Essays on Taste | Page 4

Harmony vibrate within. But should any of those more curious Gentlemen, who busy themselves With Enquiries into Matters, which the Deity, for Reasons known only to himself, has placed above our limited Capacities, demand how he has so formed us, I should refer them, with proper Contempt, to their more aged Brethren, who may justly in Derision be stiled the Philosophers of ultimate Causes. To you, my dear Friend, whose truly philosophical and religious Taste concludes that whatever GOD ordains is right, it is sufficient to have proved that Truth is the Cause of all Beauty, and that Truth flows from the Fountain of all Perfection, in whose unfathomable Depth finite Thought should never venture with any other Intention than to wonder and adore. But I find I have been imperceptibly led on from Thought to Thought, not only to trespass upon the common Stile of a Letter, by these abstruse Reasonings and religious Conclusions, but upon the ordinary length of one likewise; therefore shall conclude by complimenting my own Taste in Characters, when I assure you that I am,
Your most affectionate Friend, &c.

LETTER II.
To the SAME.
It gave me no small Pleasure to find, by your Answer to my last Letter, that you now allow BEAUTY to be the Daughter of TRUTH; and I in my turn will make a Concession to you, by confessing that BEAUTY herself may have acquired Charms, but then they are altogether such as are consistent with her divine Extraction. What you observe is very true, that the human Form (the most glorious Object, as you are pleased to call it, in the Creation) let it be made with the most accurate Symmetry and Proportion, may receive additional Charms from Education, and steal more subtily upon the Soul of the Beholder from some adventitious Circumstances of easy Attitudes or Motion, and an undefineable Sweetness of Countenance, which an habitual Commerce with the more refined Part of Mankind superadds to the Work of Nature. This the ancient Grecian Artists would have represented mythologically in Painting by the GRACES crowning VENUS. We find how much LELY has availed himself in his shadowy Creations of transcribing from Life this adventitious Charm into all his Portraits. I mean, when he stole upon his animated Canvas, as POPE poetically expresses it,
"The sleepy Eye that spoke the melting Soul."
You will ask me, perhaps, how I can prove any Alliance in this particular Circumstance of a single Feature to Truth; Or rather triumphantly push the Argument farther, and say, Is not this additional Charm, as you call it, inconsistent with the Divine Original of Beauty, since it deadens the fiery Lustre of that penetrating Organ? I chuse to draw my Answer from the Schools of the antient ETHOGRAPHI, who by their enchanting Art so happily conveyed, thro' the Sight, the Lessons of Moral Philosophy. These Sages would have told you, that our Souls are attuned to one another, like the Strings of musical Instruments, and that the Chord of one being struck, the Unison of another, tho' untouched, will vibrate to it. The Passions therefore of the human Heart, expressed either in the living Countenance, or the mimetic Strokes of Art, will affect the Soul of the Beholder with a similar and responsive Disposition. What wonder then is it that Beauty, borrowing thus the Look of softening Love, whose Power can lull the most watchful of the Senses, should cast that sweet Nepenthe upon our Hearts, and enchant our corresponding Thoughts to rest in the Embraces of Desire? Sure then I am, that you will always allow Love to be the Source and End of our Being, and consequently consistent with Truth. It is the Superaddition of such Charms to Proportion, which is called Taste in Musick, Painting, Poetry, Sculpture, Gardening and Architecture. By which is generally meant that happy Assemblage which excites in our Minds, by Analogy, some pleasurable Image. Thus, for Instance, even the Ruins of an old Castle properly disposed, or the Simplicity of a rough hewn Hermitage in a Rock, enliven a Prospect, by recalling the Moral Images of Valor and _Wisdom_; and I believe no Man will contend, that Valor exerted in the Defence of one's Country, or Wisdom contemplating in Retirement for the Welfare of Mankind, are not truly amiable Images, belonging to the Divine Family of Truth. I think I have now reconciled our two favorite Opinions, by proving that these additional Charms, if they must be called so, have their Origin in Nature as much as Proportion itself.--I am very glad the Prints I sent afforded you so much Pleasure, not only as I wish every thing which comes from me may be favorably received by you, but as they are likewise a Confirmation of my Arguments; for the Man who drew them is