324 



of certainty, when we are to attribute the 

 power of the art to imitation, or to our plea- 

 sure in the skill of the imitator merely ; and 

 when to sympathy, or some other cause in 

 conjunction with it. When the object re- 

 presented in poetry or painting is such as 

 we could have no desire of seeing in the 

 reality, then I may be sure that its power in 

 poetry or painting is owing to the power of 

 imitation, and to no cause operating in the 

 thing itself. So it is with most of the pieces 

 which the painters call still-life: in these a 

 cottage, a dunghill, the meanest and most 

 ordinary utensils of the kitchen, are capa- 

 ble of giving us pleasure."* 



This certainly does appear a very natu- 

 ral and just criterion ; yet still in some de- 

 gree it implies an indifference with regard 

 to the selection and arrangement of such 

 objects, and seems to confine the whole 

 scope of the painter's exertions, and the ef- 

 fect they have on the spectator, within a 

 very narrow limit — that of mere imitation. 

 I am persuaded, however, that many of the 



* Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, Part 1st, p. 81, 



sec. 16, . 



