of perfect truth and clearness, it will be impossible for the mind to form an idea of any one object whatever. Let any person try the experiment of counting a flock of sheep driven fast by him, and he will soon find his imagination unable to keep pace with the rapid succession of objects, and his idea of a positive number slide into the general notion of multitude. But because there are more objects passing before him than he can possibly count, he will not, therefore, think that there are none, nor will the word, flock, present to his mind a mere name without any idea corresponding to it. Every act of the attention, every object we see or think of, offers a proof of the same kind.

These remarks will be found to contain the answer to the common argument used on this subject, that in thinking of a man in general, we must always conceive of a man of a particular size and figure. Now if it be meant that when we pronounce the word man, we have either no idea at all, or a distinct and perfect one of an entire figure of a man with all its parts and proportions, it would amount to a knowledge, which no sculptor or painter ever had of any one figure of which he was the most thorough master, and which he had immediately before him. Or if it be only meant that we think of a particular height, which must be a precise, positive, determinate idea, even this supposition may in the same way be shewn to be exceedingly fallacious, and an inversion of the natural order of our ideas. For take any given height of a man, whether tall, short, or middle-sized, and let that height be as visible as you please, yet the actual height to which it amounts must be made up of the length of the different parts, the head, the face, the neck, the body, limbs, &c. all which must be distinctly added together by the mind, before the sum total which they compose can be pretended to be a precise, definite, individual idea. In the impression then of a given visible object, we have only a general idea of something more or less extended, and never of the precise length itself, for this precise length (as it is thought to be) is necessarily composed of a number of subordinate lengths, too many and too minute to be separately attended to, or jointly conceived by the mind, and at last loses itself in the infinite divisibility of matter. What sort of absolute certainty can therefore be found in any such image or ideas, I cannot well conceive it seems to me like seeking for distinctness in the dancing of insects in the evening sun, or for fixedness and rest in the motion of the sea. All particulars are nothing but generals, more or less defined according to circumstances, but never perfectly so.

Lastly, as the ideas of sensible objects can only be general notions, so the ideas of sensible qualities are properly abstract ideas of likeness

or of something common between a number of sensible impressions of the same class or sort. For example, the idea I have of the whiteness of a marble statue is not the idea of a point, nor of any number of points, with all their differences and circumstances, but a relative idea of the colour of the whole statue. Now in arriving at this general result, or in classing its sensible impressions together as of the same sort or quality, the mind certainly is not conscious of every stain in the colour of the marble, or streak that may happen to vary it, or of its shape or size, or of every difference of light and shade, arising from inequality of surface, &c. Yet if the idea falls any thing short of this minute and absolute knowledge, it can only be an imperfect and abstract one. The idea of whiteness in the same object (or as a sensible quality) necessarily implies the same power of abstracting from particulars in the mind, as the general idea of whiteness taken from different objects, from a white horse, a white cloud, a white wall, a white lily, or from all the other white objects I have ever seen. The precise differences of form, size, and every other actual circumstance in these particular images, are as little necessary to be attended to in forming the general idea of whiteness, as the differences of shape, size, and colour in every particle of the statue of white marble are to the general impression of colour in the whole object.

I will only add, that the mind has not been fairly dealt with in this and other questions of the same sort. The difficulties belonging to the abstraction, complexity, generalization, &c. of our ideas, it is, perhaps, impossible ever to clear up; but that is no reason why we should discard these operations from the human mind, any more than we should deny the existence of motion, of extension, or of curve lines, because we cannot explain them. Matter alone seems to have the privilege of presenting difficulties and contradictions at every turn, which pass current under the name of facts: but the moment any thing of this kind is observed in the understanding, all the petulance of logicians is up in arms against it. The mind is made the mark on which they vent all the moods and figures of their impertinence; and metaphysical truth has, in this respect, fared like the milk-white hind, the emblem of pure faith, in Dryden's fable, which had oft been chased

With Scythian shafts, and many winged wounds
Aimed at her heart, was often forced to fly,
And doomed to death, though fated not to die.'

AN ENGLISH METAPHYSICIAN.

FINE ARTS. BRITISH INSTITUTION

The Morning Chronicle.] [February 5, 1814. THE exhibition of this year is, we think, upon the whole, inferior to the one or two last exhibitions; for though the historical department is quite as respectably filled, there is not the same proportion of pleasing representations of common life, and natural scenery. In spite of certain classical prejudices, we should be sorry to see this which has been the most successful walk of the modern English school, neglected for the pursuit of prize-medals and epic mottos, which look well in the catalogue. There is indeed a greater difference between an historical picture, and a picture of an historical subject, than even some eminent painters seem to have imagined. But we are, we confess, so little refined in our taste, as to prefer a good imitation of common nature to a bad imitation of the highest, or rather to an imitation of nothing. Many of the pictures exhibited by young artists at this Institution, have shewn a capacity for correct and happy delineation of actual objects and domestic incidents, perhaps only inferior to the master-pieces of the Dutch school, from the use of a less perfect vehicle, and the want of long practice, steadily and uniformly directed to the same object. But in the higher, and what is rather affectedly called the epic style of art,-in giving the movements of the loftier and more violent passions, this country has not a single painter to boast, who has made even a faint approach to the excellence of the great Italian painters. We have indeed a good number of specimens of the clay-figure, the bones and muscles of the man, the anatomical mechanism, the regular proportions measured by a two-foot rule-large canvasses covered with stiff figures arranged in decent order, with the characters and story correctly expressed by uplifted eyes or hands, according to old receipt-books for the passions, and with all the hardness and inflexibility of figures carved in wood, and painted over in good strong body colours, that look as if some of nature's journeymen had made them, and not made them well. But we still want a Prometheus to give life to the cumbrous mass, to throw an intellectual light over the opaque image, to embody the inmost refinements of thought to the outward eye, to lay bare the very soul of passion. That picture is of little comparative value, which can be completely translated into another language, of which the description in a common catalogue is as good, and conveys all that is expressed by the picture itself; for it is the excellence of every art to give what can be given by no other, in the same degree. Much less is that picture to be

