THE PLEASURE OF IMITATION DISTINCT.

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pleasure is so appreciable as to stamp the work with value, even in the absence of any other considerable merit.

The peculiarities and the conditions of successful Imitation are most easily understood in connexion with the schools of Painting. In modern Art, the imitative school bulks largely, as regards both Nature and Humanity. In the Dutch masters, we find pictures that, but for their imitative skill, would be repellent instead of attractive. A haggard old man or woman, that would give us little interest in the actual, can be so expressively sketched by Rembrandt, that we are irresistibly charmed by the work. Hogarth and Wilkie have familiarized us with marvels of truthful delineation of subjects otherwise not remarkably interesting. So with Turner, Millais, and the pre-Raphaelites, and the numerous realists that have been influenced by their example, and by Ruskin's teaching.

The delight in witnessing a very successful Imitation is probably a complex effect, and is on that account all the more intense. There are at least three assignable circumstances, appealing to our sensibility in different ways. One is the ingenuity of reproducing upon an alien material the exact impression of some original: as in reducing a landscape or a human figure to canvas. Even when not done by an artist's hand, as in photography, a high degree of exactness in the imitation rouses us to a pleasing wonderment. Literary instances are not very easily distinguishable as imitation, having mostly some other elements of interest present; but there is a genuine stroke in Chaucer's presentation of ground newly cleared of a thick wood :

The ground agast was of the lighte,

That was nought wont to seen the sonne brighte.

The second circumstance is the discovery of minute points overlooked by us in our own observation of the original, for which also we bestow a tribute of our admiration on the artist's insight. A third assignable peculiarity, which is more within the sphere of literary art, is the representing of the minutest features, by some ingenious embodiment that is not mere copying, but a higher or transcendent reproduction, like the effect of well-chosen figures of speech. The passage just quoted from Chaucer illustrates this also..

All this artistic power may coexist with the production of Strength, Feeling or Humour, or it may flourish in the nearly total absence of one and all of these great effects. The two alternative ends can hardly be conjoined in anything approaching to perfection. Professor Veitch, in commenting on recent Scotch landscape painters, remarks :We should at the same time have greater cause of gratitude if the artists in landscape would widen their range of vision, look less to mere sensuous grandeur and impressiveness, and be able to give us the power of the tender, the pathetic and the solitary spirit, to be found chiefly through love.and holy passion and brooding reflection, in that district of Scotland which lies between the Pentlands and the Cheviotsthe weird wilds at the heads of the Tweed, the Yarrow, the Ettrick and the Teviot'. This exactly sets forth the choice as between the two aims of modern art. To carry Imitation to the point where it aids the emotional qualities, and no further, is to provide the greatest satisfaction to the beholder. For example, in order to Humour, Imitation must so far give way to distortion, which is the essence of caricature; while the likeness that still remains constitutes the effectiveness of the work.

As in Painting, so in Poetry, Imitation in its higher flights is modern. In all the three distinguishable peculiarities already indicated, we find the most successful examples in recent literature. For the critical appreciation of our greatest writers in poetry, and still more in prose fiction, we need a terminology adapted to signify excellence

in the imitative function of art.

Imitation of particular individuals is the exceptional instance. It may be conducted from a serious purpose, as in adopting a distinguished man for a model, either in conduct or in style. Most frequent, however, is the employment of imitation in caricature or parody (p. 242). In such cases, the triple test may be applied-closeness of resemblance, original embodiments for creating surprise, and deviations with a view to the ludicrous.

Pope's Addison' is meant for vituperation; but the resemblance is obviously insufficient: had it been less so, the effect would have been greater. This is the constant danger of the caricaturist. The same applies to the eulogist of great virtues and capabilities; it is the perception of resemblance that disposes us to accept the eulogy.

EXAMPLES OF SUCCESSFUL IMITATION.

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The more usual form of Imitation is to depict character types. The writer and the reader are supposed to have each in view exemplary instances, although not the same individuals. Still, as regards well-marked types, a faithful delineation by the writer will be responded to in the experience of a certain number of readers; and will impart to them the pleasure that a good imitation gives, whether or not accompanied by the leading emotional qualities.

