be pronounced erroneous. When the critic has no deli cacy, he judges without any diftinction, and is only affected by the groffer and more palpable qualities of the object: The finer touches pafs unnoticed and disregarded. Where he is not aided by practice, his verdict is attended with confufion and hefitation. Where no comparison has been employed, the moft frivolous beauties, such as rather merit the name of defects, are the object of his admiration. Where he lies under the influence of prejudice, all his natural fentiments are perverted. Where good fenfe is wanting, he is not qualified to discern the beauties of defign and reasoning, which are the highest and moft excellent. Under fome or other of thefe imperfections, the generality of men labour; and hence a true judge in the finer arts is obferved, even during the moft polished ages, to be fo rare a character: Strong fenfe, united to delicate fentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparifon, and cleared of all prejudice, can alone entitle critics to this valuable character; and the joint verdict of fuch, wherever they are to be found, is the true ftandard of tafte and beauty. But where are fuch critics to be found? By what marks are they to be known? How diftinguish them from pretenders? Thefe qucftions are embarraffing; and seem to throw us back into the fame uncertainty, from which, during the courfe of this effay, we have endeavoured to extricate our felves. But if we confider the matter aright, thefe are questions of fact, not of fentiment. Whether any particular perfon be endowed with good fenfe and a delicate imagination, free from prejudice, may often be the fubject of difpute, and be liable to great difcuffion and enquiry: But that fuch a character is valuable and eftimable will be agreed in by all mankind. Where thefe doubts occur, men can do no more than in other difputable questions, which are fubmitted to the understanding: They must produce the best arguments, that their invention suggests to them; they muft acknowledge a true and decifive ftandard to exift fomewhere, to wit, real existence and matter of fact; and they must have indulgence to such as differ from them in their appeals to this ftandard. .It is fufficient for our prefent purpose, if we have proved, that the taste of all individuals is not upon an equal footing, and that fome men in general, however difficult to be particularly pitched upon, will be acknowledged by univerfal fentiment to have a preference above others. But in reality the difficulty of finding, even in particulars, the standard of tafte, is not fo great as it is reprefented. Though in fpeculation, we may readily avow a certain criterion in fcience and deny it in fentiment, the matter is found in practice to be much more hard to afcertain in the former cafe than in the latter. Theories of abstract philofophy, fyftems of profound theology, have prevailed during one age: In a fucceffive period, these have been univerfally exploded: Their absurdity has been detected: Other theories and fyftems have fupplied their place, which again gave place to their fucceffors: And nothing has been experienced more liable to the revolutions of chance and fashion than these pretended decisions of science. The cafe is not the fame with the beauties of eloquence and poetry. Juft expreffions of paffion and nature are fure, after a little time, to gain public vogue, which they maintain for ever. ARISTOTLE, and PLATO, and EPICURUS, and DESCARTES,. may fucceffively yield to each other: But TERENCE ind VIRGIL maintain an univerfal, undifputed empire over the minds of men. The abstract philofophy of CICERO has loft its credit: The vehemence of his oratory is ftill the object of our admiration. Though men of delicate taste are rare, they are easily to be diftinguished in fociety, by the foundnefs of their understanding and the fuperiority of their faculties above the rest of mankind. The afcendant, which they acquire, gives a prevalence to that lively approbation, with which they receive any productions of genius, and renders it generally predominant. Many men, when left to themselves, have but a faint and dubious perception of beauty, who yet are capable of relishing any fine ftroke, which is pointed out to them. Every convert to ~ the admiration of the real poet or orator is the cause of fome new converfion. And though prejudices may prevail for a time, they never unite in celebrating any rival to the true genius, but yield at laft to the force of nature and just fentiment. Thus, though a civilized nation may eafily be mistaken in the choice of their admired philofopher, they never have been found long to err, in their affection for a favourite epic or tragic author. But notwithstanding all our endeavours to fix a standard of tafte, and reconcile the difcordant apprehenfions of men, there ftill remain two fources of variation, which are not fufficient indeed to confound all the boundaries of beauty and deformity, but will often ferve to produce a difference in the degrees of our approbation or blame. The one is the different humours of particular men; the other, the particular manners and opinions of our age and country. The general principles of taste are uniform in human nature: Where men vary in their judgments, fome defect or perverfion in the faculties may commonly be remarked; proceeding either from prejudice, from want of practice, or want of delicacy; and there is just reason for approving one taste, and condemning another. But where there is fuch a diverfity in the internal frame or external fituation as is entirely blameless on both fides, and leaves no room to give one the preference above the other; in that cafe a certain degree of diverfity in judgment is unavoidable, and we feek in vain for a standard, by which we can reconcile the contrary fentiments. A young man, whofe paffions are warm, will be more fenfibly touched with amorous and tender images, than a man more advanced in years, who takes pleasure in wise, philofophical reflections concerning the conduct of life and moderation of the paffions. At twenty, OVID may be the favourite author; HORACE at forty; and perhaps TACITUS at fifty. Vainly would we, in fuch cases, endeavour to enter into the fentiments of others, and diveft ourselves of those propenfities, which are natural We choose our favourite author as we do our friend, from a conformity of humour and difpofition. Mirth or paffion, fentiment or reflection; which ever of these most predominates in our temper, it gives us a peculiar fympathy with the writer who resembles us. to us. One perfon is more pleased with the fublime; another with the tender; a third with raillery. One has a ftrong fenfibility to blemishes, and is extremely ftudious of correctness: Another has a more lively feeling of beauties, and pardons twenty abfurdities and defects for one elevated or pathetic ftroke. The ear of this man is entirely turned towards concifenefs and energy; that man is delighted with a copious, rich, and harmonious expreffion. Simplicity is affected by one; ornament by another. Comedy, tragedy, fatire, odes, have each its partizans, who prefer that particular fpecies of writing to all others. It is plainly an error in a critic, to confine his approbation to one species or style of writing, and condemn all the reft. But it is almost impoffible not to feel feel a predilection 'for that which fuits our particular turn and difpofition. Such preferences are innocent and unavoidable, and can never reafonably be the object of difpute, because there is no ftandard, by which they can be decided. For a like reason, we are more pleased, in the course of our reading, with pictures and characters, that resemble objects which are found in our own age or country, than with those which defcribe a different fet of customs. It is not without fome effort, that we reconcile ourselves to the fimplicity of ancient manners, and behold princeffes carrying water from the fpring, and kings and heroes dreffing their own victuals. We may allow in general, that the reprefentation of fuch manners is no fault in the author, nor deformity in the piece; but we are not fo fenfibly touched with them. For this reason, comedy is not easily transferred from one age or nation to another. A FRENCHMAN or ENGLISHMAN is not pleased with the ANDRIA of TERENCE, or CLITIA of MACHIAVEL; where the fine lady, upon whom all the play turns, never once appears to the fpectators, but is always kept behind the scenes, fuitably to the reserved humour of the ancient GREEKS and modern ITALIANS. A man of learning and reflection can make allowance for these peculiarities of manners; but a common audience can never diveft themselves fo far of their ufual ideas and fentiments, as to relish pictures which no wife resemble them. But here there occurs a reflection, which may, perhaps, be useful in examining the celebrated controverfy concerning ancient and modern learning; where we often find the one fide excufing any feeming abfurdity in the ancients from the manners of the age, and the other refufing |