legal maxim, Ignorantia legis neminem excusat, is as much binding upon the one as upon the other. In short, there is a complete homogeneity of endowment between the popular politician-the politician of "the masses "and his most ignorant adherent, in all the essentials of Human Nature. But whilst all this is most indubitably true, it is at the same time to be admitted as equally cogent that we should be justified in expecting that the Right Hon. Nathaniel, by reason of the great advantages, natural and acquired, which he enjoys, would furnish a much better example of virtuous citizenship than his less-favoured followers. They are the same in kind; Nathaniel should be vastly better in quality. 66 All 21. Negro appreciation of landscape and of Human beauty. So should we expect it to be, and so shall we find it, in the region of the emotions. men, says Emerson, are in some degree impressed by the face of the world, some even to delight." This I believe to be the case. Mr Winwoode Reade, whom I have already quoted, gives evidence upon this esthetical part of our subject as well as upon the ethical. He tells of an African native (one of the Krus), who, seeing him gazing upon an African landscape, exclaimed: "Massa, that fine, eh?" 1 He testifies that he has always found that the native women whom he admired were also admired by the natives themselves, that the chiefs always chose the prettiest wives, and that they know a good-looking European when they see one. short, it would appear that no person can ever mistake Caliban for Antinous. In 22. Poetical feeling behind almost inarticulate criticism.-Coming back to our own country and our own experiences, we have the lesson of Mr Reade's testimonies confirmed. A peasant, for 1 The African Sketch-Book,' Vol. ii. p. 7. instance, with open eye and ear, is impressed by the same kind of influences as Tennyson. I well remember a remark which was made to me on the banks of the Forth by an unlettered admirer of Nature touching the melodious piping of some curlews and plovers haunting the water's edge: It's bonnie to hear thae birds whustlin' oot there." In giving voice to such words, I doubt not that he was but giving expression to the same kind of emotion as Tennyson expresses when he writes : "Down by the poplar tall, rivulets babble and fall ; Barketh the shepherd's dog cheerly; the grasshopper carolleth clearly; Deeply the wood-dove coos; shrilly the owlet haloos." 1 In other words, a pent-up appreciation of natural beauty or sublimity may easily exist, and does frequently exist, behind the crudest and merest of interjectional criticism. Byron actually declares : 66 'Many are poets who have never penned So that what I have said appears to be truenamely, that our open-eyed and open-eared peasant and Tennyson are, even esthetically, built upon the same principles and responsive to the same kind of natural influences.3 23. Lord Balfour on the esthetic judgment.-With deference to Lord Balfour, I think he errs on this 1 'Leonine Elegiacs.' 2 'The Prophecy of Dante,' chap. iv. 'Works,' Vol. xi. p. 293. 3 The same in religion: "It does not necessarily follow that because a man is inarticulate, he has therefore no religion. Actions and objects of admiration, these are the things that we must most watch if we would discover the true religion of the inarticulate."-Donald Hankey, 'A Student in Arms,' p. 108. Excellently observed. subject. He rightly says: "We cannot describe the higher beauties of beautiful objects except in terms of esthetic feeling, and, ex vi termini, such descriptions are subjective"; but I cannot agree with him when he says: The same work of art which moves one man to admiration moves another to disgust; and what rouses the enthusiasm of one generation leaves another hostile and indifferent."-" As we approach the level where the sentiment of beauty becomes intense, and the passion of admiration incommunicable, there is not and I believe cannot be any real unanimity of personal valuation."-" We cannot define the doctrines of esthetic orthodoxy. We can appeal neither to reason nor experience nor authority. Ideals of beauty change from generation to generation.” 