For the Literary Magazine.

REFLECTIONS ON TASTE.

THOSE pleasures, which the exercise of a cultivated taste supplies to us, greatly exceed in intensity unpleasant sensations which correspond to them. In the bodily organs, pain, far less exquisite than what man is sometimes doomed to endure, would be ill purchased by the most refined voluptuousness; the rewards of ambition and industry are sought through toil and trouble, and commonly fail us when possessed; even in the walks of science, weariness and disappointment sometimes wait upon that labour, for which the high price of our health and time shall have been given. But while the delight which a susceptible mind enjoys in reading an excellent poem is very keen, the uneasiness of reading a bad one, besides being easily avoided, is very trifling; the lover of painting is charmed with a master-piece, and turns away with no real pain from an indifferent pic ture; the beautiful and magnificent objects of nature fill us with emotions of joy, but we find no distress in travelling among straight hedges and corn fields. Surely this is no small argument in favour of pursuing those pleasures, and of that education by which we are best prepared for their enjoyment: especially if we are careful to chastise those feelings to which they give birth, and guard against the ill effects of unlimited indulgence, by the more hardy discipline of serious and scientific pursuits.

Whether taste, in this sense, is a distinct faculty, or only a mode of judgment, has been a subject of much controversy. Pleasurable emotions are excited by certain objects or conceptions; and when we embody our feelings in words, we use terms of comparison, and refer to a standard,

and judgment therefore go together; but to which should the word taste be appropriated? The primary sense of the word, and of its equivalents in modern languages, seems to imply the former; as the word criticism manifestly refers to the latter meaning.

Taste may certainly be applied to the works of nature; but the fine arts are its peculiar province. These arts are poetry, eloquence, including all sorts of prose composition; music, painting, sculpture, architecture, gardening, including the art of improving grounds; the stage. These arts are distinguished from those which are merely mechanical, as well as from the speculative sciences, by their end, which is neither utility, in the common sense of the word, nor instruction, but to minister to the pleasures of the imagination, by means of words, or of sensible images, or of both combined. Their principles, though in one sense founded on nature, since their only object is to delight the imagination, are yet not derived from ordinary nature; but require a good deal of attention, and the formation of certain habits, before they can be relished or understood. This is true even in those which are strictly arts of imitation; in which, strange as it may seem, the utmost exactness of resemblance is not deemed the highest excellence, by those whose taste has been refined and sublimated by practice. It is more eminently true in poetry and eloquence; the higher styles of which lie so much out of the track of ordinary minds, as to be to such minds wholly unintelligible.

These arts, though nearly allied, are not built on the same principles. He, who is thoroughly acquainted, for example, with the theory of painting, will not be necessarily a good judge of poetry or architecture: since all of them have a great number of rules originally arbitrary, the accurate knowledge of which has become indispensable to the man of taste; and which, in many cases,

suggest pleasures to the imagination, not inferior to those which appear more directly natural. A man, how ever, who has applied that niceness of discrimination, delicacy of feeling, and habitual reference to an acknowledged standard, in which the exercise of taste consists, to any one of these arts, can hardly fail, by sufficient attention and experience, to become a judge of all the rest. This remark, though generally true, admits of some exceptions; as in music, for example, no one can be a judge who has not an ear organized after a peculiar manner.

The first enquiry on those occasions is, whether taste has any principles at all. Whether, when Tom thinks the poetry of Milton better than that of Blackmore, the banqueting House (London) a finer piece of architecture than the Horse-Guards, and the Transfiguration a more excellent picture than the sign of the Red Lion, and Will thinks directly contrary, there is any ground for saying, that one has more taste than the other. If this be determined in the negative; if we can go no farther than to say, that Tom thinks one thing, and Will another; it is quite a waste of time to discuss the matter; like an indeterminate problem in algebra it would give us only a heap of solutions, from which nothing could be learned.

The word taste is highly equivocal. It is used in at least three distinct acceptations. It sometimes means, that peculiar mode of sensation which resides in the tongue and palate; sometimes, the power of discrimination in the fine arts, or the feeling associated with it; sometimes, in a sense derived from the latter, it means liking or opinion in general.

For the Literary Magazine.

TASTE IN DRESS.

THERE is scarcely any subject, upon which men differ more, than

concerning the objects of their pleasures and amusements; and this difference subsists, not only among individuals, but among ages and nations; almost every generation accusing that which immediately preceded it, of bad taste in building, furniture, and dress; and almost every nation having its own peculiar modes and ideas of excellence in these matters, to which it pertinaciously adheres, till one particular people has acquired such ascendancy in power and reputation, as to set what is called the fashion; when this fashion is universally and indiscriminately adopted on the blind principle of imitation, and without any consideration of differences in climates, constitution, or habits of life; and every one, who presumes to deviate from it, an odd mortal, a humourist void of all just feeling, taste, or elegance. This fashion continues in the full exercise of its tyranny for a few years or months; when another, perhaps still more whimsical and unmeaning, starts into being, and deposes it; all are then instantly astonished that they could ever have been pleased, even for a moment, with any thing so tasteless, barbarous, and absurd.

