CHAPTER XIV.

But if this be the case, and a poem may be very productive of pictures, and still not be descriptive itself, while, on the contrary, another may be highly descriptive and yet yield little to the artist, there is an end of the theory of Count Caylus; which would make their usefulness to the painters the touch-stone of poets, and allot them their rank, according to the number of pictures with which they furnish him(36).

Far be it from us, even by our silence, to suffer this theory to obtain the appearance of an established law. Milton would be the first to fall an innocent victim to it. For it appears, that the contemptuous judgment, which Caylus expresses of him, should really be considered, less as the national taste, than as the logical consequence of his assumed rule. The loss of sight, he says, is the strongest point of similarity between Milton and Homer. It is true, Milton cannot fill galleries. But, if the sphere of my bodily eyes, so long as I enjoy them, must needs also be that of my inner eye, great indeed would be the value I should put upon their loss, since it freed me from this confinement.

Paradise Lost is no more prevented from being the first epic after Homer's, because it offers but few subjects for painting, than the history of the Passion of Christ is converted into a poem, because we can scarcely lay the point of a pin upon it, without lighting on some passage, which has called forth the exertions of a number of the greatest masters. The Evangelists recount the fact, with the most concise simplicity possible; and the artist makes use of its numerous parts, without their having shown, on their side, the slightest spark of descriptive genius in relating it. There are both facts suitable, and facts unsuitable, to the artist; and the historian can narrate those suitable artistically, just as the poet has the power of producing a graphic representation of those unsuitable.

To believe it to be otherwise, is to suffer ourselves to be misled by the twofold meaning of a word. A poetical picture is not necessarily convertible into a material painting; but every feature, every combination of several features, by which the poet makes his object so palpable to us, that we become more conscious of this object, than of his words, is a graphic picture, because it brings us nearer to that degree of illusion, of which material painting is especially capable, and which is most readily called forth by the contemplation of such painting(37).

H

CHAPTER XV.

Now the poet, as experience shows, can raise this degree of illusion in us, by the representation of other than visible objects. Consequently, artists are excluded from whole classes of pictures, which the poet has at his command. Dryden's "Ode upon Cecilia's day," is full of musical sketches, which afford no occupation to the brush; but I will not waste more time in such instances, from which we can only learn at best, that colours are not sounds, and ears not eyes.

I will still keep to the pictures of visible objects; for these are common to both artist and poet. Why is it that many poetical descriptions of this kind are useless to the artist; and, on the contrary, many actual paintings, when treated by a poet, lose the principal part of their effect?

An example might serve us as a guide. I repeat it; the picture of Pandarus, in the fourth book of the Iliad, is one of the most minute, and illusive, in the whole of Homer. From the grasping of the bow, to the flight of the arrow, every moment is painted; and all these momentary periods follow one

another so closely, and yet are so distinctly entered upon, that a person, who did not know how a bow was managed, might learn it merely from this picture(38). Pandarus takes out his bow; bends it; opens the quiver; chooses an arrow well feathered, and still unused; draws the string and the notch of the arrow back together; the string is close to the breast; the iron point of the arrow to the bow; the great, round-shaped bow, clanging, parts asunder; the arrow speeds away; and eagerly flies towards its destination.

It is impossible that Caylus can have overlooked this excellent picture. What then did he find there, to make him esteem it incapable of affording employment to his artists? And why was it, that the assembly of the gods, drinking in council, seemed to him more suitable for that purpose? In the one, as well as in the other, there are visible objects; and what more has the artist need of, to occupy his canvass?

The difficulty must be this; although both objects, as visible, are alike capable of being subjects of painting in its strict sense; still, there is this important difference between them, that the action of one is visible and progressive, its different parts happening one after another, in the sequence of time; while the action of the other is visible and stationary, its different parts developing themselves near one another, in space. But, if painting, owing to its signs,

or means of imitation, which it can combine in space only, is compelled entirely to renounce time, progressive actions, as such, cannot be classed among its subjects, but it must be content with simultaneous actions, or with mere figures, which, by their posture, lead us to conjecture an action. Poetry, on the contrary.