much employed in viewing and examining a great variety of pictures, let him be led to converse much with painters, and other connoiffeurs in that art; and I think one might pronounce, without any great apprehenfion of being mistaken, that he would, infallibly, not only acquire judgment in the productions of that art, and be able to distinguish a fine defign and execution, but that he would have a relish for it, that what he approved he would admire, and that the view of it would affect him with a fenfible pleasure. The fame may be faid with respect to music, poetry, and all the other fine arts.

Befides, it will appear very clearly, in our progress through this fubject, that all the principles of tafte in works of genius, the very fources from which all these fine pleasures are derived, are within the reach of all perfons whatsoever; and that fcarce any person can pafs his life in cultivated fociety, where the fine arts flourish, without acquiring, in a greater or lefs degree, a tafte for fome or other of them.

In fact, fince all emotions excited by works of genius confift of fuch ideas and fenfations as are capable of being affociated with the perception of fuch works, nothing can be requifite to the acquifition of taste, but exposing the mind to a fituation in which thofe affociated ideas will be frequently prefented to it. A great deal, however, depends upon the time of life, and other circumstances, in which fuch impreffions are made upon

the

the mind. Youth, especially, which is favourable to all impreffions, is peculiarly favourable to thefe. But this circumftance makes a difference in degree only, and not in the nature of the thing. Some perfons may also have acquired a dislike to thefe, as well as other ftudies; but as this dislike was produced by an early affociation of ideas, fo it may be overcome by opposite affociations. It must not be forgotten, alfo, that as our bodies in general differ with refpect to their fenfibility to impreffifo the texture of the brain, on which the mental faculties depend, must be subject to a similar difference.

ons,

I propofed in this place to fhew in what figurative and ornamented ftyle confifts. In plain unadorned ftyle every thing is called by its proper name, no more words are used than are apparently fufficient to express the sense, and the form and order of every part of the sentence are fuch as exactly express the real state of mind of him that uses it; not a question, for instance, being asked when the perfon who makes it is able to fupply the answer. It is enough to fay, that plain unadorned ftyle is that mode of expreffion which is the most natural: for ftyle the moft highly ornamented, and enlivened with the ftrongest figures, is as natural as the plain ftyle, and occurs as naturally, without the precepts of art, and even without defign, in proper circumftances.

Style

Style may be faid to be figurative when the literal interpretation, according to the usual sense of words, and the conftruction of them, would lead a person to mistake the sense; as, for instance, when any thing is fignified by a term which was not originally affixed to it; when the terms which are used to exprefs any thing would, if interpreted literally, lead a perfon to imagine it was greater or less than it is; and when the form of the fentence is fuch as, when explained by the rules of grammar only, doth not truly express the state of mind of him that uses it.

Notwithstanding this, ftyle that is merely figurative and ornamented, is far from being calculated to deceive. For whenever it is used, no other language, or mode of speech, could give fo true an idea of the state of the speaker's mind, though it is confeffed to be by no means literally expreffive of that ftate. For inftance, when Virgil calls the two Scipios, the Thunderbolts of War, he makes ufe of an ornamented and highly figurative expreffion, not corresponding to his real fentiments; for he would never have replied in the affirmative, if he had been asked seriously whether he really imagined they were two thunderbolts; and yet, no plainer terms, though more expreffive of their true character, would have given his readers fo clear an idea of the force and impetuofity which he meant to afcribe to thofe heroes.

Again, when the fame excellent and correct poet fays that mount Etna threw its fires as high as the ftars, nobody taxes him with a defigned falsehood; though his expreffions be not literally true, and we are fure he could not but have been fenfible of it himself at the time that he made ufe of them: but nothing short of an hyperbole could have given us a true image of the effort of his imagination, to exprefs his idea of the very great height of those flames.

Lastly, when Eneas, in the fame poet, in the midft of the relation of his adventures, comes to mention Sicily, instead of faying, in fo many words, that his father died there, addresses himself directly to his father, and exclaims, Hic me, pater optime, feffum deferis; do any of his readers imaagine he really conceived his father to be within hearing? But no fimple narration could fufficiently have expreffed that ftrong regret, and tender affection, which the revival of his father's memory awakened in his mind. We naturally perfonify every thing that caufes us much pleasure or pain, and a vivid recollection makes every thing feem prefent. Thus this direct addrefs to the dead Anchises, though, ftrictly speaking, without the leaft foundation, gives us the trueft idea of the unfeigned grief of Æneas, and of the affecting fenfe he had of his lofs, and therefore lets us into the true ftate of his mind; not, indeed, by a direct interpretation of his words, but in a more

certain,

certain, though an indirect manner, by means of thofe circumftances which always accompany that ftate of mind.

Figurative fpeech, therefore, is indicative of a perfon's real feelings and state of mind, not by means of the words it confifts of, confidered as figns of Separate ideas, and interpreted according to their common acceptation; but as circumftances naturally attending thofe feelings which compofe any state of mind. Thofe figurative expreffions," therefore, are scarce confidered and attended to as words, but are viewed in the fame light as attitudes, geftures, and locks, which are infinitely more expreffive of fentiments and feelings than words can poffibly be.

Since, however, the literal impropriety of figurative expreffions is excufed only on account of their being confidered as indications of thofe feelings and fentiments which no words, literally interpreted, could defcribe, they should never be used but when the fituation of the perfon who ufes them is such as will render those feelings and fentiments natural. Otherwife, there being nothing left to excufe and cover the impropriety of the figure, the words prefent nothing but the naked abfurdity, and the writer is detected, either in pretending to feelings that could have no existence, or in asserting what is apparently false and contradictory. This obfervation may be applied to every figure of speech; and as it is an observati

on

dictors