hue of Rubens; and after remarking that "Titian spread an autumnal hue and atmosphere even over the flowers he introduced into his pictures, that they are not the children of spring, but feem to belong to a later seafon," he fhows that it is not only the change of vegetation that gives to autumn that golden hue; but the atmosphere itself, and the lights and hadows which then prevail, the effects of which he contrafts with thofe of fpring. Having thus gone through those characters, which in fuch different ftyles, and from fuch oppofite caufes are ftill allowed to produce fenfations of pleasure, he, in the 9th and laft Chapter of the first part, difcuffes the nature and the causes of two characters which are as univerfally acknowledged to produce contrary fenfations, uglinefs, and deformity. Mr. Burke reckons thofe objects the ugliest which most nearly approach to angular; in this inftance Mr. P. differs from him, and obferves, that in that cafe the leaves of the vine and the plane would be among the ugliest in the vegetable kingdom. He then states what is his idea of mere unmixed uglinefs, which, in his opinion, "De "Does not arife from fharp angles, or from any fudden variation, But from that want of form, that unfhapen, lumpish appearance which, perhaps, no one word exactly expreffes,-a quality which never can be mistaken for beauty, never can adorn it, and which is equally unconnected with the fublime or the beautiful." formity," he obferves, "is to uglinefs what picturefqueness is to beauty; though diftinét from it, and in many cafes arising from oppofite caufes, it is often mistaken for it, often accompanies it, and greatly heightens its effect." These two distinctions he explains by various examples in trees, grounds, buildings, &c. and illuftrates them by others drawn from mufic and poetry; and in pointing out the connection between deformity and picturesqueness, he gives a very ufeful leffon to improvers. He alfo confiders the effect of mixing the picturefque with uglinefs, and fhows that Uglinefs, like beauty in itfelf, is not picturefque; but that when the laft mentioned character is added either to beauty or to uglinefs, they become more ftriking and varied, and whatever may be the fanfations they excite, they always, by means of that addition, more frongly attract the attention." He then very ftudiously difcuffes a point which materially affects his whole fyftem, namely, that "as the excefs of thofe qualities which chiefly conftitute beauty produces infipidity, fo likewife the excefs of thofe which conftitute picturefque nefs nefs produces deformity. The manner in which he illustrates and enforces this pofition would fuffer from any analysis or abridgement, as well as the very pointed application of it to improvements. He ends this Chapter and the first part of his book with fhowing, that the fame connection and relation prevails not only in the fenfe of hearing, but in the more contracted fenfes of tafting and smelling. (To be continued.) ART. XIX. An Idea of the prefent State of France, and of the MR. Young, who writes with a spirit and originality very peculiar to himself, compares the prefent ftate of France with that of ancient Sparta. By the inftitutions of Lycurgus, the people were divided into two clatles, foldiers free, and cultivators flaves. By very different fteps the farne has become the divifion of France; all who are capable of performing military service are in requifition for it, while the reft are obliged to cultivate the ground, and to feed the military, at the price the government thinks proper to pay." Of their crop no part is free but that which is neceffary for their own confumption; the reft is all in requifition by a formal decree of the Convention; and every bushel and head of cattle and fheep registered under fevere penalties." From the fpeculations of Sir James Stewart, and other writers, Mr. Young eftimates the enormous force which muft arife from fuch an arrangement, and the danger there is left it fhould effectually dafh to pieces the whole fabric of trade and industry in Europe. Let us give our readers a view of the confequences, in the animated language of the author himself. "Here then are two great refults of this new fyftem which the French have established; the landlords murdered, the cultivators of every kind made beafts of burthen to the towns and armies, and trade and industry dashed to pieces! and this not the peculiar effect of certain atrocious proceedings in France, but the natural tendency of the fyftem, forming itself, by an invifible chain of neceffity, beyond the political eye that moved in the whirlwind, and beyond the power or Controul of the legiflators that have ignorantly established it.