quick, as readily to furnfh every motive that may be neceffary for mature deliberation. In a languid fucceffion, motives will often occur after action is commenced, when it is too late to retreat.

Nature hath guarded man, her favourite, against a fucceffion too rapid, not lefs carefully than against one too flow. Both are equally painful, though the pain is not the fame in both. Many are the good effects of this contrivance. In the first place, as the bodily faculties are by certain painful fenfations confined within proper limits, beyond which it would be dangerous to ftrain the tender organs, Nature, in like manner, is equally provident with refpect to the nobler faculties of the mind. Thus the pain of an accelerated courfe of perceptions, is Nature's admonition to relax our pace, and to admit a more gentle exertion of thought. Another valuable purpofe may be gathered, from confidering in what manner objects are imprinted upon the mind. To make fuch an impreffion as to give the memory faft hold of the object, time is required, even where attention is the greateft; and a moderate degree of attention, which is the common cafe, must be continued still longer to produce the fame effect. A rapid fucceffion then must prevent objects from making impreffions fo deep as to be of real service in life; and Nature accordingly for the fake of memory, has by a painful feeling guarded against a rapid fucceffion. But a still more valuable purpose is answered by this contrivance. As, on the one hand, a fluggish courfe of perceptions indifpofeth to action; fo, on the other, a course too rapid impels to rafh and precipitant action. Prudent conduct is the child of deliberation and clear conception, for which there is no place in a rapid courfe of thought. Nature therefore, taking measures for prudent con

duct,

duct, has guarded us effectually from precipitancy of thought, by making it painful.

Nature not only provides against a fucceffion too flow or too quick, but makes the middle courfe extremely pleasant. Nor is this middle course confined within narrow bounds. Every man can naturally without pain accelerate or retard in fome degree the rate of his perceptions; and he can do this in a ftill greater degree by the force of habit. Thus a habit of contemplation annihilates the pain of a retarded courfe of perceptions; and a bufy life, after long practice, makes acceleration pleafant.

Concerning the final caufe of our taste for variety, it will be confidered, that human af- fairs, complex by variety as well as number, require the diftributing our attention and activity, in measure and proportion. Nature therefore, to fecure a juft diftribution correfponding to the variety of human affairs, has made too great uniformity or too great variety in the courfe of our perceptions equally unpleasant. And indeed, were we addicted to either extreme, our internal conftitution would be ill fuited to our external circumstances. At the fame time, where a frequent reiteration of the fame operation is required, as in feveral manufactures, or a quick circulation, as in law or phyfic, Nature, attentive to all our wants, hath alfo provided for thefe cafes. She hath implanted in the breast of every perfon, an efficacious principle, which leads to habit. By an obftinate perfeverance in the fame occupation, the pain of exceffive uniformity vanifheth; and by the like perfeverance in a quick circulation of different occupations, the pain of exceffive variety vanisheth. And thus we come to take delight in feveral occupations, that by nature, without habit, are not a little difguftful.

A middle

A middle rate alfo in our train of perceptions betwixt uniformity and variety, is not lefs pleasant, than betwixt quickness and flownefs. The mind of man thus conftituted, is wonderfully adapted to the course of human affairs, which are continually changing, but not without connection. It is equally adapted to the acquifition of knowledge, which refults chiefly from difcovering refemblances among differing objects, and differences among refembling objects. Such occupation, even abstracting from the knowledge we acquire, is in itself delightful, by preferving a middle rate betwixt too great uniformity and too great variety.

We are now arrived at the chief purpose of the prefent chapter; and that is to examine how far uniformity or variety ought to be studied in the fine arts. And the knowledge we have obtained, will even at first view fuggeft a general obfervation, That in every work of art, it must be agree able to find that degree of variety which corref ponds to the natural courfe of our perceptions; and that an excess in variety or in uniformity, must be difagreeable by varying that natural course. For this reafon, works of art admit more or lefs variety according to the nature of the fubject. In a picture that strongly attaches the fpectator to a fingle object, the mind relisheth not a multiplicity of figures or of ornaments. A picture again reprefenting a gay subject, admits great variety of figures and ornaments; because these are agreeable to the mind in a chearful tone. The fame obfervation is applicable to poetry and to mufic.

It muft at the fame time be remarked, that one can bear a greater variety of natural objects than of objects in a picture; and a greater variety in a picture than in a description. a defcription. A real object prefented to the view; makes an impreffion more readily than when reprefented in colours, and

much

much more readily than when reprefented in words. Hence it is, that the profuse variety of objects in fome natural landscapes, neither breed confufion nor fatigue. And for the fame reafon,

there is place for greater variety of ornament in a picture, than in a poem.

From thefe general obfervations I proceed to particulars. In works expofed continually to public view, variety ought to be studied. It is a rule accordingly in fculpture, to contrast the different limbs of a statue, in order to give it all the variety poffible. Though the cone in a single view be more beautiful than the pyramid; yet a pyramidal fteeple, because of its variety, is justly preferred. For the fame reafon, the oval in compofitions is preferred before the circle; and painters, in copying buildings or any regular work, endeavour to give an air of variety by reprefenting the subject in an angular view: we are pleased with the variety without léfing figut of the regularity. In a landscape representing animals, thofe efpecially of the fame kind, contraft ought to prevail. To draw one fleeping another awake, one fitting another in motion, one moving toward the spectator another from him, is the life of fuch a performance.

In every fort of writing intended for amusement, variety is neceffary in proportion to the length of the work. Want of variety is fenfibly felt in Davila's hiftory of the civil wars of France. The events are indeed important and various : but the reader languisheth by a tiresome uniformity of character; every perfon engaged being figured a confummate politician, governed by intereft only. It is hard to fay, whether Ovid difgufts more by too great variety or too great uniformity. His ftories are all of the fame kind, concluding invariably with the transformation of one being into another. So far he is tirefome with excefs in uniformity. He also fatigues VOL. I.

L

with

with excefs in variety, by hurrying his reader inceffantly from story to ftory. Ariofto is ftill more fatiguing than Ovid, by exceeding the just bounds of variety. Not fatisfied, like Ovid, with a fucceffion in his ftories, he diftracts the reader by jumbling together a multitude of unconnected events. Nor is the Orlando Furioso less tiresome by its uniformity than the Metamorphofes, though in a different manner. After a story is brought to a crifis, the reader, intent upon the catastrophe is fuddenly fnatched away to a new story, which is little regarded fo long as the mind is occupied with the former. This tantalizing method, from which the author never once fwerves during the courfe of a long work, befide its uniformity, hath another bad effect: it prevents that fympathy which is raised by an interefting event when the reader meets with no interruption.

The emotions produced by our perceptions in a train, have been little confidered, and lefs underftood. The fubje&t therefore required an elaborate difcuffion. It may furprise fome readers, to find variety treated as only contributing to make a train of perceptions pleasant, when it is commonly held to be a neceffary ingredient in beauty of what"That ever kind; according to the definition,

beauty confifts in uniformity amidst variety." But after the fubject is explained and illustrated as above, I prefume it will be evident, that this definition, however applicable to one or other fpecies, is far from being juft with refpect to beauty in no fhare to the general. Variety contributes beauty of a moral action, nor of a mathematical theorean; and numberlefs are the beautiful objects of fight that have little or no variety in them. A globe, the most uniform of all figures, is of all the most beautiful; and a fquare, though more beautiful than a trapezium, hath lefs variety in its con

ftituent