The revolutions in dress only, which have taken place within the last two centuries, afford ample illustrations of this remark; and it is not the least extraordinary circumstance in these revolutions, that they have been the most violent, sudden, and extravagant in the personal decorations of that part of the species, which, having most natural, has least need of artificial charms; which is always most decorated when least adorned; and which, as it addresses its attractions to the primordial sentiments and innate affections of man, would, it might reasonably be supposed, never have attempted to increase them by distortion and disguise. Yet art has been wearied, and nature ransacked; tortures have been endured, and health sacrificed; and all to enable this lovely part of the creation to appear in shapes as remote

as possible from that in which its native loveliness consists. Only a few years ago, a beauty, equipped for conquest, was a heterogeneous combination of incoherent forms, which nature could never have united in one animal, nor art blended in one composition: it consisted of a head, disguised so as to resemble that of no living creature, placed upon an inverted cone, the point of which rested upon the centre of the curve of a semi-elliptic base, more than three times the diameter of its own. Such has been the caprice of taste, that high-dressed heads, tight-laced stays, and wide hoops, have been thought really ornamental.

For the Literary Magazine.

SKETCH OF LITERATURE AND THE FINE ARTS IN SICILY, FROM 1790 To 1803.

IN reflecting on what Sicily once was, we survey it with the melancholy and regret which so painfully affect us when contemplating the ruins of the ancient Palmyra. But let us forget the former splendour of this island, that we may consider it only in its present state.

The dawn of a glorious day appeared in Sicily, when Francesco de Aquino, prince of Caramanico, assumed the reins of government as viceroy. The Sicilian is not accustomed to consider the means adopt ed by the agents of the sovereign in the exercise of their functions; it is sufficient for him if they have the will to do good. Caramanico not only possessed this happy will, but likewise all the means of executing it with success.

A young advocate, named Cazelli, accompanied the prince in 1786 to Palermo, where he filled the station of secretary of state. Notwithstanding all the reproaches cast upon him for his conduct in that post, to him were, in a great measure, owing the revival of the arts and

sciences in Sicily, and their progress during the administration of his patron. Prince Caramanico, after the example of his predecessor the marquis Caraçiolo, made a point of conferring distinction on men of learning, and of paying public homage to science, by honouring with his favour those who cultivated it with the greatest success. His zeal was not confined to empty professions; several chairs were vacant at the university of Palermo; these he not only seized the first opportunity of filling, but he founded several new ones; among others, that of rural economy, so ably occupied by Paolo Palsamo, whom he sent on a tour through France and England. The university is likewise indebted to him for a botanical garden, which cost 50,000 ducats, and which he established on a spot where once the inquisition prepared its faggots. On his invitation, professor Eliseo repaired to Naples to begin a course of experimental philosophy. Lastly, after having in vain endeavoured to induce Lagrange, and afterwards Toaldo, to settle in Sicily, he was so fortunate as to make the most excellent choice in the person of Piazzi, the astronomer, who himself formed the plan of that splendid observatory of which he has given such a satisfactory description in his work entitled, Giuseppi Piazzi della Specula astronomica dei regii studii di Palermo. Palermo, 1792, 1794. I shall say nothing of the anatomical theatre, nor of many other interesting establishments scarcely sketched out by this zealous protector of every thing great and useful, and which, in a short time, would certainly have attained to a high degree of perfection, had not death snatched him away in the midst of his laudable exertions.

The diffusion of knowledge among the lower classes of the people was likewise an object of his attention. Seconded by the worthy Giovani Agostino de Cosmi in the establishment of national schools, he enjoyed, before he died, the pleasure of know. ing that his labours had not been in

vain. The loss of prince Caramanico must ever be an object of regret to Sicily. With him expired the spirit by which he was animated; and, after his death, the magnificent fabric, scarcely begun, crumbled into ruins. The horrors which at this period convulsed all Europe hastened still more the fatal catastrophe.

Why is the class of men of science so small in Sicily, and why is the interest which the nation in general feels for them so weak?

This question may be asked at Naples as well as at Palermo: the evil in both places proceeds from the same source, from the defectiveness of the penal code, and the wretched organization of the judicial establishment, which, opening a vast field for chicane, beget a multitude of lawyers, who, abusing the noblest functions of the state, are intent only on acquiring fortunes, and gradually undermine the public strength. The Sicilian is born with a spirit of chicane; in his eyes a lawyer is a man of the highest importance: accordingly, in Palermo alone, their number, including the train of solicitors, notaries, clerks, scribes, &c. amounts to no less than four thousand. As their profession is almost the only road to honour and fortune, there prevails a universal eagerness to enter into it, and the multitude is greater, because, as the government does not give the preference to the nobility in the distribution of employments, every lawyer indulges the hope of one day obtaining the most important stations. A lawyer, indeed, is, from his profession, a man of letters in every country but Sicily. There, from an esprit de corps, he imbibes a certain contempt of literature; and if he chance to be an admirer of the muses, his intercourse with them is a profound secret: were it known, it would hurt his character as a man of business; the public opinion would be against him.

