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. pro Nec rude quid possit video ingenium: alterius sic 'Tis long disputed, whether poets claim 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, Francis. AMIDST the frivolous pursuits and pernicious dissipations of the present age, a respect for the We have seen genius shine without the help of qualities of the understanding still prevails to such art, but taste must be cultivated by art, before it a degree, that almost every individual pretends to will produce agreeable fruit. This, however, we have a taste for the Belles Lettres. The spruce 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. 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 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 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 to all men, indeed unopened, by the power of thought and rein 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 witb and distinguish beauty? the same care, and cultivated with the same asIt 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. is 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 proper 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 strengthen and improve by culture, experience, and 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. Such in What Horace has said of genius is still more the common path of education. A youth incapaapplicable to taste. Natura fieret laudabile carmen, an arte, 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 mathematics cur in poetry and painting, among the ancients and moderns. We shall only mention two examples of it, the beauty of which consists in the pathetic. 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, ano 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 aλ 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 aλoov na ndur 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 af discovered 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, and soon attain to all that degree of maturity which they are capable of acquiring; while, on the other hand, there are geniuses of slow growth, 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, ndur Svarcus gegevvnææs, "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 from the tragedy of Macbeth. The gallant Maca manner as seemed to promise a prodigy in mu-duff, being informed that his wife and children SIC. He had all the assistance that art could were murdered by order of the tyrant, pulls his afford; by the age of ten his genius was at the hat over his eyes, and his internal agony bursts out acme: yet, after that period, notwithstanding the into an exclamation of four words, the most exmost intense application, he never gave the least pressive perhaps that ever were uttered: "He has signs of improvement. At six he was admired as no children." This is the energetic language of a miracle of music; at six-and-twenty he was simple nature, which is now grown into disrepute. neglected as an ordinary fiddler. The celebrated By the present mode of education, we are forci Dean Swift was a remarkable instance in the other bly warped from the bias of nature, and all simextreme. He was long considered as an incor- plicity in manners is rejected. We are taught to rigible dunce, and did not obtain his degree at the disguise and distort our sentiments, until the University but ex speciali gratia; yet, when his faculty of thinking is diverted into an unnatural powers began to unfold, he signalized himself by channel; and we not only relinquish and forget, 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 rel philosophy; 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; 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, is 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 formarobe, 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. 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 foundation of sensibility, and can not be disjoined without offering violence to both. But virtue must will both remain imperfect and ineffectual: Qui didicit patriæ quid debeat, et quid amicis, Horace. Those ears that are offended by the notes of the thrush, the blackbird, and the nightingale, will be 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 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, beaches 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, Thus we see taste is composed of nature improved by art; of feeling tutored by instruction. ESSAY XIII. fortunately lost. The mind of sensibility is equally struck by the without hesitation the potion presented by his physician Philip, even after he had received intimation that poison was contained in the cup; a noble and pathetic scene! which hath acquired new dignity and expression under the inimitable pencil of tender admiration, by the deportment of Henry a Le Sueur. Humanity is melted into tears of IV. of France, while his rebellious subjects compelled him to form the blockade of his capital. In [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 un man 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 Bel-generous confidence of Alexander, who drinks les Lettres. We shall take it for granted, that proper means have been used to form the manners, and attach the mind to virtue. The heart, cultivated by precept and warmed by example, improves in sensibility, which is the foundation of taste. By distinguishing the influence and scope of morality, and cherishing the ideas of benevolence, it acquires a habit of sympathy, which tenderly feels responsive, like the vibration of unisons, every touch of 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 unmoved 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: As at her Isthmian games, a fading pomp! A victor he from the deep phalanx pierced The crowd, astonish'd half, and half inform❜d, Stared dubious round, some question'd, some exclaim'd Is lost in anxious joy) "Be that again Each other straining in a strict embrace, Nor strain'd a slave; and loud exclaims, till night, To one acquainted with the genius of Greece, the character and disposition of that polished people, ad • His real name was Quintus Flaminius. ber they were his people; and knowing they were connived at the methods practised to supply them reduced to the extremity of famine, he generously with provision. Chancing one day to meet two peasants, who had been detected in these practices, as they were led to execution they implored his clemency, declaring in the sight of Heaven, they had no other way to procure subsistence for their and giving them all the money that was in his wives and children; he pardoned them on the spot, purse, "Henry of Bearne is poor," said he, "had he more money to afford, you should have it-go home to your families in peace; and remember your duty to God, and your allegiance to your sovereign." Innumerable