ter civil wars that had animated the people, and roufed their activity.

An ufeful art is feldom loft, because it is in conftant practice. And yet, tho' many ufeful arts were in perfection during the reign of Auguftus Cæfar, it is amazing how ignorant and ftupid men became, after the Roman empire was shattered by northern barbarians: they degenerated into favages. So ignorant were the Spanish Chriftians during the eighth and ninth centuries, that Alphonfus the Great, King of Leon, was reduced to the neceffity of employing Mahometan preceptors for educating his eldeft fon. Even Charlemagne could not fign his name: nor was he fingular in that refpect, being kept in countenance by feveral neighbouring princes.

As the progrefs of arts and fciences toward perfection is greatly promoted by emulation, nothing is more fatal ́ to an art or fcience than to remove that fpur, as where fome extraordinary genius appears who foars above rivalfhip. Mathematics feem to be declining in Britain; the great Newton, having furpaffed all the ancients, has not Jeft to the moderns even the faintest hope of equalling him; and what man will enter the lifts who defpairs of victory?

In early times, the inventors of useful arts were remembered with fervent gratitude. Their hiftory became fabulous by the many incredible exploits that were attributed to them Diodorus Siculus mentions the Egypti an tradition of Ofiris, that with a numerous army he traverfed every inhabited part of the globe, in order to teach men the culture of wheat and of the vine. Befide the impracticability of fupporting a numerous army where husbandry is unknown, no army could enable Ofiris to introduce wheat or wine among ftupid favages who live by hunting and fifhing, which probably was the cafe, in that early period, of all the nations he visited.

In a country thinly peopled, where even neceffary arts want hands, it is common to fee one perfon exercifing more arts than one: in feveral parts of Scotland, one man ferves as a physician, furgeon, and apothecary. In a very populous country, even fimple arts are fplit into

parts, and each part has an artist appropriated to it. In the large towns of ancient Egypt, a phyfician was confined to a fingle disease. In mechanic arts that method is excellent. As a hand confined to a fingle operation becomes both expert and expeditious, a mechanic art is perfected by having its different operations distributed among the greatest number of hands: many hands are employed in making a watch; and a still greater number in manufacturing a web of woollen cloth., Various arts or operations carried on by the fame man, envigorate his mind, because they exercife different faculties; and as he can not be equally expert in every art or operation, he is frequently reduced to fupply want of skill by thought and invention. Conftant application, on the contrary, to a fingle operation, confines the mind to a fingle object, and excludes all thought and invention: in fuch a train of life, the operator becomes dull and ftupid, like a beast of burden. The difference is vifible in the manners of the people in a country where, from want of hands, several Occupations must be carried on by the fame perfon, the people are knowing and converfible: in a populous country where manufactures flourish, they are ignorant and unfociable. The fame effect is equally vifible in countries where an art or manufacture is confined to a certain clafs of men. It is vifible in Hindoftan, where the people are divided into cafts, which never mix even by mar. riage, and where every man follows his father's trade. The Dutch lint boors are a fimilar inftance: the fame families carry on the trade from generation to generation; and are accordingly ignorant and brutish even beyond o ther Dutch peasants. The inhabitants of Buckhaven, a port in the county of Fife, were originally a colony of foreigners, invited hither to teach our people the art of fishing. They continue fifters to this day, marry a mong themselves, have little intercourfe with their neighbours, and are dull and ftupid to a proverb.

fea

SECT. II.

PROGRESS OF TASTE AND OF THE FINE ARTS.

TH

HE fenfe by which we perceive right and wrong in actions, is termed the moral fenfe: the fenfe by which we perceive beauty and deformity in objects, is termed tafte. Perfection in the moral fenfe confifts in perceiving the minuteft differences of right and wrong. Perfection in tafte confifts in perceiving the minuteft differences of beauty and deformity; and fuch perfection is termed delicacy of tafte (a).

The moral fenfe is born with us; and fo is taste : yet both of them require much cultivation. Among favages, the moral fenfe is faint and obfcure; and tafte ftill more fo*. Even in the most enlightened ages, it requires in a judge both education and experience to perceive accurately the various modifications of right and wrong: and to acquire delicacy of tafte, a man must grow old in examining beauties and deformities. In Rome, abounding with productions of the fine arts, an illiterate fhopkeeker is a more correct judge of statues, of pictures, and of buildings, than the best-educated citizen of London (b). Thus tafte goes hand in hand with the moral sense in their progress toward maturity, and they ripen equally by the fame fort of culture. Want, a barren foil, cramps the growth of both: fenfuality, a foil too fat, corrupts both: the middle ftate, equally diftant from difpiriting poverty and luxurious fenfuality, is the foil in which both of them flourish.

