is everywhere and eternally the same. Good manners are, to particular societies, what good morals are to society in general-their cement and their security. And as laws are enacted to enforce good morals, or at least to prevent the ill effects of bad ones, so there are certain rules of civility, universally implied and received, to enforce good manners and punish bad ones. And indeed there seems to me to be less difference, both between the crimes and punishments, than at first one would imagine. The immoral man who invades another's property, is justly hanged for it; and the ill-bred man, who, by his ill manners, invades and disturbs the quiet and comforts of private life, is by common consent as justly banished society. Mutual complaisance, attentions and sacrifices of little conveniences, are as natural an implied compact between civilized people, as protection and obedience are between kings and subjects; whoever, in either case, violates that compact, justly forfeits all advantages arising from it. For my own part, I really think that, next to the consciousness of doing a good action, that of doing a civil one is the most pleasing; and the epithet which I should covet the most, next to that of Aristides, would be that of well-bred. Thus much for good breeding in general; I will now consider some of the various modes and degrees of it.

Very few, scarcely any, are wanting in the respect which they should show to those whom they acknowledge to be infinitely their superiors, such as crowned heads, princes, and public persons of distinguished and eminent posts. It is the manner of showing that respect which is different. The man of fashion and of the world expresses it in its fullest extent, but naturally, easily and without concern; whereas a man who is not used to keep good company expresses it awkwardly; one sees that he is not used to it, and that it costs him a great deal; but I never saw the worstbred man living guilty of lolling, whistling, scratching his head, and such like indecencies, in company that he respected. In such companies, therefore, the only point to be attended to is, to show that respect which every body means to show in an easy, unembarrassed, and graceful manner. This is what observation and experience must teach you.

In mixed companies, whoever is admitted to make part of them is, for the time at least, supposed to be on a footing of equality with the rest; and, consequently, as there is no one principal object of awe and respect, people are apt to take a greater latitude in their behaviour, and to be less upon their guard; and so they may, provided it be within certain bounds, which are upon no occasion to be transgressed. But upon these occasions, though no one is entitled to distinguished marks of respect, every one claims, and very justly, every mark of civility and good breeding. Ease is allowed, but carelessness and negligence are strictly forbidden. If a man accosts you, and talks to you ever so dully or frivolously, it is worse than rudeness, it is brutality, to show him by, a manifest inattention to what he says, that you think him a fool or a blockhead, and not worth hearing. It is much more so with regard to women, who, of whatever rank they are, are entitled, in consideration of their sex, not only to an attentive, but an officious good breeding from men. Their little wants, likings, dislikes, preferences, antipathies, and fancies, must be officiously attended to, and, if possible, guessed at and anticipated, by a well-bred man. You must never usurp to yourself those conveniences and gratifications which are of common right, such as the best places, the best dishes, &c.; but on the contrary, always decline them yourself, and offer them to others, who, in their turns, will offer them to you, so that, upon the whole, you will in your turn enjoy your share of the common right. It would be endless for me to enumerate all the particular instances in which a wellbred man shows his good breeding in good company; and it would be injurious to you to suppose that your own good sense will not point them out to you; and then your own good nature will recommend, and your self-interest enforce the practice. There is a third sort of good breeding, in which people are the most apt to fail, from a very mistaken notion that they can not fail at all. I mean with regard to

one's most familiar friend and acquaintances, or those who really are our inferiors; and there, undoubtedly, a greater degree of ease is not only allowed, but proper, and contributes much to the comforts of a private social life. But ease and freedom have their bounds, which must by no means be violated. A certain degree of negligence and carelessness becomes injurious and insulting, from the real or supposed inferiority of the persons; and that delightful liberty of conversation among a few friends is soon destroyed, as liberty often has been, by being carried to licentiousness. But example explains things best, and I will put a pretty strong case: Sup-' pose you and me alone together; I believe you will allow that I have as good a right to unlimited freedom in your company, as either you or I can possibly have in any other; and I am apt to believe, too, that you would indulge me in that freedom as far as any body would. But, notwithstanding this, do you imagine that I should think there was no bounds to that freedom? I assure you I should not think so; and I take myself to be as much tied down by a certain degree of good manners to you, as by other degrees of them to other people. The most familiar and intimate habitudes, connections, and friendships, require a degree of good breeding both to preserve and cement them. The best of us have our bad sides, and it is as imprudent as it is ill-bred to exhibit them. I shall not use ceremony with you; it would be misplaced between us; but I shall certainly observe that degree of good breeding with you which is, in the first place, decent, and which, I am sure, is absolutely necessary to make us like one another's company long.