-The IRON AGE of barbarifm returned-and all that trade and industry, wealth and peace, arts and fcience, civilization and elegance-all that the culture and decoration of the human mind have done for man man-levelled in the duft; and, in their place, blood, and rapine, and horror, triumphant! What this writer [Stewart] adds of happiness alludes, certainly, to the foldiery alone; for, an enflaved peafantry, and industry dashed to pieces, are not features of happy fields, or manufactures in a ftate of ease. "Here let us paufe for a moment, and ask our landed, and trading, and moneyed men, of every defcription, who on one hand, are favourable to the principles that are producing these revolutions in the world; or, on the other, inactive in oppofition to them; what are, or can be, their end, their aim, or expectation ? "Annihilation is the palpable fate of the whole body of landlords. Whatever may be the meanderings of the anarchy that leads to fuch fituation, or the finuofities of that mafs of horror and confufion that accompanies it, in any cafe, the event to land-proprietors muft be the fame. A few years of ftorm and bloodshed deftroy them and their families, and the STATE, new-moulded from the dregs of towns, affumes their place. The manoeuvres of prehenfion, pre-emption, and requifition, chain down the farmers and labourers, as they are now chained in France; by the letter of the law with civil liberty to confole them, but political flaves, cultivating for others, and daring to retain but a bare fubfiftence, real flaves to thofe who would pretend that they were fighting to reform abufes and establish freedom! View the lands of England, and the happinefs of every clafs that cultivates, and then meditate on fuch a change! "The whole fabric of arts, and induftry, and manufactures, which has taken fuch time and fuch wifdem to erect, dashed in pieces! Is that a fpectacle to kindle apprehenfions in the minds of thofe wealthy men, who at Leeds, Sheffield, Halifax, Birmingham, Manchester, and Norwich, fee, apparently with unconcern, focieties fpringing up around them, whofe profeffed purpofe is to change the conftitution of their own country, and diffeminate the most lavish praises of the proceedings in France? Have they no feeling for the treatment which the egotism of mercantile wealth has met with at Lyons, Marfeilles, Bourdeaux, Nantes, Havre, and in every commercial town of that kingdom? Our Diflenters, who are wealthy and commercial, and who complain of tefts as their oppreffion here, and figh, many of them, for the equality of a Republican Government-do they fee no oppreffions in the fraternity of Frenchmen? Let them turn their eyes to Flanders, and there they will fee an equal measure dealt to friends and foes: and the little finger of the fraternity of republicans a deadlier weight than the whole mafs of grievances they complained of under their former master. You want, in England, tefts repealed and abuses reformed; and, to carry your point, encourage focieties cemented in the jargon of the Convention, and who, by aiding the views of France, would bring in a torrent that would reform all abufes, for it would leave nothing to abufe;-it would reform your commerce-fraternize wealth-and, if your heads efcaped the requifition of the Holy Mother Guillotine, you would bless your ftars for a cock-boat to convey you naked to America. your "Our moneyed men also, whose riches are in banks, stocks, funds, and mortgages-do they wish to divide the national ftrength by quef 2 tions tions of party and reform? Do they look to the French fyftem of iron and paper as better fecurities than the laws of England? To name the contraft is enough; that understanding, in a fate of manhood, must be infantine indeed that does not feel the fhock, and fee, in perspective, the univerfal ruin that would deluge the land. "Do our commercial men imagine that fuch an iron system can eftablish itself in France, and trade be left to flourish in any neighbouring kingdom? The expectation would be vain. The ambition of Republics is proverbial, and none fo domineering as the de-mocratical. The existence of fo enormous a force, with no limits to its power or its acquifitions, but what the fpirit of its own moderation might define, would be abfolutely incompatible with the peace and fecuriry of a wealthy neighbour; commercial jealoufy, the difputes infeparable from extended trade, the envy which great fuccefs and greater riches excite, a thousand circumítances, would kindle heats; and, where the iron arm of power meafures with wealthy