and oppreffion of vice, forms a difagreeable spectacle, and is carefully avoided by all mafters of the drama. In order to difmifs the audience with intire fatisfaction and contentment, the virtue muft either convert itself into a noble courageous defpair, or the vice receive its proper punishment.

Moft painters appear in this light to have been very unhappy in their fubjects. As they wrought much for churches and convents, they have chiefly reprefented fuch horrible fubjects as crucifixions and martyrdoms, where nothing appears but tortures, wounds, executions, and paffive fuffering, without any action or affection. When they turned their pencil from this ghaftly mythology, they had recourse commonly to OVID, whose fictions, tho' paffionate and agreeable, are scarce natural or probable enough for painting.

The fame inverfion of that principle, which is here infifted on, difplays itself in common life, as in the effects of oratory and poetry. Raife fo the fubordinate paffion that it becomes the predominant, it fwallows up that affection, which it before nourished and increased. Too much jealousy extinguishes love: Too much difficulty renders us indifferent: Too much fickness and infirmity difgufts a selfish and unkind parent.

What fo difagreeable as the difmal, gloomy, difaftrous ftories, with which melancholy people entertain their companions? The uneafy paffion, being there raised alone, unaccompanied with any fpirit, genius, or eloquence, conveys a pure uneafinefs, and is attended with nothing that can soften it into pleasure or fatisfaction.

ESSAY

ESSAY Y XXIII.

Of the STANDARD of TASTE.

TH

HE great variety of Taftes, as well as of opinions, which prevail in the world, is too obvious not to haye fallen under every one's obfervation. Men of the moft confined knowlege are able to remark a difference of taste in the narrow circle of their acquaintance, even where the perfons have been educated under the same government, and have early imbibed the fame prejudices. But those who can enlarge their view to contemplate distant nations and remote ages, are ftill more furprized at the great inconfiftence and contrariety. We are apt to call barbarous whatever departs widely from our own tafte and apprehension: But foon find the epithet of reproach retorted on us. And the highest arrogance and felf-conceit is at laft ftartled, on obferving an equal affurance on all fides, and fcruples, amidst fuch a contest of sentiments, to pronounce pofitively in its own favour.

As this variety of tafte is obvious to the most careless enquirer; fo will it be found, on examination, to be still greater in reality than in appearance. The fentiments of men often differ with regard to beauty and deformity of all kinds, even while their general difcourfe is the fame. There are certain terms in every language, which import blame, and others praife; and all men, who use the fame tongue, muft agree in their application of them.

Every voice is united in applauding elegance, propriety, fimplicity, fpirit in writing; and in blaming fuftian, affectation, coldnefs, and a falfe brilliancy: But when critics come to particulars, this feeming unanimity vanifhes; and it is found, that they had affixed a very different meaning to their expreffions. In all matters of opinion and fcience, the cafe is oppofite: The difference among men is there oftner found to lie in generals than in particulars; and to be lefs in reality than in appearance, An explication of the terms commonly ends the controverfy; and the difputants are surprized to find, that they had been quarrelling, while at bottom they agreed in their judgment.

It is

ages

Those who found morality on fentiment, more than on reafon, are inclined to comprehend ethics under the former obfervation, and to fuppofe, that in all queftions, which regard conduct and manners, the difference among men is really greater than at firft fight it appears. indeed obvious, that writers of all nations and all concur in applauding juftice, humanity, magnanimity, prudence, veracity; and in blaming the oppofite qualities. Even poets and other authors, whofe compofitions are chiefly calculated to please the imagination, are yet found, from HOMER down to FENELON, to incul cate the fame moral precepts, and to beftow their applause and blame on the fame virtues and vices. This great unanimity is ufually afcribed to the influence of plain reafon; which, in all these cafes, maintains fimilar fentiments in all men, and prevents those controverfies, to which the abftract fciences are fo much expofed. So far as the unanimity is real, the account may be admitted as fatisfactory: But it muft alfo be allowed that fome part of the feeming harmony in morals may be accounted for from the very nature of language. The word, virtue, with its equivalent in every tongue, im

plies praife; as that of vice does blame: And no one, without the most obvious and groffeft impropriety, could affix reproach to a term, which in general use is underftood in a good sense; or bestow applause, where the idiom requires difapprobation. HoMER's general precepts, where he delivers any fuch, will never be controverted; but it is very obvious, that when he draws particular pictures of manners, and reprefents hero.fm in ACHILLES and prudence in ULYSSES, he intermixes a much greater degree of ferocity in the former, and of cunning and fraud in the latter, than FENELON would admit of. The fage ULYSSES in the GREEK poet seems to delight in lies and fictions, and often employs them without any neceffity or even advantage: But his more fcrupulous fon in the FRENCH epic writer exposes himself to the most imminent perils, rather than depart from the exacteft line of truth and veracity.

The admirers and followers of the ALCORAN infift very much on the excellent moral precepts, which are interfperfed throughout that wild performance. But it is to be fuppofed, that the ARABIC words, which correfpond to the ENGLISH, equity, juftice, temperance, meeknefs, charity, were fuch as, from the conftant use of that tongue, must always be taken in a good fenfe; and it would have argued the greateft ignorance, not of morals, but of language, to have mentioned them with any epithets, befides those of applause and approbation. But would we know, whether the pretended prophet had really attained a juft fentiment of morals? Let us attend to his narration; and we fhall foon find, that he bestows praise on such inftances of treachery, inhumanity, cruelty, revenge, bigotry, as are utterly incompatible with civilized fociety. No steady rule of right seems there to be attended to; and every action is blamed or praised, fo far only as it is beneficial or hurtful to the true believers.

The

The merit of delivering true general precepts in ethics is indeed very small. Whoever recommends any moral virtues, really does no more than is implied in the terms themselves. The people, who invented the word charity, and used it in a good fenfe, inculcated more clearly and much more efficaciously, the precept, be charitable, than any pretended legiflator or prophet, who fhould infert fuch a maxim in his writings. Of all expreffions, thofe, which, together with their other meaning, imply a degree either of blame or approbation, are the leaft liable to be perverted or mistaken.

It is natural for us to feek a Standard of Tafte; a rulę, by which the various fentiments of men may be reconciled; or at leaft, a decifion afforded, confirming one fentiment, and condemning another.

There is a species of philofophy, which cuts off all hopes of fuccefs in fuch an attempt, and reprefents the impoffibility of ever attaining any standard of taste. The difference, it is faid, is very wide between judgment and fentiment. All fentiment is right; because sentiment has a reference to nothing beyond itself, and is always real, wherever a man is conscious of it. But all determinations of the understanding are not right; because they have a reference to fomething beyond themselves, to wit, real matter of fact; and are not always conformable to that ftandard. Among a thoufand different opinions which different men may entertain of the fame fubject, there is one, and but one, that is juft and true; and the only difficulty is to fix and ascertain it. On the contrary, a thousand different fentiments, excited by the fame object, are all right: Because no fentiment reprefents what is really in the object. It only marks a certain conformity or relation between the object and the organs or faculties of the mind; and if that conformity did not really exift, the fentiment could never poffibly have a being.

Beauty