cannot move to obtain what it needs or likes, but must stretch its unfortunate arms here and there for bare breadth and light, and split its way among rocks, and grope for sustenance in unkindly soil; it would be hard upon the plant, I say, if under all these disadvantages, it were made answerable for its appearance, and found fault with 9. Admits of because it was not a fine plant of the kind. And it seems to be that, variety in the Ideal of the in order that no unkind comparisons may be drawn between one and another, there are not appointed to plants the fixed number, position, and proportion of members which are ordained in animals (and any variation from which in these is unpardonable), but a continually varying number and position, even among the more freely growing examples, admitting therefore all kinds of license to those which have enemies to contend with; and that without in any way detracting from their dignity and perfection.

former.

So then there is in trees no perfect form which can be fixed upon or reasoned out as ideal, but that is always an ideal oak which, however poverty-stricken, or hunger-pinched, or tempest-tortured, is yet seen to have done, under its appointed circumstances, all that could be expected of oak.

The ideal, therefore, of the park oak is that which was described in the conclusion of the former part of this work; full size, united terminal curve, equal and symmetrical range of branches on each side. The wild oak may be anything, gnarled, and leaning, and shattered, and rock-encumbered, and yet ideal, so only that, amidst all its misfortunes, it maintain the dignity of oak; and, indeed, I look upon this kind of tree as more ideal than the other, in so far as by its efforts and struggles, more of its nature, enduring power, patience in waiting for, and ingenuity in obtaining what it needs, is brought out, and so more of the essence of oak exhibited, than under more fortunate conditions.

And herein, then, we at last find the cause of that fact which we have twice already noted, that the exalted or seemingly improved condition, whether of plant or animal, induced by human interference,

is not the true and artistical ideal of it. It has been well shown

I speak not here of those conditions of vegetation which have especial reference to man, as of seeds and fruits, whose sweetness and farina seem in great measure given, not for the plant's sake, but for his, and to which therefore the interruption in the harmony of creation of which he was the cause is extended; and their sweetness and larger

by Dr. Herbert,' that many plants are found alone on a certain soil or subsoil in a wild state, not because such soil is favourable to them, but because they alone are capable of existing on it, and because all dangerous rivals are by its inhospitality removed. Now if we withdraw the plant from this position, which it hardly endures, and supply it with the earth, and maintain about it the temperature that it delights in; withdrawing from it, at the same time, all rivals which, in such conditions, nature would have thrust upon it, we shall indeed obtain a magnificently developed example of the plant, colossal in size, and splendid in organization; but we shall utterly lose in it that moral ideal which is dependent on its right fulfilment of its appointed functions. It was intended and created by the Deity for the covering of those lonely spots where no other plant could live; it has been thereto endowed with courage, and strength, and capacities of endurance; its character and glory are not therefore in the gluttonous and idle feeding of its own over luxuriance, at the expense of other creatures utterly destroyed and rooted out for its good alone, but in its right doing of its hard duty, and forward climbing into those spots of forlorn hope where it alone can bear witness to the kindness and presence of the Spirit that cutteth out rivers among the rocks, as He covers the valleys with corn: and there, in its vanward place, and only there, where nothing is withdrawn for it, nor hurt by it, and where nothing can take part of its honour, nor usurp its throne, are its strength, and fairness, and price, and goodness in the sight of God, to be truly esteemed.

in the Solda

The first time that I saw the Soldanella Alpina, before spoken § 11. Instance of, it was growing, of magnificent size, on a sunny Alpine pasture, nella and Ra among bleating of sheep and lowing of cattle, associated with nunculus. a profusion of Geum montanum, and Ranunculus Pyrenæus. I noticed it only because new to me, nor perceived any peculiar beauty in its cloven flower. Some days after, I found it alone, among the rack of the higher clouds, and howling of glacier winds; and, as I described it, piercing through an edge of avalanche, which,

measure of good to be obtained only by his redeeming labour. His curse has fallen on the corn and the vine, and the wild barley misses of its fulness, that he may eat bread by the sweat of his brow.

1 Journal of the Horticultural Society. Part I.

§ 12. The beauty of repose and felicity, how

such Ideal.

in its retiring, had left the new ground brown and lifeless, and as if burned by recent fire; the plant was poor and feeble, and seemingly exhausted with its efforts, but it was then that I comprehended its ideal character, and saw its noble function and order of glory among the constellations of the earth.

