ARTS OF REFINEMENT.

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(1) The various devices of Language contribute largely to the moderating and protracting of our strong passions. Metre is known to exercise a control over the violence of the feelings; so the polish, elegance, splendour and elevation. of the language generally, impart an agreeable diversion of mind, which calms the fury of the excitement. The ceremonial of worship is calculated to convert an outburst of religious emotion into a gentle and enduring flame. Polished circumlocution is one of the habitual means of cooling the heat engendered by the war of words in debate. To call attention to beauties of pure form, is to draw off the mind from the grosser aspects of things; as in the Greek sculpture.

(2) Reviewing the chief methods for attaining the desired end, we find them summed up under MIXTURE, with which is included Diversion and Dilution.*

For example, eating and drinking, though highly important to us in the reality, and interesting even to think of, are too purely sensual to be treated in art, unless by being imbedded in surroundings that divide our regards. Homer has abundance of feasting, but it is either in connexion with sacrifices to the gods, or mixed up with hospitality, which was equally sacred in his eyes.

So the Trojan War involves untold miseries; but Achilles, the author of the misery, is shown to have an amiable side. This does not remove the painful elements, any more than the stimulus of tea is abolished by the softening addition of sugar and milk. But the consequence is to reconcile us to an amount of malignant pleasure that, in its unmixed form, would grate on other sensibilities of the mind.

4. Fear unalloyed is a painful passion, and ministers to pleasure only by reaction.

For abating the pain of the state itself, and for enhancing the pleasurable rebound, the artist has recourse to fictitious terrors, as in Tragedy. The foregoing arts of mixture, dilution and diversion are available to qualify the painful side, while allowing the pleasure to spring from the remission or relief.

* There is an illustrative parallel to this in the practice of using sugar and milk with tea. Many persons cannot partake of the stimulation, if the tea is given by itself; even dilution would not overcome the repugnance. The mixture has the happy effect of leaving the stimulus in full force, while yet so diverting and otherwise engaging the organ of taste, that the harshness proper to the tea by itself is no longer discerned.

CHARACTERS.

1. CHARACTER is the continuous and consistent embodiment and manifestation of personal feelings and doings.

While every action of a person operates on the spectator according to its own nature, and is so judged, there is a certain harmony in the conduct of individuals, which is designated their Character.

The interest attaching to isolated displays is multiplied by repetition, and makes the collective interest of a personality. Our admiration of a single act of nobleness is transformed into a new product, admiration of the nobleness of a life. The principles of critical judgment are the same for both cases.

2. The treatment of Character in Art involves regard to consistency in its development.

When a character is introduced in narrative, we expect it to agree with itself, or to be in accordance with the type intended by the author.

3. The choice of Characters is not limited to intrinsic attractions.

Among characters intrinsically attractive, we place, first, those that rise above the ordinary in any form of excellence -physical, moral or intellectual. Among the least tolerable are the purely common-place.

The physically defective, the morally bad, the intellectually stupid,-would all seem in poetry, as in real life, naturally devoid of interest, not to say repellent. Yet, by particular kinds of management, even these can be made to enter into art-compositions.

Among the most mournful incidents of our precarious existence, is the loss of reason. Looked at in itself, the spectacle of insanity ought to give us only unmingled pain: our pity yields no adequate compensation for the shock to our feelings. Yet, the insane have been frequently employed for poetic purposes. In the ancient world, a certain mysterious reverence was maintained towards them: they were supposed to be inspired by some good or bad demon. Even when viewed more literally, they can be made use of as an illustration of the tragic consequences of crime and calamity. Their incoherent utterances are shaped so as to have some

INTERESTING AND UNINTERESTING CHARACTERS.

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bearing on the progress of a story. We need refer only to Shakespeare's Hamlet and Lear.

Not far removed in point of misfortune is idiotcy; yet this is also turned to account. If the subject is amiable, our pity warms into affection; if the opposite, the idiot may still be made use of, as an instrument of punishment and annoyance to those that deserve such treatment. The half-witted fool or jester, with his ingenious, irresponsible sallies, was once a favourite in courts, Nevertheless, an idiot as such is not a subject of interest; and Coleridge charges Wordsworth's treatment of his 'Idiot Boy' with serious defects.

Poverty and squalor are of themselves repellent; and are admissible only by the help of special_management. When the poor exemplify the amiable and self-denying virtues, they command respect. Their condition can also be redeemed by the display of contented mirth and jollity, as by Burns in The Jolly Beggars'; or by heroic defiance— ‘A man's a man for a' that'. A king reduced to poverty, like Edipus, is a tragic hero. Abundant effects of the humorous have often been derived from the class.

