ponding to it's nature, and appear to me so much the more pleasing, that the body, which for it's part loves repose, is more tranquil and more completely protected. If I am in a sorrowful mood, and not disposed to send my soul on an excursion so extensive, I still feel much pleasure in giving way to the melancholy which the bad weather inspires. It looks as if nature were then conforming to my situation, like a sympathizing friend. She is besides at all times so interesting, under whatever aspect she exhibits herself, that when it rains I think I see a beautiful woman in tears. She seems to be more beautiful the more that she wears the appearance of affliction. In order to be impressed with these sentiments, which, I venture to call voluptuous, I must have no project in hand of a pleasant walk, of visiting, of hunting, of journeying, which in such circumstances would put me into bad humour, from being contradicted. Much less ought our two component powers to cross, or clash against each other, that is, to let the sentiment of infinity bear upon our misery, by thinking that this rain will never have an end; and that of our misery to dwell on the phenomena of nature, by complaining that the seasons are quite deranged, that order no longer reigns in the clements, and thus giving into all the peevish, inconclusive reasonings, adopted by a man who is wet to the skin. In order to the enjoyment of bad weather, our soul must be travelling abroad, and the body at rest. From the harmony of these two powers of our constitution it is, that the most terrible revolutions of Nature frequently interest us more more than her gayest scenery. The volcano near Naples attracts more travellers to that city than the delicious gardens which adorn her shores; the plains of Greece and Italy, overspread with ruins, allure more than the richly cultivated lawns of England; the picture of a tempest, more connoisseurs than that of a calm; and the fall of a tower, more spectators than it's construction. The Pleasure of Ruin. I was for some time impressed with the belief that Man had a certain unaccountable taste for destruction. If the populace can lay their hands upon a monument they are sure to destroy it. I have seen at Dresden, in the gardens of the Count de Bruht, beautiful statues of females, which the Prussian soldiery had amused themselves with mutilating by musket-shot when they got possession of that city. Most of the common people have a turn for slander; they take pleasure in levelling the reputation of all that is exalted. But this malevolent instinct is not the production of Nature. It is infused by the misery of the individuals, whom education inspires with an ambition which is interdicted by Society, and which throws them into a negative ambition. Incapable of raising any thing, they are impelled to lay every thing low. The taste for ruin in this case is not natural, and is simply the exercise of the power of the miserable. Man in a savage state destroys the monuments only of his enemies; he preserves with the most assiduous care those of his own Nation; and what proves him to be naturally much better than man in a state of Society, he never slanders his compatriots. Be Be it as it may, the passive taste for ruin is universal. Our voluptuaries embellish their gardens with artificial ruins; savages take delight in a melancholy repose by the brink of the Sea, especially during a storm, or in the vicinity of a cascade surrounded by rocks. Magnificent destruction presents new picturesque effects; and it was the curiosity of seeing this produced, combined with cruelty, which impelled Nero to set Rome on fire, that he might enjoy the spectacle of a vast conflagration. The sentiment of humanity out of the question, those long streams of flame which, in the middle of the night, lick the Heavens, to make use of Virgil's expression, those torrents of red and black smoke, those clouds of sparks of all colours, those scarlet reverberations in the streets, on the summit of towers, along the surface of the waters, and on the distant mountains, give us pleasure even in pictures and in descriptions. This kind of affection, which is by no means connected with our physical wants, has induced certain Philosophers to allege, that our soul, being in a state of agitation, took pleasure in all extraordinary emotions. This is the reason, say they, that such crowds assemble in the Place de Grève to see the execution of criminals. In spectacles of this sort, there is in fact no picturesque effect whatever. But they have advanced their axiom as slightly as so many others with which their Works abound. First, our soul takes pleasure in rest as much as in commotion. It is a harmony very gentle, and very easily disturbed by violent emotions; and granting it to be in it's own nature a movement, movement, I do not see that it ought to take plea sure in those which threaten it with destruction. Lucretius has, in my opinion, come much nearer to the truth, when he says that tastes of this sort arise from the sentiment of our own security, which is heightened by the sight of danger to which we are not exposed. It is a pleasant thing, says he, to contemplate a storm from the shore. It is undoubtedly from this reference to self, that the common people take delight in relating by the fire-side, collected in a family way during the Winter evenings, frightful stories of ghosts, of men losing themselves by night in the wood, of highway robberies. From the same sentiment likewise it is, that the better sort take pleasure in the representation of tragedies, and in reading the description of battles, of shipwrecks, and of the crash of empire. The security of the snug tradesman is increased by the danger to which the soldier, the mariner, the courtier is exposed. Pleasure of this kind arises from the sentiment of our misery, which is as has been said one of the instincts of our melancholy. But there is in us besides a sentiment more sublime, which derives pleasure from ruin independently of all picturesque effect, and of every idea of personal security; it is that of Deity, which ever blends itself with our melancholy affections, and which constitutes their principal charm. I shall attempt to unfold some of the characters of it, following the impressions made upon us by ruins of different kinds. The subject is both rich and new; but I possess neither leisure nor ability to bestow upon it a profound investigation. I shall however drop a few words upon it by the way, 111 in the view of exculpating and of exalting human nature with what ability I have. The heart of Man is so naturally disposed to benevolence, that the spectacle of a ruin which brings to our recollection only the misery of our fellow men, inspires us with horror, whatever may be the picturesque effect which it presents. I happened to be at Dresden in the year 1765, that s several years after it had been bombarded. That small but very beautiful and con:mercial city,: more than half composed of little palaces charmingly arranged, the fronts of which were adorned externally with paintings, colonades, balconies, and pieces of sculpture, at that time presented a pile of ruins. A considerable part of the enemy's bombs had been directed against the Lutheran church, called St. Peter's, built in form of a rotundo, and arched over with so much solidity that a great number of those bombs struck the cu pola, without being able to injure it, but rebounded on the adjoining palaces, which they set on fire and partly consumed. Matters were still in the same state at the conclusion of the war, at the time of my arrival. They had only piled up along some of the streets, the stones which encumbered them; so that they formed on each side long parapets of blackened stone. You might sce halves of palaces standing, laid open from the roof down to the cellars. It was easy to distinguish in them the extremity of stair-cases, painted ceilings, little closets lined with Chinese paper, fragments of mirrors, of marble chimneys, of smoked gildings. Of others nothing remained except massy stacks of VOL. III. chimneys G |