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Show ( IJO ] cavern in the wall are feen the feet and ankles, with fome folds of garment, lying alfo on a matt; and though ~he interme~iate fpace is a folid fione- wall, yet the imagination fupphes the deficiency'. and the whole figure feems to exifi before our eyes. Does not th1s refemble one of the arts both of the painter and the poet? The for~er often {bows a mufcular arm amidfi a group of figures, or an unpaffioned face; and, hiding the remainder ~f the body behind ot~er objects, leaves the imagination to complete 1t. The latter, defcnbing a fingle feature or attitude in picturefque words, produces before the mind an image of the whole. I remember feeing a print, in which was reprefented a !hrivelled hand firetched through an iron grate, in the fione floor of a prifonyard, to reach at a mefs of porrage, ~vhich _affected me with more horrid ideas of the diftrefs of the pnfoner m the dungeon below, than could have been perhaps produced by an exhibition of the whole perfon. And in the following beautiful fcenery from the Midfummer-night's Dream, (in which I have taken the liberty to alter the place of a comma), the defcription of the f wimming ftep and prominent belly bring the whole figure before our eyes with the difiinctnefs of reality. When we have laugh'd to fee the fails conceive, And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind; Which !he with pretty and with f wimming gate, Following her womb, (then rich with my young fquire), Would imitate, and fail upon the land. There is a third fifier-feature, which belongs both to the pictorial and poetic art ; and that is the making fentiments and paffions vifible, as it were, to the fpectator; this is done in both arts by defcribing or pourtraying the effects or changes which thofe fentiments or paffions produce upon the body. At the end of the unaltered play of Lear, there is a beautiful example of poetic painting; the old King is introduced as dying from grief for the lofs of Cordelia; ( IJI ) at this crifis, Shakefpear, conceiving the robe of the King to be held together by a clafp, reprefents him as only faying to an attendant courtier in a faint voice, " Pray, Sir, undo this button,-thank you, Sir," and dies. Thus by the art of the poet, the oppreffion at the bofom of the dying King is made vifible, not defcribed in words. B. What are the features, in which thefe Si!l:er -arts do not refemble each other ? P. The ingenious Biiliop Berkeley, in his treatife on Vi:fion, a work of great ability, has evinced, that the colours which we fee, are only a language fuggefiing to our minds the ideas of folidity and extenfion, which we had before received by the fe:nfe of touch. Thus when we view the trunk of a tree, our eye can only acquaint us with the colours or !hades ; and from the previous experience of the fenfe of touch, thefe fuggefr to us the cylindrical form, with the prominent or depre!fed wrinkles on it. From hence it appears, that there is the ftrictefi analogy between colours and founds ; as they are both but languages, which do not reprefent their correfpondent ideas, but only fuggefr them to the mind from the habits or a:ffociations of previous experience. It is therefore reafonable to conclude, that the more artificial arrangements of thefe two lano- uages by the poet and the painter bear a fimilar analogy. 0 But in one circumfiance the Pen and the Pencil differ widely from each other, and that is the quantity of Time which they can include in their refpective reprefentations. The former can unravel a long feries of events, which may confiitute the hiftory of days or years; while the latter can exhibit only the attions of a m~men_t. The Poet is happier in defcribing fucceffive fcenes _; the Pamter m reprefenting fi:ationary ones: both have their advantages. Where the paffions are introduced, as the Poet, on one hand, has the power gradually to prepare the mind of his reader by previous climacteric circumfiances; the Painter, on the other hand, can throw fironger illumination and difiinctnefs on the principal moment or s 2 |