357. Precisely in the same manner, with respect to the beauty of composition and discourse, attention to the most approved models, study of the best authors, comparisons, of lower and higher degrees of the same beauties, operate towards the refinement of

taste.

Illus. The sentiment that attends a reader's first acquaintance with works of genius, is obscure and confused. The several excellences or blemishes of the performance which he peruses, cannot be pointed out, because he is at a loss on what to rest his judgement; but allow him more experience of the subject, and his taste becomes more exact and enlightened: the character of the whole work, the beauties and defects of each part, are perceived, and his praise or blame is at length pronounced firmly, and without hesitation. Thus, in taste, considered as mere sensibility, exercise opens a great source of improvement.

358. But reason and good sense have so extensive an influence on all its operations and decisions, that a thorough good taste may well be considered as a power compounded of natural sensibility to beauty, and of improved understanding. (Art. 365.)

Illus. 1. The greater part of the productions of genius, are no other than imitations of nature; representations of the characters, actions, or manners of men. The pleasure we receive from such imitations, or representations, is founded on mere taste; but to judge whether they be properly executed, belongs to the understanding, which compares the copy with the original.

2. In reading such a poem as Paradise Lost, a great part of the pleasure we receive, arises from the plan or story being well conducted, and all the parts joined together with due connexion; from the characters, being suited to the subject, the sentiments to the characters, and the style to the sentiments.

3. We feel or enjoy by taste, as an internal sense, the pleasure which arises from a poem so conducted; but the discovery of this conduct in the poem, is owing to reason; and our pleasure will be the greater, the more that reason enables us to discover such propriety in the conduct.

4. Our natural sense of beauty yields us pleasure; but reason shews us why, and upon what grounds, we are pleased. Whenever, in works of taste, any resemblance to nature is aimed at, whenever there is any reference of parts to a whole, or of means to an end, as indeed there is in almost every writing and discourse, there the understanding must always have a great part to act.

359. A SECOND, and a very considerable source of

the improvement of taste, arises from the application of reason and good sense, works of composition, and productions of genius.

Illus. Spurious beauties, such as unnatural characters, forced sentiments, and affected style, may please for a little; but they please only, because we have not examined or attended to their opposition to nature and good sense. The illusion is dissipated, and these false beauties cease to please, as soon as we are shewn how nature might have been more justly imitated or represented, and how the writer might have managed his subject to greater advantage.

360. From these two sources then, first, the frequent exercise of taste, and next, the application of good sense and reason to its objects, TASTE, as a power of the mind, receives its improvement.

Obs. In its perfect state, it is undoubtedly the result both of nature and art. It supposes our natural sense of beauty to be refined by frequent attention to the most beautiful objects, and at the same time to be guided and improved by the light of the understanding.

361. One material requisite to a just taste, besides a sound head, is a good heart: for moral beauties, in themselves superior to all others, exert an influence, either more nearly, or more remotely, on a great variety of other objects of taste.

Illus. The affections, characters, and actions of men, frequently afford the noblest subjects to genius. Without possessing the virtu ous affections, no man, where those affections, characters, or actions, are concerned, can exhibit their just and touching description, nor have any thorough feeling of the beauty of that description. He whose heart is indelicate or hard, who has no admiration of what is truly noble or praise-worthy, nor the proper sympathetic sense of what is soft and tender, must have a very imperfect relish of the highest beauties of eloquence and poetry.

362. DELICACY and CORRECTNESS are the characters of taste, when brought to its most improved

state.

Ilus. 1. Delicacy of taste respects principally the perfection of that natural sensibility, on which taste is founded. It implies those finer organs or powers, which enable us to discover beauties that lie hid from a vulgar eye. A person of delicate taste, both feels strongly, and feels accurately. He sees distinctions and differences, where

others see none; the most latent beauty does not escape him, and he is sensible of the smallest blemish.

2. Correctness of taste respects chiefly the improvement which that faculty receives through its connection with the understanding. Counterfeit beauties never impose on a man of correct taste, because he carries in his mind that standard of good sense, which he employs in judging of every thing.

363. DELICACY of taste is judged of by marks similar to those which we use in judging of the delicacy of an external sense.

Illus. As the goodness of the palate is not tried by strong flavours, but by a mixture of ingredients, in which, notwithstanding the confusion, we remain sensible of each; in like manner, delicacy of internal taste appears, by a quick and lively sensibility to its finest, most compounded, or most latent objects.

364. CORRECTNESS of taste is juded of by the estimate which a man makes of the comparative merit of several beauties, which he meets with, in any work of genius.

Illus. When he refers these to their proper classes, assigns with propriety the principles, as far as they can be traced, whence their power of pleasing flows; and is pleased himself in that degree, in which he ought, and no more; we say that his taste is

correct.

