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depend upon a fuperiour principle in men, but upon fuperiour knowledge, may appear from feveral instances. The story of the ancient painter and the shoemaker is very well known. The shoemaker fet the painter right with regard to fome mistakes he had made in the shoe of one of his figures, and which the painter, who had not made fuch accurate observations on shoes, and was content with a general refemblance, had never observed. But this was no impeachment to the taste of the painter; it only shewed some want of knowledge in the art of making shoes. Let us imagine, that an anatomist had come into the painter's workingroom. His piece is in general well done, the figure in question in a good attitude, and the parts well adjusted to their various movements; yet the anatomift, critical in his art, may observe the swell of fome muscle not quite just in the peculiar action of the figure. Here the anatomist observes what the painter had not observed; and he passes by what the shoemaker had remarked. But a want of the laft critical knowledge in anatomy no more reflected on the natural good taste of the painter, or of any common observer of his piece, than the want of an exact knowledge in the formation of a shoe. A fine piece of a decollated head of St. John the Baptist was shewn to a Turkish emperor; he praifed many things, but he observed one defect; he observed that the skin did

not

not shrink from the wounded part of the neck. The fultan on this occafion, though his obfervation was very just, discovered no more natural tafte than the painter who executed this piece, or than a thousand European connoiffeurs, who probably never would have made the fame observation. His Turkish majesty had indeed been well acquainted with that terrible spectacle, which the others could only have represented in their imagination. On the subject of their diflike there is a difference between all these people, arising from the different kinds and degrees of their knowledge; but there is something in common to the painter, the shoemaker, the anatomist, and the Turkish emperor, the pleasure arising from a natural object, fo far as each perceives it justly imitated; the fatisfaction in seeing an agreeable figure; the sympathy proceeding from a striking and affecting incident. So far as taste is natural, it is nearly common to all.

In poetry, and other pieces of imagination, the fame parity may be observed. It is true, that one man is charmed with Don Bellianis, and reads Virgil coldly: whilst another is transported with the Eneid, and leaves Don Bellianis to children. These two men seem to have a taste very different from each other; but in fact they differ very little. In both these pieces, which inspire such oppofite sentiments, a tale exciting admiration is told; both

are

are full of action, both are paffionate; in both are voyages, battles, triumphs, and continual changes of fortune. The admirer of Don Bellianis perhaps does not understand the refined language of the Eneid, who, if it was degraded into the styłe of the Pilgrim's Progress, might feel it in all its energy, on the fame principle which made him an admirer of Don Bellianis.

In his favourite author he is not shocked with the continual breaches of probability, the confusion of times, the offences against manners, the trampling upon geography; for he knows nothing of geography and chronology, and he has never examined the grounds of probability. He perhaps reads of a shipwreck on the coast of Bohemia : wholly taken up with so interesting an event, and only folicitous for the fate of his hero, he is not in the least troubled at this extravagant blunder. For why should he be shocked at a shipwreck on the coast of Bohemia, who does not know but that Bohemia may be an ifland in the Atlantick ocean? and after all, what reflection is this on the natural good tafte of the perfon here supposed?

So far then as taste belongs to the imagination, its principle is the fame in all men; there is no difference in the manner of their being affected, nor in the causes of the affection; but in the degree there is a difference, which arifes from two causes principally; either from a greater degree of natu

ral

ral sensibility, or from a closer and longer atten. tion to the object. To illustrate this by the proce dure of the senses, in which the fame difference is found, let us suppose a very smooth marble table to be fet before two men; they both perceive it to be smooth, and they are both pleased with it because of this quality. So far they agree. But suppose another, and after that another table, the latter still smoother than the former, to be set before them. It is now very probable that these men, who are fo agreed upon what is smooth, and in the pleasure from thence, will disagree when they come to fettle which table has the advantage in point of polish. Here is indeed the great difference between taftes, when men come to compare the excess or diminution of things which are judged by degree and not by measure. Nor is it easy, when such a difference arises, to fettle the point, if the excess or diminution be not glaring. If we differ in opinion about two quantities, we can have recourse to a common measure, which may decide the question with the utmost exactness; and this, I take it, is what gives mathematical knowledge a greater certainty than any other. But in things whose excess is not judged by greater or smaller, as smoothness and roughness, hardness and softnefs, darkness and light, the shades of colours, all these are very easily distinguished when the difference is any way confiderable, but not when it is minute, for

for want of some common measures, which perhaps may never come to be discovered. In these nice cafes, supposing the acuteness of the sense equal, the greater attention and habit in such things will have the advantage. In the question about the tables, the marble-polisher will unquestionably determine the most accurately. But notwithstanding this want of a common measure for fettling many difputes relative to the senses, and their représentative the imagination, we find that the principles are the fame in all, and that there is no difagreement until we come to examine into the pre-eminence or difference of things, which brings us within the province of the judgment.

So long as we are converfant with the sensible qualities of things, hardly any more than the imagination seems concerned; little more also than the imagination feems concerned when the paffions are represented, because by the force of natural sympathy they are felt in all men without any recourse to reasoning, and their justness recognised in every breaft. Love, grief, fear, anger, joy, all these passions have in their turns affected every mind; and they do not affect it in an arbitrary or cafual manner, but upon certain, natural, and uniform principles. But as many of the works of imagination are not confined to the representation of fenfible objects, nor to efforts upon the paffions, but extend themselves to the manners, the characVOL. I. ters,

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