Seventh Discourse

Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy on the Distribution
of the Prizes, December 10th, 1776, by the President.

Gentlemen,--It has been my uniform endeavour, since I first
addressed you from this place, to impress you strongly with one
ruling idea. I wished you to be persuaded, that success in your
art depends almost entirely on your own industry; but the industry
which I principally recommended, is not the industry of the HANDS,
but of the MIND.

As our art is not a divine gift, so neither is it a mechanical
trade. Its foundations are laid in solid science. And practice,
though essential to perfection, can never attain that to which it
aims, unless it works under the direction of principle.

Some writers upon art carry this point too far, and suppose that
such a body of universal and profound learning is requisite, that
the very enumeration of its kind is enough to frighten a beginner.
Vitruvius, after going through the many accomplishments of nature,
and the many acquirements of learning, necessary to an architect,
proceeds with great gravity to assert that he ought to be well
skilled in the civil law, that he may not be cheated in the title
of the ground he builds on.

But without such exaggeration, we may go so far as to assert, that
a painter stands in need of more knowledge than is to be picked off
his pallet, or collected by looking on his model, whether it be in
life or in picture. He can never be a great artist who is grossly
illiterate.

Every man whose business is description ought to be tolerably
conversant with the poets in some language or other, that he may
imbibe a poetical spirit and enlarge his stock of ideas. He ought
to acquire a habit of comparing and divesting his notions. He
ought not to be wholly unacquainted with that part of philosophy
which gives him an insight into human nature, and relates to the
manners, characters, passions, and affections. He ought to know
something concerning the mind, as well as a great deal concerning
the body of man.

For this purpose, it is not necessary that he should go into such a
compass of reading, as must, by distracting his attention,
disqualify him for the practical part of his profession, and make
him sink the performer in the critic. Reading, if it can be made
the favourite recreation of his leisure hours, will improve and
enlarge his mind without retarding his actual industry.

What such partial and desultory reading cannot afford, may be
supplied by the conversation of learned and ingenious men, which is
the best of all substitutes for those who have not the means or
opportunities of deep study. There are many such men in this age;
and they will be pleased with communicating their ideas to artists,
when they see them curious and docile, if they are treated with
that respect and deference which is so justly their due. Into such
society, young artists, if they make it the point of their
ambition, will by degrees be admitted. There, without formal
teaching, they will insensibly come to feel and reason like those
they live with, and find a rational and systematic taste
imperceptibly formed in their minds, which they will know how to
reduce to a standard, by applying general truth to their own
purposes, better perhaps than those to whom they owed the original
sentiment.

Of these studies and this conversation, the desired and legitimate
offspring is a power of distinguishing right from wrong, which
power applied to works of art is denominated taste. Let me then,
without further introduction, enter upon an examination whether
taste be so far beyond our reach as to be unattainable by care, or
be so very vague and capricious that no care ought to be employed
about it.

It has been the fate of arts to be enveloped in mysterious and
incomprehensible language, as if it was thought necessary that even
the terms should correspond to the idea entertained of the
instability and uncertainty of the rules which they expressed.

To speak of genius and taste as any way connected with reason or
common sense, would be, in the opinion of some towering talkers, to
speak like a man who possessed neither, who had never felt that
enthusiasm, or, to use their own inflated language, was never
warmed by that Promethean fire, which animates the canvas and
vivifies the marble.

If, in order to be intelligible, I appear to degrade art by
bringing her down from her visionary situation in the clouds, it is
only to give her a more solid mansion upon the earth. It is
necessary that at some time or other we should see things as they
really are, and not impose on ourselves by that false magnitude
with which objects appear when viewed indistinctly as through a
mist.

We will allow a poet to express his meaning, when his meaning is
not well known to himself, with a certain degree of obscurity, as
it is one source of the sublime. But when, in plain prose, we
gravely talk of courting the muse in shady bowers, waiting the call
and inspiration of genius, finding out where he inhabits, and where
he is to be invoked with the greatest success; of attending to
times and seasons when the imagination shoots with the greatest
vigour, whether at the summer solstice or the equinox, sagaciously
observing how much the wild freedom and liberty of imagination is
cramped by attention to established rules, and how this same
imagination begins to grow dim in advanced age, smothered and
deadened by too much judgment. When we talk such language, or
entertain such sentiments as these, we generally rest contented
with mere words, or at best entertain notions not only groundless,
but pernicious.

If all this means what it is very possible was originally intended
only to be meant, that in order to cultivate an art, a man secludes
himself from the commerce of the world, and retires into the
country at particular seasons; or that at one time of the year his
body is in better health, and consequently his mind fitter for the
business of hard thinking than at another time; or that the mind
may be fatigued and grow confused by long and unremitted
application; this I can understand. I can likewise believe that a
man eminent when young for possessing poetical imagination, may,
from having taken another road, so neglect its cultivation as to
show less of its powers in his latter life. But I am persuaded
that scarce a poet is to be found, from Homer down to Dryden, who
preserved a sound mind in a sound body, and continued practising
his profession to the very last, whose later works are not as
replete with the fire of imagination as those which were produced
in his more youthful days.

