criticisms, which have obtained, as we think, an undeserved currency.
To assert that such a work is solely addressed to the senses (meaning
thereby that its only end is in mere pleasurable sensation) is to give
the lie to our convictions; inasmuch as we find it appealing to one
of the mightiest ministers of the Imagination,--the great Law of
Harmony,--which cannot be _touched_ without awakening by its
vibrations, so to speak, the untold myriads of sleeping forms that lie
within its circle, that start up in tribes, and each in accordance
with the congenial instrument that summons them to action. He who
can thus, as it were, embody an abstraction is no mere pander to the
senses. And who that has a modicum of the imaginative would assert
of one of Haydn's Sonatas, that its effect on him was no other than
sensuous? Or who would ask for the _story_ in one of our gorgeous
autumnal sunsets?

In subjects of a grave or elevated kind, the Variety will be found to
diminish in the same degree in which they approach the Sublime. In the
raising of Lazarus, by Lievens, we have an example of the smallest
possible number of parts which the nature of such a subject would
admit. And, though a different conception might authorize a much
greater number, yet we do not feel in this any deficiency; indeed, it
may be doubted if the addition of even one more part would not be felt
as obtrusive.

By the term _parts_ we are not to be understood as including the
minutiae of dress or ornament, or even the several members of a group,
which come more properly under the head of detail; we apply the term
only to those prominent divisions which constitute the essential
features of a composition. Of these the Sublime admits the fewest. Nor
is the limitation arbitrary. By whatever causes the stronger passions