Essays on Taste | Page 3

Order. The effect of a good TASTE is that
instantaneous Glow of Pleasure which thrills thro' our whole Frame,
and seizes upon the Applause of the Heart, before the intellectual
Power, Reason, can descend from the Throne of the Mind to ratify it's
Approbation, either when we receive into the Soul beautiful Images
thro' the Organs of bodily Senses; or the Decorum of an amiable
Character thro' the Faculties of moral Perception; or when we recall, by
the imitative Arts, both of them thro' the intermediate Power of the
Imagination. Nor is this delightful and immediate Sensation to be
excited in an undistempered Soul, but by a Chain of Truths, dependent
upon one another till they terminate in the hand of the Divine
COMPOSER of the whole. Let us cast our Eyes first upon the Objects
of the Material World. A rural Prospect upon the very first Glance
yields a grateful Emotion in the Breast, when in a Variety of Scenes
there arises from the whole ONE Order, whose different Parts will be
found, by the critical Eye of Contemplation, to relate mutually to one
another, and each examined apart, to be productive of the Necessaries,
the Conveniencies, and Emoluments of Life. Suppose you was to
behold from an Eminence, thro' a small range of Mountains covered
with Woods, several little Streams gushing out of Rocks, some gently
trickling over Pebbles, others tumbling from a Precipice, and a few
gliding smoothly in Willow-shaded Rivulets thro green Meadows, till
their tributary Waters are all collected by some River God of a larger
Urn, who at some few Miles distance is lost in the Ocean, which heaves
it's broad Bosom to the Sight, and ends the Prospect with an immense
Expanse of Waters. Tell me, EUPHEMIUS, would not such a Scene

captivate the Heart even before the intellectual Powers discover
Minerals in the Mountains; future Navies in the Woods; Civil and
Military Architecture in the Rocks; healing Qualities in the smaller
Streams; Fertility, that the larger Waters distribute along their
serpentising Banks; Herbage for Cattle in the Meadows; and lastly, the
more easy Opportunities the River affords us to convey to other
Climates the Superfluities of our own, for which the Ocean brings us
back in Exchange what we stand in need of from theirs. Now to
heighten this beautiful Landscape, let us throw in Corn Fields, here and
there a Country Seat, and, at proper Distances, small Hamlets, together
with Spires and Towers, as MILTON describes them,
"bosom'd high in tufted Trees."
Does not an additional Rapture flow in from this Adjunct, of which
Reason will afterwards discover the latent Cause in the same manner as
before. Your favourite Architecture will not fail to afford less
remarkable Instances, that Truth, Beauty, and Utility are inseparable.
You very well know that every Rule, Canon, and Proportion in building
did not arise from the capricious Invention of Man, but from the
unerring Dictates of Nature, and that even what are now the ornamental
Parts of an Edifice, originally were created by Necessity; and are still
displeasing to the Sight, when they are disobedient, if I may use that
moral Expression, to the Order, which Nature, whose Laws cannot be
repealed, first gave to supply that Necessity. Here I appeal to your own
Breast, and let me continue the Appeal by asking you concerning
another Science analogous to this, which is founded upon as invariable
Principles: I mean the Science of living well, in which you are as
happily learned as in the former. Say then, has not every amiable
Character, with which you have been enamoured, been proved by a
cool Examination to contain a beautiful Proportion, in the Point it was
placed in, relative to Society? And what is it that constitutes Moral
Deformity, or what we call Vice, but the Disproportion which any
Agent occasions, in the Fabric of Civil Community, by a
Non-compliance to the general Order which should prevail in it?
As the Arts of Painting, Sculpture, and Poetry are imitative of these,

their Excellence, as ARISTOTLE observes, consists in Faithfulness to
their Original: nor have they any primary Beauty in themselves, but
derive their shadowy Existence in a mimetic Transcript from Objects in
the Material World, or from Passions, Characters, and Manners.
Nevertheless that internal Sense we call TASTE (which is a Herald for
the whole human System, in it's three different Parts, the refined
Faculties of Perception, the gross Organs of Sense, and the intermediate
Powers of Imagination) has as quick a Feeling of this secondary
Excellence of the Arts, as for the primary Graces; and seizes the Heart
with Rapture long before the Senses, and Reason in Conjunction, can
prove this Beauty by collating the Imitations with their Originals.
If it should be asked why external Objects affect