As the fine arts are intimately connected with tafte, it is impracticable, in tracing their progrefs, to separate them by accurate limits. I join, therefore, the progrefs of the fine arts to that of tafte, where the former depends entirely on the latter; and I handle feparately the pro

(a) Elements of Criticism, vol. 1. p. 111. edit 4.

(b) Ibid. chap. 25.

Some Iroquois, after feeing all the beauties of Paris, admired nothing but the street De la Houchette, where they found a conftant fupply of catables,

Book I. grefs of the fine arts, where that progrefs is influenced by other circumftances befide taste.

During the infancy of tafte, imagination is fuffered to roam, as in fleep, without controul. Wonder is the paffion of favages and of ruftics; to raife which, nothing is neceffary but to invent giants and magicians, fairy-land and inchantment. The earliest exploits recorded of war. like nations, are giants mowing down whole armies, and little men overcoming giants; witnefs Joannes-Magnus," Torfeus, and other Scandinavian writers. Hence the abfurd romances that delighted the world for ages; which are now fallen into, contempt every where. Madame de la Fayette led the way to novels in the prefent mode. She was the first who introduced fentiments inftead of wonderful adventures, and amiable men instead of bloody heroes. In fubftituting diftreffes to prodigies, fhe made a difcovery that perfons of tafte and feeling are more attached by compaffion than by wonder.)

When gigantic fictions were banished, fome remaining tafte for the wonderful encouraged gigantic fimilies, metaphors, and allegories. The Song of Solomon, and many other Afiatic compofitions, afford examples without end of fuch figures; which are commonly attributed to force of imagination in a warm climate. But a more extensive view will fhow this to be a mistake. In every climate, hot and cold, the figurative ftyle is carried to extravagance, during a certain period in the progrefs of writing; a ftyle that is relished by all at first, and continues to delight many till it yields to a tafte polifhed by long experience. Even in the bitter cold country of Iceland, we are at no lofs for examples. A rainbow is termed Bridge of the Gods: gold. tears of Frya: the earth is termed Daughter of Night, the veffel that floats upon Ages; and herbs and plants are her hair, or her fleece. Ice is termed the Great Bridge: a fhip. Horfe of the Floods. Many authors foclifly conjecture that the Hurons. and fome other neighbouring nations, are of Afiatic extraction; beCauf, like the Afiatics, their difcourfe is highly figurative.

The national progrefs of morality is flow: the national progrefs of taite is ftill flower. In proportion as a

nation polishes, and improves in the arts of peace, talle ripens. The Chinese had long enjoyed a regular fyftem of government, while the Europeans were comparatively in a chaos; and accordingly literary compositions in China were brought to perfection more early than in Europe. In their poetry they indulge no incredible fables, like thofe of Ariofto or the Arabian Tales; but commonly felect fuch as afford a good moral. Their novels, like thofe of the most approved kind among us, treat of miffortunes unforeseen, unexpected good luck, and perfons finding out their real parents. The Orphan of China, compofed in the fourteenth century, furpaffes far any European play in that early period. But good writing has made a more rapid progrefs with us; not from fuperiority of talents, but from the great labour the Chinese muft undergo, in learning to read and write their own language. The Chinese tragedy is, indeed, languid, and not fufficiently interefting; which Voltaire afcribes to want of genius. With better reafon he might have afcribed it to the nature of their government, fo well contriv. ed for preferving peace and order, as to afford few examples of furprising events, and little opportunity for exerting manly talents.

A nation cannot acquire a tafte for ridicule till it emerge out of the favage ftate. Ridicule, however, is too rough for refined manners: Cicero discovers in Plautus a happy talent for ridicule, and peculiar delicacy of wit; but Horace, who figured in the court of Auguftus, eminent for delicacy of tafte, declares again the low roughness of that author's raillery (c). The high burlefque ftyle prevails commonly in the period between barbarity and politenefs, in which a tafte fomewhat improved difcovers the ridicule of former manners. Rabelais in France and Butler in England are illuftrious examples. Dr. Swift is our latest burlesque writer, and probably will be the laft.

Emulation among a multitude of small states in Greece, ripened tafte, and promoted the fine arts- Tafte, roufed by emulation, refines gradually; and is advanced to(c) Elements of Criticism, chap. 2. part 2.