Sketches of the History of Man. Lord Kames (Henry Home)
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in a nation, is always accompanied with refinement of manners: people accustomed to behold order and elegance in public buildings and public gardens, acquire urbanity in private. But it is irksome to trudge long in a beaten track, familiar to all the world; and therefore, leaving what is said above, like a statue curtailed of legs and arms, I hasten to the history of the fine arts.
Useful arts paved the way to fine arts. Men upon whom the former had bestowed every convenience, turned their thoughts to the latter. Beauty was studied in objects of sight; and men of taste attached themselves to the fine arts, which multiplied their enjoyments and improved their benevolence. Sculpture and painting made an early figure in Greece; which<220> afforded plenty of beautiful originals to be copied in these imitative arts. Statuary, a more simple imitation than painting, was sooner brought to perfection: the statue of Jupiter by Phidias, and of Juno by Polycletes, though the admiration of all the world, were executed long before the art of light and shade was known. Appollodorus, and Zeuxis his disciple, who flourished in the fifteenth Olympiad, were the first who figured in that art. Another cause concurred to advance statuary before painting in Greece, namely, a great demand for statues of their gods. Architecture, as a fine art, made a slower progress. Proportions, upon which its elegance chiefly depends, cannot be accurately ascertained but by an infinity of trials in great buildings: a model cannot be relied on; for a large and a small building, even of the same form, require different proportions. Gardening made a still slower progress than architecture: the palace of Alcinoous, in the seventh book of the Odyssey, is grand, and highly ornamented; but his garden is no better than what we term a kitchen-garden. Gardening has made a great progress in England. In France, na-<221>ture is sacrificed to conceit. The gardens of Versailles deviate from nature no less than the hanging gardens at Babylon. In Scotland, a taste is happily commenced for neat houses and ornamented fields; and the circumstances of the people make it probable, that taste there will improve gradually till it arrive at perfection. Few gentlemen in Scotland can afford the expence of London; and supposing them to pass the winter in a provincial town, they return to the occupations of the country with redoubled ardor. As they are safe from the corruption of opulence, nature will be their guide in every plan; and the very face of their country will oblige them to follow nature; being diversified with hills and plains, rocks and rivers, that require nothing but polishing. It is no unpleasing prospect, that Scotland may in a century, or sooner, compare with England; not, indeed, in magnificence of country-seats, but in sweetness and variety of concordant parts.22
The ancient churches in this island cannot be our own invention, being unfit for a cold climate. The vast space they occupy, quantity of stone, and gloominess<222> by excluding the sun, afford a refreshing coolness, and fit them for a hot climate. It is highly probable that they have been copied from the mosques in the south of Spain, erected there by the Saracens. Spain, when possessed by that people, was the centre of arts and sciences, and led the fashion in every thing beautiful and magnificent.
From the fine arts mentioned, we proceed to literature. It is agreed among all antiquaries, that the first writings were in verse, and that prose was of a much later date. The first Greek who wrote in prose, was Pherecides Syrus: the first Roman, was Appius Caecus, who composed a declamation against Pyrrhus. The four books of Chatah Bhade, the sacred book of Hindostan, are composed in verse stanzas; and the Arabian compositions in prose followed long after those in verse. To account for that singular fact, many learned pens have been employed; but without success. By some it has been urged, that as memory is the only record of events where writing is unknown, history originally was composed in verse for the sake of memory. This is not satisfactory. To<223> undertake the painful task of composing in verse for the sake of memory, would require more foresight than ever was exerted by a barbarian; not to mention that other means were used for preserving the memory of remarkable events, a heap of stones, a pillar, or other object that catches the eye. The account given by Longinus is more ingenious. In a fragment of his treatise on verse, the only part that remains, he observes, “that measure or verse belongs to poetry, because poetry represents the various passions with their language; for which reason the ancients, in their ordinary discourse, delivered their thoughts in verse rather than in prose.” Longinus thought, that anciently men were more exposed to accidents and dangers, than when they were protected by good government and by fortified cities. But he seems not to have considered, that fear and grief, inspired by dangers and misfortunes, are better suited to humble prose than to elevated verse. I add, that however natural poetical diction may be when one is animated with any vivid passion, it is not supposable that the ancients never wrote nor spoke<224> but when excited by passion. Their history, their laws, their covenants, were certainly not composed in that tone of mind.
An important article in the progress of the fine arts, which writers have not sufficiently attended to, will, if I mistake not, explain this mystery. The article is the profession of a bard, which sprung up in early times before writing was known, and died away gradually as writing turned more and more common. The curiosity of men is great with respect to the transactions of their forefathers; and when such transactions are described in verse, accompanied with music, the performance is enchanting. An ear, a voice, skill in instrumental music, and above all a poetical genius, are requisite to excel in that complicated art. As such talents are rare, the few that possessed them were highly esteemed; and hence the profession of a bard, which, beside natural talents, required more culture and exercise than any other known art. Bards were capital persons at every festival and at every solemnity. Their songs, which, by recording the atchievements of kings and heroes, a-<225>nimated every hearer, must have been the entertainment of every warlike nation. We have Hesiod’s authority, that in his time bards were as common as potters or joiners, and as liable to envy. Demodocus is mentioned by Homer as a celebrated bard(a); and Phemius, another bard, is introduced by him deprecating the wrath of Ulysses, in the following words:
O king! to mercy be thy soul inclin’d,
And spare the poet’s ever-gentle kind.
A deed like this thy future fame would wrong,
For dear to gods and men is sacred song.
Self-taught I sing: by heav’n, and heav’n alone,
The genuine seeds of poesy are sown;
And (what the gods bestow) the lofty lay,
To gods alone, and godlike worth, we pay.
Save then the poet, and thyself reward;
’Tis thine to merit, mine is to record.
Cicero reports, that at Roman festivals anciently, the virtues and exploits of their great men were sung(b). The same custom prevailed in Peru and Mexico, as we learn from Garcilasso and other authors. <226> Strabo(c) gives a very particular account of the Gallic bards. The following quotation is from Ammianus Marcellinus(d) “Bardi quidem fortia virorum illustrium facta, heroicis composita versibus, cum dulcibus lyrae modulis, cantitarunt.”23 We have for our authority Father Gobien, that even the inhabitants of the Marian islands have bards, who are greatly admired, because in their songs are celebrated the feats of their ancestors. There are traces of the same kind among the Apalachites in North America.* And we shall see afterward(a), that in no other part of<227> the world were bards more honoured than in Britain and Scandinavia.
Bards were the only historians before writing was introduced. Tacitus(b) says, that the songs of the German bards were their only annals. And Joannes Magnus, Archbishop of Upsal, acknowledges, that in compiling his history of the ancient Goths, he had no other records but the songs of the bards. As these songs made an illustrious figure at every festival, they were conveyed in every family by parents to their children; and in that manner were kept alive before writing was known.
The invention of writing made a change in the bard-profession. It is now an agreed point, that no poetry is fit to be accompanied with music, but what is<228> simple: a complicated thought or description requires the utmost attention, and leaves none for the music; or if it divide the attention, it makes but a faint impression(c). The simple operas of Quinault bear away the palm from every thing of the kind composed by Boileau or Racine. But when a language, in its progress to maturity, is enriched with variety