To understand literally these metaphors or ideas expressed in
poetical language, seems to be equally absurd as to conclude that
because painters sometimes represent poets writing from the
dictates of a little winged boy or genius, that this same genius
did really inform him in a whisper what he was to write, and that
he is himself but a mere machine, unconscious of the operations of
his own mind.

Opinions generally received and floating in the world, whether true
or false, we naturally adopt and make our own; they may be
considered as a kind of inheritance to which we succeed and are
tenants for life, and which we leave to our posterity very near in
the condition in which we received it; not much being in any one
man's power either to impair or improve it.

The greatest part of these opinions, like current coin in its
circulation, we are obliged to take without weighing or examining;
but by this inevitable inattention, many adulterated pieces are
received, which, when we seriously estimate our wealth, we must
throw away. So the collector of popular opinions, when he embodies
his knowledge, and forms a system, must separate those which are
true from those which are only plausible. But it becomes more
peculiarly a duty to the professors of art not to let any opinions
relating to that art pass unexamined. The caution and
circumspection required in such examination we shall presently have
an opportunity of explaining.

Genius and taste, in their common acceptation, appear to be very
nearly related; the difference lies only in this, that genius has
superadded to it a habit or power of execution. Or we may say,
that taste, when this power is added, changes its name, and is
called genius. They both, in the popular opinion, pretend to an
entire exemption from the restraint of rules. It is supposed that
their powers are intuitive; that under the name of genius great
works are produced, and under the name of taste an exact judgment
is given, without our knowing why, and without being under the
least obligation to reason, precept, or experience.

One can scarce state these opinions without exposing their
absurdity, yet they are constantly in the mouths of men, and
particularly of artists. They who have thought seriously on this
subject, do not carry the point so far; yet I am persuaded, that
even among those few who may be called thinkers, the prevalent
opinion gives less than it ought to the powers of reason; and
considers the principles of taste, which give all their authority
to the rules of art, as more fluctuating, and as having less solid
foundations than we shall find, upon examination, they really have.

The common saying, that tastes are not to be disputed, owes its
influence, and its general reception, to the same error which leads
us to imagine it of too high original to submit to the authority of
an earthly tribunal. It will likewise correspond with the notions
of those who consider it as a mere phantom of the imagination, so
devoid of substance as to elude all criticism.

We often appear to differ in sentiments from each other, merely
from the inaccuracy of terms, as we are not obliged to speak always
with critical exactness. Something of this too may arise from want
of words in the language to express the more nice discriminations
which a deep investigation discovers. A great deal, however, of
this difference vanishes when each opinion is tolerably explained
and understood by constancy and precision in the use of terms.

We apply the term taste to that act of the mind by which we like or
dislike, whatever be the subject. Our judgment upon an airy
nothing, a fancy which has no foundation, is called by the same
name which we give to our determination concerning those truths
which refer to the most general and most unalterable principles of
human nature, to works which are only to be produced by the
greatest efforts of the human understanding. However inconvenient
this may be, we are obliged to take words as we find them; all we
can do is to distinguish the things to which they are applied.

We may let pass those things which are at once subjects of taste
and sense, and which having as much certainty as the senses
themselves, give no occasion to inquiry or dispute. The natural
appetite or taste of the human mind is for truth; whether that
truth results from the real agreement or equality of original ideas
among themselves; from the agreement of the representation of any
object with the thing represented; or from the correspondence of
the several parts of any arrangement with each other. It is the
very same taste which relishes a demonstration in geometry, that is
pleased with the resemblance of a picture to an original, and
touched with the harmony of music.

All these have unalterable and fixed foundations in nature, and are
therefore equally investigated by reason, and known by study; some
with more, some with less clearness, but all exactly in the same
way. A picture that is unlike, is false. Disproportionate
ordinance of parts is not right because it cannot be true until it
ceases to be a contradiction to assert that the parts have no
relation to the whole. Colouring is true where it is naturally
adapted to the eye, from brightness, from softness, from harmony,
from resemblance; because these agree with their object, nature,
and therefore are true: as true as mathematical demonstration; but
known to be true only to those who study these things.

But besides real, there is also apparent truth, or opinion, or
prejudice. With regard to real truth, when it is known, the taste
which conforms to it is, and must be, uniform. With regard to the
second sort of truth, which may be called truth upon sufferance, or
truth by courtesy, it is not fixed, but variable. However, whilst
these opinions and prejudices on which it is founded continue, they
operate as truth; and the art, whose office it is to please the
mind, as well as instruct it, must direct itself according to
opinion, or it will not attain its end.

In proportion as these prejudices are known to be generally
diffused, or long received, the taste which conforms to them
approaches nearer to certainty, and to a sort of resemblance to
real science, even where opinions are found to be no better than
prejudices. And since they deserve, on account of their duration
and extent, to be considered as really true, they become capable of
no small decree of stability and determination by their permanent
and uniform nature.

As these prejudices become more narrow, more local, more
transitory, this secondary taste becomes more and more fantastical;
recedes from real science; is less to be approved by reason, and
less followed in practice; though in no case perhaps to be wholly
neglected, where it does not stand, as it sometimes does, in direct
defiance of the most respectable opinions received amongst mankind.