365. Delicacy, and correctness of taste, mutually imply each other. No taste can be exquisitely delicate, without being correct; nor thoroughly correct, without being delicate. But still a predominancy of the one or the other quality in the mixture is often visible.

Illus. 1. The power of delicacy is chiefly seen in discerning the true merit of a work; the power of correctness, in rejecting false pretensions to merit. Delicacy leans more to feeling; correctness, more to reason and judgment. The former is more the gift of na ture; the latter, more the product of culture and art.

2. Among the ancient critics, Longinus possessed most delicacy: Aristotle, most correctness. Among the moderns, Addison is a high example of delicate taste; and had Dean Swift written on criticism, he would perhaps have afforded the example of a correct one. Campbell, Kames, Allison, and Dugald Stewart, are examples of correct and delicate taste.

366. THE DIVERSITY OF TASTES, which prevails among mankind, does not in every case infer a cor

ruption of taste, or oblige us to seek for some standard, in order to determine who are in the right.

Illus. 1. The tastes of men may differ very considerably as to their object, and yet none of them be wrong. One man relishes poetry, while another takes pleasure in nothing but history. One prefers comedy; another, tragedy. One admires the simple; another, the ornamented style. The young are amused with gay and sprightly compositions; the elderly are more entertained with those of a graver cast. Some nations delight in bold pictures of manners, and strong representations of passions; others incline to a more correct and regular elegance, both in description and sentiment. Though all differ, yet all pitch upon some beauty which. culiarly suits their turn of mind; and therefore no one has a title to condemn his neighbour.

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367. In questions of mere reason, there is but one conclusion that can be true; and there is some foundation for the preference of one man's taste to that of another.

Illus. Truth, which is the object of reason, is one; beauty, which is the object of taste, is manifold. Taste, therefore, admits of latitude and diversity of objects, in sufficient consistency with its goodness or justness.

368. This admissible diversity of tastes, can only have place where the objects of taste are different. When one condemns as ugly what another admires as beautiful, there is no longer diversity, but direct opposition of taste. One must be right and the other wrong.

Illus. 1. One man prefers Virgil to Homer; another, admires Homer more than Virgil; yet there is no reason to say that their tastes are contradictory. The one is more struck with the elegance and tenderness of Virgil; the other with the simplicity and fire of Homer. As long as neither of them denies that both Homer and Virgil have great beauties; their difference falls within the compass of that diversity of tastes, which is both natural and allowable. (Art. 366.)

2. But if a third man should assert that Homer has no beanties whatever, and that Virgil is devoid of elegance and tenderness, that he holds the one to be a dull spiritless writer, and the other to be a mere copiest, that in distinction to the Eneid he would as soon peruse Robinson Crusoe, or Jack the Giant Killer to the Iliad; both the other men would pronounce him void of all taste, or exclaim that his taste was corrupted in a miserable degree.

3. Or if either of the two men who disputed about the preemin

ence of Virgil or of Homer, should evince the same disposition as the third man shewed; his antagonist would appeal to whatever he thought the standard of taste to shew him that he was in the wron wrong.

369. A STANDARD properly signifies that, which, being fixed by convention, is of such undoubted authority as to be the test of other things of the same kind.

Illus. 1. Thus a standard weight or measure is that which is appointed by law to regulate all other weights and measures. 2. Thus, also, the Court is said to be the standard of good breeding; and the Scripture, of theological truth.

370. In all cases where an imitation is intended of some object that exists in nature, as in representing human characters and actions, nature is the standard of taste, because conformity to it affords a full and distinct criterion of what is truly beautiful.

Obs. Reason hath in such cases full scope for exerting its authority, for approving or condemning; by comparing the copy with the original. But there are innumerable cases in which this rule cannot be applied; and conformity with nature is an expression frequently used, without any distinct or determinate meaning. The standard of taste must therefore, be something which is clear and precise, without any imperfection, irregularity, or disorder.

371. The general sentiments of mankind must be considered the standard to which the ultimate appeal, must ever lie, in all works of taste.

Illus. If and one should maintain that sugar was bitter, and tobacco sweet, no reasonings on his part could avail to prove this position; mankind would infallibly hold the taste of such a person to be diseased, merely because it differed diametrically from the taste of the species to which he belonged. In like manner, with regard to the objects of sentiment or internal taste, the common feelings of men carry the same authority, and become an universal standard to regulate the taste of every individual.

372. There is nothing but the taste, as far as it can be gathered, of human nature, of sufficient authority to be the standard of the various and opposite tastes of men.

Illus. That which men concur the most in admiring must he reckoned beautiful. His taste must be esteemed just and true which coincides with the general sentiments of men. He who, in any dispute, appeals to the common sense of mankind as the ultimate rule