There is a peculiarity in the epithet 'bloodless': a pure negative, not picturesque in itself, and merely pointing to what will come in due course.

But Linden saw another sight

The action here is vividly set forth the drums beat,' the time-dead of night," the powerful term 'commanding,' the fires of death,' 'to light the darkness'. In these last there is an absence of coherence and appropriateness; 'fires of death' has merely an emotional effect; it does not give a picture, such as we find later on.

By torch and trumpet fast arrayed—

The torch would have answered here by itself, for although the trumpet may have been sounding through the ranks, it is not an habitual adjunct of the action meant. Each horseman drew his battle blade 'is concrete by individuality, but a collective image would have been more powerful. 'And furious every charger neighed' is an adjunct of sound; but if it had been a reality, the multitudinous effect might have been indicated. The 'dreadful revelry' is emotional simply.

Then shook the hills, with thunder riven

This is one of the eminently picturesque stanzas. The 'shaking of the hills' is a fine suggestive hyperbole ; 'then rushed the steed to battle driven' is the poorest line, being common-place and not suited for a picture. The concluding lines are admirable for giving the play of the artillery-the bolts of heaven,' 'far flash the red'; more could not be said with the same number of words.

The fifth stanza

But redder yet those fires shall glow

hardly explains itself; but to us it is valuable as exemplifying what is always deemed an eminently central and suggestive circumstance of a battle-the blood effusion. Highly emotional as an accompaniment, it is also an essential element in the war combat; and in every way assists in evoking the picturesque. Its merits, however, have subjected it to the drawback of commonness, from perpetual usage. Examples are found in all descriptions of battles. Thus, in the Old Testament, we have 'garments rolled in blood'-a circumstance closer to the action than

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rivers of blood, or the blood-stained ground. See, also, Macaulay's horseman in the 'Lay of Lake Regillus 'And many a curdling pool of blood

Splashed him from heel to head.

Horrible as well as picturesque !

Next stanza also affords illustrative points

'Tis morn-but scarce yon level sun

The point of time comes in with advantage; the action in the interval being left to imagination. Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun' is a well-selected grouping for a picture. 'Where furious Frank and fiery Hun' makes a seeming distinction without a difference; and brings in only at the end of the action the parties to the contest. Shout in their sulphurous canopy' gives the suggestiveness of sound and also of odour (sulphurous); otherwise, it but repeats the idea of a cloud of smoke. The poet persists in naming the individual when he should suggest the collective mass, which the words Frank and Hun fail to do,

The seventh stanza

The combat deepens—

embodies the final charge, by somewhat obscure suggestion, although with telling and powerful phraseology, being the picturesque of action.

The poetry of battle scenes will be again fully exemplified under the Quality of STRENGTH.

The union of active circumstances with a concrete picture is well shown in Chaucer's cock-Chanticleer. Although the poet gives a minute and highly-wrought delineation of the figure and appearance of that magnificent bird, he cannot refrain from violating the natural order by beginning with an account of his superb crowing. The picturesque, in this instance, as is frequent in Chaucer, is attained by choice and telling figures of Similarity.

Tennyson's picture of the Tropical island, in 'Enoch Arden,' is an instance combining still-life and action. It is as follows:

The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawns
And winding glades high up like ways to Heaven,
The slender coco's drooping crown of plumes,
The lightning flash of insect and of bird,

The lustre of the long convolvuluses

That coiled around the stately stems, and ran
Ev'n to the limit of the land, the glows

And glories of the broad belt of the world.

This exhibits what is necessarily the weak point of scenic description; namely, the difficulty of making a plurality of views fall into a grand and comprehensive whole, while each one, taken separately, is perhaps wanting in emotional force. The first circumstance, the mountain wooded to the peak,' is in itself suggestive and picturesque. The second is a new and isolated picture, the lawns and winding glades high up like ways to Heaven': this does not connect itself with the wooded mountain; it supposes some other rising ground covered with lawns and glades, and does not give a very definite view. The slender coco's drooping crown of plumes' would be found a highly picturesque conjunction, if we had ever known the original, but is not enough for representing what we never saw, while its emotional force is very slight. The lightning flash of insect and of bird' is a similitude of doubtful application; the starting forth of insects may be very sudden, but not equal in suddenness, still less in brilliancy, to the lightning flash. The lines following-The lustre, &c.,' do not cohere into a vivid picture; and the one comprehensive phrase-'the broad belt of the world,' is obscure in itself (it probably means the tropical zone), and does not embrace the previous details.

