received with a general smile of approbation by all what "countryman he was," replied, that he was the company-all, I mean, but your humble ser- "a citizen of the world." How few are there to vant; who, endeavouring to keep my gravity as be found in modern times who can say the same, well as I could, and reclining my head upon my or whose conduct is consistent with such a proarm, continued for some time in a posture of affect-fession! We are now become so much Englished thoughtfulness, as if I had been musing on men, Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Spaniards, or Gersomething else, and did not seem to attend to the mans, that we are no longer citizens of the world; subject of conversation; hoping by these means to avoid the disagreeable necessity of explaining myself, and thereby depriving the gentleman of his imaginary happiness.

so much the natives of one particular spot, or members of one petty society, that we no longer consider ourselves as the general inhabitants of the globe, or members of that grand society which com. prehends the whole human kind.

But my pseudo-patriot had no mind to let me escape so easily. Not satisfied that his opinion Did these prejudices prevail only among the should pass without contradiction, he was deter- meanest and lowest of the people, perhaps they mined to have it ratified by the suffrage of every might be excused, as they have few, if any, opporone in the company; for which purpose, addressing tunities of correcting them by reading, travelling, himself to me with an air of inexpressible confi- or conversing with foreigners; but the misfortune dence, he asked me if I was not of the same way is, that they infect the minds, and influence the of thinking. As I am never forward in giving my conduct, even of our gentlemen; of those, I mean, opinion, especially when I have reason to believe who have every title to this appellation but an exthat it will not be agreeable; so, when I am obliged emption from prejudice, which, however, in my to give it, I always hold it for a maxim to speak my real sentiments. I therefore told him, that, for my own part, I should not have ventured to talk in such a peremptory strain, unless I had made the tour of Europe, and examined the manners of these several nations with great care and accuracy; that perhaps a more impartial judge would not scruple to affirm, that the Dutch were more frugal and industrious, the French more temperate and polite, the Germans more hardy and patient of labour and fatigue, and the Spaniards more staid and sedate, than the English; who, though undoubtedly brave and generous, were at the same time rash, headstrong, and impetuous; too apt to be elated with prosperity, and to despond in adversity.

opinion, ought to be regarded as the characteristical mark of a gentleman; for let a man's birth be ever so high, his station ever so exalted, or his fortune ever so large, yet if he is not free from national and other prejudices, I should make bold to tell him, that he had a low and vulgar mind, and had no just claim to the character of a gentleman. And, in fact, you will always find that those are most apt to boast of national merit, who have little or no merit of their own to depend on; than which, to be sure, nothing is more natural: the slender vine twists around the sturdy oak, for no other reason in the world but because it has not strength sufficient to support itself.

Should it be alleged in defence of national preI could easily perceive, that all the company be- judice, that it is the natural and necessary growth gan to regard me with a jealous eye before I had of love to our country, and that therefore the formfinished my answer, which I had no sooner done, er can not be destroyed without hurting the latter, than the patriotic gentleman observed, with a con- I answer, that this is a gross fallacy and delusion. temptuous sneer, that he was greatly surprised how That it is the growth of love to our country, I will some people could have the conscience to live in a allow; but that it is the natural and necessary country which they did not love, and to enjoy the growth of it, I absolutely deny. Superstition and protection of a government, to which in their enthusiasm too are the growth of religion; but who hearts they were inveterate enemies. Finding that ever took it in his head to affirm, that they are the by this modest declaration of my sentiments I had necessary growth of this noble principle? They forfeited the good opinion of my companions, and are, if you will, the bastard sprouts of this heavenly given them occasion to call my political principles plant, but not its natural and genuine branches, in question, and well knowing that it was in vain and may safely enough be lopped off, without doto argue with men who were so very full of them- ing any harm to the parent stock: nay, perhaps, selves, I threw down my reckoning, and retired till once they are lopped off, this goodly tree can to my own lodgings, reflecting on the absurd and never flourish in perfect health and vigour. ridiculous nature of national prejudice and prepos session.