Having laid down these positions, I shall proceed with less method,
because less will serve, to explain and apply them.

We will take it for granted that reason is something invariable and
fixed in the nature of things; and without endeavouring to go back
to an account of first principles, which for ever will elude our
search, we will conclude that whatever goes under the name of
taste, which we can fairly bring under the dominion of reason, must
be considered as equally exempt from change. If therefore, in the
course of this inquiry, we can show that there are rules for the
conduct of the artist which are fixed and invariable, it implies,
of course, that the art of the connoisseur, or, in other words,
taste, has likewise invariable principles.

Of the judgment which we make on the works of art, and the
preference that we give to one class of art over another, if a
reason be demanded, the question is perhaps evaded by answering, "I
judge from my taste"; but it does not follow that a better answer
cannot be given, though for common gazers this may be sufficient.
Every man is not obliged to investigate the causes of his
approbation or dislike.

The arts would lie open for ever to caprice and casualty, if those
who are to judge of their excellences had no settled principles by
which they are to regulate their decisions, and the merit or defect
of performances were to be determined by unguided fancy. And
indeed we may venture to assert that whatever speculative knowledge
is necessary to the artist, is equally and indispensably necessary
to the connoisseur.

The first idea that occurs in the consideration of what is fixed in
art, or in taste, is that presiding principle of which I have so
frequently spoken in former discourses, the general idea of nature.
The beginning, the middle, and the end of everything that is
valuable in taste, is comprised in the knowledge of what is truly
nature; for whatever ideas are not conformable to those of nature,
or universal opinion, must be considered as more or less
capricious.

The idea of nature comprehending not only the forms which nature
produces, but also the nature and internal fabric and organisation,
as I may call it, of the human mind and imagination: general
ideas, beauty, or nature, are but different ways of expressing the
same thing, whether we apply these terms to statues, poetry, or
picture. Deformity is not nature, but an accidental deviation from
her accustomed practice. This general idea therefore ought to be
called nature, and nothing else, correctly speaking, has a right to
that name. But we are so far from speaking, in common
conversation, with any such accuracy, that, on the contrary, when
we criticise Rembrandt and other Dutch painters, who introduced
into their historical pictures exact representations of individual
objects with all their imperfections, we say, though it is not in a
good taste, yet it is nature.

This misapplication of terms must be very often perplexing to the
young student. Is not, he may say, art an imitation of nature?
Must he not, therefore, who imitates her with the greatest fidelity
be the best artist? By this mode of reasoning Rembrandt has a
higher place than Raffaelle. But a very little reflection will
serve to show us that these particularities cannot be nature: for
how can that be the nature of man, in which no two individuals are
the same?

It plainly appears that as a work is conducted under the influence
of general ideas or partial it is principally to be considered as
the effect of a good or a bad taste.

As beauty therefore does not consist in taking what lies
immediately before you, so neither, in our pursuit of taste, are
those opinions which we first received and adopted the best choice,
or the most natural to the mind and imagination.

In the infancy of our knowledge we seize with greediness the good
that is within our reach; it is by after-consideration, and in
consequence of discipline, that we refuse the present for a greater
good at a distance. The nobility or elevation of all arts, like
the excellence of virtue itself, consists in adopting this enlarged
and comprehensive idea, and all criticism built upon the more
confined view of what is natural, may properly be called shallow
criticism, rather than false; its defect is that the truth is not
sufficiently extensive.

It has sometimes happened that some of the greatest men in our art
have been betrayed into errors by this confined mode of reasoning.
Poussin, who, upon the whole, may be produced as an instance of
attention to the most enlarged and extensive ideas of nature, from
not having settled principles on this point, has in one instance at
least, I think, deserted truth for prejudice. He is said to have
vindicated the conduct of Julio Romano, for his inattention to the
masses of light and shade, or grouping the figures, in the battle
of Constantine, as if designedly neglected, the better to
correspond with the hurry and confusion of a battle. Poussin's own
conduct in his representations of Bacchanalian triumphs and
sacrifices, makes us more easily give credit to this report, since
in such subjects, as well indeed as in many others, it was too much
his own practice. The best apology we can make for this conduct is
what proceeds from the association of our ideas, the prejudice we
have in favour of antiquity. Poussin's works, as I have formerly
observed, have very much the air of the ancient manner of painting,
in which there are not the least traces to make us think that what
we call the keeping, the composition of light and shade, or
distribution of the work into masses, claimed any part of their
attention. But surely whatever apology we may find out for this
neglect, it ought to be ranked among the defects of Poussin, as
well as of the antique paintings; and the moderns have a right to
that praise which is their due, for having given so pleasing an
addition to the splendour of the art.