Whatever may be the causes, either general or particular, which

VOL. V. NO. XXXIII.

oppose the progress of knowledge in Sicily, we must admit that from 1790 to 1803 that island has afforded a very abundant literary harvest. Among these products there are undoubtedly some which good taste must reject; but a flower discovered on a parched soil, or amid the rigours of winter, though pale and weakly, still gives us one pleasur able sensation, that of surprise; and we are naturally inclined to speak of it with some degree of in

terest.

In a country where the censorship is extremely severe, there cannot be expected to appear many works on theology. Except a translation of Lyttleton's Evidences of the Truth of Christianity, a Life of Jesus Christ compiled from the four Evangelists, and one or two other works of the same kind, all the rest are mere polemical works, more than a century behind hand. For example, Discorso contra gli Ebrei e gl'increduli sulla verita della resurrezione di Gesu Cristo-L'Empieta della dottrina Ariana, conculcata e convinta nel glorioso martirio di S. Ermenegildo Re d'Andalusia. This last is a tragedy in five acts. But a still more remarkable work, written by a monk, named Gaetano Verga, is entitled, La gran dignita del santissimo Rosario. This monstrous production, notwithstanding the pious blasphemies with which it swarms, had escaped the severity of the censorship: it was the public papers that first pronounced an anathema against the author. We shall endeavour to convey some idea of its subject.

The devil appears before the tribunal of the Saviour, and complains bitterly that the blessed virgin, by the institution of the rosary, daily deprives him of many worthy souls, who would otherwise fall into his clutches. Jesus Christ immediately dispatches the angel Gabriel to summon his mother to appear, because, as he says, he is determined to comply strictly with all legal formali ties. The parties speak in their

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own behalf, but the monk, through the strangest blunder, makes his devil plead with such warmth and ability, that the Judge may justly be suspected of partiality in giving a verdict in favour of his mother. The author knows no merit superior to that of the rosary; its virtue is universal. The angel Gabriel concludes with putting all the good actions of men into one scale, and a rosary into the other: it outweighs them all.

We might at least expect Sicily to abound in good works on jurisprudence. This, however, is not the case. They are, for the most part, mere compilations: in that philosophical spirit which forms their utility they are absolutely deficient. Nothing on this subject deserves to be mentioned, unless it be the Introduction to the Jurisprudence of Sicily, by Dr. Rosarios Gregorio, a lawyer equally distinguished for extensive information and sound philosophy.

The establishment of the first anatomical theatre in Sicily, by Caramanico, proves how little progress has been made in that country in the medical art: it has, however, begun to be more carefully cultivated. Chemistry, in particular, has become a favourite study, and the works of Fourcroy are held in high estimation. Some of the most distinguished literati have devoted their attention to the natural history of the country; and the family of Gioeni, at Catanea, possesses a cabinet interesting both for its extent, and for the regularity and taste in its arrangement. Others, more or less important, exist in every town of Sicily; but it is necessary to seek the company of the proprietors, because they are not accustomed, like those of other countries, to publish their observations. Every one is acquainted with the catastrophe that befel the manuscript of the canon Recupero, the invaluable result of observations made for a long series of years on Etna; but this loss is in part repaired by the labours of

Francesco Ferrara, professor at the university of Catanea, who has given us, in his Storia generalle dell' Etna, an ample description of that mountain, the history of its explosions, and a catalogue of its productions. This work, from the impor tance and number of its geological observations, may be considered as the most valuable extant on the natural history of volcanoes. The work of Dr. Vincenzo Rijolo, on the mineral waters of Sicily, likewise merits approbation.

The mathematics present a more abundant harvest; without noticing several elementary works of merit, the writings of the celebrated Piaz zi alone will form an æra in the literary history of Sicily. All Europe is acquainted with them; but the detached pieces which he has successively inserted in the Philosophical Transactions, and other periodical publications printed at Milan and Modena, are not so well known. They consist of Corrispondenza Italiana; Lettere sull' astronomia; and his last work is entitled Stellarum inerrantium positiones. Another performance by him, Su i movimenti delle Fisse, will speedily appear. Natural philosophy has likewise been cultivated with success since the time of Caramanico. This is proved by P. Eliseo Physica experimentalis Elementa ; J. Z. Cantarella Physicæ experimentalis Cursus, and Introduzione alla Fisica, by the celebrated abbate Seina, which has just made its appearance.

The Sicilians are very far from having made any progress in matters of mere erudition. They have recently published, it is true, a new edition of ancient classic authors for the use of the university of Palermo; but it is only a reprint, and frequently a faulty one, of the text. We meet with various translations which are not above mediocrity, The Anacreon of Valguarnera is no more a translation from the original than the Theocritus of the count Gaetani. It is to be regretted that