Is it not very possible that I may love my own country, without hating the natives of other counAmong all the famous sayings of antiquity, tries? that I may exert the most heroic bravery, the there is none that does greater honour to the author, most undaunted resolution, in defending its laws or affords greater pleasure to the reader (at least if and liberty, without despising all the rest of the he be a person of a generous and benevolent heart), world as cowards and poltroons? Most certainly than that of the philosopher, who, being asked it is; and if it were not-But why need I suppose

what is absolutely impossible?-But if it were not, I must own, I should prefer the title of the ancient philosopher, viz. a citizen of the world, to that of an Englishman, a Frenchman, a European, or to any other appellation whatever.

ESSAY XII.

AMIDST the frivolous pursuits and pernicious dissipations of the present age; a respect for the qualities of the understanding still prevails to such a degree, that almost every individual pretends to

spruce

Nec rude quid possit video ingenium: alterius sic
Altera poscit opem res, et conjurat amicè.

Hor. Ars. Poet.

"Tis long disputed, whether poets claim
From art or nature their best right to fame;
But art if not enrich'd by nature's vein,

And a rude genius of uncultured strain,

Are useless both; but when in friendship join❜d,
A mutual succour in each other find.

Francis.

We have seen genius shine without the help of art, but taste must be cultivated by art, before it will produce agreeable fruit. This, however, we have a taste for the Belles Lettres. The must still inculcate with Quintilian, that study, 'prentice sets up for a critic, and the puny beau precept, and observation, will nought avail, without piques himself upon being a connoisseur. With- the assistance of nature: Illud tamen imprimis out assigning causes for this universal presumption, testandum est, nihil præcepta atque artes valere, we shall proceed to observe, that if it was attended nisi adjuvante naturâ.

instruction, those natural powers of feeling and sagacity which constitute the faculty called taste, and enable the professor to enjoy the delights of the Belles Lettres.

with no other inconvenience than that of exposing Yet even though nature has done her part, by the pretender to the ridicule of those few who can implanting the seeds of taste, great pains must be sift his pretensions, it might be unnecessary to un- taken, and great skill exerted, in raising them to a deceive the public, or to endeavour at the reforma- proper pitch of vegetation. The judicious tutor tion of innocent folly, productive of no evil to the must gradually and tenderly unfold the mental commonwealth. But in reality this folly is pro- faculties of the youth committed to his charge. He ductive of manifold evils to the community. If the must cherish his delicate perception; store his reputation of taste can be acquired, without the mind with proper ideas; point out the different least assistance of literature, by reading modern channels of observation; teach him to compare obpoems, and seeing modern plays, what person will jects, to establish the limits of right and wrong, of deny himself the pleasure of such an easy qualifi- truth and falsehood; to distinguish beauty from cation? Hence the youth of both sexes are de- tinsel, and grace from affectation; in a word, to bauched to diversion, and seduced from much more strengthen and improve by culture, experience, and profitable occupations into idle endeavours after literary fame; and a superficial false taste, founded on ignorance and conceit, takes possession of the public. The acquisition of learning, the study of nature, is neglected as superfluous labour; and the We can not agree in opinion with those who best faculties of the mind remain unexercised, and imagine, that nature has been equally favourable indeed unopened, by the power of thought and reto all men, in conferring upon them a fundamental flection. False taste will not only diffuse itself capacity, which may be improved to all the refinethrough all our amusements, but even influence ment of taste and criticism. Every day's experience our moral and political conduct; for what is false convinces us of the contrary. Of two youths edutaste, but want of perception to discern propriety cated under the same preceptor, instructed with and distinguish beauty? the same care, and cultivated with the same as. It has been often alleged, that taste is a natural siduity, one shall not only comprehend, but even talent, as independent of art as strong eyes, or a anticipate the lessons of his master, by dint of na delicate sense of smelling; and, without all doubt, tural discernment, while the other toils in vain to the principal ingredient in the composition of taste imbibe the least tincture of instruction. Such inis a natural sensibility, without which it can not deed is the distinction between genius and stu exist; but it differs from the senses in this particu- pidity, which every man has an opportunity of seelar, that they are finished by nature, whereas taste ing among his friends and acquaintance. Not that can not be brought to perfection without we ought too hastily to decide upon the natural cacultivation; for taste pretends to judge not only of pacities of children, before we have maturely connature but also of art; and that judgment is found-sidered the peculiarity of disposition, and the bias ed upon observation and comparison. by which genius may be strangely warped from

