CHARACTER AND SENTIMENT IN LANDSCAPE SCENERY. 119 tations occasioned by season and weather, which are constantly occurring. Moreover, as regards mountains, the peculiarities of their shape, size, structure, colour, and height, are all alike available for affording the expression both of character and emotion in landscape scenery. Indeed, in the general representation of views of this description, and as a consequence also in landscape gardening, an extensive and varied expression, both of quality and feeling, and even of passion, may be conveyed. This, however, is mainly effected here by the excitement of emotions of a class which the artistic composition is calculated to call forth, such as those that are gay and grave, lively and sedate, exciting and soothing. The wild and savage, I might almost term them passionate rock scenes of Salvator Rosa, and the mild and smiling landscapes of Claude, afford a marked contrast to each other in this respect, which serves to exhibit very forcibly the peculiarity and variety of character and feeling inherent in or suggested by each. There is, probably, no element in the composition of natural scenery which admits of so much character in its exhibition as does water. At one time mild and tranquil, and reflecting on its glassy surface all the objects around it; at another time foaming and raging furiously, whether in the torrent or in the tempest. At one period it is spread forth and lies in repose in an expansive lake; at another, it moves rapidly forward in a warbling rivulet; while occasionally it proceeds stately along in a majestic soft flowing river. In each of these phases, it exhibits a peculiar and specific character, and calls forth feelings corresponding with its condition. There is also an infinite variety, and a remarkable individuality as regards the expression both of character and emotion conveyed by plants, which constitute another important element in landscape scenery. Not only flowers, but the ever varying foliage, and even the branches and trunks of trees, and the forms of the leaves afford proof of this fact; and each of these objects may serve to excite sensations corresponding with their character and their kind. Thus, some vegetable forms produce delight, others melancholy; some call forth exciting and others soothing emotions. Hence character and pas sion are as intimately associated with gardening and its constituent elements, as with any of the other arts. That branch of the study of art, which has formed the subject of the present chapter, is the most important and interesting in its kind, and is also the most improving, and the best adapted for general pursuit. It is here that we may obtain the most varied and noble view of human nature in all its different workings, and under the greatest diversity of circumstances. While contemplating it by this means, we appear, as it were, to have ascended to a point of moral elevation, whence we may survey as through a telescope or as reflected in a camera, yet in the clearest and most comprehensive manner, the vast territory of man, and the display in full operation of the various characters, and principles, and passions by which he has been distinguished or animated. The foaming surge of intemperance and violence we may behold at a distance raging beneath our feet; while our attention to its operations will be undisturbed by any apprehensions we may entertain of injury to ourselves. New objects rise into view, and we obtain a prospect of scenes, and of enterprises, of which before we had no correct knowledge or conception, or which were concealed from our sight by the mazes which obscured them, and for want of some proper medium for observing them. From the contemplation of this sublime prospect, from the consideration of this noble and glorious study, we may learn the most important and valuable moral lessons. It is hence that we are enabled to perceive the rocks and shoals on which so many have been cast away, and which, when on a level with them, they were unable to mark out and avoid. From hence also we are taught to observe the dangers and the miseries which unrestrained and lawless passions have produced in the world; and, on the other hand, the true dignity and real excellence of virtue, and the glorious rewards with which ultimately its actions have ever been crowned. Independent, therefore, of the interest, the intellectuality, and the vast dignity which this branch of the study possesses, and which embraces in its wide sphere the grand theatre of human nature; from it alone we obtain an amount of practical ART ILLUSTRATIVE OF HUMAN NATURE. 121 experience and of sound knowledge of the highest order; a species of wisdom, moreover, which no philosophy can so well inculcate, no system of ethics so amply teach,—no principles of science, however skilfully or correctly framed, so perfectly or so efficiently supply. 122 CHAPTER XII. IMAGINATION AND INVENTION IN ARTISTICAL REPRE- I. HAVING considered in the preceding chapter the adaptation of art for the representation of human nature, and of nature generally; we have next to inquire into the efforts which it is capable of exerting in the realms of imagination and invention. Nor can it be doubted that the noblest of the soul's powers are those of origination. Through these it not only effects operations in regard to objects already existent, but of itself forms new beings altogether. It pursues here not merely the path along which other minds have proceeded before it, but in its capacity of creation it imitates the prerogative of its own divine Creator. Its sphere in this department, like eternity, is infinite. And the regions where it roams extend from the sublimest depths of earth and hell, to the loftiest realms of heaven. It might, indeed, appear to many, upon a cursory view of the subject, and from the consideration of those mighty and astonishing works of imagination and invention which have been produced by some great geniuses, that the mind possessed a power of, as it were, thinking of, and becoming acquainted with things beyond its own experience, and of absolutely and entirely creating anew certain objects, without the aid of any elements out of which to form them, or of any previous knowledge of their nature. Upon a close examination of this subject, it will, however, be obvious that the mind is endowed with no faculty or power NATURE AND EXTENT OF THE ORIGINATIVE POWERS. 123 which can capacitate it to this extent; and that what appears on these occasions to have been an absolute new creation, is, in reality, but the composition, or union together in a different manner to what we have before observed, by the faculty which I have described,* of the old elements which contributed to the constitution of many objects familiar to us. As in the case of building, the same stones and materials which placed together in a particular order once formed a castle, may, by being reunited in a different mode, be made to construct a common dwelling, or any other building. Hence, it will be obvious, upon a close and careful inquiry into the whole subject, that the faculty of origination consists in nothing more than in this power of compounding together different ideas belonging to various objects, so as to form a new one out of them, entirely dissimilar indeed to what had before existed; as in the ideas of a centaur, a dragon, or a sphinx, which are each mere creatures of the imagination, having been constituted by uniting together in one imaginary animal, ideas of the properties and characteristics of two or more very different species. When phantoms of objects novel, and unnatural, and often exciting in their appearance, have been so conjured up, we are led to contemplate them with wonder and with awe. The mind becomes perplexed as to their reality and origin and nature; and thus the opinion is entertained that they are entirely new and original creations, and not mere combinations of the mind; and hence also arises that astonishment and perplexity with which they are regarded. It appears, therefore, that this compounding together of ideas of different objects or beings into one, is the utmost effort of origination of which the mind is capable. Indeed, the correctness of what I have here contended will be but the more clearly evinced by a close examination of those prodigious and astonishing works of imagination which have most contributed to establish the opposite theory, and to lead many to consider that nothing less than the faculty of producing entirely new ideas out of original elements, or the gift of inspiration itself, could * Vide ante, Chapter II. Sect. 7. |