Fine Arts, then and there, was far more energetic and universal than any ardour felt by some few ancient peoples for the works of their time. Italy was soon to eclipse every other country; but we have Dante's assurance that the Italian inspiration was derived from southern France, where the feudal system was stronger and the Catholic feebler than in Italy.

We must remember the delay and difficulty that were occasioned by the state of language in that age. There might be little apparent result from this long stage of preparation for the full development of the Fine Arts; but it was not the less true that earnest labour, and much power of an æsthetic kind, were absorbed by this task. Languages, and especially modern languages, are the result of a slow popular elaboration, in which the corresponding civilization is reflected: but the work must be taken up and carried out by the higher order of intellect; and the æsthetic order particularly, both because it is the most naturally active, and because it is concerned with expression, and therefore in an eminent degree with language. This is particularly the case when the thing to be done is not to create an original language, but to transform an existing one, as a necessary consequence of a new social state. The æsthetic faculties having to represent, in the strength of nature, the ideas and feelings inherent in actual common life, could never speak a dead or a foreign language, except by artificial habit; and we see how they must have been occupied, long and sedulously, in the Middle Ages, in aiding and directing the spontaneous formation of the modern languages, though it is the fashion to suppose them lying idle at the very time that they were laying the foundations of the great social monuments of European civilization. It was poetry chiefly that was thus kept back, and music, in an accessory way; but the other three arts were more or less hindered, through their connection with the chief and most universal.

The chief feature of the intellect of that age is its originality and Intellectual popular character, testifying to its being derived Originality. from the corresponding social state. Amidst all the reproaches about the abandonment of ancient works, we well know that the reading class of that time, who spoke Latin, must have read the Latin authors very diligently. But there was a growing feeling of the incompatibility between the rising æsthetical spirit and an exclusive admiration of works that related to a state of society now extinct. Besides this, it was insisted by Catholicism that the new social state was better than the old, insomuch that when the socalled restoration of letters took place, and the works of the ancients were brought up again, it was mainly owing to the reaction against the Catholic spirit which set in when it ceased to be progressive. Meantime, the spontaneous character of the new development required its perfect separation from one which belonged to a wholly different social state. For instance, Italy imitated the old Roman

INTELLECTUAL ORIGINALITY.

329

monuments; and therefore, while superior to all the rest of the world in other branches of the fine arts, she fell behind in architecture, because Catholicism and feudalism were erecting edifices more adapted to the civilization which they were thus to immortalize in the memory of mankind. We find the same originality in every branch of the arts. In poetry especially we find it in its expression of the manners of chivalry; and again in its disclosures of the new importance of domestic life in the scheme of modern existence. A new order of compositions hence arose, such as the ancients could not have conceived of, because it relates to that private life of which they knew so little, and treats of public life only in so far as it reacts upon the private. This order of works, since so expanded as to have become the exponent of modern civilization, must be referred to the age under our notice; though a servile admiration of ancient literature has caused too great a neglect of the first works in what is significantly called the vulgar tongue, a term which, however inappropriate now, I accept as historically true.

We have here found the origin of the aesthetic development of modern society: but it is not possible to dwell upon it to any purpose. Not only must the social state be very marked, but it must also be permanent, to favour the effect of the fine arts; because that effect requires a close and established harmony of ideas and feelings between the interpreter and the spectator. These conditions were fulfilled in antiquity; but they have never been so since, in any adequate degree, nor can be till we attain a fully positive state. It is because the intervening period has been a transition stage, that the permanent results of the aesthetic movement have been so disproportioned to the energy of its rise. The anomaly is not explained by any suppositions of the decay of the aesthetic faculties in Man, nor by any complaints of his devotion to the works of antiquity: but it is explained by the instability of Man's social condition, which has been undergoing successive transitions, such as could not but neutralize the necessary universality of art,-strong, and original, and popular as was its first evolution in the Middle Ages. Each social phase was dissolved before its spirit had penetrated the general mind and heart, so as to make it an immortal theme for the poet or the artist. The spirit of the Crusades, for instance, favourable to the loftiest poetry, was lost before the modern languages were formed which should have idealized them for ever: whereas every social condition among the ancients was so durable that, from age to age, Art found the popular passions and affections identical with those which it had to refer to a yet remoter time. The fine arts will never recover their full social efficacy till a perfect reorganization places Man once more in a condition of social stability.

Taking the Middle Ages, as hitherto, as comprehending the nine

to Industry.

centuries between the fifth and the fourteenth, we shall find the Relation of Art condition of the fine arts during that period to correspond with the contemporary condition of industry. When serfage succeeded to slavery, the new social state afforded materials for a beginning in art, and an excitement of its faculties: when the town populations were personally emancipated, art was occupied in the preparation of the modern languages: and when the industrial policy of towns was originated, and the rural population finally freed, the arts obtained a direct development, according to the nature of the corresponding civilization. The reign of Charlemagne, occurring about the middle of the period, may be taken as the date of the effectual stimulation of the elements of modern civilization. We have seen what were the characteristics of the nascent art of the period; and we have now to learn what were its characteristics, and what its relation to the pre-existing powers, from the beginning of the fourteenth century onwards; in other words, to observe the influence of industrial civilization on Catholic and feudal Art.

