a work of
great ability, has evinced, that the colours, which we see, are only a
language suggesting to our minds the ideas of solidity and extension,
which we had before received by the sense of touch. Thus when we view the
trunk of a tree, our eye can only acquaint us with the colours or shades;
and from the previous experience of the sense of touch, these suggest to
us the cylindrical form, with the prominent or depressed wrinkles on
it. From hence it appears, that there is the strictest analogy between
colours and sounds; as they are both but languages, which do not
represent their correspondent ideas, but only suggest them to the mind
from the habits or associations of previous experience. It is therefore
reasonable to conclude, that the more artificial arrangements of these
two languages by the poet and the painter bear a similar analogy.

But in one circumstance the Pen and the Pencil differ widely from each
other, and that is the quantity of Time which they can include in their
respective representations. The former can unravel a long series of
events, which may constitute the history of days or years; while the
latter can exhibit only the actions of a moment. The Poet is happier in
describing successive scenes; the Painter in representing stationary
ones: both have their advantages.

Where the passions are introduced, as the Poet, on one hand, has the
power gradually to prepare the mind of his reader by previous climacteric
circumstances; the Painter, on the other hand, can throw stronger
illumination and distinctness on the principal moment or catastrophe of
the action; besides the advantage he has in using an universal language,
which can be _read_ in an instant of time. Thus where a great number of
figures are all seen together, supporting or contrasting each other, and
contributing to explain or aggrandize the principal effect, we view
a picture with agreeable surprize, and contemplate it with unceasing
admiration. In the representation of the sacrifice of Jephtha's Daughter,
a print done from a painting of Ant. Coypel, at one glance of the eye
we read all the interesting passages of the last act of a well-written
tragedy; so much poetry is there condensed into a moment of time.

_B._ Will you now oblige me with an account of the relationship between
Poetry, and her other sister, Music? _P_. In the poetry of our language
I don't think we are to look for any thing analogous to the notes of the
gamut; for,