sophisticated, they have neither the freshness of youth, nor the mellow picturesque character of age; and instead of becoming attractive, are only made horribly conspicuous.

I am afraid it will not be easy to check the general passion for distinctness and conspicuity. Each prospect hunter (a very numerous tribe) like the heroic Ajax, forms but one prayer;

Ποίησον δ' αιθρην, δος δ' οφθαλμοισιν ιδέσθαι.

Let them see but clearly, and see enough, they are content; and much may be said. in their favour: composition, grouping, breadth and effect of light and shadow, harmony of colours, &c. are comparatively attended to and enjoyed by few; but extensive prospects are the most popular of all views, and their respective superiority is generally decided by the number of churches and counties. Distinctness is therefore the great point; a painter may wish several hills of bad shapes, and thousands of uninteresting

acres, to be covered with one general shade; but to him who is to reckon up his counties, the loss of a black or a white spot, of a clump or a gazabo, is the loss of a voucher.

Then again as the prospect-shewer has great pleasure and vanity in pointing out these vouchers, so the improver, on his side, has full as much in being pointed at; we therefore cannot wonder that so many churches have been converted into these beacons of taste, or that so many hills have been marked with them.

CHAPTER VIII.

I HAVE hitherto endeavoured to trace the picturesque in all that relates to form, and to the effects of light and shade; I have endeavoured to distinguish it from the beautiful, and from the sublime; and to shew the influence of breadth on them all. It now remains to examine how far the same general principles operate with regard to colours.

Mr. Burke's idea of the beautiful in colour seems to me in the highest degree satisfactory, and to correspond with all his other ideas of beauty.. I must observe

at the same time, that the beautiful in colour, is of a positive and independent nature; whereas the sublime in colour is in a great degree relative, and depends on the circumstances and associations by which it is accompanied. A beautiful colour, is a common and just expression; no one hesitates whether he shall give that title to the leaf of a rose, or to the smallest bit of it; but though the deep gloomy tint of the sky before a storm, and its effect on all nature be sublime, no one would call that colour (whether a dark blue, or purple, or whatever it might be) a sublime colour, if simply shewn him without the other accompaniments.

I likewise imagine that no one would call any colour picturesque, if shewn him in the same manner, though many of them might without impropriety be called so: for there are many which having nothing of the freshness and delicacy of beauty, are generally found in objects and scenes highly picturesque, and admirably accord with them. Among these may be reckon

ed the autumnal hues in all their varieties; the weather-stains, and many of the mosses, lichens, and incrustations on bark and on wood, on stones, old walls, and buildings of every kind; the various gradations in the tints of broken ground, and of the decayed parts in hollow trees. All these, which surely cannot be classed with the fresh greens of spring, with the various hues, at once so fresh and vivid, of its flowers and blossoms, or with those of the clean and healthy stems

of young plants, may serve to point out in how many instances picturesque colours as well as forms, arise from age and decay. There is indeed a natural prejudice in our minds against all that is produced by such causes; but whoever attentively observes in nature the deep, rich, and mellow effect of such colours, will hardly be surprised that painters should have been fond of introducing them into their works, and sometimes to the exclusion of those, of which the beauty is universally acknow