examples of the same kind may be selected from history, both ancient and modern, the study of which we would therefore strenuously recommend. Historical knowledge indeed becomes necessary on many other accounts, which in its place we will explain; but as the formation of the heart is of the first consequence, and should precede the cultivation of the understanding, such striking instances of superior virtue ought to be culled for the perusal of the young pupil, who will read them with eagerness, and revolve them with pleasure. Thus the young mind becomes enamoured of moral beauty, and the passions are listed on the side of humanity. Meanwhile knowledge of a different species will go hand in hand with the advances of morality, and the understanding be gradually extended. Virtue and sentiment reciprocally assist each other, and both conduce to the improvement of perception. While the scholar's chief attention is employed in learning the Latin and Greek languages, and this is generally the task of childhood and early youth, it is even then the business of the preceptor to give his mind a turn for observation, to direct his powers of discernment, to point out the distinguishing marks of character, and dwell upon the charms of moral and intellectual Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere fidus Nor word for word translate with painful care beauty, as they may chance to occur in the classics | Cicero tells us, that in translating two orations, that are used for his instruction. In reading Cor- which the most celebrated orators of Greece pronelius Nepos, and Plutarch's Lives, even with a nounced against each other, he performed this task, view to grammatical improvement only, he will in- not as a servile interpreter, but as an orator, presensibly imbibe, and learn to compare ideas of serving the sentiments, forms, and figures of the greater importance. He will become enamoured original, but adapting the expression to the taste of virtue and patriotism, and acquire a detestation and manners of the Romans: In quibus non verfor vice, cruelty, and corruption. The perusal of bum pro verbo necesse habui reddere, sed genus the Roman story in the works of Florus, Sallust, omnium verborum vimque servavi; "in which I Livy, and Tacitus, will irresistibly engage his at- did not think it was necessary to translate literally tention, expand his conception, cherish his memo- word for word, but I preserved the natural and full ry, exercise his judgment, and warm him with a scope of the whole." Of the same opinion was noble spirit of emulation. He will contemplate Horace, who says, in his Art of Poetry, with love and admiration the disinterested candour of Aristides, surnamed the Just, whom the guilty cabals of his rival Themistocles exiled from his ungrateful country, by a sentence of Ostracism. He will be surprised to learn, that one of his fellow- Nevertheless, in taking the liberty here granted, we citizens, an illiterate artisan, bribed by his enemies, are apt to run into the other extreme, and substichancing to meet him in the street without know-tute equivalent thoughts and phrases, till hardly ing his person, desired he would write Aristides on any features of the original remain. The metahis shell (which was the method those plebeians phors of figures, especially in poetry, ought to be used to vote against delinquents), when the inno- as religiously preserved as the images of painting cent patriot wrote his own name without com- which we can not alter or exchange without deplaint or expostulation. He will with equal as stroying, or injuring at least, the character and tonishment applaud the inflexible integrity of Fa- style of the original. bricius, who preferred the poverty of innocence to all the pomp of affluence, with which Pyrrhus endeavoured to seduce him from the arms of his country. He will approve with transport the noble generosity of his soul in rejecting the proposal of that prince's physician, who offered to take him off by poison; and in sending the caitiff bound to his sovereign, whom he would have so basely and cruelly betrayed. In this manner the preceptor will sow the seeds of that taste, which will soon germinate, rise, blossom, and produce perfect fruit by dint of future care and cultivation. In order to restrain the luxuriancy of the young imagination, which is apt to run riot, to enlarge the stock of ideas, exercise the reason, and ripen the judgment, the pupil must be engaged in the severer study of science. He must learn geometry, which Plato recommends for In reading the ancient authors, even for the pur- strengthening the mind, and enabling it to think poses of school education, the unformed taste will with precision. He must be made acquainted with begin to relish the irresistible energy, greatness, geography and chronology, and trace philosophy and sublimity of Homer; the serene majesty, the through all her branches. Without geography and melody, and pathos of Virgil; the tenderness of chronology, he will not be able to acquire a distinct Sappho and Tibullus; the elegance and propriety idea of history; nor judge of the propriety of many of Terence; the grace, vivacity, satire, and senti- interesting scenes, and a thousand allusions, that ment of Horace. present themselves in the works of genius. NoNothing will more conduce to the improvement thing opens the mind so much as the researches of the scholar in his knowledge of the languages, of philosophy; they inspire us with sublime conas well as in taste and morality, than his being ceptions of the Creator, and subject, as it were, all obliged to translate choice parts and passages of nature to our command. These bestow that liberal the most approved classics, both poetry and prose, turn of thinking, and in a great measure contribute especially the latter; such as the orations of De- to that universality, in learning, by which a man mosthenes and Isocrates, the treatise of Longinus of taste ought to be eminently distinguished. But on the Sublime, the Commentaries of Cæsar, the history is the inexhaustible source from which he Epistles of Cicero and the younger Pliny, and the will derive his most useful knowledge respecting two celebrated speeches in the Catilinarian con- the progress of the human mind, the constitution spiracy by Sallust. By this practice he will be of government, the rise and decline of empires, the come more intimate with the beauties of the writ- revolution of arts, the variety of character, and the ing, and the idioms of the language, from which he vicissitudes of fortune. :ranslates; at the same time it will form his style, The knowledge of history enables the poet not and by exercising his talent of expression, make only to paint characters, but also to describe magim a more perfect master of his mother tongue. nificent and interesting scenes of battle and adven |