1 I hope not. Take the Sun and the Moon and the Hosts of Heaven: is not the whole world of Intelligence, ancient as well as modern, profoundly impressed by them? The Sunrise and the Sunset; the Ocean in its various moods; the Seasons and their changes; Seed-time, Harvests, and Vintages; fruits and flowers and birds. Do they not call forth a considerable unanimity of admiration and joy among the poets, at least, of all lettered Ages and Nations? If Lord Balfour will inquire into the matter, I doubt if he will find a single intelligent individual who regards any one of those natural objects with any other feeling than that of pleasure; and as to poetry and works of art, I fancy there is a fair consensus of opinion amongst lettered people, ancient and modern, that the Odyssey for instance, is, on the whole, a delightful poem ; and that the Parthenon, say, is a very beautiful temple. It may be safely assumed, at least, that neither of these objects was ever known to move any intelligent person "to disgust." To this 1 'Essays Speculative and Political,' pp. 67, 70, 92. extent, in any case, I think we may enjoy esthetic certainty. In 24. But in some persons the esthetic faculty is extremely blunt.-It must, however, be allowed that the esthetic, like other, faculties are in some persons wonderfully blunt. John Locke, for example, seriously wrote thus: "If a boy has a poetic vein, 'tis to me the strangest thing in the world that the father should desire or suffer it to be cherished or improved. Methinks the parents should labour to have it stifled and suppressed as much as may be. Poetry and gaming, which usually go together" (notice the conjunction !), are alike in this too, that they seldom bring any advantage but to those who have never anything else to live on." Here we have Poetry and Gaming linked together as twin evils, and this in the otherwise admirable treatise on Education.1 its way it is one of the most appalling passages in Literature. It is fitting that he who wrote it should have been the eulogist of Sir Richard Blackmore.2 Locke's head must have been positively stone-deaf to the Music of the Spheres. It is no less surprising to read in Pennant's 'Tours' that the southern extremity of Derwentwater "is a composition of all that is horrible," 3 or to be informed by the traveller Burt that the Scottish mountains are of "a dismal gloomy brown, drawing upon a dirty purple, and most of all disagreeable when the heather is in bloom." 4 So dead to enchanting beauty may a wooden head be. Speaking of Mull, Dr Johnson wrote to Mrs Thrale : Going forward in our boat, we came to a cluster 1 'Works,' Vol. iii. p. 80. 66 2 Ib., p. 568. "All our English poets except Milton," says he, "have been mere ballad-makers in comparison to him! 3A Tour in Scotland,' Pt. ii. p. 45. He speaks, however, of the grandeur of the rocks round Lunan Bay, p. 139. • Craik, 'A Century of Scottish History,' Vol. i. p. 134. of rocks, black and horrid." 1 In the Western Tour' Boswell does not see "much either of elegance to charm our imagination, or of rude novelty to astonish." 2 The Doctor unwittingly exposes his esthetical barrenness in the witty words: "Seeing Scotland is only seeing a worse England. It is seeing a flower gradually fading away to a naked stalk." It would appear, indeed, that as far as any sensibility to landscape beauty is concerned, a pair of the thickest-skulled London pickpockets might as well have toured in Scotland as Boswell and Dr Johnson. The Music of the Spheres and the rattling of a tin can must have been much the same thing to them. 3 Analo 25. Analogy between the Human Head and a musical instrument.-From all these considerations we might start a suggestive analogy between the Human Head, in its esthetical and moral endowments, and a musical instrument. The musical instrument itself (say an organ) may be of any degree of range and richness. The grandest organ is built upon the same principles as a common instrument-precisely the same. gously the Human Head, in its emotional faculties and capacities, may be, either by nature or by cultivation or both, of almost any degree of compass and richness. Nature is to the Human Head, in some measure, what the player is to the organ. The finer the organ, the richer will be the music which the accomplished player will strike out of it; the nobler the head, the loftier will be the spiritual music which Nature evokes within it. (In the same vein Montanus is reported to 7 1 'Works,' Vol. vi. p. 512. 2Life of Dr Johnson,' Vol. iv. p. 153. 3 Equally enchanting his commentary on Wales: Except the woods of Bachycraigh, what is there in Wales that can fill the hunger of ignorance, or quench the thirst of curiosity?"— Boswell, 'Life of Johnson,' Vol. iv. p. 154, note. |