You may learn how dangerous it is under any circumstances whatsoever to listen to the reports of an enemy, from the fatal and very striking example of Cæsar's legion in Gaul, cut off by leaving their winter-quarters, at the perfidious remonstrances of Ambiorix.

When you read of the ancient Greeks and Romans, you will be animated with that noble spirit of defending their country, which then prevailed, without the mercenary motives which have taken the place of it in latter ages; when there are other ways for men to raise and enrich themselves without public merit.

Though modern history is necessary, on account of the changes which have been made in the art of war, you will find that the ancient discipline was better, and the lives and characters of soldiers more military than at present, when they who strove for the mastery were temperate in all things, and inured to every kind of hardship.

You will perhaps observe, that sieges cost more time, and blood, and treasure, while prosperous battles in the field win more country and cities, which commonly surrender to the conqueror. When a war is carried into an enemy's country, it is maintained at their charge: the soldiers are obliged to more vigilance and a stricter discipline: the aggressor is animated, and the invaded are discouraged.

From a multitude of similar instances, too numerous to be pointed out particularly, gentlemen by reading history may improve their minds, and acquire that experience of things which will fit them for advice and action when their country shall have need of their assistance: for courage without conduct, and industry without information, are of little value.

LETTER XI.

ON TASTE:

WHAT We call Taste, in the metaphorical sense of the word, is that faculty by which we distinguish beauty and excellence in the works of art; as the palate distinguishes what is pleasant in meat and drink. This latter faculty is natural; the former, so far as it signifies judgment, is the result of education and experience, and can be found only in a cultivated mind. Arts and sciences are so nearly related among themselves, that your judgment in one will always want some assistance from your knowledge of another; whence it comes to pass, that of people who pretend to taste, not one in twenty is really possessed of it. A spectator has heard others say, that such a figure in a certain picture is very fine; therefore he says so; and perhaps he is really struck with its beauties when they are pointed out: but in order to make the discovery for himself, it is necessary he should have, some acquaintance with the anatomy of the human figure, its due proportion, and the rules by which bodies are justly represented in perspective. If the figure is coloured, he should know what tints are natural to the skin, before he can pronounce whether they are true upon the canvass.

I had frequent opportunities of seeing from a particular instance how prone all ignorant persons are to prefer the worse to the better, and admire false excellence rather than true. In the seat of a certain no

bleman, in the county where I was born, there is a very fine hall with two equestrian paintings in it nearly as large as life, one at each end of the room. Of these two one is as graceful and highly finished as any picture of the sort in the kingdom: the other has little more merit than the figure of St. George upon a sign-post; but having a gaudy appearance, with a very ill-judged glare of light in it, every vulgar eye is taken with it; while the exquisite beauties of its companion are neglected.

Hogarth, in his Analysis of Beauty, has laid down some of the best rules extant for enabling a person to distinguish elegance of drawing and propriety of design. His Line of Beauty, as he calls it, is a flowing line with contrary flexures, something like the letter S, but not so much inflected, which takes place in the most elegant forms that nature presents to us; and will therefore communicate the like elegance to works of art, when it is judiciously introduced and applied. We trace it in the stream that winds through the vale, in the curvatures of hills, the foliage of flowers, the elevations and depressions of the muscles in the human figure, the graceful inclinations and attitudes of the body; and a thousand other instances. The remarks which Hogarth himself has made upon it in that work (as original as any of this age or country) are very just and striking; and they teach us, that beauty is not the creature of human fancy, as vulgarly supposed, but a real excellence, to be accounted for and demonstrated on actual principles of science. For farther instruction in this matter I must refer you to the book itself, which deserves not only to be read but studied.

But there is another source of beauty, which has little or no dependence upon that famous line: and yet, if it is considered, I think it will carry astists to

some uncommon perfection in their works, and assist a spectator in judging better of what they have composed.

Harmony in music has certain measures, which may be transferred with advantage to visible objects; and the eye will be delighted on the same principles with the ear: that is, by the like proportions and combinations. Though I propose this analogy, I would by no means be understood to make it an exclusive source of beauty: I am sensible there are others widely differing from it. I only mean to shew you how it appears to me as one of the plainest and most universal rules we have to direct us in so critical a subject. What I have to say will be best understood by those who have some little knowledge of the theory of music, which I have endeavoured to explain to you on another occasion, so far as it is necessary to our present purpose. The key-note and its third and fifth constitute a perfect system of sound: with less than these the ear is not satisfied, and you cannot have more without repetition. I would hence infer, that every composition of a painter, which will admit of such a partition, should consist of three parts: and in good pictures, properly fancied, we shall generally find them. There is one principal object on one side; another to answer it on the other side; and a third betwixt them. "Simplicity," says Hogarth, "in the disposition of a great variety, is best accomplished by following nature's constant rule, of dividing composition into three or five parts or parcels; the painters accordingly divide theirs into fore-ground, middle-ground, and distance or back-ground: which simple and distinct quantities mass together that variety which entertains the eye; as the different parts of base, tenor,

and treble, in a composition of music, entertain the ear *."

Here you are to remember that every musical ratio resolves itself into two, one of which is always greater than the other. The interval of a fifth does not consist of two equal thirds, but of a third major, and a third minor: it seems therefore, that a picture would want harmony, if the intermediate of three objects were exactly in the middle; where, by the way, a judicious painter never places it, but always inclining to one side. Suppose you have a moon-light piece; in which there is a group of shadowy objects (as trees) on one side, and another to balance it on the other side, with the moon betwixt. If your two groupes are equal in size, and alike in figure, and your moon in the centre, the picture will be very stiff and ill-composed. Your groupes must, therefore, differ in size and figure, and project differently into the piece, and the moon must incline to one of the sides; and then the composition will have harmony. In the famous picture of General Wolfe, which every body knows, there are three groupes of figures, diversified and disposed with great judgment, and the principal object of the piece is not truly in the middle †. This tripartite disposition

* Analysis of Beauty, p. 112. I had ascribed this sentiment to Hogarth: but on farther examination I see it was published the year before his book came out, in an Essay on Musical Expression by Mr. Avison, page 26, where this analogy is much insisted

upon.

+ An ingenious Painter, who came to my house while I was transcribing this letter for the press, and heard me speaking of this subject, said the principle was not new to him, and that he was certain it had been advanced by some great master. The next day, he brought me the following observation by the translator of Fresnoy's Art of Painting. "Annibal Caracci did not believe that a picture could be good in which there were above twelve