The Ranunculus glacialis might perhaps by cultivation be blanched from its wan and corpse-like paleness to purer white, and won to more branched and lofty development of its ragged leaves. But the Ideal of the plant is to be found only in the last, loose stones of the moraine, alone there; wet with the cold, unkindly drip of the glacier water, and trembling as the loose and steep dust to which it clings yields ever and anon, and shudders and crumbles away from about its root.

And if it be asked how this conception of the utmost beauty of ideal form is consistent with what we formerly argued respecting consistent with the pleasantness of the appearance of felicity in the creature, let it be observed, and for ever held, that the right and true happiness of every creature is in this very discharge of its function, and in those efforts by which its strength and inherent energy are developed : and that the repose of which we also spoke as necessary to all beauty, is, as was then stated, repose not of inanition, nor of luxury, nor of irresolution, but the repose of magnificent energy and being; in action, the calmness of trust and determination; in rest, the consciousness of duty accomplished and of victory won; and this repose and this felicity can take place as well in the midst of trial and tempest, as beside the waters of comfort; they perish only when the creature is either unfaithful to itself, or is afflicted by circumstances unnatural and malignant to its being, and for the contending with which it was neither fitted nor ordained. Hence that rest which is indeed glorious is of the chamois couched breathless on his granite bed, not of the stalled ox over his fodder; and that happiness which is indeed beautiful is in the bearing of those trial tests which are appointed for the proving of every creature, whether it be good, or whether it be evil; and in the fulfilment to the uttermost of every command it has received, and the out-carrying to the uttermost of every power and gift it has gotten from its God.

13. The ideality of Art.

Therefore the task of the painter in his pursuit of ideal form is

to attain accurate knowledge, so far as may be in his power, of the peculiar virtues, duties, and characters of every species of being; down even to the stone, for there is an ideality of stones according to their kind, an ideality of granite and slate and marble, and it is in the utmost and most exalted exhibition of such individual character, order, and use, that all ideality of art consists. The more cautious he is in assigning the right species of moss to its favourite trunk, and the right kind of weed to its necessary stone; in marking the definite and characteristic leaf, blossom, seed, fracture, colour, and inward anatomy of everything, the more truly ideal his work becomes. All confusion of species, all careless rendering of character, all unnatural and arbitrary association, are vulgar and unideal in proportion to their degree.

nected with the

faculties.

It is to be noted, however, that nature sometimes in a measure f 14. How conherself conceals these generic differences, and that when she displays Imaginative them it is commonly on a scale too small for human hand to follow : the pursuit and seizure of the generic differences in their concealment, and the display of them on a larger and more palpable scale, is one of the wholesome and healthy operations of the imagination of which we are presently to speak.1

Generic differences being often exhibited by art in different manner from that of their natural occurrence, are, in this respect, more strictly and truly ideal in art than in reality.

This only remains to be noted, that, of all creatures whose existence 5 15. Ideality, how belonging involves birth, progress, and dissolution, ideality is predicable all to ages and through their existence, so that they be perfect with reference to their conditions. supposed period of being. Thus there is an ideal of infancy, of youth, of old age, of death, and of decay. But when the ideal form of the species is spoken of or conceived in general terms, the form is understood to be of that period when the generic attributes are perfectly developed, and previous to the commencement of their decline. At which period all the characters of vital and typical beauty are commonly most concentrated in them, though the arrangement and proportion of these characters varies at different periods, youth having more of the vigorous beauty, and age of the reposing; youth of typical outward fairness, and age of expanded and ætherialized

1 Compare Sec. II. Chap. IV. § 21.

moral expression; the babe, again in some measure atoning in gracefulness for its want of strength, so that the balanced glory of the creature continues in solemn interchange, perhaps even

"Filling more and more with crystal light,

As pensive evening deepens into night."

Hitherto, however, we have confined ourselves to the examination of ideal form in the lower animals, and we have found that, to arrive at it, no exertion of fancy is required in combining forms, but only simple choice among those naturally presented, together with careful study of the habits of the creatures. I fear we shall arrive at a very different conclusion, in considering the ideal form of man.