duced with moderation, and communicate real and permanent delight, they will be sure to gain approbation. Illus. The ornaments of writing particularly, are of a nature so refined, that the richest imagination cannot always supply them; nor can the reader continue long to relish them. They are like delicacies of the palate; they sooner pall upon the taste than ordinary food. Figures too closely interspersed, interfere with their own impression; they exhaust the sensibility of the imagination by too frequent exertion; and they excite disgust by attempting too much to please. 351. An author should not attempt figures without being prompted by his imagination. He will readily discover, whether he has received from nature any considerable portion of this lively faculty, by the relish he entertains for works of genius, toward the composition of which she has liberally contributed. Mus. 1. If oratory and poetry attract his attention, and communicate pleasure; if he feel inferior gratification in perusing productions of science, or in abstract inquiry, he has reason to conclude he is endued with some share of the mental power that has adorned the productions to which he is attached. If he feel this faculty so prevalent as to tinge insensibly the colour of his early compositions, he may hope, by proper culture, to attain eminence in the use of ornament. 2. But without such favourable presages, ornament ought not to be attempted. It is not admissible into many reputable species of composition. It is rejected in the greater part of scientific disquisitions. It is despised by some writers and readers; and in every kind of composition, except poetry, good sense, and important matter, conveyed in a simple and natural style, will be entitled to high praise. They will obtain higher praise than can be procured by attempting ornament without success. Finally. Without a genius for figurative language, none should attempt it. Imagination is a power not to be acquired; it must be derived from nature. Its redundances we may prune, its deviations we may correct, its sphere we may enlarge: but the faculty itself we cannot create; and all efforts towards a metaphorical ornamented style, if we are destitute of the genius proper for it, will prove awkward and disgusting. Let us satisfy ourselves, however, by considering that, without this talent, or at least with a very small measure of it, we may both write and speak to advantage. Good sense, as has been said, clear ideas, perspicuity of language, and proper arrangement of words and thoughts, will always command attention. These are, indeed, the foundations of all solid merit both in speaking and writing. Many subjects require nothing more; and those which admit of ornament, admit it only as a secondary requisite. To study and to know our own genius well; to follow nature; to seek to improve, but not to force it; are directions which cannot be too often given to those who desire to excel in the liberal arts. 17* BOOK V. ON THE NATURE OF TASTE AND THE CHAPTER I. TASTE. 352. TASTE is that faculty or power of the human mind, which is always appealed to in disquisitions concerning the merit of discourse and writing; it is the power of receiving pleasure from the beauties of nature and art. Illus. 1. The word taste, under this metaphorical meaning, has borrowed its name from the feeling of that external sense by which we receive and distinguish the pleasures of food. 2. This faculty is common, in some degree, to all men; for the relish of beauty, of one kind or other, belongs to human nature generally. Whatever is orderly, proportioned, grand, harmonious, new or sprightly, pleases alike, but in different degrees, the philosopher and the peasant, the child and the savage, Regular bodies, pictures, and statues, develope in children the rudiments of taste; and savages, who pride themselves in their ornaments of dress, their war and their death songs, their harangues and their orators, evince that they possess, with the attributes of reason and speech, some discernment of beauty, and the principles of taste, deeply founded in the human mind. men. 353. TASTE is possessed in different degrees by different Its feeble glimmerings appear in some; in others, it rises to an acute discernment, and a lively enjoyment of the most refined beauties: the former have but a weak and confused impression of this power, as they relish only beauties of the coarsest kind; the latter have a certain natural and instinctive possession of this faculty, which may be improved by art, and which discovers itself in their powers and pleasures of taste. Obs. This inequality is partly owing to the different frame of our natures, to nicer organs, and finer internal powers, with which one is endowed beyond another; but still more to education, and a higher culture of those talents, which belong only to the ornamental part of life. 354. TASTE is an improvable faculty, and, refined by education, gives to civilized men an immense superiority above barbarians, and, in the same nation, to those who have studied the liberal arts, above the rude and untaught vulgar. Obs. Thus, two classes of men are far removed from each other, in respect to the powers and pleasures of taste; and, for this difference, no other general cause can be assigned, than culture and education. 355. Exercise is the source of improvement in all our faculties, in our bodily, in our mental powers, and even in our external senses. Illus. 1. TOUCH becomes more exquisite in men whose employment leads them to examine the polish of bodies, than it is in others, whose trade engages no such nice exertions. 2. SIGHT, in discerning the minutest objects, acquires a surprising accuracy in microscopical observers, and those who are accustomed to engrave on precious stones. 3. CHEMISTS, by attending to different flavours and tastes of liquors, wonderfully improve the power of distinguishing them and tracing their composition. 356. Placing internal taste, therefore, on the footing of a simple sense, frequent exercise, and curious attention to its proper objects, must, in the first instance, greatly heighten its power. Illus. 1. Thus, nothing is more improvable than that part of taste, which is called an ear for music. At first, the simplest and plainest compositions only are relished. Our pleasure is extended by use and practice, which teach us to relish finer melody, and by degrees enable us to enter into the intricate and compound pleasures of harmony. 2. So an eye for the beauties of painting, is never acquired all at once; nor by him who prefers the Saracen's head upon a sign-post, before the best tabulature of Raphael. It is gradually formed by being conversant among pictures, and studying the works of the best masters. 3. And the man who has cultivated the beauties of regularity, order, and proportion, in architecture, will never prefer a rude Gothic tower, before the finest Grecian building. 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 judgment; 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 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 shows 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 to works of composition, and productions of genius. Illus. Spurious beauties, such as unnatural characters, forced senti ments, 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 shown 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 fre quent 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 virtuous 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 praiseworthy, 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. Illus. 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 connexion 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 judged 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 deli |