ters, the actions, and designs of men, their rela tions, their virtues and vices, they come within the province of the judgment, which is improved by attention and by the habit of reasoning. Alf these make a very confiderable part of what are confidered as the objects of taste; and Horace sends us to the schools of philosophy and the world for our instruction in them. Whatever certainty is to be acquired'in morality and the science of life; just the fame degree of certainty have we in what relates to them in the works of imitation. Indeed it is for the most part in our skill in manners, and in the obfervances of time and place, and of de cency in general, which is only to be learned in those schools to which Horace recommends us, that' what is called taste, by way of distinction, confists; and which is in reality no other than a more refined judgment. On the whole, it appears to me, that what is called taste, in its most general acceptation, is not a fimple idea, but is partly made up of a perception of the primary pleasures of fenfe, of the secondary pleasures of the imagination, and of the conclufions of the reasoning faculty, concerning the various relations of these, and concerning the human paffions, manners, and actions. All this is requisite to form taste, and the ground-work of all these is the fame in the human mind'; for as the fenfes are the great originals of all our ideas, and confequently of all our pleasures, if they are not uncertain and arbitrary, the whole ground-work of taste is common to all, and therefore there is a fufficient foundation for a conclufive reasoning on these matters. Whilft we confider taste merely according to its nature and species, we shall find its principles entirely uniform; but the degree in which these principles prevail, in the several individuals of mankind, is altogether as different as the principles themselves are similar. For sensibility and judgment, which are the qualities that compose what we commonly call a taste, vary exceedingly in various people. From a defect in the former of these qualities, arises a want of taste; a weakness in the latter, constitutes a wrong or a bad one. There are some men formed with feelings so blunt, with tempers so cold and phlegmatick, that they can hardly be faid to be awake during the whole course of their lives. Upon such persons the most striking objects make but a faint and obfcure impreffion. There are others so continually in the agitation of grofs and merely sensual pleasures, or so occupied in the low drudgery of avarice, or fo heated in the chace of honours and distinction, that their minds, which had been used continually to the storms of these violent and tempestuous pafsions, can hardly be put in motion by the delicate and refined play of the imagination. These men, though from a different cause, become as stupid and insensible as the former; but whenever either of these happen to be ftruck with any natural ele gance or greatnefs, or with these qualities in any work of art, they are moved upon the fame prin ciple. The cause of a wrong taste is a defect of judg. ment. And this may arife from a natural weak. ness of understanding (in whatever the strength of that faculty may confift), or, which is much more commonly the cafe, it may arife from a want of proper and well-directed exercise, which alone can make it strong and ready. Besides that ignorance, inattention, prejudice, rashness, levity, obstinacy, in short, all those passions, and all those vices, which pervert the judgment in other matters, prejudice it no less in this its more refined and elegant province. These causes produce different opinions upon every thing which is an object of the understanding, without inducing us to fuppose that there are no fettled principles of reason. And indeed on the whole one may observe, that there is rather less difference upon matters of tafte among mankind, than upon most of those which depend upon the naked reason; and that men are far better agreed on the excellence of a description in Virgil, than on the truth or falsehood of a theory of Ariftotle. A rectitude of judgment in the arts, which may be called a good tafte, does in a great meafure depend 1 pend upon sensibility; because if the mind has no bent to the pleasures of the imagination, it will never apply itself fufficiently to works of that fpecies to acquire a competent knowledge in them. But though a degree of sensibility is requifite to form a good judgment, yet a good judgment does not neceffarily arife from a quick sensibility of pleafure; it frequently happens that a very poor judge, merely by force of a greater complexional fenfibility, is more affected by a very poor piece, than the best judge by the most perfect; for as every thing new, extraordinary, grand, or paffionate, is well calculated to affect such a person, and that the faults do not affect him, his pleasure is more pure and unmixed; and as it is merely a pleasure of the imagination, it is much higher than any which is derived from a rectitude of the judgment; the judgment is for the greater part employed in throwing stumbling-blocks in the way of the imagination, in diffipating the scenes of its enchantment, and in tying us down to the difagreeable yoke of our reason; for almost the only pleasure that men have in judging better than others, consists in a fort of confcious pride and fuperiority, which arifes from thinking rightly; but then, this is an indirect pleasure, a pleasure which does not immediately result from the object which is under contemplation. In the morning of our days, when the fenfes are unworn and tender, when the whole man is awake in every part, and the glofs of novelty 13 velty fresh upon all the objects that furround us, how lively at that time are our sensations, but how falfe and inaccurate the judgments we form of things? I defpair of ever receiving the same degree of pleasure from the most excellent performances of genius, which I felt at that age from pieces which my present judgment regards as trifling and contemptible. Every trivial cause of pleasure is apt to affect the man of too fanguine a complexion: his appetite is too keen to fuffer his taste to be delicate; and he is in all respects what Ovid fays of himself in love, Molle meum levibus cor eft violabile telis, Et femper caufa eft, cur ego femper amem, One of this character can never be a refined judge; never what the comick poet calls elegans formarum Spectator. The excellence and force of a composi, tion must always be imperfectly estimated from its effect on the minds of any, except we know the temper and character of those minds. The most powerful effects of poetry and musick have been displayed, and perhaps are still displayed, where thefe arts are but in a very low and imperfect state. The rude hearer is affected by the principles which operate in these arts even in their rudest condition; and he is not skilful enough to perceive the defects. But as arts advance towards their perfection, the science of criticism advances with equal pace |