esteemed which only injures and defaces the idea already existing in the mind's eye, which does not come up to the conception which the imagination forms of the subject, and substitutes a dull reality for high sentiment; for the art is in this case an incumbrance, not an assistance, and interferes with, instead of adding to, the stock of our pleasurable sensations. But we should be at a loss to point out (we will not say any English picture, but certainly) any English painter, who in heroic and classical composition, has risen to the height of his subject, and answered the expectation of the well-informed spectator, or excited the same impression by visible means as had been excited by words, or by reflection. That this inferiority in English art is not owing to a deficiency of genius, imagination, or passion, is proved sufficiently by the works of our poets and dramatic writers, which, in loftiness and force, are certainly not surpassed by those of any other nation. But whatever may be the depth of internal thought and feeling in the English character, it seems to be more internal, and (whether this is owing to climate, habit, or physical constitution) to have, comparatively, a less immediate and powerful communication with the organic expression of passion, which exhibits the thoughts and feelings in the countenance, and furnishes matter for the historic muse of painting. The English artist is instantly sensible that the flutter, grimace, and extravagance of the French physiognomy, are incompatible with high history; and we are at no loss to explain in this way, that is, from the defect of existing models, why the productions of the French school are marked with all the affectation of national caricature, or sink into tame and lifeless imitations of the antique. May we not account satisfactorily for the general defects of our own historic productions in a similar way,-from a certain inertness and constitutional phlegm, which does not habitually impress the workings of the mind by correspondent traces on the countenance, and which may also render us less sensible of these outward and visible signs of passion, even when they are so impressed there? The irregularity of proportion and want of symmetry in the structure of the national features, though it certainly enhances the difficulty of infusing natural grace and grandeur into the works of art, rather accounts for our not having been able to attain the exquisite refinements of Grecian sculpture, than for our not having rivalled the Italian painters in expression.

The strongest exception to these general remarks in the present collection, is certainly Mr. Bird's Picture of Job, surrounded by his friends. Many of the heads and figures in this very able composition have a strong and deeply infused tincture of true history. The best of them are in a mixed style, which reminds us at the same time of Annibal Caracci, and N. Poussin. The three finest figures.

are undoubtedly those of Job, and the man and woman seated on each side of him. The countenance of Job displays a noble firmness with a mixture of suppressed feeling, not, perhaps, sufficiently marked for the character or for the interest of the subject. The full grey drapery which invelopes his whole figure, has an admirable effect, and seems in a manner to shroud him from the attacks of external misfortune, in the consolations of his own mind. The action of the man on his right hand, pointing with his finger, and indeed the whole figure, are equally appropriate and striking. The posture of the man leaning on a marble slab, is also natural and picturesque, though it has too great an appearance of ease and indifference for the occasion. The drapery of this last figure is remarkably loose and flimsy, or what the painters, we believe, call woolly. There are several other good heads in the picture; but both the countenance and attitude of the man behind the messenger, and the face of the figure between Job and the front figure in red, are mean and vulgar-mere low life, without sense or dignity. The expression in the countenance of the messenger, who comes to inform Job of the last calamity that has befallen him, is neither intelligent nor beautiful; and the whole of the figure, both by its situation and the quantity of light thrown upon it, assumes a prominence disproportioned to its importance, and throws the rest of the composition into a kind of half back-ground. The story is illustrated (whether with chronological propriety or not we leave to the critics) by a group of figures just behind the circle of Job and his friends, carrying off the dead body of one of his children. The great fault of this picture, which displays much sense, character, study, and invention, is the heaviness and monotony of the colour. It is of one uniform leaden tone, as if it had been smeared over with putty, except where a sudden transition to a glaring red or yellow, or the introduction of a spotty light, not at all accounted for, serves, instead of relieving, to add greater weight to that mechanic gloom, which affects, not the imagination, but the eye. We think it right to notice a defect which may be more easily remedied by attention, viz. that the extremities of Mr. Bird's figures are in general very ill made

out.

Mr. Allston's large picture of the dead man restored to life by touching the bones of Elisha, deserves great praise both for the choice and originality of the subject, the judicious arrangement of the general composition, and the correct drawing and very great knowledge of the human figure throughout. The figure of the revived soldier in the foreground is noble and striking; the drapery about him is equally well imagined and well executed. There is also a very beautiful head of a young man in a blue drapery with his hands lifted