Perhaps no apology ought to be received for offences committed
against the vehicle (whether it be the organ of seeing or of
hearing) by which our pleasures are conveyed to the mind. We must
take the same care that the eye be not perplexed and distracted by
a confusion of equal parts, or equal lights, as of offending it by
an unharmonious mixture of colours. We may venture to be more
confident of the truth of this observation, since we find that
Shakespeare, on a parallel occasion, has made Hamlet recommend to
the players a precept of the same kind, never to offend the ear by
harsh sounds:- "In the very torrent, tempest, and whirlwind of your
passions," says he, "you must beget a temperance that may give it
smoothness." And yet, at the same time, he very justly observes,
" The end of playing, both at the first and now, is to hold, as it
were, the mirror up to nature." No one can deny but that violent
passions will naturally emit harsh and disagreeable tones; yet this
great poet and critic thought that this imitation of nature would
cost too much, if purchased at the expense of disagreeable
sensations, or, as he expresses it, of "splitting the ear." The
poet and actor, as well as the painter of genius who is well
acquainted with all the variety and sources of pleasure in the mind
and imagination, has little regard or attention to common nature,
or creeping after common sense. By overleaping those narrow
bounds, he more effectually seizes the whole mind, and more
powerfully accomplishes his purpose. This success is ignorantly
imagined to proceed from inattention to all rules, and in defiance
of reason and judgment; whereas it is in truth acting according to
the best rules, and the justest reason.

He who thinks nature, in the narrow sense of the word, is alone to
be followed, will produce but a scanty entertainment for the
imagination: everything is to be done with which it is natural for
the mind to be pleased, whether it proceeds from simplicity or
variety, uniformity or irregularity: whether the scenes are
familiar or exotic; rude and wild, or enriched and cultivated; for
it is natural for the mind to be pleased with all these in their
turn. In short, whatever pleases has in it what is analogous to
the mind, and is therefore, in the highest and best sense of the
word, natural.

It is this sense of nature or truth which ought more particularly
to be cultivated by the professors of art; and it may be observed
that many wise and learned men, who have accustomed their minds to
admit nothing for truth but what can be proved by mathematical
demonstration, have seldom any relish for those arts which address
themselves to the fancy, the rectitude and truth of which is known
by another kind of proof: and we may add that the acquisition of
this knowledge requires as much circumspection and sagacity, as to
attain those truths which are more open to demonstration. Reason
must ultimately determine our choice on every occasion; but this
reason may still be exerted ineffectually by applying to taste
principles which, though right as far as they go, yet do not reach
the object. No man, for instance, can deny that it seems at first
view very reasonable, that a statue which is to carry down to
posterity the resemblance of an individual should be dressed in the
fashion of the times, in the dress which he himself wore: this
would certainly be true if the dress were part of the man. But
after a time the dress is only an amusement for an antiquarian; and
if it obstructs the general design of the piece, it is to be
disregarded by the artist. Common sense must here give way to a
higher sense.

In the naked form, and in the disposition of the drapery, the
difference between one artist and another is principally seen. But
if he is compelled to the modern dress, the naked form is entirely
hid, and the drapery is already disposed by the skill of the
tailor. Were a Phidias to obey such absurd commands, he would
please no more than an ordinary sculptor; since, in the inferior
parts of every art, the learned and the ignorant are nearly upon a
level.

These were probably among the reasons that induced the sculptor of
that wonderful figure of Laocoon to exhibit him naked,
notwithstanding he was surprised in the act of sacrificing to
Apollo, and consequently ought to be shown in his sacerdotal
habits, if those greater reasons had not preponderated. Art is not
yet in so high estimation with us as to obtain so great a sacrifice
as the ancients made, especially the Grecians, who suffered
themselves to be represented naked, whether they were generals,
lawgivers, or kings.

Under this head of balancing and choosing the greater reason, or of
two evils taking the least, we may consider the conduct of Rubens
in the Luxembourg gallery, of mixing allegorical figures with
representations of real personages, which, though acknowledged to
be a fault, yet, if the artist considered himself as engaged to
furnish this gallery with a rich and splendid ornament, this could
not be done, at least in an equal degree, without peopling the air
and water with these allegorical figures: he therefore
accomplished that he purposes. In this case all lesser
considerations, which tend to obstruct the great end of the work,
must yield and give way.

If it is objected that Rubens judged ill at first in thinking it
necessary to make his work so very ornamental, this brings the
question upon new ground. It was his peculiar style; he could
paint in no other; and he was selected for that work, probably,
because it was his style. Nobody will dispute but some of the best
of the Roman or Bolognian schools would have produced a more
learned and more noble work.

This leads us to another important province of taste, of weighing
the value of the different classes of the art, and of estimating
them accordingly.

All arts have means within them of applying themselves with success
both to the intellectual and sensitive part of our natures. It can
be no dispute, supposing both these means put in practice with
equal abilities, to which we ought to give the preference: to him
who represents the heroic arts and more dignified passions of man,
or to him who, by the help of meretricious ornaments, however
elegant and graceful, captivates the sensuality, as it may be
called, of our taste. Thus the Roman and Bolognian schools are
reasonably preferred to the Venetian, Flemish, or Dutch schools, as
they address themselves to our best and noblest faculties.

Well-turned periods in eloquence, or harmony of numbers in poetry,
which are in those arts what colouring is in painting, however
highly we may esteem them, can never be considered as of equal
importance with the art of unfolding truths that are useful to
mankind, and which make us better or wiser. Nor can those works
which remind us of the poverty and meanness of our nature, be
considered as of equal rank with what excites ideas of grandeur, or
raises and dignifies humanity; or, in the words of a late poet,
which makes the beholder learn to venerate himself as man.

