nd in the opposite Plate, will give the general reader an
idea of its most graceful and refined developments. The figure set
beside it, on the left, is a piece of noble grotesque, from fourteenth
century Gothic; and it must be our present task to ascertain the nature
of the difference which exists between the two, by an accurate inquiry
into the true essence of the grotesque spirit itself.

Sec. XXIII. First, then, it seems to me that the grotesque is, in almost
all cases, composed of two elements, one ludicrous, the other fearful;
that, as one or other of these elements prevails, the grotesque falls
into two branches, sportive grotesque and terrible grotesque; but that
we cannot legitimately consider it under these two aspects, because
there are hardly any examples which do not in some degree combine both
elements; there are few grotesques so utterly playful as to be overcast
with no shade of fearfulness, and few so fearful as absolutely to
exclude all ideas of jest. But although we cannot separate the grotesque
itself into two branches, we may easily examine separately the two
conditions of mind which it seems to combine; and consider successively
what are the kinds of jest, and what the kinds of fearfulness, which may
be legitimately expressed in the various walks of art, and how their
expressions actually occur in the Gothic and Renaissance schools.

First, then, what are the conditions of playfulness which we may fitly
express in noble art, or which (for this is the same thing) are
consistent with nobleness in humanity? In other words, what is the
proper function of play, with respect not to youth merely, but to all
mankind?

Sec. XXIV. It is a much more serious question than may be at first
supposed; for a healthy manner of play is necessary in order to a
healthy manner of work: and because the choice of our recreation is, in
most cases, left to ourselves, while the nature of our work is generally
fixed by necessity or authority, it may be well doubted whether more
distressful consequences may not have resulted from mistaken choice in
play than from mistaken direction in labor.

Sec. XXV. Observe, however, that we are only concerned, here, with that
kind of play which causes laughter or implies recreation, not with that
which consists in the excitement of the energies whether of body or
mind. Muscular exertion is, indeed, in youth, one of the conditions of
recreation; "but neither the violent bodily labor which