HENRY HOME, afterwards Lord Kames, an eminent Scottish lawyer and judge, was born in 1696. During the earlier part of his life he devoted the whole powers of an acute and reflective mind, and with the most untiring industry, to his profession, and compilations and treatises connected with it. But the natural bent of his faculties towards literary pursuits, at length gained the ascendancy, and after reaching the bench, in 1752, he devoted his leisure almost exclusively to metaphysical and ethical subjects. His first work of this kind, Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion, combats those theories of human nature which deduce all actions from a single principle. He maintained philosophical necessity, but in connection with the duties of morality and religion; and by taking this view of the subject he hoped to escape the obloquy bestowed on other defenders of that doctrine. His hopes, however, were partially disappointed, as he narrowly escaped a citation before the General Assembly of his native church, for sending forth this production. The Introduction to the Art of Thinking followed the 'Essays,' and appeared in 1761. It was a small and subordinate work, consisting mainly of a series of detached maxims and general observations on human conduct, illustrated by anecdotes drawn from the stories of history and biography.

In 1762, Lord Kames published his great work, entitled Elements of Criticism. This is a bold and original performance, and in it the learned author discards all the arbitrary rules of literary criticism derived from authority, and seeks for new and appropriate ones in the fundamental principles of human nature itself. Dugald Stewart admits this to be the first systematic attempt to investigate the metaphysical principles of the fine arts. As a system of criticism, for practical purposes, this work has stood the test

of time, and is still used as a text-book in most of our colleges and universities. When more than eighty years of age the author published two other works, entitled Sketches of the History of Man, and Loose Hints on Education. In the former, he shows his usual ingenuity and acuteness, and presents many curious disquisitions on society; and in the latter he anticipates some of the doctrines on education, which have since been popular. The death of this truly eminent and useful writer occurred on the twentysixth of December, 1782.

The style of Lord Kames is purely didactic; and while it is neither smooth nor elegant, it is remarkably clear and accurate. We subjoin the following extract from his 'Elements of Criticism:'

PLEASURES OF THE EYE AND THE EAR.

That nothing external is perceived till first it make an impression upon the organ of sense, is an observation that holds equally in every one of the external senses. But there is a difference as to our knowledge of that impression; in touching, tasting, and smelling, we are sensible of the impression; that, for example, which is made upon the hand by a stone, upon the palate by an apricot, and upon the nostrils by a rose. It is otherwise in seeing and hearing; for I am not sensible of the impression made upon my eye when I behold a tree, nor of the impression made upon my ear when I listen to a song. That difference in the manner of perceiving external objects, distinguisheth remarkably hearing and seeing from the other senses; and I am ready to show that it distinguisheth still more remarkably the feelings of the former from that of the latter; every feeling, pleasant or painful, must be in the mind; and yet, because in tasting, touching, and smelling, we are sensible of the impression made upon the organ, we are led to place there also the pleasant or painful feeling caused by that impression; but, with respect to seeing and hearing, being insensible of the organic impression, we are not misled to assign a wrong place to the pleasant or painful feelings caused by that impression; and therefore we naturally place them in the mind, where they really are; upon that account they are conceived to be more refined and spiritual than what are derived from tasting, touching, and smelling; for the latter feelings, seeming to exist externally at the organ of sense, are conceived to be merely corporeal. The pleasure of the eye and the ear being thus elevated above those of the other external senses, acquire so much dignity, as to become a laudable entertainment. They are not, however, set on a level with the purely intellectual, being no less inferior in dignity to intellectual pleasures, than superior to the organic or corporeal they indeed resemble the latter, being, like them, produced by external objects; but they also resemble the former, being, like them, produced without any sensible organic impression. Their mixed nature and middle place between organic and intellectual pleasures, qualify them to associate with both; beauty heightens all the organic feelings, as well as the intellectual; harmony, though it aspires to inflame devotions, disdains not to improve the relish of a banquet.