It is reason and good sense therefore which ranks and estimates
every art, and every part of that art, according to its importance,
from the painter of animated down to inanimated nature. We will
not allow a man, who shall prefer the inferior style, to say it is
his taste; taste here has nothing, or at least ought to have
nothing to do with the question. He wants not taste, but sense,
and soundness of judgment.

Indeed, perfection in an inferior style may be reasonably preferred
to mediocrity in the highest walks of art. A landscape of Claude
Lorraine may be preferred to a history of Luca Jordano; but hence
appears the necessity of the connoisseur's knowing in what consists
the excellence of each class, in order to judge how near it
approaches to perfection.

Even in works of the same kind, as in history painting, which is
composed of various parts, excellence of an inferior species,
carried to a very high degree, will make a work very valuable, and
in some measure compensate for the absence of the higher kind of
merits. It is the duty of the connoisseur to know and esteem, as
much as it may deserve, every part of painting; he will not then
think even Bassano unworthy of his notice, who, though totally
devoid of expression, sense, grace, or elegance, may be esteemed on
account of his admirable taste of colours, which, in his best
works, are little inferior to those of Titian.

Since I have mentioned Bassano, we must do him likewise the justice
to acknowledge that, though he did not aspire to the dignity of
expressing the characters and passions of men, yet, with respect to
the facility and truth in his manner of touching animals of all
kinds, and giving them what painters call their character, few have
ever excelled him.

To Bassano we may add Paul Veronese and Tintoret, for their entire
inattention to what is justly esteemed the most essential part of
our art, the expression of the passions. Notwithstanding these
glaring deficiencies, we justly esteem their works; but it must be
remembered that they do not please from those defects, but from
their great excellences of another kind, and in spite of such
transgressions. These excellences, too, as far as they go, are
founded in the truth of general nature. They tell the truth,
though not the whole truth.

By these considerations, which can never be too frequently
impressed, may be obviated two errors which I observed to have
been, formerly at least, the most prevalent, and to be most
injurious to artists: that of thinking taste and genius to have
nothing to do with reason, and that of taking particular living
objects for nature.

I shall now say something on that part of taste which, as I have
hinted to you before, does not belong so much to the external form
of things, but is addressed to the mind, and depends on its
original frame, or, to use the expression, the organisation of the
soul; I mean the imagination and the passions. The principles of
these are as invariable as the former, and are to be known and
reasoned upon in the same manner, by an appeal to common sense
deciding upon the common feelings of mankind. This sense, and
these feelings, appear to me of equal authority, and equally
conclusive.

Now this appeal implies a general uniformity and agreement in the
minds of men. It would be else an idle and vain endeavour to
establish rules of art; it would be pursuing a phantom to attempt
to move affections with which we were entirely unacquainted. We
have no reason to suspect there is a greater difference between our
minds than between our forms, of which, though there are no two
alike, yet there is a general similitude that goes through the
whole race of mankind; and those who have cultivated their taste
can distinguish what is beautiful or deformed, or, in other words,
what agrees with or what deviates from the general idea of nature,
in one case as well as in the other.

The internal fabric of our mind, as well as the external form of
our bodies, being nearly uniform, it seems then to follow, of
course, that as the imagination is incapable of producing anything
originally of itself, and can only vary and combine these ideas
with which it is furnished by means of the senses, there will be,
of course, an agreement in the imaginations as in the senses of
men. There being this agreement, it follows that in all cases, in
our lightest amusements as well as in our most serious actions and
engagements of life, we must regulate our affections of every kind
by that of others. The well-disciplined mind acknowledges this
authority, and submits its own opinion to the public voice.

It is from knowing what are the general feelings and passions of
mankind that we acquire a true idea of what imagination is; though
it appears as if we had nothing to do but to consult our own
particular sensations, and these were sufficient to ensure us from
all error and mistake.

A knowledge of the disposition and character of the human mind can
be acquired only by experience: a great deal will be learned, I
admit, by a habit of examining what passes in our bosoms, what are
our own motives of action, and of what kind of sentiments we are
conscious on any occasion. We may suppose a uniformity, and
conclude that the same effect will be produced by the same cause in
the minds of others. This examination will contribute to suggest
to us matters of inquiry; but we can never be sure that our own
sensations are true and right till they are confirmed by more
extensive observation.

One man opposing another determines nothing but a general union of
minds, like a general combination of the forces of all mankind,
makes a strength that is irresistible. In fact, as he who does not
know himself does not know others, so it may be said with equal
truth, that he who does not know others knows himself but very
imperfectly.

A man who thinks he is guarding himself against Prejudices by
resisting the authority of others, leaves open every avenue to
singularity, vanity, self-conceit, obstinacy, and many other vices,
all tending to warp the judgment and prevent the natural operation
of his faculties.

This submission to others is a deference which we owe, and indeed
are forced involuntarily to pay.

In fact we are never satisfied with our opinions till they are
ratified and confirmed by the suffrages of the rest of mankind. We
dispute and wrangle for ever; we endeavour to get men to come to us
when we do not go to them.