In notable contrast to the heaviness of the still-life delineation, in spite of happy touches, is the vivacity of the poet's rendering of the activities of the scene.

The myriad shriek of wheeling ocean-fowl,
The league-long roller thundering on the reef,
The moving whisper of huge trees that branch'd
And blossom'd in the zenith, or the sweep

Of some precipitous rivulet to the wave.

Every line here is a study. Except blossom'd in the zenith,' nothing is doubtful or obscure. The circumstances are well selected for displays of energy, and their poetic dress fits them. The suggestiveness of sound is well made use of. Although the four selected activities are quite detached and isolated, each is a power in itself, which can but rarely be the case in still-life descriptions.

What follows is a fine sequence of effects, in the course

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of a tropical day. The effect of movement is very slight, owing to the slowness of the transitions; and it is to all intents a still-life picture, to which the succession of phases contributes orderly arrangement.

The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts

Among the palms and ferns and precipices
The blaze upon the waters to the east ;
The blaze upon his island overhead;
The blaze upon the waters to the west;

Then the great stars that globed themselves in Heaven,
The hollower-bellowing ocean, and again

The scarlet shafts of sunrise.

In the Palace of Art,' Tennyson provides a study of picturesque description. At the outset, he proceeds by the constructive sequence: then, he fills up the interior with numerous scenic pictures, generally so brief and simple as not to strain the power of descriptive art, while affording scope for poetic touches.

The contrast between the heaviness of still-life delineation and the vivifying power of action, in able hands, is well brought out by Shakespeare's passage on the horse, in 'Venus and Adonis'. The points of a good horse are given with exhaustive minuteness, and in most disorderly array. The stanzas both before and after the bald enumeration represent the animal in motion, and are vividly suggestive. It is sufficient to quote the following

Round-hoof'd, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long,
Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide,
High crest, short ears, straight legs, and passing strong,
Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide:

Look what a horse should have, he did not lack,
Save a proud rider on so proud a back.

Sometimes he scuds far off, and there he stares;
Anon he starts at stirring of a feather;
To bid the wind a base he now prepares,
And whe'r he run, or fly, they know not whether;

For thro' his mane and tail the high wind sings,
Fanning the hairs, who wave like feathered wings.

He looks upon his love, and neighs unto her;
She answers him, as if she knew his mind;
Being proud, as females are, to see him woo her,
She puts on outward strangeness, seems unkind;

Spurns at his love, and scorns the heat he feels,
Beating his kind embracements with her heels.

The remaining examples of the quality of Picturesqueness will be given in the chronological order of the authors. referred to.

The oldest poetry was successful, to a wonderful degree, in picturesqueness: the poetic instinct judging it to be essential, as an aid to concrete presentation. HOMER exhibits the quality in many forms, more especially in his epithets. He is aware of the difficulties of scenic delineation, and generally attempts only very simple groupings.

The bivouac of the Trojans, at the close of the Eighth Book of the Iliad, has a double description-an illustrative simile and the scene itself. In both, there is more fulness than is usual with him, and yet a remarkable pictorical coherence. The following translation is by Tennyson

As when in heaven the stars about the moon
Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid,
And every height comes out, and jutting peak,
And valley, and the immeasurable heavens
Break open to their highest, and all the stars
Shine, and the shepherd gladdens in his heart:
So many a fire between the ships and stream
Of Xanthus blazed before the Towers of Troy,
A thousand on the plain; and close by each
Sat fifty in the blaze of burning fire:
And, champing golden grain, the horses stood
Hard by their chariots, waiting for the dawn.

In his epithets, Homer is to us the father of the singlestroke picturesque. He occasionally combines two touches, more rarely three; seldom above three, except in narratives of action.

The harbour of the Læstrygonians (supposed to resemble Balaclava) has three descriptive features.

A rock-surrounded bay,

Whence fronting headlands at the mouth outrun,
Leaving a little narrow entrance-way,

Wherethrough they drive the vessels one by one.

It is not difficult to make these three circumstances cohere into a picture. The first, rock-surrounded bay,' has the merit of comprehensiveness, and the second and third chime in readily with it. The 'little narrow entrance-way' is supported by the remark in the last line-driving the vessels through one by one.