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their strength as to render them contemptible, and confequently itself unguarded.

The understanding being of itfelf too flow and lazy to exert itself into action, it is neceffary it should be put in motion by the gentle gales of the pafiions, which may preferve it from stagnating and corruption; for they are neceffary to the health of the mind, < as the circulation of the animal fpirits is to the health of the body; they keep it in life, and ftrength, and vigour; nor is it poflible for the mind to perform its ' offices without their affiftance: thefe motions are given us with our being; they are little fpirits that are born and die with us; to fome they are inild, eafy and gentle, to others wayward and unruly, yet never too ftrong for the reins of reafon and the guidance of judgment.

We may generally obferve a pretty nice proportion between the ftrength of reafon and paffion; the greateft geniuses have commonly the strongest amectiono, as, on the other hand, the weaker understandings have generally the weaker paffions; and it is fit the fury of the courfers fhould not be too great for the strength of the charioteer. Young men whofe p thons are not a little unruly, give fmall hopes of their ever being confiderable; the fire of youth will of courfe abate, and is a fault, if it be a fault, that mends every day:. but furely unless a man has fire in youth, he can hardly have ⚫ warmth in old age, We must therefore be very cau⚫tious, left while we think to regulate the paffions, we 'fhould quite extinguish them, which is putting out the light of the foul; for to be without paffion, or to be hurried away with it, makes a man equally blind. The extraordinary feverity used in moft of our khools has this fatal effect, it breaks the fpring of the mind, and moft certainly deftroys more good geniufes than it can poffibly improve. And furely it is a mighty miftake that the paffions fhould be fo intirely fubdued: for little irregularities are fometimes not only to be borne with but to be cultivated too, fince they are frequently attended with the greatest perfections. All great geniufes have faults mixed with their virtues, and resemble the flaming bush which has thorns amongst lights.

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Since therefore the paffions are the principles of human actions, we must endeavour to manage them fo as to retain their vigour, yet keep them under 'ftrict command; we must govern them rather like free fubjects than flaves, left, while we intend to make them obedient, they become abject, and unfit for thofe great purposes to which they were defigned. For my part I'must confefs I could never have any regard to that fect of philofophers, who fo much infifted upon an abfolute indifference and vacancy from all paffion; for it seems to nie a thing very inconfiftent, for a man to diveft himself of humanity, in order to acquire tranquillity of mind; and to eradicate the very principles of action, because it is poffible they may produce ill effects.

GRATIAN

very often recommends the fine tafte,' as the utmost perfection of an accomplished man.

As this word arifes very often in converfation, I shall endeavour to give fome account of it, and to lay down rules how we may know whether we are poffeffed of it, and how we may acquire that fine taste of writing, which is fo much talked of among the polite world.

Moft languages make ufe of this metaphor, to exprefs that faculty of the mind, which diftinguishes all the moft concealed faults and niceft perfections in writing. We may be fure this metaphor would not have been fo general in all tongues, had there not been a very

55 great conformity between that mental tafte, which is the fubject of this paper, and that fenfitive tafte, which gives us a relifh of every different flavour that affects the palate. Accordingly we find, there are as many degrees of refinement in the intellectual faculty, as in the fenfe, which is marked out by this common denomination.

I knew a person who poffeffed the one in fo great a perfection, that after having tafted ten different kinds of tea he would diftinguish, without feeing the colour of it, the particular fort which was offered him.; and not only fo, but any two forts of them that were mixt together in an equal proportion; ray, he has carried the experiment fo far, as upon tafting the compofition of three different forts, to name the parcels from whence the three feveral ingredients were taken. A man of a fine tafte in writing will difcern, after the fame manner, not only the general beauties and imperfections of an author, but difcover the feveral ways of thinking and expreffing himself, which diverify him from all other authors, with the feveral foreign infufions of thought and language, and the particular authors from whom they were borrowed.