He therefore who is acquainted with the works which have pleased
different ages and different countries, and has formed his opinion
on them, has more materials and more means of knowing what is
analogous to the mind of man than he who is conversant only with
the works of his own age or country. What has pleased, and
continues to please, is likely to please again: hence are derived
the rules of art, and on this immovable foundation they must ever
stand.

This search and study of the history of the mind ought not to be
confined to one art only. It is by the analogy that one art bears
to another that many things are ascertained which either were but
faintly seen, or, perhaps, would not have been discovered at all if
the inventor had not received the first hints from the practices of
a sister art on a similar occasion. The frequent allusions which
every man who treats of any art is obliged to draw from others in
order to illustrate and confirm his principles, sufficiently show
their near connection and inseparable relation.

All arts having the same general end, which is to please, and
addressing themselves to the same faculties through the medium of
the senses, it follows that their rules and principles must have as
great affinity as the different materials and the different organs
or vehicles by which they pass to the mind will permit them to
retain.

We may therefore conclude that the real substance, as it may be
called, of what goes under the name of taste, is fixed and
established in the nature of things; that there are certain and
regular causes by which the imagination and passions of men are
affected; and that the knowledge of these causes is acquired by a
laborious and diligent investigation of nature, and by the same
slow progress as wisdom or knowledge of every kind, however
instantaneous its operations may appear when thus acquired.

It has been often observed that the good and virtuous man alone can
acquire this true or just relish, even of works of art. This
opinion will not appear entirely without foundation when we
consider that the same habit of mind which is acquired by our
search after truth in the more serious duties of life, is only
transferred to the pursuit of lighter amusements: the same
disposition, the same desire to find something steady, substantial,
and durable, on which the mind can lean, as it were, and rest with
safety. The subject only is changed. We pursue the same method in
our search after the idea of beauty and perfection in each; of
virtue, by looking forwards beyond ourselves to society, and to the
whole; of arts, by extending our views in the same manner to all
ages and all times.

Every art, like our own, has in its composition fluctuating as well
as fixed principles. It is an attentive inquiry into their
difference that will enable us to determine how far we are
influenced by custom and habit, and what is fixed in the nature of
things.

To distinguish how much has solid foundation, we may have recourse
to the same proof by which some hold wit ought to be tried--whether
it preserves itself when translated. That wit is false which can
subsist only in one language; and that picture which pleases only
one age or one nation, owes its reception to some local or
accidental association of ideas.

We may apply this to every custom and habit of life. Thus the
general principles of urbanity, politeness, or civility, have been
ever the same in all nations; but the mode in which they are
dressed is continually varying. The general idea of showing
respect is by making yourself less: but the manner, whether by
bowing the body, kneeling, prostration, pulling off the upper part
of our dress, or taking away the lower, is a matter of habit. It
would be unjust to conclude that all ornaments, because they were
at first arbitrarily contrived, are therefore undeserving of our
attention; on the contrary, he who neglects the cultivation of
those ornaments, acts contrarily to nature and reason. As life
would be imperfect without its highest ornaments, the arts, so
these arts themselves would be imperfect without THEIR ornaments.

Though we by no means ought to rank these with positive and
substantial beauties, yet it must be allowed that a knowledge of
both is essentially requisite towards forming a complete, whole,
and perfect taste. It is in reality from the ornaments that arts
receive their peculiar character and complexion; we may add that in
them we find the characteristical mark of a national taste, as by
throwing up a feather in the air we know which way the wind blows,
better than by a more heavy matter.

The striking distinction between the works of the Roman, Bolognian,
and Venetian schools, consists more in that general effect which is
produced by colours than in the more profound excellences of the
art; at least it is from thence that each is distinguished and
known at first sight. As it is the ornaments rather than the
proportions of architecture which at the first glance distinguish
the different orders from each other; the Doric is known by its
triglyphs, the Ionic by its volutes, and the Corinthian by its
acanthus.

What distinguishes oratory from a cold narration, is a more liberal
though chaste use of these ornaments which go under the name of
figurative and metaphorical expressions; and poetry distinguishes
itself from oratory by words and expressions still more ardent and
glowing. What separates and distinguishes poetry is more
particularly the ornament of VERSE; it is this which gives it its
character, and is an essential, without which it cannot exist.
Custom has appropriated different metre to different kinds of
composition, in which the world is not perfectly agreed. In
England the dispute is not yet settled which is to be preferred,
rhyme or blank verse. But however we disagree about what these
metrical ornaments shall be, that some metre is essentially
necessary is universally acknowledged.

In poetry or eloquence, to determine how far figurative or
metaphorical language may proceed, and when it begins to be
affectation or beside the truth, must be determined by taste,
though this taste we must never forget is regulated and formed by
the presiding feelings of mankind, by those works which have
approved themselves to all times and all persons.

Thus, though eloquence has undoubtedly an essential and intrinsic
excellence, and immovable principles common to all languages,
founded in the nature of our passions and affections, yet it has
its ornaments and modes of address which are merely arbitrary.
What is approved in the Eastern nations as grand and majestic,
would be considered by the Greeks and Romans as turgid and
inflated; and they, in return, would be thought by the Orientals to
express themselves in a cold and insipid manner.

