

ST. KILDA. SCENERY. 53 



indefinite dimensions to the already tremendous depth. 

 The scenery of St. Kilda presents objects of this class 

 only. A dizzy height from which the eye looks down 

 over jutting crags retiring in succession, while the sea 

 below appears, from the invisible nature of its boundary, 

 removed to an undeterminable distance ; or dark cliffs 

 beaten by the unceasing surge and lost in the gloom 

 of the clouds that hang on them, are not in the strict 

 sense of the term picturesque. They are of a higher 

 order, and beyond the narrow limits of art. Its powers 

 cannot reach these sources of the sublime in landscape ; 

 since the laws of perspective prevent the effectual use 

 of the first class of objects, while the unavoidable re- 

 duction of that extensive scale which is the chief cause 

 of the powerful effect of simple forms, is destructive 

 of the grandeur of the latter. 



At a distance, the outline of St. Kilda is neither suf- 

 ficiently elevated nor varied to produce subjects for 

 the painter. Yet in the accidental circumstances of 

 light, of changing clouds, and of a restless sea, and 

 among the endless effects which result from the constant 

 variations of these objects, he will find studies for the 

 higher departments of his art such as are rarely to be 

 seen in the more accessible islands of this sea. The 

 cause of these more frequent and striking effects, is to 

 be found in the detached position of this island and 

 that of its neighbour Borera. They are the only objects 

 capable of affecting the courses of the clouds in this 

 open sea; and they are accordingly often involved in 

 mists and showers, and blackened by dark shadows, 

 when the rest of the atmosphere is settled and clear. 

 It is here easy to observe the power which land pos- 

 sesses of precipitating clouds from a transparent at- 

 mosphere ; an instructive phenomenon occasionally to be 

 seen in other situations, and formerly noticed in Rum. 



Different caves and arches, besides that already men- 

 tioned, are to be seen along these cliffs. In -front of 



