An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of our Ideas of Beauty, etc.

An Enquiry Concerning the
Principles of Taste, and of the
Origin of our Ideas of Beauty,
etc.

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of
Taste, and of the Origin of our Ideas of Beauty, etc., by Frances
Reynolds, et al
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Title: An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin
of our Ideas of Beauty, etc.
Author: Frances Reynolds
Release Date: September 17, 2004 [eBook #13485]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN
ENQUIRY CONCERNING THE PRINCIPLES OF TASTE, AND OF
THE ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS OF BEAUTY, ETC.***
E-text prepared by S. R. Ellison, David Starner, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

AN ENQUIRY CONCERNING THE PRINCIPLES OF TASTE, AND
OF THE ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS OF BEAUTY, ETC.

by
Frances Reynolds
1785
With an Introduction by James L. Clifford

The Augustan Reprint Society
Frances Reynolds
_An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of
Our Ideas of Beauty, etc._ (1785)
With an Introduction by James L. Clifford
Publication 27
Los Angeles William Andrews Clark Memorial Library University of
California 1951
GENERAL EDITORS H. RICHARD ARCHER, Clark Memorial
Library RICHARD C. BOYS, University of Michigan EDWARD
NILES HOOKER, _University of California, Los Angeles_ JOHN
LOFTIS, _University of California, Los Angeles_
ASSISTANT EDITORS W. EARL BRITTON, University of Michigan
ADVISORY EDITORS EMMETT L. AVERY, State College of
Washington BENJAMIN BOYCE, Duke University LOUIS I.
BREDVOLD, University of Michigan CLEANTH BROOKS, Yale
University JAMES L. CLIFFORD, Columbia University ARTHUR
FRIEDMAN, University of Chicago SAMUEL H. MONK, University
of Minnesota ERNEST MOSSNER, University of Texas JAMES
SUTHERLAND, _Queen Mary College, London_ H.T.
SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_

INTRODUCTION
Since the early nineteenth century it has been known that Frances
Reynolds, the sister of Sir Joshua, was the author of an essay on taste,
which she had printed but did not publish. Yet persistent search failed
to turn up a single copy. It remained one of those lost pieces which
every research scholar hoped someday to discover.
In 1935 it appeared that the search was over. Among some manuscripts
of Mrs. Thrale-Piozzi, long hidden in Wales, was found a printed copy

of an anonymous _Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of
the Origin of Our Ideas of Beauty_, which seemed to be the lost essay.
The date was correct; the Enquiry was dedicated to Mrs. Montagu; it
contained a quotation from Dr. Johnson; and, best of all, there was
attached to the pamphlet a copy (in an unidentified handwriting) of
Johnson's well-known letter to Miss Reynolds concerning her essay.
Only one thing stood squarely in the way of the identification. James
Northcote in his Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds, published in 1818 (II,
116-19), after describing Johnson's connection with the manuscript,
gives two pages of short excerpts. Most of the quotations are general
statements such as "Dress is the strong indication of the moral
character" or "The fine arts comprehend all that is excellent in the
moral system, and, at the same time, open every path that tends to the
corruption of moral excellence." Unfortunately none of these excerpts
appears directly in the Enquiry. Although some of the ideas are similar,
the wording and specific details are different. By no stretch of the
imagination could they be considered to come from the same piece.
Thus Northcote blocked the solution of the mystery for nearly fifteen
years.
Recently, however, evidence has turned up which makes the attribution
a certainty. It is now obvious that Northcote must have been mistaken
in the source of his quotations. Writing as he did many years after the
events he was describing, Northcote either had found a copy of the first
draft of Miss Reynolds' essay, or erroneously quoted from another
anonymous piece which he assumed was by Miss Reynolds. In any
event he was not quoting from the final version which she wished the
world to see.
The story of Miss Reynolds' attempts to publish her essay can at last be
pieced together from various bits of evidence, some hitherto
unpublished. Just when the essay was written is uncertain. All that we
know is that a preliminary version was submitted to the rigorous
criticism of Dr. Johnson in 1781. Johnson, who had corrected some of
her verses in red ink the year before, commented on 21 July 1781:
There is in these such force of comprehension, and such nicety of
observation as Locke or Pascal might be proud of. This I say