Chaucer's characters have often a remarkable basis of truth-like fidelity, along with their appeal to our other sensibilities. Thus, of the Schipman, it is said With many a tempest hadde his berd ben schake'. The Nun's French was after the scole of Stratford atte Bowe '.

Goldsmith's characters in the Vicar of Wakefield have always been admired for faithful personation of types, while in other ways rendered interesting. Our great novelists, or at least a large class of them, have usually aspired to this excellence.

Shakespeare, in his characters, produces occasionally, although not habitually, strokes of effect that belong to Imitation in its highest flights. The selecting of unobvious, but yet intensely characteristic touches, and the further effect of happy embodiment, can be found at their very best. His Macbeth does not come within our experience of known characters, and our sense of the general consistency is extremely vague. Nevertheless, we are at once affected by such expressive touches as his question, on hearing a prayer, 'But wherefore could I not pronounce Amen?' What strikes us is the suitability of the remark to the situation, considered as an imitative embodiment.

Mrs. Quickly could be referred to for the same felicitous touches of Shakespeare's character drawing. Where he had opportunities of actual observation, he could combine fidelity with caricature or other emotional interest. Of the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet,' Johnson has said, 'The Nurse is one of the characters in which the author delighted; he has, with great subtlety of distinction, drawn her at once loquacious and secret, obsequious and insolent, trusty and dishonest'.

Thackeray has, by iteration, attained to the consummate personation of a flirt, and has combined exactness in the

resemblance with well-chosen touches of the other leading qualities, as love-making and humour.

Molière's type of the hypocrite in Tartuffe is a splendid embodiment of a character familiar to our experience, and often reproduced in fiction. The pleasure of resemblance is somewhat marred, in his case, by overdoing the odious peculiarities of the character. Probably the same is true of Dickens's 'Pecksniff'. And, although exaggeration is not infrequent with Dickens, his genius of selection and embodiment of expressive points is well understood; especially for depreciation, both serious and comic. As a trifling but illustrative case, we may quote the incident of some one sitting in his room, while a friend tapped at the door, and was answered-Cub id; a humorous suggestion of cold in the head.

THE MEANING OF BEAUTY.

As already observed, the usual contrast to Beauty, as an Art designation, is Sublimity. It supposes the full realization of all the general attributes of artistic excellence, as set forth under AIDS TO QUALITIES.

First of all, Beauty is opposed to Deformity or Ugliness. It must realize an effect agreeable, and not repugnant, to a certain number of our sensibilities. In the next place, it is opposed to the Useful, as interpreted according to our animal wants,-hunger, and so on. To gratify these is pleasurable, but not the pleasure of Beauty. By a certain refinement and selection, useful works may be brought within the sphere of beauty, as, for example, buildings, furniture and dress.

The contrast with the Sublime connects Beauty more with Tenderness than with Strength. It is in alliance with quiescence and repose, rather than with energy, especially in its maleficent moods.

A still narrower meaning might be given, by withdrawing from the name the qualities both of Strength and Feeling, and associating it with the pure Sense effects above described, as complying with the general conditions of Art, and stopping short of the special emotions. This is an abstract possibility, very seldom realized for more than a few lines together, but yet important to describe as a form of literary excellence, to be occasionally aimed at.

DESIGNATIONS FOR TASTE AND ITS OPPOSITES. 325

TASTE.

The designation TASTE carries within itself nearly the whole round of artistic qualities. When Fine Art, in any of its modes, Sublimity, Beauty or Humour, is as it ought to be, it is said to be 'in taste'; when any Art condition is missed, the reproach of bad taste' or want of taste' is merited.

The fact of this coincidence, however, is a proof that, after a minute survey of the nature and conditions of Art qualities, there is nothing further to be said under the express heading of Taste.

The opposites of Taste are the failures in some one or more of the general conditions indicated under Aids to Qualities, as Harmony, Ideality, Originality, Refinement; or the failures in the great Emotional Qualities, as controlled by these previous conditions. To treat of the subject in detail, therefore, would be to re-open what has been already discussed at sufficient length. We must be content with indicating the proper mode of using the term, as a synonym of artistic excellence. Its opposing designations contribute to the expression of defects in a work of literary, or other, fine Art. These are such as Coarseness, Vulgarity, Tawdriness, Tinsel, Indelicacy, Grossness; Meretricious, Unpolished, Rustic, Barbarous.