proper

What Horace has said of genius is still more the common path of education. A youth incapaapplicable to taste.

Naturâ fieret laudabile carmen, an arte,
Quæsitum est. Ego nec studium sine divite rena,

ble of retaining one rule of grammar, or of acquiring the least knowledge of the classics, may nevertheless make great progress in mathematics; nay, he may have a strong genius for the mathematicos

without being able to comprehend a demon-wary mind and young imagination are often fascistration of Euclid; because his mind conceives in nated. Nothing has been so often explained, and a peculiar manner, and is so intent upon contem- yet so little understood, as simplicity in writing. plating the object in one particular point of view, Simplicity in this acceptation has a larger signifithat it can not perceive it in any other. We have cation than either the door of the Greeks, or the known an instance of a boy, who, while his mas-simplex of the Latins; for it implies beauty. It ter complained that he had not capacity to com- is the door na nduv of Demetrius Phalereus, the prehend the properties of a right-angled triangle, simplex munditiis of Horace, and expressed by had actually, in private, by the power of his ge- one word, naïveté, in the French language. It is, nius, formed a mathematical system of his own, in fact, no other than beautiful nature, without afdiscovered a series of curious theorems, and even fectation or extraneous ornament. In statuary, it applied his deductions to practical machines of is the Venus of Medicis ; in architecture, the Pansurprising construction. Besides, in the education theon. It would be an endless task to enumerate of youth, we ought to remember, that some capa- all the instances of this natural simplicity that occities are like the pyra præcocia; they soon blow, cur in poetry and painting, among the ancients and soon attain to all that degree of maturity and moderns. We shall only mention two examwhich they are capable of acquiring; while, on ples of it, the beauty of which consists in the pathe other hand, there are geniuses of slow growth, thetic. that are late in bursting the bud, and long in ri- Anaxagoras the philosopher, and preceptor of pening. Yet the first shall yield a faint blossom Pericles, being told that both his sons were dead, and insipid fruit; whereas the produce of the laid his hand upon his heart, and after a short other shall be distinguished and admired for its pause, consoled himself with a reflection couched well-concocted juice and excellent flavour. We in three words, ndav vntous jaws, "I knew have known a boy of five years of age sur- they were mortal." The other instance we select prise every body by playing on the violin in such a manner as seemed to promise a prodigy in music. He had all the assistance that art could afford; by the age of ten his genius was at the acme: yet, after that period, notwithstanding the most intense application, he never gave the least signs of improvement. At six he was admired as a miracle of music; at six-and-twenty he was neglected as an ordinary fiddler. The celebrated Dean Swift was a remarkable instance in the other extreme. He was long considered as an incorrigible dunce, and did not obtain his degree at the University but ex speciali gratia; yet, when his powers began to unfold, he signalized himself by a very remarkable superiority of genius. When but also become incapable of our original disposia youth, therefore, appears dull of apprehension, tions. We are totally changed into creatures of and seems to derive no advantage from study and art and affectation. Our perception is abused, and instruction, the tutor must exercise his sagacity in even our senses are perverted. Our minds lose discovering whether the soil be absolutely barren, their native force and flavour. The imagination, or sown with seed repugnant to its nature, or of sweated by artificial fire, produces nought but vapid such a quality as requires repeated culture and bloom. The genius, instead of growing like a length of time to set its juices in fermentation. vigorous tree, extending its branches on every side, These observations, however, relate to capacity in and bearing delicious fruit, resembles a stunted general, which we ought carefully to distinguish yew, tortured into some wretched form, projecting from taste. Capacity implies the power of retain-no shade, displaying no flower, diffusing no fraging what is received; taste is the power of relish-rance, yielding no fruit, and affording nothing but ing or rejecting whatever is offered for the enter- a barren conceit for the amusement of the idle tainment of the imagination. A man may have spectator. capacity to acquire what is called learning and Thus debauched from nature, how can we relphilosophy; but he must have also sensibility, be-ish her genuine productions? As well might a fore he feels those emotions with which taste re- man distinguish objects through a prism, that preceives the impressions of beauty. sents nothing but a variety of colours to the eye;

