not always united with that good humour towards individuals, to which it seems so nearly allied in theory, and with which it is, in fact, so closely connected, in a great majority of instances: Nay, this love of nature sometimes continues undiminished in men, who, in consequence of disappointed hopes and expectations, have contracted a decided tendency to misanthropy. It is not, therefore, surprising, that an enthusiastic admiration of natural beauty should occasionally meet in the same person, with a cold and splenetic taste in the fine arts; at least in instances where the productions of the present times are to be judged of. But such exceptions do not invalidate the truth of the general proposition, any more than of every other general conclusion relative to human character. Their explanation is to be sought for in the accidental history of individual minds; and, when successfully investigated, will constantly be found (supposing our results to be cautiously drawn from a comprehensive survey of human life) to lend additional evidence to the very rules which they seem, at first view, to contradict.

One very obvious consideration furnishes, of itself, in the case now before us, a key to some apparent inconsistencies in the reflections which I have already hazarded. In such maxims concerning Taste, as that which I have quoted from Shenstone, due attention is seldom paid to the diversified appearances it exhibits, according to the two very different purposes for which it may be exercised; First, as a principle in the artist's mind, regulating and directing the exertions of his own genius; and Secondly, as

a principle in the mind of the critic, who judges of

the works produced by the genius of another.

In the former case, where none of the moral causes by which taste is most liable to be warped have room to operate, it cannot be denied, that it is sometimes displayed in no inconsiderable degree (although, I believe, never in its highest perfection) by individuals, in whose character's neither good humour nor any other amiable quality is at all conspicuous. In the latter case, an habitual justice and mildness in its decisions, more particularly where works of contemporary genius are in question, is an infallible test of the absence of those selfish partialities and peevish jealousies, which encroach so deeply on the happiness of many, whom nature has distinguished by the most splendid endowments; and which, wherever they are allowed to operate, are equally fatal to the head and to the heart.

It is a melancholy fact with respect to artists of all classes;-painters, poets, orators, and eloquent writers ;—that a large proportion of those who have evinced the soundest and the surest taste in their own productions, have yet appeared totally destitute of this power, when they have assumed the office of critics. How is this to be accounted for, but by the influence of bad passions (unsuspected, probably, by themselves) in blinding or jaundicing their critical eye? In truth, it is only when the mind is perfectly serene, that the decisions of taste can be relied on. In these nicest of all operations of the intellect, where the grounds of judgment are often so shadowy and complicated, the latent sources of error

are numberless; and to guard against them, it is necessary that no circumstance, however trifling, should occur, either to discompose the feelings, or to mislead the understanding.

Among our English poets, who is more vigorous, correct, and polished, than Dr Johnson, in the few poetical compositions which he has left? Whatever may be thought of his claims to originality of genius, no person who reads his verses can deny, that he possessed a sound taste in this species of composition; and yet, how wayward and perverse, in many instances, are his decisions, when he sits in judgment on a political adversary, or when he treads on the ashes of a departed rival! To myself (much as I admire his great and various merits, both as a critic and as a writer), human nature never appears in a more humiliating form, than when I read his Lives of the Poets; a performance which exhibits a more faithful, expressive, and curious picture of the author, than all the portraits attempted by his biographers; and which, in this point of view, compensates fully by the moral lessons it may suggest, for the critical errors which it sanctions. The errors, alas! are not such as any one who has perused his imitations of Juvenal can place to the account of a bad taste; but such as had their root in weaknesses, which a noble mind would be still more unwilling to acknowledge.

If these observations are well-founded, they seem to render it somewhat doubtful, whether, in the different arts, the most successful adventurers are likely to prove, in matters of criticism, the safest guides;

although Pope appears to have considered the censorial authority as their exclusive prerogative :

"Let such teach others, who themselves excel,
"And censure freely who have written well."

That the maxim is founded in good sense, as long as the artist confines himself to general critical precepts, or to the productions of other times, I do not mean at present to dispute; although even on this point I entertain some doubts. But, in estimating the merits of a contemporary candidate for fame, how seldom do we meet with an artist, whose decisions are dictated by Taste alone, without a palpable admixture of caprice or of passion; and how often have we, on such occasions, to lament that oracular contempt of public opinion and public feeling which conscious superiority is too apt to inspire? Other causes, besides, of a much more secret and obscure nature than these moral weaknesses, co-operate powerfully in producing the same effect. Such, for example, are the biasses, originating in casual and inexplicable associations, which, in powerful but limited minds, are frequently identified with the characteristical stamina of genius; furnishing matter of wonder and of pity to others, whose intellectual features are less strongly marked by individual peculiarities." Thomson has lately published a poem, "called The Castle of Indolence, in which there are

some good stanzas." Who could have expected this sentence from the pen of Gray? In an ordinary critic, possessed of one hundredth part of Gray's sensibility and taste, such total indifference

to the beauties of this exquisite performance would be utterly impossible. *

But I will not multiply illustrations on a topic so peculiarly ungrateful. The hints which I have already thrown out are, I hope, sufficient to lead the thoughts of my younger readers to those practical reflections which they were intended to suggest. They have, indeed, but little originality to boast of; but they point at some sources of false taste, overlooked in our common systems of criticism; and which, however compatible with many of the rarest and most precious gifts of the understanding, are inconsistent with that unclouded reason, that unperverted sensibility, and that unconquerable candour, which mark a comprehensive, an upright, and an elevated mind.

When Eschines, after his retreat to Rhodes, was, one day, reading aloud to some friends the oration Tep σTepavou, which had occasioned his exile; and when his hearers were lost in wonder at the eloquence of Demosthenes ;-" What," said he, "would you have thought, if you had heard him

pronounce it ?"-Such is the language (if I may borrow the words of Mr Gibbon)" in which one

*La Bruyere (according to the usual practice of writers of maxims) has pushed this train of thinking to an extreme, in order to give more point to his apothegm. Yet there is some truth, as well as wit, in the following sentences:

"Si une belle femme approuve la beauté d'une autre femme, "on peut conclure qu'elle a mieux que ce qu'elle approuve. "Si un poete loue les vers d'un autre poete, il y a à parier qu'ils "sont mauvais et sans conséquence." k k