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fink characters, in other refpects valuable enough; but I have taken no notice of thofe that affect and fink the moral character. They are fufficiently obvious. A man who has patiently been kicked may as well pretend to courage, as a man blafted by vices and crimes to dignity of any kind. But an exterior decency and dignity of manners will even keep fuch a man longer from finking, than otherwife he would be: of fuch confequence is decorum, even though affected and put on!

LORD CHESTERFIELD

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ON TAST E.

HE charms of the fine arts are

derived from the Author of alk nature, and founded in the original frame and conftitution of the human mind. Accordingly the general principles of taste are common to our whole fpecies, and arife from that internal fenfe of beauty which every man, in fome degree at leaft, evidently poffeffes. No rational mind can be: fo wholly void of all perceptions of this fort, as to be capable of contemplating the various objects that furround him, with an equal coldness and indifference. There are certain forms which muft neceffarily fill the foul with agreeable ideas; and she is inftantly determined in approbation of them, previous to all reafoning con

cern

cerning their use and convenience. It is upon these general principles that what is called fine tafte in the arts is founded; and confequently is by no means fo precarious and unfettled an idea as you chufe to describe it. The truth is, taste is nothing more than this universal sense of beauty, rendered more exquifite by genius, and more correct by cultivation and it is from the fimple and original ideas of this fort, that the mind learns to form her judgment of the higher and more complex kinds. Accordingly, the

whole imitative and oratorical art is governed by the fame general rules of criticism; and to prove the certainty of these with respect to one of them, is to establish their validity with regard to all the reft. I will therefore confider the criterion of tafte, in relation only to fine writing.

Each fpecies of compofition has its distinct perfections; and it would reC 6 quire

quire a particular examination of the characters of each, to prove their refpective beauties to be derived from truth and nature, and confequently reducible to a regular and precife standard. I will only mention, therefore, thofe general properties which are effential to them all, and without which they must neceffarily be defective in their several kinds. These, I think, may be comprehended under uniformity in their design, variety and refemblance in the metaphors and fimilitudes, together with propriety and harmony in the diction. Now fome or all of these qualities conftantly attend our ideas of beauty, and neceffarily raife that agreeable perception of the mind in what object foever they appear. The charms of fine compofition, then, are fo far from exifting only in the heated imagation of an enthufiaftic admirer, that they refult - from the conftitution of Nature her

felf.

felf. And perhaps the principles of criticism are as certain and indifputable, even as thofe of the mathematics. Thus, for instance, that order is preferable to confufion, that harmony is more pleafing than diffonance, with fome few other axioms upon which the fcience is built, are truths which ftrike at once upon the mind with the fame force of conviction, as that the whole is greater than any of its parts, or, that if from equals you take away equals, the remainder will be equal. And in both cafes, the propofitions which reft upon these plain and obvious maxims, feem equally capable of the fame evidence of demonftration.

But as every intellectual, as well as animal faculty is improved and ftrengthened by exercife, the more the foul exerts this her internal fenfe of beauty upon any particular object, the more she will enlarge and refine

her

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