per

the mind: the pain of an accelerated course of ceptions, is Nature's admonition to relax our pace, and to admit a more gentle exertion of thought. Another valuable purpose is discovered upon reflecting in what manner objects are imprinted on the mind to give the memory firm hold of an external 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, accordingly, muft prevent objects from making an impreffion fo deep as to be of real fervice in life; and Nature, for the fake of memory, has, by a painful feeling, guarded against a rapid fucceffion. But a ftill more valuable purpose is anfwered by the contrivance; as, on the one hand, a sluggish course of perceptions indifpofeth to action; fo, on the other, a courfe 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 conduct, 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 that courfe 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 it in a still greater degree by the force of habit: 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 tafte for variety, it will be confidered, that human affairs, complex by

variety

variety as well as number, require the diftributing our attention and activity in meafure and proportion. Nature therefore, to secure a just distribution corres ponding to the variety of human affairs, has made too great uniformity or too great variety in the course of 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 great uniformity of opera. tion is required, as in feveral manufactures, or great variety, as in law or phyfic, Nature, attentive to all our wants, hath also provided for these cafes, by implanting in the breast of every perfon, an efficacious principle that leads to habit: an obftináte perfeverance in the fame occupation, relieves from the pain of exceffive uniformity; and the like perfeverance in a quick circulation of different occupations, relieves from the pain of exceffive variety. And thus we come to take delight in feveral occupations, that by nature, without habit, are not a little difguftful.

A middle rate alfo in the train of perceptions between uniformity and variety, is no lefs pleasant than between quickness and flownefs. The mind of man, fo framed, 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 resemblances among different objects, and differences among refembling objects: fuch occupation, even abstracting from the knowledge we acquire, is in itself delightful, by preferving a middle rate between too great uniformity and too great variety. We are now arrived at the chief purpose of the prefent chapter; which is to confider uniformity and variety with relation to the fine arts, in order to dif cover if we can, when it is that the one ought to

R 4

prevail,

prevail, and when the other. And the knowledge we have obtained, will even at firft view fuggeft a general obfervation, That in every work of art, it must be agreeable, to find that degree of variety which correfponds to the natural courfe of our perceptions; and that an excefs in variety or in uniformity muft be difagreeable, by varying that natural courfe. For that reafon, works of art admit more or less variety according to the nature of the fubject: in a picture of an interesting event that ftrongly attaches the fpectator to a fingle object, the mind relifheth not a multiplicity of figures nor of ornaments: a picture reprefenting a gay fubject, admits great variety of figures and ornaments; because these are agreeable to the mind in a cheerful tone. The fame observation is applicable to poetry and to music.

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 defcription. A real object prefented to view, makes an impreffion more readily than when reprefented in colours, and much more readily than when reprefented in words. Hence it is, that the profufe 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. A picture, however, like a building, ought to be fo fimple as to be comprehended in one view. Whether every one of Le Brun's pictures of Alexander's history will ftand this teft, is fubmitted to judges.

From thefe general obfervations, I proceed to particulars. In works expofed continually to public view, variety ought to be ftudied. It is a rule accordingly in fculpture, to contraft the different limbs of a flatue, in order to give it all the variety poffible. Though

the

the cone, in a fingle view, be more beautiful than the pyramid; yet a pyramidal fteeple, because of its variety, is juftly preferred. For the fame reason, the oval is preferred before the circle; and painters, in copying buildings or any regular work, give an air of variety, by reprefenting the fubject in an angular view we are pleafed with the variety, without lofing fight of the regularity. In a landfcape reprefenting animals, thofe especially 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 amufement, variety is neceffary in proportion to the length of the work. Want of variety is fenfibly felt in Davila's history of the civil wars of France: the events are indeed important and various; but the reader languishes by a tirefome monotony of character, every perfon engaged being figured a confummate politi cian, 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; and fo far he is tirefome by excefs in uniformity; he is not lefs fatiguing by excefs in variety, hurrying his reader inceffantly from story to story. Ariofto is ftill more fatiguing than Ovid, by exceeding the juft bounds of variety: not fatisfied, like Ovid, with a fucceffion in his stories, he distracts the reader, by jumbling together a multitude of them without any connection. Nor is the Orlando Furiofo lefs tirefome by its uniformity than the Metamorphofes, though in a different manner : after a story is brought to a crifis, the reader, intent on the catastrophe, is fuddenly fnatched away to a new ftory, which makes no impreffion fo long as the

mind

mind is occupied with the former. This tantalizing method, from which the author never once fwerves during the course of a long work, befide its uniform. ity, hath another bad effect: it prevents that fympa thy, which is raised by an interesting event when the reader meets with no interruption.

The emotions produced by our perceptions in a train, have been little confidered, and lefs understood; the fubject 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 whatever kind; according to the definition, "That beauty confifts in uniformity amid variety." But, after the fubject is explained and illuftrated as above, I prefume it will be evident, that this definition, however applicable to one or other fpecies, is far from being juft with respect to beauty in general variety contributés no fhare to the beauty of a moral action, nor of a mathematical theorem: and numberless 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 conftituent parts. The foregoing definition, which at beft is but obfcurely expreffed, is only applicable to a number of objects in a group or in fucceffion, among which indeed a due mixture of uniformity and variety is always agreeable; provided the particular object, feparately confidered, be in any degree beautiful, for uniformity amid variety among ugly objects, affords no pleasure. This circumstance is totally omitted in the definition; and indeed to have mentioned it, would at the first glance have shown the definition to be imperfect: for to define beauty as arifing from beautiful objects blended

together