The first influence was in awakening mental activity, and in affording ease and security, without which Art could be neither understood nor enjoyed. Mental stimulus is first afforded by gross and urgent wants; and no great enjoyment can attend that sort of activity and, at the other end of the scale of mental operations, the exercise of the scientific and philosophical faculties is attended with fatigue, which soon becomes insupportable, except in rare cases of organizations peculiarly fitted for abstract contemplation. Between these two extremes, we find the exercise of the aesthetic faculties, affording the pleasure of moderate activity and of an agreeable mingling of thought and emotion, such as the generality of men are capable of enjoying. Thus it appears that Art affords a suitable transition from the active to the speculative life. There can be no doubt that the relation of the arts to practical life became closer in proportion to the substitution of the industrial for military pursuits. While slavery and war made up the social economy, it is clear that the fine arts could not be popular, nor indeed enjoyed at all beyond the limits of the highest class of free men, except in a partial and circumscribed way, in a portion of Greece. Everywhere else the popular recreation consisted in bloody sports, in imitation of their favourite mode of activity. When Industry became a true social element, the Catholic and feudal manners, penetrating the whole of society, prepared its humblest households for more or less enjoyment of Art, which from that time forward was destined to spread among the multitude, and become also a social element, which it had never been, in the slightest degree, in ancient times. In its inverse action, it counteracted the lamentable restriction, mental and moral, which is the attendant danger of industrial activity. Esthetic education thus begins what scientific and philosophical education must finally

CRITICAL CHARACTER OF ART.

331

achieve; so as to furnish a means of filling up the chasm which is provisionally occasioned by the disuse of religious observances,highly needful formerly as intellectual relaxation from industrial labour. Throughout Europe, the aesthetic movement followed close upon the industrial, tempering its dangers by inciting a more general and disinterested mental activity than was required by daily tasks, and awakening the benevolent affections by means of enjoyments which were vivid in proportion as they were unanimous. In individual cases, too exclusive a devotion to the fine arts may have occasioned mental and moral deterioration; but in a general way, they have prevented too strong a preponderance of the material life, and have sustained a degree of speculative ardour which will hereafter be instrumental to the highest objects. In a more special way, we may regard the development of the fine arts as being connected with the technical improvement of industrial operations, which can never be perfected among nations untrained to the pursuit of ideal perfection. This is particularly the case with regard to the numerous arts relating to external form, and thus connected with architecture, sculpture, and even painting, through so long a gradation of minute differences that it is sometimes impossible to draw the line between the artistical and the industrial. The technical superiority of populations familiar with art is so evident, that it is the ground of the efforts of modern governments to propagate aesthetic education as a security for industrial success amidst the commercial competition of the European

nations.

Critical character of Art.

which alone

Notwithstanding its natural advantages, Art could be only negative in its character and indecisive in its influence, during the critical period of the last five centuries. If it took for its subject the ancient faith and manners had comprehended universal ideas and sympathies, the Catholic faith was dying out, and the feudal manners were disappearing before pacific pursuits. Art could not grow up and expand on elements which were dissolving day by day. And the elements which were growing up had not yet so taken possession of the general mind as to afford material for Art. Such strength as it had, passed into natural alliance with the temporal power, and took form in different countries according as that power was monarchical or aristocratic. It was thus spread over all Western Europe, though in unequal force in different countries. Though Art has been accused of engendering national antipathies, from its implication with the proper development of each nation, it has certainly wrought more strongly in the contrary direction, reconciling the nations through the universal and admiring interest excited by masterly works of art towards the people which produced them. Each one of the fine arts has its own proper mode of exciting the universal sympathy of Europe; and of stimulating and aiding mutual communication. The most general and effectual influence of this kind

belongs to Poetry, because it has induced the study of foreign languages in a greater degree than any other incitement. Science and philosophy had little to do with the formation of the moderu languages; and, from the generality and abstract character of their subjects, they have stood in no great need of them since; so that the æsthetic element has been mainly concerned both in their formation and their propagation.

As to its course, historically regarded, the æsthetic movement was, like the industrial, first spontaneous, then systematic, and finally established as an end (as far as it went) of the modern polity. In the first case, all the fine arts shared in the movement, more or less, and it extended over the countries of Europe; but it was Poetry only, and in Italy alone, that produced characteristic and imperishable works, those of Dante and Petrarch. Here we see Italy preceding, as in other respects, the rest of Europe by two centuries. The first impulse was certainly original, for Dante's poem was not on the instant responded to by the sympathies which it was fitted to excite but the unanimous admiration of Europe which presently followed testified to the agreement between this great work and the corresponding state of civilized populations: and not the less for the tardy justice being enjoyed by the poet's successors, Petrarch being in reality crowned as the representative of Dante, and not as the author of Latin poetry, by which only he was then known, and which is justly forgotten at this day. The characteristics of the age appear in Dante's poem, especially in the critical tendency, guided by metaphysics highly unfavourable to the Catholic spirit. It is not only that the work contains severe attacks upon the popes and the clergy: its whole conception is in a manner sacrilegious, usurping as it does the power of apotheosis and damnation, in a way which would have been out of the question during the full ascendency of Catholicism, two centuries earlier. The temporal antagonism of the movement is less marked, because it could not, as yet, be direct; but it appears indirectly in the opportunity it afforded of founding a personal reputation, independent of hereditary superiority, and very soon in rivalship with it.

It was about the middle of this period that that action took Retrograde place which has been commonly called the regeneracharacter. tion of the fine arts, but which was in fact a kind of retrogression, its spirit being a servile and exclusive admiration of the masterpieces of antiquity, which were the expression of a totally different state of society. Its full influence was not felt till a later time; but I note its origin in the season under our notice, because we must attribute to it that neutralizing influence which blighted the promise of the fourteenth century, and rendered the next age so lamentable a contrast to it. Much of the evil was no doubt owing to the religious controversies of the times; but much more is attributable to the passion for Greek and Latin productions, under whose prevalence the originality and popular quality which are the