We may add likewise to the credit of ornaments, that it is by their
means that art itself accomplishes its purpose. Fresnoy calls
colouring, which is one of the chief ornaments of painting, lena
sororis, that which procures lovers and admirers to the more
valuable excellences of the art.

It appears to be the same right turn of mind which enables a man to
acquire the TRUTH, or the just idea of what is right in the
ornaments, as in the more stable principles of art. It has still
the same centre of perfection, though it is the centre of a smaller
circle.

To illustrate this by the fashion of dress, in which there is
allowed to be a good or, bad taste. The component parts of dress
are continually changing from great to little, from short to long,
but the general form still remains; it is still the same general
dress which is comparatively fixed, though on a very slender
foundation, but it is on this which fashion must rest. He who
invents with the most success, or dresses in, the best taste, would
probably, from the same sagacity employed to greater purposes, have
discovered equal skill, or have formed the same correct taste in
the highest labours of art.

I have mentioned taste in dress, which is certainly one of the
lowest subjects to which this word is applied; yet, as I have
before observed, there is a right even here, however narrow its
foundation respecting the fashion of any particular nation. But we
have still more slender means of determining, in regard to the
different customs of different ages or countries, to which to give
the preference, since they seem to be all equally removed from
nature.

If an European, when he has cut off his beard, and put false hair
on his head, or bound up his own natural hair in regular hard
knots, as unlike nature as he can possibly make it; and having
rendered them immovable by the help of the fat of hogs, has covered
the whole with flour, laid on by a machine with the utmost
regularity; if, when thus attired he issues forth, he meets a
Cherokee Indian, who has bestowed as much time at his toilet, and
laid on with equal care and attention his yellow and red ochre on
particular parts of his forehead or cheeks, as he judges most
becoming; whoever despises the other for this attention to the
fashion of his country, whichever of these two first feels himself
provoked to laugh, is the barbarian.

All these fashions are very innocent, neither worth disquisition,
nor any endeavour to alter them, as the change would, in all
probability, be equally distant from nature. The only
circumstances against which indignation may reasonably be moved,
are where the operation is painful or destructive of health, such
as is practised at Otahaiti, and the straight lacing of the English
ladies; of the last of which, how destructive it must be to health
and long life, the professor of anatomy took an opportunity of
proving a few days since in this Academy.

It is in dress as in things of greater consequence. Fashions
originate from those only who have the high and powerful advantages
of rank, birth, and fortune; as many of the ornaments of art, those
at least for which no reason can be given, are transmitted to us,
are adopted, and acquire their consequence from the company in
which we have been used to see them. As Greece and Rome are the
fountains from whence have flowed all kinds of excellence, to that
veneration which they have a right to claim for the pleasure and
knowledge which they have afforded us, we voluntarily add our
approbation of every ornament and every custom that belonged to
them, even to the fashion of their dress. For it may be observed
that, not satisfied with them in their own place, we make no
difficulty of dressing statues of modern heroes or senators in the
fashion of the Roman armour or peaceful robe; we go so far as
hardly to bear a statue in any other drapery.

The figures of the great men of those nations have come down to us
in sculpture. In sculpture remain almost all the excellent
specimens of ancient art. We have so far associated personal
dignity to the persons thus represented, and the truth of art to
their manner of representation, that it is not in our power any
longer to separate them. This is not so in painting; because,
having no excellent ancient portraits, that connection was never
formed. Indeed, we could no more venture to paint a general
officer in a Roman military habit, than we could make a statue in
the present uniform. But since we have no ancient portraits, to
show how ready we are to adopt those kind of prejudices, we make
the best authority among the moderns serve the same purpose. The
great variety of excellent portraits with which Vandyke has
enriched this nation, we are not content to admire for their real
excellence, but extend our approbation even to the dress which
happened to be the fashion of that age. We all very well remember
how common it was a few years ago for portraits to be drawn in this
Gothic dress, and this custom is not yet entirely laid aside. By
this means it must be acknowledged very ordinary pictures acquired
something of the air and effect of the works of Vandyke, and
appeared therefore at first sight to be better pictures than they
really were; they appeared so, however, to those only who had the
means of making this association, for when made, it was
irresistible. But this association is nature, and refers to that
Secondary truth that comes from conformity to general prejudice and
opinion; it is therefore not merely fantastical. Besides the
prejudice which we have in favour of ancient dresses, there may be
likewise other reasons, amongst which we may justly rank the
simplicity of them, consisting of little more than one single piece
of drapery, without those whimsical capricious forms by which all
other dresses are embarrassed.

Thus, though it is from the prejudice we have in favour of the
ancients, who have taught us architecture, that we have adopted
likewise their ornaments; and though we are satisfied that neither
nature nor reason is the foundation of those beauties which we
imagine we see in that art, yet if any one persuaded of this truth
should, therefore, invent new orders of equal beauty, which we will
suppose to be possible, yet they would not please, nor ought he to
complain, since the old has that great advantage of having custom
and prejudice on its side. In this case we leave what has every
prejudice in its favour to take that which will have no advantage
over what we have left, but novelty, which soon destroys itself,
and, at any rate, is but a weak antagonist against custom.

