But I should be sorry if we could not rest the merit of such studies on somewhat of solid and intrinsical use, independent of appearance and show. The exercise of taste and of sound criticism, is in truth one of the most improving employments of the understanding. To apply the principles of good sense to composition and discourse; to examine what is beautiful, and why it is so; to employ ourselves in distinguishing accurately between the specious and the solid, between affected and natural ornament, must certainly improve us not a little in the most valuable part of all philosophy, the philosophy of human nature. For such dispositions are very intimately connected with the knowledge of ourselves. They necessarily lead us to reflect on the operations of the imagination, and the movements of the heart; and increase our acquaintance with some of the most refined feelings which belong to our frame. Logical and ethical disquisitions move in a higher sphere, and are conversant with objects of a more severe kind; the progress of the understanding in its search after knowledge, and the direction of the will in the proper pursuit of good. They point out to man the improvement of his nature as an intelligent being; and his duties as the subject of moral obligation. Belles Lettres and Criticism chiefly consider him as a being endowed with those powers of taste and imagination, which were intended to embellish his mind, and to supply him with rational and useful entertainment. They open a field of investigation peculiar to themselves. All that relates to beauty, harmony, grandeur, and elegance; all that can soothe the mind, gratify the fancy, or move the affections, belongs to their province. They present human nature under a different aspect from that which it assumes when viewed by other sciences. They bring to light various springs of action, which, without their aid, might have passed unobserved; and which, though of a delicate nature, frequently exert a powerful influence on several departments of human life. Such studies have also this peculiar advantage, that they exercise our reason without fatiguing it. They lead to enquiries acute, but not painful; profound, but not dry nor abstruse. They strew flowers in the path of science; and while they keep the mind bent in some degree, and active, they relieve it, at the same time, from that more toilsome labour to which it must submit in the acquisition of necessary erudition, or the investigation of abstract truth. The cultivation of taste is farther recommended by the happy effects which it naturally tends to produce on human life. The most busy man, in the most active sphere, cannot be always occupied by business. Men of serious professions cannot always be on the stretch of serious thought. Neither can the most gay and flourishing situations of fortune afford any man the power of filling all his hours with pleasure. Life must always languish in the hands of the idle. It will frequently languish even in the hands of the busy, if they have not some employment subsidiary to that which forms their main pursuit. How then shall these vacant spaces, those unemployed intervals, which, more or less, occur in the life of every one, be filled up ? How can we contrive to dispose of them in any way that shall be more agreeable in itself, or more consonant to the dignity of the human mind, than in the entertainments of taste, and the study of polite literature? He who is so happy as to have acquired a relish for these, has always at hand an innocent and irreproachable amusement for his leisure hours, to save him from the danger of many a pernicious passion. He is not in hazard of being a burden to himself. He is not obliged to fly to low company, or to court the riot of loose pleasures, in order to cure the tediousness of existence. Providence seems plainly to have pointed out this useful purpose to which the pleasures of taste may be applied, by interposing them in a middle station between the pleasures of sense and those of pure intellect. We were not designed to grovel always among objects so low as the former; nor are we capable of dwelling constantly in so high a region as the latter. The pleasures of taste refresh the mind after the toils of the intellect, and the labours of abstract study; and they gradually raise it above the attachments of sense, and prepare it for the enjoyments of virtue. So consonant is this to experience, that in the education of youth, no object has in every age appeared more important to wise men, than to tincture them early with a relish for the entertainments of taste. The transition is commonly made with ease from these to the discharge of the higher and more important duties of life. Good hopes may be entertained of those whose minds have this liberal and elegant turn. It is favourable to many virtues. Whereas, to be entirely devoid of relish for eloquence, poetry, or any of the fine arts, is justly construed to be an unpromising symptom of youth; and raises suspicions of their being prone to low gratifications, or destined to drudge in the more vulgar and illiberal pursuits of life. There are, indeed, few good dispositions of any kind with which the improvement of taste is not more or less connected. A cultivated taste increases sensibility to all the tender and humane passions, by giving them frequent exercise; while it tends to weaken the more violent and fierce emotions. Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes The elevated sentiments and high examples which poetry, elo- tend to nourish in our minds public spirit, the love of glory, contempt of external fortune, and the admiration of what is truly illustrious and great. I will not go so far as to say that the improvement of taste and of virtue is the same; or that they may always be expected to co-exist in an equal degree. More powerful correctives than taste can apply are necessary for reforming the corrupt propensities which too frequently prevail among mankind. Elegant speculations are sometimes found to float on the surface of the mind, while bad passions possess the interior regions of the heart. At the same time this cannot but be admitted, that the exercise of taste is, in its native tendency, moral and purifying. From reading the most admired productions of genius, whether in poetry or prose, almost every one rises with some good impressions left on his mind: and though these may not always be durable, they are at least to be ranked among the means of disposing the heart to virtue. One thing is certain, and I shall hereafter have occasion to illustrate it more fully, that, without possessing the virtuous affections in a strong degree, no man can attain eminence in the sublime parts of eloquence. He must feel what a good man feels, if he expects greatly to move, or to interest mankind. They are the ardent sentiments of honour, virtue, magnanimity, and public spirit, that only can kindle that fire of genius, and call up into the mind those