After having thus far explained what is generally meant by a fine tafte in writing, and fhewn the propriety of the metaphor which is used on this occafion, I think I may define it to be that faculty of the foul, which difcerns the beauties of an author with pleasure and the imperfections with diflike.' If a man would know whether he is poffeffed of this faculty, I would have him read over the celebrated works of antiquity. which have ftood the teft of fo many different ages and countries, or thofe works among the moderns which have the fanction of the politer part of our cotemporaries. If upon the perufal of fuch writings he does not find himself delighted in an extraordinary manner, or if, upon reading the admired paffages in fuch authors, he finds a coldnefs and indifference in his thoughts, he ought to conclude, not (as is too ufual among taftelefs readers) that the author wants thofe perfections which have been admired in him, but that he himself wants the faculty of discovering them.

N° 409. He should, in the fecond place, be very careful to obferve, whether he tastes the diftinguishing perfections, or if I may be allowed to call them fo, the fpecific qualities of the author whom he perufes; whether he is particularly pleafed with Livy, for his manner of telling a ftory, with Salluft for his entering into thofe internal principles of action which arife from the characters and manners of the perfons he defcribes, or with Tacitus for his difplaying thofe outward motives of fafety and intereft, which gave birth to the whole series of tranfactions which he relates.

He may likewife confider, how differently he is affected by the fame thought, which prefents felf in a great writer, from what he is when he finds it delivered by a perfon of an ordinary genius. For there is as much difference in apprehending a thought clothed in Cicero's language, and that of a common author, as in feeing an object by the light of a taper, or by the light of the fun.

It is very difficult to lay down rules for the acquirement of such a tafte as that I am here fpeaking of. The faculty muft in fome degree be born with us, and it very often happens, that those who have other qualities in perfection are wholly void of this. One of the most eminent mathematicians of the age has affured me, that the greatest pleasure he took in reading Virgil, was in examining Æneas his voyage by the map; as I queftion not but many a modern compiler of hiftory would be delighted with little more in that divine author than the bare matters of fact.

But notwithstanding this faculty muft in fome meafure be born with us, there are several methods for cultivating and improving it, and without which it will be very uncertain, and of little ufe to the perfon that poffeffes it. The moft natural method for this purpose is to be converfant among the writings of the most polite authors. A man who has any relish for fine writing, either difcovers new beauties or receives ftronger impreffions from the mafterly ftrokes of a great author every time he perufes him: befides that he naturally wears himself into the fame manner of speaking and thinking.

Converfation with men of a polite genius is another method for improving our natural tafte. It is impofible for a man of the greateft parts to confider any thing in its whole extent, and in all its variety of lights. Every man, befides thofe general obfervations which are to be made upon an author, forms feveral reflections that are peculiar to his own manner of thinking; fo that converfation will naturally furnish us with hints which we did not attend to, and make us enjoy other mens parts and reflections as well as our own. This is the beft reafon I can give for the obfervation which several have made, that men of great genius in the fame way of writing, feldom rife up fingly, but at certain periods of time appear together, and in a body; as they did at Rome in the reign of Auguftus, and in Greece about the age of Socrates I cannot think that Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Boileau, la Fontaine, Bruyere, Bossu, or the Daciers, would have written fo well as they have done, had they not been friends and contemporaries.

It is likewife neceffary for a man who would form to himfelf a finished taste of good writing, to be well versed in the works of the best critics both ancient and mo dern. I must confefs that I could wish there were au! thors of this kind, who, befides the mechanical rules which a man of very little tafte may difcourfe upon, would enter into the very fpirit and foul of fine writing, and fhew us the feveral fources of that pleafure which rifes in the mind upon the perufal of a noble work. Thus although in poetry it be abfolutely neceffary that the unities of time, place and action, with other points of the fame nature, fhould be thoroughly explained and underftood; there is ftill fomething more effential to the art, fomething that elevates and aftonishes the fancy, and gives a greatness of mind to the reader, which few of the critics befides Longinus have confidered.

Our general tafte in England is for epigram, turns of wit, and forced conceits, which have no manner of influence, either for the bettering or enlarging the mind of him who reads them, and have been carefully avoided by the greatest writers, both among the ancients and moderns. I have endeavoured in feveral of my fpeculations to banish this Gothic tafte, which has taken poffeilion