Silliness would seem the most intractable of all qualities. Yet, silly persons are often rendered interesting, their silliness being skilfully guided for effect; as in Shakespeare's Justice Shallow, Slender, and his host of clowns. Marlowe's Mycetes, in the 'Tamburlaine,' is a purely silly character, and being unredeemed by treatment, is only irritating.

Badness or criminality can be employed in order to set off the good, and to give scope for signal retribution. Tragedy requires distinguished crimes as a part of its essence. Even such a crabbed personage as Thersites, in the Iliad, becomes interesting by the condign and summary punishment administered by Ulysses: but for which the character would have been inadmissible.

While the range of interesting characters is necessarily great, when they are rightly handled, it does not follow, as is sometimes said, that all characters are alike interesting if fully revealed.

The multiplication and harmonious unfolding of character types is one of the great achievements of literature. To the characters actually presented in History, has been added an equal number, of not inferior interest, in Poetry and Fiction.

SUBJECTS.

The emotional effects of Art compositions are due in part to the SUBJECTS chosen.

The Subjects of the poetic art are partly Humanity and partly what lies beyond it-Animal and Vegetable life, and the Inanimate world at large. In both spheres, there are numerous objects calculated to inspire agreeable emotion, however unadorned may be their language dress. The poet naturally prefers to deal with this class of things.

Nevertheless, circumstances may lead to the adoption of less suitable subjects: either such as contribute nothing to the pleasure, or such as have the opposite effect. It happens with themes once attractive, that their day of interest has passed. Neither the Iliad nor Paradise Lost now possesses the charm that they originally had; and to future ages their story may be still more repugnant.

Hence, it becomes a part of the criticism of a work of art, to regard first the subject in its own character, before it has been touched by the poet's hand. This enables us to view in separation the combined genius and devices of the treatment, which is alone the measure of poetic power.

Many discussions have arisen as to the fitness of certain subjects for the Grand Epic, commonly reputed the highest of all the kinds of poetry. Milton is understood to have hesitated in his choice before fixing on the Fall of Man'. One of his rejections-The Romance of Arthur and the Round Table-has been adopt d by Tennyson, although in a form different from the Grand Epic.

Some of Wordsworth's subjects have been felt as a drag, rather than an aid, to his poetical success. (See p. 51.)

The Henriade of Voltaire is condemned by Mr. Morley, on the ground of inadequacy of the subject for Epic treatment. In comparison with the Iliad or Paradise Lost, it is obviously deficient in grandeur of events-in heroic personages, great battles, crimes, disasters and revolutionary changes.

The con

The remarks already made on Character bear principally upon fitness or unfitness for poetic treatment. sideration of Subject ranges still wider, and includes scenery, incident and juxtaposition of parts in completed works.

PROGRESS OF INTEREST IN NATURE.

53'

In the subsequent consideration of the special Qualities of Style, the laws of emotional effect will apply alike to the subjects chosen, and to the manner of handling them. The qualifications and disqualifications of particular subjects will be apparent, when their emotional bearing is understood. There will also be seen the poet's art in overcoming defects, by suitable selection and adaptation to the end in view.

NATURE AS A SUBJECT.

Humanity is assumed throughout as the main theme of poetical art. Yet in the world are to be found many other topics, partly interesting in themselves, and partly reflecting the interest proper to human beings.

The topic of Nature interest has been lately reviewed by Professor Veitch, with much illustrative fulness, although with special reference to Scottish Poetry. As more or less pervading the works of great poets, it has to be reckoned with in the Rhetorical art, among the sources of artistic emotion. It will be adverted to in connexion with the leading qualities of style; nevertheless, as a preparation in advance, we may make the following general remarks.

(1) The earliest form of the poetic interest in nature is the alliance with the utilities of life, as in the celebration of the objects of agricultural interest,-the rich pastures, fertile fields and running streams, the trees that give fruit and shade, the animals that are in the service of man. This is the stage of Theocritus and Virgil. It implies, further, a revulsion from the intractable and desert tracts, with their ruthless tenantry of savage animals.. The grand forces of nature on their genial side-the sunshine and the fertilizing rain-would contribute to the agreeable picture.

(2) The next stage is the purely disinterested pleasure in nature, not depending on the yield of material products, and not confined to the fruitful land and the helping animals. This is a far higher stretch of imaginative interest, and supposes a great advance in the control of natural powers. As a problem of the workings of the human mind, it is extremely subtle and compliIcated; and the best clue to its workings is the expression that it has prompted in the most susceptible minds. In the first place, the aspects of Nature furnish a considerable stock of gratification for the higher senses-sight and hearing. The variegated colouring of earth and sky, of plant and animal life; the sounds of the breeze, the waters and the birds,-give pleasure as mere sense stimulation.

Much more influential, however, is the suggestion of human aspects by the personifying tendency already discussed (p. 21). It