CARLINA cries, Bear on broad wings your Votress to the skies.

How sweetly mutable yon orient hues, 10 As Morn's fair hand her opening roses strews; How bright, when Iris blending many a ray Binds in embroider'd wreath the brow of Day; Soft, when the pendant Moon with l.u.s.tres pale O'er heaven's blue arch unfurls her milky veil; 15 While from the north long threads of silver light Dart on swift shuttles o'er the tissued night!

[_Carlina._ l. 7. Carline Thistle. Of the cla.s.s Confederate Males. The seeds of this and of many other plants of the same cla.s.s are furnished with a plume, by which admirable mechanism they perform long aerial journeys, crossing lakes and deserts, and are thus disseminated far from the original plant, and have much the appearance of a Shuttlec.o.c.k as they fly. The wings are of different construction, some being like a divergent tuft of hairs, others are branched like feathers, some are elevated from the crown of the seed by a slender foot-stalk, which gives, than a very elegant appearance, others sit immediately on the crown of the seed.

Nature has many other curious vegetable contrivances for the dispersion of seeds: see note on Helianthus. But perhaps none of them has more the appearance of design than the admirable apparatus of Tillandsia for this purpose. This plant grows on the branches of trees, like the misleto, and never on the ground; the seeds are furnished with many long threads on their crowns; which, as they are driven forwards by the winds, wrap round the arms of trees, and thus hold them fast till they vegetate. This it very a.n.a.logous to the migration of Spiders on the gossamer, who are said to attach themselves to the end of a long thread, and rise thus to the tops of trees or buildings, as the accidental breezes carry them.]

”Breathe soft, ye Zephyrs! hear my fervent sighs, Bear on broad wings your Votress to the skies!”-- --Plume over plume in long divergent lines 20 On whale-bone ribs the fair Mechanic joins; Inlays with eider down the silken strings, And weaves in wide expanse Daedalian wings; Round her bold sons the waving pennons binds, And walks with angel-step upon the winds.

25 So on the sh.o.r.eless air the intrepid Gaul Launch'd the vast concave of his buoyant ball.-- Journeying on high, the silken castle glides Bright as a meteor through the azure tides; O'er towns and towers and temples wins its way, 30 Or mounts sublime, and gilds the vault of day.

Silent with upturn'd eyes unbreathing crowds Pursue the floating wonder to the clouds; And, flush'd with transport or benumb'd with fear, Watch, as it rises, the diminish'd sphere.