176 THE STONES OF VENICE

is that above described as resulting from the malice of men given to pleasure, and in which the grossness and foulness are in the workman as much as in his subject, so that he chooses to represent vice and disease rather than virtue and beauty, having his chief delight in contemplating them; though he still mocks at them with such dull wit as may be in him, because, as Young has said most truly,

“ ’Tis not in folly not to scorn a fool.”¹

§ 55. Now it is easy to distinguish this grotesque from its noble counterpart, by merely observing whether any forms of beauty or dignity are mingled with it or not; for, of course, the noble grotesque is only employed by its master for good purposes, and to contrast with beauty: but the base workman cannot conceive anything but what is base; and there will be no loveliness in any part of his work, or, at the best, a loveliness measured by line and rule, and dependent on legal shapes of feature. But, without resorting to this test, and merely by examining the ugly grotesque itself, it will be, found that, if it belongs to the base school, there will be, first, no Horror in it; secondly, no Nature in it; and, thirdly, no Mercy in it.

§ 56. I say, first, no Horror. For the base soul has no fear of sin, and no hatred of it: and however it may strive to make its work terrible, there will be no genuineness in the fear; the utmost it can do will be to make its work disgusting.

Secondly, there will be no Nature in it. It appears to be one of the ends proposed by Providence in the appointment of the forms of the brute creation, that the various vices to which mankind are liable should be severally expressed in them so distinctly and clearly as that men could not but understand the lesson; while yet these conditions of vice might, in the inferior animal, be observed without the disgust and hatred which the same vices would excite, if seen

¹ [Night Thoughts, i. line 416.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]