from the tragedy of Macbeth. The gallant Macduff, being informed that his wife and children were murdered by order of the tyrant, pulls his hat over his eyes, and his internal agony bursts out into an exclamation of four words, the most expressive perhaps that ever were uttered: "He has no children." This is the energetic language of simple nature, which is now grown into disrepute. By the present mode of education, we are forcibly warped from the bias of nature, and all simplicity in manners is rejected. We are taught to disguise and distort our sentiments, until the faculty of thinking is diverted into an unnatural channel; and we not only relinquish and forget,

Natural taste is apt to be seduced and debauched or a maid pining in the green sickness prefer a by vicious precept and bad example. There is a biscuit to a cinder. It has been often alleged, that dangerous tinsel in false taste, by which the un-the passions can never be wholly deposited; and

that, by appealing to these, a good writer will al- consolidated by free air and exercise. In such a ways be able to force himself into the hearts of his total perversion of the senses, the ideas must be readers: but even the strongest passions are weak-misrepresented; the powers of the imagination ened, nay, sometimes totally extinguished, by mu- disordered; and the judgment, of consequence, untual opposition, dissipation and acquired insensi- sound. The disease is attended with a false appebility. How often at the theatre is the tear of tite, which the natural food of the mind will not sympathy and the burst of laughter repressed by satisfy. It will prefer Ovid to Tibullus, and the a ridiculous species of pride, refusing approbation rant of Lee to the tenderness of Otway. The to the author and actor, and renouncing society soul sinks into a kind of sleepy idiotism, and is diwith the audience! This seeming insensibility is verted by toys and baubles, which can only be not owing to any original defect. Nature has pleasing to the most superficial curiosity. It is enstretched the string, though it has long ceased to livened by a quick succession of trivial objects, that vibrate. It may have been displaced and distract- glisten and dance before the eye; and, like an ined by the violence of pride; it may have lost its fant, kept awake and inspirited by the sound of tone through long disuse; or be so twisted or a rattle. It must not only be dazzled and aroused, overstrained as to produce the most jarring dis- but also cheated, hurried, and perplexed, by the cords. artifice of deception, business, intricacy, and intrigue; a kind of low juggle, which may be termed the legerdemain of genius.

If so little regard is paid to nature when she knocks so powerfully at the breast, she must be altogether neglected and despised in her calmer mood In this state of depravity the mind can not enjoy, of serene tranquillity, when nothing appears to nor indeed distinguish the charms of natural and recommend her but simplicity, propriety, and in- moral beauty and decorum. The ingenuous blush nocence. A person must have delicate feelings of native innocence, the plain language of ancient that can taste the celebrated repartee in Terence: faith and sincerity, the cheerful resignation to the Homo sum; nihil humani a me alienum puto: will of Heaven, the mutual affection of the chari"I am a man; therefore think I have an interest ties, the voluntary respect paid to superior dignity in every thing that concerns humanity." A clear or station, the virtue of beneficence, extended even blue sky, spangled with stars, will prove an insipid to the brute creation, nay the very crimson glow object to eyes accustomed to the glare of torches of health, and swelling lines of beauty, are deand tapers, gilding and glitter; eyes that will turn spised, detested, scorned, and ridiculed, as ignorance, with disgust from the green mantle of the spring, rudeness, rusticity, and superstition. Thus we so gorgeously adorned with buds and foliage, flow-see how moral and natural beauty are connected; ers and blossoms, to contemplate a gaudy silken and of what importance it is, even to the forma robe, striped and intersected with unfriendly tints, tion of taste, that the manners should be severely that fritter the masses of light, and distract the vi- superintended. This is a task which ought to sion, pinked into the most fantastic forms, flounced, and furbelowed, and fringed with all the littleness of art unknown to elegance.