These ornaments, having the right of possession, ought not to be
removed but to make room for not only what has higher pretensions,
but such pretensions as will balance the evil and confusion which
innovation always brings with it.

To this we may add, even the durability of the materials will often
contribute to give a superiority to one object over another.
Ornaments in buildings, with which taste is principally concerned,
are composed of materials which last longer than those of which
dress is composed; it, therefore, makes higher pretensions to our
favour and prejudice.

Some attention is surely required to what we can no more get rid of
than we can go out of ourselves. We are creatures of prejudice; we
neither can nor ought to eradicate it; we must only regulate, it by
reason, which regulation by reason is, indeed, little more than
obliging the lesser, the focal and temporary prejudices, to give
way to those which are more durable and lasting.

He, therefore, who in his practice of portrait painting wishes to
dignify his subject, which we will suppose to be a lady, will not
paint her in the modern dress, the familiarity of which alone is
sufficient to destroy all dignity. He takes care that his work
shall correspond to those ideas and that imagination which he knows
will regulate the judgment of others, and, therefore, dresses his
figure something with the general air of the antique for the sake
of dignity, and preserves something of the modern for the sake of
likeness. By this conduct his works correspond with those
prejudices which we have in favour of what we continually see; and
the relish of the antique simplicity corresponds with what we may
call the, more learned and scientific prejudice.

There was a statue made not long since of Voltaire, which the
sculptor, not having that respect for the prejudices of mankind
which he ought to have, has made entirely naked, and as meagre and
emaciated as the original is said to be. The consequence is what
might be expected; it has remained in the sculptor's shop, though
it was intended as a public ornament and a public honour to
Voltaire, as it was procured at the expense of his cotemporary wits
and admirers.

Whoever would reform a nation, supposing a bad taste to prevail in
it, will not accomplish his purpose by going directly against the
stream of their prejudices. Men's minds must be prepared to
receive what is new to them. Reformation is a work of time. A
national taste, however wrong it may be, cannot be totally change
at once; we must yield a little to the prepossession which has
taken hold on the mind, and we may then bring people to adopt what
would offend them if endeavoured to be introduced by storm. When
Battisto Franco was employed, in conjunction with Titian, Paul
Veronese, and Tintoret, to adorn the library of St. Mark, his work,
Vasari says, gave less satisfaction than any of the others: the
dry manner of the Roman school was very ill calculated to please
eyes that had been accustomed to the luxuriance, splendour, and
richness of Venetian colouring. Had the Romans been the judges of
this work, probably the determination would have been just
contrary; for in the more noble parts of the art Battisto Franco
was, perhaps, not inferior to any of his rivals.

Gentlemen,--It has been the main scope and principal end of this
discourse to demonstrate the reality of a standard in taste, as
well as in corporeal beauty; that a false or depraved taste is a
thing as well known, as easily discovered, as anything that is
deformed, misshapen, or wrong in our form or outward make; and that
this knowledge is derived from the uniformity of sentiments among
mankind, from whence proceeds the knowledge of what are the general
habits of nature, the result of which is an idea of perfect beauty.

If what has been advanced be true, that besides this beauty or
truth which is formed on the uniform eternal and immutable laws of
nature, and which of necessity can be but one; that besides this
one immutable verity there are likewise what we have called
apparent or secondary truths proceeding from local and temporary
prejudices, fancies, fashions, or accidental connection of ideas;
if it appears that these last have still their foundation, however
slender, in the original fabric of our minds, it follows that all
these truths or beauties deserve and require the attention of the
artist in proportion to their stability or duration, or as their
influence is more or less extensive. And let me add that as they
ought not to pass their just bounds, so neither do they, in a well-
regulated taste, at all prevent or weaken the influence of these
general principles, which alone can give to art its true and
permanent dignity.

To form this just taste is undoubtedly in your own power, but it is
to reason and philosophy that you must have recourse; from them we
must borrow the balance by which is to be weighed and estimated the
value of every pretension that intrudes itself on your notice.

The general objection which is made to the introduction of
philosophy into the regions of taste is, that it checks and
restrains the flights of the imagination, and gives that timidity
which an over-carefulness not to err or act contrary to reason is
likely to produce.

It is not so. Fear is neither reason nor philosophy. The true
spirit of philosophy by giving knowledge gives a manly confidence,
and substitutes rational firmness in the place of vain presumption.
A man of real taste is always a man of judgment in other respects;
and those inventions which either disdain or shrink from reason,
are generally, I fear, more like the dreams of a distempered brain
than the exalted enthusiasm of a sound and true genius. In the
midst of the highest flights of fancy or imagination, reason ought
to preside from first to last, though I admit her more powerful
operation is upon reflection.

I cannot help adding that some of the greatest names of antiquity,
and those who have most distinguished themselves in works of genius
and imagination, were equally eminent for their critical skill.
Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Horace; and among the moderns,
Boileau, Corneille, Pope, and Dryden, are at least instances of
genius not being destroyed by attention or subjection to rules and
science. I should hope, therefore, that the natural consequence
likewise of what has been said would be to excite in you a desire
of knowing the principles and conduct of the great masters of our
art, and respect and veneration for them when known.