But if it consist in an emotion of pleasure, it necessarily follows, that no man can be a judge of beauty but he who is pleased with it; whereas it is notorious that some of the most critical judges are pleased the least. They cannot acquire a perfect knowledge of any particular form or feature in beauty without remarking and contemplating it frequently, and this frequency of contemplation weakens the pleasure of the effect. "I despair," says Mr. Burke, the most celebrated writer on the subject of taste and beauty, “of ever perceiving the same degree of pleasure from the most excellent performances of genius, which I felt at that age (he means the morning of his days) from pieces which my present judgment regards as trifling and contemptible." The progress of our pleasure, so far, therefore, from keeping pace with the progress of our taste, becomes retrograde. I am, however, inclined to think, that the pleasure of which Mr. Burke despaired was afterwards partly realized. His "Philosophical Inquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful" was written at an early age, and before he tried his strength in the political world. The organical effects, if I may so call them, produced by a long application to classical learning, and the mental irritability which they necessarily excite, had still a secret, though unobserved, influence over his mind, and created a certain unpleasant but

indefinable habit or modification of thought and feeling, a certain asperity in the finer organs, which were not natural to him, but which made him less fit to relish the beauties of sentiment, of imagination, and of sensibility, even in the most finished performances of genius. This asperity or want of relish for the beauties which they so clearly perceive, is, perhaps, more or less felt by all students, and more particularly, by all professors in colleges. A long habit of application to the same unvaried studies, and a still longer habit of making others acquainted with beauties which they have long ceased to relish themselves, produce an asperity of feeling which weakens, at least, if it does not entirely destroy, the pleasures which these studies are calculated to impart. It is probable, however, that Mr. Burke, after discontinuing his acquaintance with the classics for a considerable time, began to relish them more than when he wrote his Sublime and Beautiful, and was better able to avail himself of the knowledge which they imparted, than when he had this knowledge fresh upon his mind. How seldom have the most learned and eminent professors in the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, or Dublin, distinguished themselves in the walks of science. How seldom have they illumined the world by their literary productions; a circumstance, in my opinion, that

can only be accounted for, by that morose habit of mind, or asperity of temper, which I have just mentioned, and which produces a total want of relish for the beauties of science and general literature. Satiety is always the parent of disgust; and whenever we improve our taste by intense application, we are certain of not improving our pleasures. He who would improve his taste in such a manner as to secure a continuance of his pleasures, must never attempt to prosecute any study longer than he finds the prosecution attended with delight. By continually varying and returning to them again, he will not only improve his taste, but open to himself an endless source of rational delights; and though it will be longer before he can acquire a perfect acquaintance with any art or science, this delay is amply compensated, not only by the other sources of information that are laid open to him, and the aggregate of knowledge which he derives from them, but still more by that endless round of innocent gratifications which he eternally enjoys. A long and unremitting application to the same study has not limited his ideas to one sphere of information, nor irritated, or, rather, indurated his feelings to such a degree, as to leave him incapable of deriving pleasure, either from that which was once his favourite pursuit, or from any other

literary recreation. Every study to which he recurs, after a short remission, is still fraught with new pleasures; nor are these pleasures exhausted after returning to it again and again. How dissimilar are the gratifications that result from the pursuit of one unvaried train of studies, however poignant might have been the pleasures which they imparted at first. In this respect the pleasures of the mind bear the strictest analogy to those of the body. "The fragrance of the jessamine-bower," says Dr. Johnson, " is lost after the enjoyment of a few moments; and the Indian wanders among his native spices without any sense of their exhalations."

Thus it is, that an exquisite sensibility is seldom found to attend an exquisite taste, because we seldom vary our studies sufficiently to render them at all times delightful; and the pleasures of those arts of which we are perfect masters are less sensibly felt, than those which we derive from arts with which we are more imperfectly acquainted. Judging, then, from appearances, and from attending only to the slight degree of sensibility that is perceived to accompany taste, we might be led to imagine, that no one is more likely to acquire a correct and discerning taste, than he who possesses little natural sensibility; and that a more than ordinary portion of it must be particularly hurtful to taste.

Such is Mr. Stuart's opinion, when he says, that "In a mind where the degree of sensibility is extreme, the acquisition of a correct taste is, in ordinary cases, next to impossible." I am indeed willing to allow, that where exquisite sensibility exists without cultivation, or the habit of a philosophical attention to the manner in which we find ourselves affected by external objects, wrong biases, and false perceptions of beauty, may be very naturally imbibed. To ascertain, however, whether an extreme or a moderate degree of natural sensibility is productive of the chastest, and of the most elegant taste-to ascertain which of them will enable us to become the elegans formarum spectator, we must suppose the habits of attention to the emotions, affections, sensibilities, and delights, which are excited in us by beautiful objects, to be exactly equal; and if, after an equal attention to the modes, degrees, and character of the pleasure which is imparted by these objects, a man of moderate sensibility becomes a more perfect judge of elegance, grace, and speciousness, than he whose sensibility responds to the slightest of those influences which are excited by sensible or intellectual objectshe whose sympathies, to use the language of the poet, are feelingly alive to each fine impulseit must then, indeed, be granted, that an exquisite sensibility is not so favourable to the culti