imbecility, what would it prove but the contest between the tiger and the lamb A ftate of things fo obvious and fo dangerous, that peace confiftently with policy would be but a preparation for hottility in other words, wars would be endlefs till conquefts reduced the weaker party to the deftruction of unlimited fubmiflion; a progrefs that would juftify the remark of Sir James Stewart, that one country, eftablishing itself on the fimple bafis of agriculture and arms, would deftroy the commerce, trade, and induftry of all its neighbours. Refiftance is vain, without a policy equally energetic; and whether you are driven to adopt such inftitutions for felf-defence, or are conquered for want of them, commerce, in either cafe, is destroyed. "What a call then is fo fatal a profpect to every commercial clafs in Britain to fecond the efforts of Government with a vigour the mot determined; fince it is only by great facrifices, at prefent, that any thing can be preserved in future. But there are men among us in a state of poverty, thrown, per "haps, out of employment by bankruptcies or the war, who, being in diftrefs, think that no change could to them be worfe. Miferable infatuation! Let them alfo view the French operations in Flanders! What is the language ufed to the lowest of the people; even to fuch as were friends ?-Money they have none, for all was feized; but they have arms and legs-their bodies are in requifition—and the only. falute of fraternity, MARCH, OR BE HANGED!!! Ranged in the front lines to meet the cannon of the foe, with the guillotine in the rear, they feel that there are evils of a deadlier hue than Imperial corruptions, and that the iron fway of a Convention can bury in equal ruins both itates and reformers." P. 12. Can there be a more powerful and energetic call to the people at large to refift with all their force the prevalence of the French fyftem in this country? A peace, which would enable France to confolidate their Republican fyftem, Mr. Y. deprecates as much more fatal than any war. N BRIT. CRIT. VOL. V. FEB. 1795. We "We know," he fays, " in England, that even in time of war our numberless Jacobin focieties have exerted every nerve, and perfifted with the moft unremitting diligence and energy, to extend their principles far and wide, to multiply, correct, and connect fuch focieties, and to diffeminate with the moft pernicious activity, an admiration of every thing perforated in France. If they have done this in a moment of hoftility, what would they not dare when fupported by the countenance and treafures of a French Convention, acting by their Ambaffador at London, and feconded by myriads of agents, fpreading the poifon of their principles in every village of the kingdom.". P. 19. Or, as he fays afterwards, "A Convention Ambaffador, fupported not only by the treafures of France, but acting under the incalculable impulfe of knowing that peace had been impofed by their fuperiority in the field, and fubmitted to from feeling that refiftance was vain. What could flow from fuch a fituation, but a clofe treaty of fraternity, friendship and alliance between our Jacobin Reformers, and their victorious fupporters on the other fide the Channel." P. 21. The remainder of Mr. Young's pamphlet is employed very properly, in contriving means to obviate the danger, which he A national militia of five hunhas thus fairly depicted to us. dred thousand men, fupported and commanded by the actual property of the kingdom, is the principal feature of this plan. It is fuggefted alfo that it might be advifeable to fortify certain polts, and perhaps to form a citadel near the capital. As there can be little doubt, fince the lofs of Holland, that attempts will be roade to invade this country, it begins to be time that plans of defence thould be matured as quickly as poffible. On the whole, Mr. Young's publication is not one of thofe which by concealing or palliating the prefent danger, tends to flatter us into a falle fecurity, but of the more useful kind which fully explains the preffure of the cafe, and endeavours to teach us how to meet it. With an enemy fo fuperior as France is at prefent, Peace, he fays, is fubmiffion. "The independence of Europe is at ftake, and if the fortune of the war be not changed before a negotiation for peace, the terms will be the dictates of impofing fuperiority on one side, and the acceptance on the other a confeffion of eternal imbecility: refiftance vain, fubmiflion neceffary." Would to Heaven we could fay that this is not fo, or that peace, which is always defirable in fpeculation, could be fought with dignity, or accepted with fecurity. ART. |