high ideas, which attract the admiration of ages; and if this spirit be necessary to produce the most distinguished efforts of eloquence, it must be necessary also to our relishing them with proper taste and feeling. On these general topics I shall dwell no longer; but proceed directly to the consideration of the subjects which are to employ the following Lectures: They divide themselves into five parts. First, some introductory dissertations on the Nature of Taste, and upon the sources of its pleasures: Secondly, the Consideration of Language: Thirdly, of Style: Fourthly, of Eloquence properly so called, or public speaking in its different kinds: Lastly, a Critical Examination of the most distinguished Species of Composition both in prose and verse. LECTURE II. TASTE. THE nature of the present undertaking leads me to begin with some inquiries concerning Taste; as it is this faculty which is always appealed to in disquisitions concerning the merit of discourse and writing. There are few subjects on which men talk more loosely and indistinctly than on Taste; few which it is more difficult to explain with precision; and none which in this Course of Lectures will appear more dry or abstract. What I have to say on the subject shall be in the following order: -I shall first explain the Nature of Taste as a power or faculty in the human mind. I shall next consider how far it is an improveable faculty. I shall show the sources of its improvement, and the characters of Taste in its most perfect state. I shall then examine the various fluctuations to which it is liable, and inquire whether there be any standard to which we can bring the different tastes of men, in order to distinguish the corrupted from the true. Taste may be defined, "The power of receiving pleasure from the beauties of nature and of art." The first question that occurs concerning it is, whether it is to be considered as an internal sense, or as an exertion of reason. Reason is a very general term; but if we understand by it that power of the mind which in speculative matters discovers truth, and in practical matters judges of the fitness of means to an end, I apprehend the question may be easily answered. For nothing can be more clear, than that Taste is not resolvable into any such operation of Reason. It is not merely through a discovery of the understanding, or a deduction of argument, that the mind receives pleasure from a beautiful prospect or a fine poem. Such objects often strike us intuitively, and make a strong impression, when we are unable to assign the reasons of our being pleased. They sometimes strike in the same manner the philosopher and the peasant; the boy and the man. Hence the faculty by which we relish such beauties, seems more nearly allied to a feeling of sense, than to a process of the understanding; and accordingly, from an external sense it has borrowed its name; that sense by which we receive and distinguish the pleasures of food having, in several languages, given rise to the word Taste in the metaphorical meaning under which we now consider it. However, as in all subjects which regard the operations of the mind, the inaccurate use of words is to be carefully avoided, it must not be inferred from what I have said that reason is en D tirely excluded from the exertions of Taste. Though Taste, beyond doubt, be ultimately founded on a certain natural and instinctive sensibility to beauty, yet Reason, as I shall show hereafter, assists Taste in many of its operations, and serves to enlarge its power.* Taste, in the sense in which I have explained it, is a faculty common in some degree to all men. Nothing that belongs to human nature is more general than the relish of beauty of one kind or other; of what is orderly, proportioned, grand, harmonious, new, or sprightly. In children, the rudiments of Taste discover themselves very early in a thousand instances; in their fondness for regular bodies, their admiration of pictures and statues, and imitations of all kinds; and their strong attachment to whatever is new or marvellous. The most ignorant peasants are delighted with ballads and tales, and are struck with the beautiful appearance of nature in the earth and heavens. Even in the deserts of America, where human nature shows itself in its most uncultivated state, the savages have their ornaments of dress, their war and their death songs, their harangues and their orators. We must, therefore, conclude the principles of Taste to be deeply founded in the human mind. It is no less essential to man to have some discernment of beauty, than it is to possess the attributes of reason and of speech.† But although none be wholly devoid of this faculty, yet the degrees in which it is possessed are widely different. In some men only the feeble glimmerings of Taste appear; the beauties which they relish are of the coarsest kind; and of these they have but a weak and confused impression: while in others, Taste rises to an acute discernment, and a lively enjoyment of the most refined beauties. In general we may observe, that in * See Dr. Gerard's Essay on Taste.-D'Alembert's Reflections on the Use and Abuse of Philosophy in Matters which relate to Taste.-Reflections Critiques sur la Poësie et sur la Peinture, tome ii. ch. 22-31.-Elements of Criticisin, c. 25.—Mr. Hume's Essay on the Standard of Taste.-Introduction to the Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful. On the subject of Taste, considered as a power or faculty of the mind, much less s to be found among the ancient than among the modern rhetorical and critical writers. The following remarkable passage in Cicero serves however to show, that his ideas on this subject agree perfectly with what has been said above. He is speaking of the beauties of style and numbers. "Illud autem nequis admiretur quonam modo hæc vulgus imperitorum in audiendo, notet; cum in omni genere, tum in hoc ipso, magna quædam est vis, incredibilisque naturæ. Omnes enim tacito quodam sensu, sine ulla arte aut ratione, quæ sint in artibus de rationibus recta et prava dijudicant: idque cum faciunt in picturis, et in signis, et in aliis operibus, ad quoram intelligentiam a natura minus habent instrumenti, tum multo ostendunt magis in verborum, numerorum, vocumque judicio; quod ea sunt in communibus infixa sensibus; neque earum rerum quenquam funditus naturæ voluit esse expertem." Cic. de Orat. lib. iii. cap. 50. edit. Gruteri. Quintilian seems to include Taste (for which, in the sense which we now give to that word, the ancients appear to have had no distinct name) under what he calls judicium. "Locus de judicio, meâ quidem opinioue adeo partibus hujus operis omnibus connectus ac mistus est, ut ne a sententiis quidem aut verbis saltem singulis possit separari, nec magis arte traditur quam gustus aut odor.-Ut contraria vitemus et communia, ne quid in eloquendo corruptum obscurumque sit, referatur oportet ad sensus qui non docentur." Institut. lib. vi. cap. 3. edit. Obrechti. |