Qui didicit patriæ quid debeat, et quid amicis,
Quo sit amore parens, quo frater amandus, et hospes,
Quod sit Conscripti, quod judicis officium, quæ
Partes in bellum missi ducis; ille prifecto
Reddere personæ seit convenientia cuique.

take the lead of science; for we will venture to say, that virtue is the foundation of taste; or rather, that virtue and taste are built upon the same Those ears that are offended by the notes of the foundation of sensibility, and can not be disjoined thrush, the blackbird, and the nightingale, will be without offering violence to both. But virtue must regaled and ravished by the squeaking fiddle touch-be informed, and taste instructed, otherwise they ed by a musician, who has no other genius than will both remain imperfect and ineffectual: that which lies in his fingers; they will even be entertained with the rattling of coaches, and the alarming knock, by which the doors of fashionable people are so loudly distinguished. The sense of smelling, that delights in the scent of excrementitious animal juices, such as musk, civet, and urinous salts, will loath the fragrance of new-mown hay, the sweet-brier, the honey-suckle, and the rose. The organs that are gratified with the taste of sickly veal bled into a palsy, crammed fowls, and dropsical brawn, peas without substance, peaches without taste, and pine-apples without flavour, will certainly nauseate the native, genuine, and salutary taste of Welsh beef, Banstead mutton, and barn-door fowls, whose juices are concocted by a natural digestion, and whose flesh is

The critic, who with nice discernment knows,
What to his country and his friends he owes;
How various nature warms the human breast,
To love the parent; brother, friend, or guest;
What the great functions of our judges are,
Of senators, and generals sent to war;
He can distinguish, with unerring art,
The strokes peculiar to each different part.

Horace.

Thus we see taste is composed of nature improved by art; of feeling tutored by instruction.

mired for science, renowned for unextinguishable love of freedom, nothing can be more affecting than this instance of generous magnanimity of the RoHAVING explained what we conceive to be true taste, and in some measure accounted for the pre-fruition of those liberties which they had so unman people, in restoring them unasked to the full valence of vitiated taste, we should proceed to point out the most effectual manner, in which a natural capacity may be improved into a delicacy of judgment, and an intimate acquaintance with the Belles Lettres. We shall take it for granted, that proper means have been used to form the manners,

The mind of sensibility is equally struck by the generous confidence of Alexander, who drinks without hesitation the potion presented by his phy. tion that poison was contained in the cup; a noble sician Philip, even after he had received intimaand attach the mind to virtue. The heart, cultiand pathetic scene! which hath acquired new digvated by precept and warmed by example, improves in sensibility, which is the foundation of taste. By nity and expression under the inimitable pencil of distinguishing the influence and scope of morality, tender admiration, by the deportment of Henry a Le Sueur. Humanity is melted into tears of and cherishing the ideas of benevolence, it acquires IV. of France, while his rebellious subjects coma habit of sympathy, which tenderly feels respon

sive, like the vibration of unisons, every touch of pelled him to form the blockade of his capital. In moral beauty. Hence it is that a man of a social chastising his enemies, he could not but remem heart, entendered by the practice of virtue, is awakened to the most pathetic emotions by every uncommon instance of generosity, compassion, and greatness of soul. Is there any man so dead to sentiment, so lost to humanity, as to read unmov- peasants, who had been detected in these practices, ed the generous behaviour of the Romans to the states of Greece, as it is recounted by Livy, or embellished by Thomson in his poem of Liberty ? Speaking of Greece in the decline of her power, when her freedom no longer existed, he says: