in which the late Samuel Rogers-pre-eminently the poet of Art-modestly and beautifully alludes to his own tastes and feelings : "Nature denied him much, But gave him at his birth what most he values: For all things here, or grand, or beautiful, A setting sun, a lake among the mountains, And what transcends them all, a noble action." THE BEAUTIFUL IN LIFE. THE BEAUTIFUL IN LIFE REGULATED BY LAW-A MORE INTERNAL HARMONY-NO TRANSITION-DISCORD CHAOS-THE ANCIENTS SOUGHT TO VIEW THE UNIVERSE IN ITS TOTALITY — ANTONINUS-THE FATHERS-LEIBNITZ-OERSTED THE PHYSICAL AND MORAL-MAN EVERYWHERE PREFIGURED IN CREATION. EARLY THE REASONABLENESS AND NECESSITY OF A DIVINE REVELATION. SCRIPTURE. OF SCRIPTURE LANGUAGE OF THE SAVIOUR'S GREATNESS-TESTIMONY TO HIS CHARACTER FROM WITHOUT-OF THE CHILDREN OF LIGHTCHANGE OF HEART. COURTESY - MINOR GRACES THE CHRISTIAN GENTLEMAN-OF MANNERS-TRUE - HEATHEN MAXIMS -THE CHESTERFIELD SCHOOL CHIVALRY-BAYARD-LOVE AND TRUTH THE BASIS OF GENUINE COURTESY-THE BIBLE THE SOURCE OF ALL SUBSEQUENT MORAL TEACHING-RULES OF LIFE-THE PURE AND ENNOBLING IN ART ALSO INDEBTED TO THE SAME DIVINE SOURCE, DIRECT OR REFLEX-THE CHARM OF BEING NATURAL-HAPPINESS-HARMONY-DIVINE LOVE EXPANDS THE HEART-THE END OF ALL LEARNING-TRUE WISDOMCOMPANIONSHIPS-THE CHRISTLIKE. INWARD AND OUTWARD BEAUTY ALIKE SUBJECT TO LAW-SEEMING PERTURBATIONS ONLY ADJUSTMENTS -ONE VAST SYSTEM OF COMPARATIVE ANATOMY THROUGHOUT THE PHYSICAL AND MORAL UNIVERSE-TWO MODES OF VIEWING NATURE-THE HIGHEST POINT OF VIEW-THE DIVINE SOURCE OF BEAUTY-CHRIST THE REVEALERCHRISTIANITY THE MOST COMPENDIOUS SYSTEM OF ETHICS-RECAPIT ULATION-CONCLUSION. THOSE who have patiently accompanied us thus far, will not, we trust, have failed to observe that Beauty, under its every manifestation, whether in nature or in art, invariably results from the definite operation of positive law. That the beautiful in life is thus regulated, has been more or less perceived and admitted as self-evident by pagan as well as Christian philosophers. The existence of God implies the existence of a moral law. The full development of the various intellectual and moral powers or faculties of our nature, preserving to each its relative importance and place, towards the formation of the perfect man, clearly exemplifies what Lord Bacon terms "A more internal harmony." "That there are laws of mind," says Professor George Wilson, "as sure and immutable as there are laws in the material world, we are well assured. We are assured that there are laws of the conscience, that there are laws of the affections and passions, that there are laws of duty, of virtue, of happiness, which if we know them and obey them, our own soul shall be in itself as noble, as lovely, as magnificent a cosmos, as the starry heavens above our heads." We believe that such laws, though different in degree, are identical in form, essence, and operation:that there is no transition, but merely advance-a tracing of law higher and nearer to God himself, the great fountainhead of all law, order, harmony, and perfection. If we look deep enough, every form of law is but a higher or lower manifestation of the pervading order of the universe, whether moral or physical, in reference to spirit or matter; for both are assuredly subject to one Lawgiver and one law. Harmony and reason coincide: wisdom is moral harmony. Here we are furnished with the key to those profound analogies found everywhere in Nature, and to which we have already invited special attention, when treating of nature as furnishing us with language itself for the expression of spirit truth. "The life also," says St. Augustine, "which here we live hath its own enchantment, through a certain proportion of its own, and a correspondence with all things beautiful here below." Even looking upon the darkest side of the picture, "If we hear," says Hare, adopting an image used by Bacon, "little else than a dissonant screeching of multitudinous noises now, which only blend in the distance into a roar like that of the raging sea, it behoves us to hold fast to the assurance that this is the necessary process whereby the instruments are to be tuned for the heavenly concert. Though Chaos may only have been driven out of a part of his empire as yet, that empire is undergoing a perpetual curtailment; and in the end he will be cast out of the intellectual, and moral, and spiritual, as well as out of the material." On turning up Cruden's Concordance we find Beauty given as in Scripture signifying "1st. Comeliness or handsomeness. 2d. A chief person or city. 3d. Splendour glory, or dignity. 4th. Joy and gladness. And 5th. The excellent order of a government; the prosperity, riches, and peace of a country; together with the holiness, purity, and truth of their religion, which were their ornament and glory." The wisest among the ancients taught men to regard the great universe, in its totality, as an harmonious unity. Such an idea, however, was formed intuitively and vaguely, rather than inductively. They at the same time asserted and inculcated, with certitude up to the light which was within them, the superlative excellence of moral beauty. With Socrates as with Solomon, "virtue and wisdom are identical; and all vice is either stupidity, disease, or madness." "All things," says the Emperor Atoninus, "are linked with each other, and bound together with a sacred bond: scarce is there one thing quite foreign to another. They are all arranged together in their proper places, and jointly adorn the same world. There is one orderly, graceful disposition of the whole. There is one God in the whole. There is one substance, one law, and one reason common to all intelligent beings, and one truth; as there must be one sort of perfection to all beings, who are of the same nature, and partake of the same rational power." "1 "Whatever the gods ordain, is full of wise Providence. What we ascribe to fortune, happens not without a presiding nature, nor without a connection and intertexture with the thing ordered by Providence. Thence all things flow. Consider, too, the necessity of these events, and 1 Meditations, Book vii., 9. |