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It is true that in all animals, where great strength and destructive fierceness are united, there is a mixture of grandeur; but the principles on which a greater or lesser degree of picturesqueness is founded, may clearly be distinguished: the lion, for instance, with his shaggy mane, is much more picturesque than the lioness, though she is equally an object of terror.

The effect of smoothness or roughness in producing the beautiful or the picturesque, is again clearly exemplified in birds. Nothing is more truly consonant to our ideas of beauty, than their plumage when smooth and undisturbed, and when the eye glides over it without interruption: nothing, on the other hand, has so picturésque an appearance as their feathers, when ruffled by any accidental circumštance, or by any sudden passion in the animal. When inflamed with anger or with desire, the first symptoms appear in their ruffled plumage: the game cock, when he attacks his rival, raises the feathers of his neck; the purple pheasant his crest; and the peacock, when he feels the return

of spring, shews his passion in the same

manner,

And every feather shivers with delight.

The picturesque character in birds of prey, arises from the angular form of their beak, the rough feathers on their legs, their crooked talons, their action and energy. All these circumstances are in the strongest degree apparent in the eagle; but from his size as well as courage, from the force of his beak and talons, formidable even to man, and likewise from all our earliest associations, the bird of Jove is always very much connected with ideas of grandeur.

Many birds have received from nature the same picturesque appearance, which in others happens only accidentally: such are those whose heads and necks are adorned with ruffs, with crests, and with tufts of plumes; not lying smoothly over each other as those of the back, but loosely and irregularly disposed. These are, perhaps, the most striking and attractive of all birds, as having that degree of roughness and irregularity, which gives a spirit

to smoothness and symmetry; and where in them, or in other objects these last qualities prevail, the result of the whole is justly called beautiful.

In our own species, objects merely picturesque are to be found among the wandering tribes of gypsies and beggars; who in all the qualities which give them that character, bear a close analogy to the wild forester and the worn out cart-horse, and again to old mills, hovels, and other inanimate objects of the same kind.More dignified characters, such as a Belisarius, or a Marius in age and exile* have the same mixture of picturesqueness and of decayed grandeur, as the venerable remains of the magnificence of past ages.

If we ascend to the highest order of created beings, as painted by the grandest of our poets, they, in their state of glory and happiness, raise no ideas but those of beauty and sublimity; the picturesque, as

* The noble picture of Salvator Rosa at Lord Townshend's, which in the print is called Belisarius, has been thought to be a Marius among the ruins of Carthage.

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in earthly objects, only shews itself when they are in a state of ruin*; when shadows have obscured their original brightness, and that uniform, though angelic expression of pure love and joy, has been destroyed by a variety of warring passions:

Darken'd so, yet shone

Above them all the archangel; but his face
Deep scars of thunder had entrench'd, and care
Sat on his faded cheek, but under brows
Of dauntless courage and considerate pride
Waiting revenge; cruel his eye, but cast
Signs of remorse and passion

If from nature we turn to that art from which the expression itself is taken, we shall find all the principles of picturesqueness confirmed. Among painters, Salvator Rosa is one of the most remarkable for his picturesque effects: in no other master are seen such abrupt and rugged forms, such sudden deviations both in his figures and his landscapes; and the roughness and broken touches of his pencilling, admira

* Nor appear'd

Less than archangel ruin'd, and the excess
Of glory obscured.

bly accord with the objects they characterise.

Guido, on the other hand, was as eminent for beauty: in his celestial counte nances are the happiest examples of gradual variation, of lines that melt and flow into each other; no sudden break, nothing that can disturb that pleasing languor, which the union of all that constitutes beauty impresses on the soul. The style of his hair is as smooth, as its own character, and its effect in accompanying the face will allow; the flow of his drapery, the sweetness and equality of his pencilling, and the silvery clearness and purity of his tints, are all examples of the justness of Mr. Burke's principles of beauty. But we may learn from the works even of this great master, how unavoidably an attention to mere beauty and flow of outline, will lead towards sameness and insipidity. If this has happened to a painter of such high excellence, who so well knew the value of all that belongs to his art, and whose touch, when he painted a St. Peter

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