The pleasures of the eye and the ear have other valuable properties besides those of dignity and elevation; being sweet and moderately exhilarating, they are in their tone equally distant from the turbulence of passion and the languor of indolence; and by that tone are perfectly well qualified not only to revive the spirits when sunk by sensual gratifications, but also to relax them when overstrained in any violent pursuit. Here is a remedy provided for many distresses; and to be convinced of its salutary effects, it will be sufficient to run over the following particulars. Organic pleasures have naturally a short duration; when prolonged, they lose their

relish; when indulged to excess, they beget satiety and disgust; and to restore a proper tone of mind, nothing can be more happily contrived than the exhilarating pleasures of the eye and ear. On the other hand, any intense exercise of intellectual powers becomes painful by overstraining the mind; cessation from such exercise gives not instant relief; it is necessary that the void be filled with some amusement, gently relaxing the spirits: organic pleasure, which hath no relish but while we are in vigour, is ill qualified for that office; but the finer pleasures of sense, which occupy, without exhausting, the mind, are finely qualified to restore its usual tone after severe application to study or business, as well as after satiety from sensual gratification.

Our first perceptions are of external objects, and our first attachments are to them. Organic pleasures take the lead; but the mind gradually ripening, relisheth more and more the pleasures of the eye and ear, which approach the purely mental without exhausting the spirits, and exceed the purely sensual without danger of satiety. The pleasures of the eye and ear have accordingly a natural aptitude to draw us from the immoderate gratification of sensual appetite; and the mind, once accustomed to enjoy a variety of external objects without being sensible of the organic impression, is prepared for enjoying internal objects where there can not be an organic impression. Thus the author of nature, by qualifying the human mind for a succession of enjoyments from low to high, leads it by gentle steps from the most grovelling corporeal pleasures, for which only it is fitted in the beginning of life, to those refined and sublime pleasures that are suited to its maturity.

dis

But we are not bound to this succession by any law of necessity: the God of nature offers it to us in order to advance our happiness; and it is sufficient that he hath enabled us to carry it on in a natural course. Nor has he made our task either disagreeable or difficult: on the contrary, the transition is sweet and easy from corporeal pleasures to the more refined pleasures of sense; and no less so from these to the exalted pleasures of morality and religion. We stand, therefore, engaged in honour as well as interest, to second the purposes of nature by cultivating the pleasures of the eye and ear, those especially that require extraordinary culture, such as arise from poetry, painting, sculpture, music, gardening, and architecture. This especially is the duty of the opulent, who have leisure to improve their minds and their feeling. The fine arts are contrived to give pleasure to the eye and the ear, regarding the inferior senses. A taste for these arts is a plant that grows naturally in many soils; but without culture, scarce to perfection in any soil: it is susceptible of much refinement, and is by proper care greatly improved. In this respect a taste in the fine arts goes hand in hand with the moral sense, to which indeed it is nearly allied; both of them discover what is right and what is wrong: fashion, temper, and education, have an influence to vitiate both, or to preserve them pure and untainted: neither of them are arbitrary nor local, being rooted in human nature, and governed by principles common to all men. The design of the present undertaking, which aspires not to morality, is to examine the sensitive branch of human nature, to trace the objects that are naturally agreeable, as well as those that are naturally disagreeable; and by these means to discover, if we can, what are the genuine principles of the fine arts. The man who aspires to be a critic in these arts must pierce still deeper; he must acquire a clear perception of what objects are lofty, what low, what proper or improper, what manly, and what mean or trivial; hence a foundation for reasoning upon the taste of any individual, and for passing a sentence upon it: where it is conformable to principles, we can pronounce with certainty that it is correct; otherwise, that it is incorrect and perhaps whimsical. Thus the fine arts, like morals, become a rational science; and, like morals, may be cultivated to a high degree of refinement.

Manifold are the advantages of criticism when thus studied as a rational science. In the first place, a thorough acquaintance with the principles of the fine arts re

doubles the pleasure we derive from them. To the man who resigns himself to feeling, without interposing any judgment, poetry, music, painting, are mere pastime. In the prime of life, indeed, they are delightful, being supported by the force of novelty and the heat of imagination; but in time they lose their relish, and are generally neglected in the maturity of life, which disposes to more serious and more important occupations. To those who deal in criticism as a regular science, governed by just principles, and giving scope to judgment as well as to fancy, the fine arts are a favourite entertainment, and in old age maintain that relish which they produce in the morning of life.