COLLOQUY I

IT was the opinion of Burke, the author of the Sublime and Beautiful, that these two qualities are opposed to each other. In the light he views them they are so. He would have the former convey an idea of whatever is magnificent but desolate; the latter of whatever is small but picturesque. Sublimity and beauty, in this sense, possess no concordant properties. They are attributes of nature, on which the mind may rest with equal interest, but not with equal delight. The one attracts us by its gloom, barrenness, and quiet grandeur; the other by its fertility and loveliness. But the degree of pleasure with which the eye turns upon a beautiful scene in nature, far surpasses that with which it would look upon one that is sublime. It is possible that these dissimilar features may exist in a space of limited extent, though they are seldom to be met with so concentred: when they are, a variety is imparted to the scene which excites contending emotions in the mind, of intense interest. These, in their turn, produce reflections the more elevated, because they have their origin in deeply affected feelings. A striking mixture of such dissimilar features is to be found in the east Lyn Valley of Lynmouth, where there seems to be a struggle for pre-eminence between sublimity and beauty. They exist in majestic rivalry, separated only by a purling and meandering stream, which has its rise in Exmoor, or

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some of the adjacent hilly country. The valley is a deep, narrow, and rather circuitous ravine, with two lines of mountainous hill of equal height, opposite each other, diversified by precipices, woods, and rocks. What Olympus and Ossa were to the Thessalian Tempè, the renowned valley, and the once beautiful river Peneus, so are these lines and the purling streams to the vale of Lynmouth. One line is covered from the bottom to the summit with foliage of great richness; the other line is of shingle and rock; huge masses of which overhang the path, in many places, with fearful majesty. Craggy, bold, abrupt, sombre, and precipitous, a scene is presented to the eye on this side, which, in strong contrast with the other, forms a peculiar, romantic, and splendid variety. To those who seek for and delight only in rural beauty, and attach grandeur to nothing that does not carry with it some utility, a scene of this description would create disappointment. It is, in truth, not a rural, but a romantic spot. A few Exmoor sheep may be seen climbing, like the mountain-goat, the craggy steeps in search of herbage, and here and there the hand of the husbandman may have left some traces of his industry in the cultivation of some of the least precipitous parts of the cliff; but the soil is unkind, and yields but little in recompence for the labour which has been bestowed upon it.

Those who have seen the favourite valley of the great Italian poet Petrarch, near Avignon, may form some notion of this. Vaucluse is bounded on both sides by stupendous cliffs: it has an advantage in singularity over the Lynmouth valley, having but one entrance to it, the two parallel cliffs meeting at the farther end in a semicircle. In the semicircular space a cavern of great dimensions exists, and in a remote and gloomy part of it a reservoir of water, unfathomable, it is said, in depth, and

supplying a stream of some magnitude which meanders through the course of the valley. In this locality Petrarch passed many of his days in studious retirement. Hither he confessedly repaired in search of that happiness which he could not gain from dissipation, and the ways of every day life. Society, in general, was irksome and toilsome to a mind composed of materials so delicate, and fruitful in the production of that wisdom which seeks the shade, and which vulgar minds suppose to be the effect of misanthropy. He loved the spot, and anticipated the possession of no greater indulgence under heaven than a residence here. To him it was a terrestrial paradise: here he sang to his favourite Laura, and dedicated himself to that most bewitching and engrossing of all pursuits, the cultivation of the Muses. The sister-nine were held sacred by him; they drew forth his recreative and excursive imagination, and suggested to him a retreat so romantic and sublime, where he might woo them in seclusion and quiet. Extraordinary and magnificent to a degree, the valley suited such a literary disposition as his; it seemed to heighten the imaginative tone of his mind, and give to the poetic images there delineated a bold and elevated character. How many of our geniuses, ancient and modern, have sighed for a retreat such as this, where they might be excluded from the cares and frivolous occupations of the world, and luxuriate, unmolested, in their own thoughts, creating and eliciting! It were yet a place for sober thought, where reason might exclude all sophistry, and still retain at will some superstitious and illusive traditions to aid the creative and suggestive fancies of the poet. Wherever there is catastrophe of a tragic species, or invention that is pathetic, or romance that is heroic, or enterprise bold and adventurous, a banquet is presented to the mind which will never lose its

interest while it retains its variety and richness. The traditions of the ancients, the stories of the classic poets, however gothic and romantic, however subtile and irregular in design, or overstrained in sentiment, excite those passions of man which have a relish for whatever is marvellous, strange, and improbable. The more excitable these passions, the more intense is the interest they feel in all associations which have a romantic bearing. Thus, not only fictitious narrative, but rugged, bold, wild, and magnificent scenery is approached with interest, and contemplated with delight. Such scenery is the true fairy land of the poet, and such might be found in the valley of Lynmouth.

The imagination can scarcely picture to itself a combination of all the properties of the sublime and beautiful in nature brought together in so small a compass. The long-lost glories of the Alhambra may remind us of former greatness and mournful vicissitudes-the vineyards of Italy of luxuriance and plenty; but this, in particular, reminds us of God, and all that appertains to immortality. It has often been the scene of my meditations, which would vary in intenseness and animation in proportion to the susceptibility of the mind at the time, and according to the season of the year. Sometimes the mind is little disposed to receive impressions, little inclined to be excursive, and to loosen the reins of the imagination. At one period it is more influenced by whatever may induce sentiment at another time, reflection. Now it is alive to the marvellous and fanciful; now to the purely simple and real. There are likewise seasons of the year peculiarly congenial to the expansion of the intellect, to the elevation of the feelings. Spring imparts a buoyancy to the mind, which makes it delight in the romantic and pleasing; while autumn seems more suited to pensive and pro