CHAP. VII.

Miscellaneous Observations on the Proper Objects of Taste.

THE qualities that excite the emotion of sublimity in the mind, have been considered by most writers on the subject, as proper objects of taste; and, accordingly, they have extended its province to an acquaintance with all the qualities that enter into our ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. To the sense of beauty and sublimity, some writers have added the sense of novelty, of imitation, of harmony, of ridicule, and of virtue. I have confined it to the sense of beauty alone, and in doing so, I have been determined by the following reflections. Imitation, harmony, ridicule, and virtue, are only different species of beauty, and must necessarily be treated of under that head. The sense of novelty is, I apprehend, a sense which we do not possess. We may form an idea of novelty, but we have no sense of it. When a new object is presented to us, it is the object itself that affects us, and not the abstract idea of novelty; for if we were moved only by

the novelty of the object, all new objects would affect us alike. This is never the case-every object affects us by its own distinct qualities, and therefore we experience a very different emotion when we first see a tiger or an elephant, from what we felt when we first gazed upon a dove or a butterfly. Our feelings are entirely engrossed by the appearance of the object itself, not by the reflection that we have never seen it before. This reflection may not occur to us at all, and therefore it does not necessarily enter into the sensation of the moment; whereas the sensation produced by the object itself, is irresistible, and always determined by its proper nature. The reflection that we never saw it before, is not a feeling or sensation, but an act of the understanding; but the impression made by the object is not an act, but a passion. It is a change produced in our feelings, not by any act of our own, but by the appearance of the object, so that, with regard to the impression, we are perfectly passive. A novel object, then, is pleasing, or disagreeable, on the same principle with objects with which we are long acquainted. The qualities that please in the one are the same that please in the other; and it is only these qualities that the connoisseur or critical judge. takes into consideration, when he points out the beauty or ugliness of a novel object. The judgments of a

man of taste are infinitely less influenced by the mere novelty of an object, than the judgments of him who has no pretensions to it. To whatever degree, then, the mere novelty of an object may affect the man of feeling, it will never influence the judgments of a man of correct taste; and therefore taste and novelty cannot have the remotest alliance with each other.

Dr. Gerard, however, in his " Essay on Taste," considers novelty to be so important a branch of it, that he devotes the first section of his work to "the sense, or taste, of novelty." The very title of this section shews that he confounds, like most other writers, sense, or feeling, with taste; and that he considers novelty as something that has a positive and virtual existence of its own, independent of the subject that first suggests its abstract idea. "The mind," he says, in the commencement of his work, "receives pleasure or pain, not only from the impulse of external objects, but also from the consciousness of its own operations and dispositions. When these are produced by external objects, the pleasure, or the pain, which arises immediately from the exertions of the mind, is ascribed to those things which give occasion to them."

From this mode of opening his subject, it is obvious Dr. Gerard imagined, that there are some operations and dispositions of mind from which

we derive pleasure and pain, that have no alliance with the influence of external objects. Whether there be abstract operations of mind unconnected with the influence of external objects, is a question on which I do not wish to offer here any opinion; not only because the opinion I entertain on the subject would require more argument and discussion than I would wish to engage in, at present, but also because it would lead me into speculations that do not properly belong to the present subject. I feel confident, however, that there are no operations of the mind, from which we derive pleasure or pain, but what can be ultimately traced to the impressions of external being, either sensible or intellectual; for with regard to our minds the one is as external as the other. Dr. Gerard is, therefore, mistaken in saying, "when these pleasures and pains are produced by external objects;" because they are never felt when there are no external objects to produce them. They may be felt, it is true, where there is no external object present to the mind; but they can always be traced to their immediate or remote influence. Novelty, therefore, abstracted from the object that is novel, is so far from giving . pleasure or pain, that we cannot even form an abstract idea of novelty without it. The pleasures of novelty he endeavours to elucidate, by observing, that "plainness and perspicuity be

come displeasing in an author when they are carried to excess, and leave no room for exercising the reader's thought; and though great obscurity disgusts us, yet we are highly gratified by delicacy of sentiment, which always includes some degree of it, occasions a suspense of thought, and leaves the full meaning to be guessed at, and comprehended only on attention." This idea of novelty is rather obscure; for what novelty can there be in remaining ignorant of an author's meaning? In this case, surely, we are only left in the same state of information in which we were placed before we perused him. If we cannot perceive what he means, we are just as wise as we were before; unless we chance to adopt some false opinions of our own in attempting to discover his meaning; but if this be novelty, it is a novelty of our own creation. A writer must, therefore, make himself understood before he suggests the idea of novelty; for if he informs us of any thing with which we were before unacquainted, and we understand what this thing is, we are then certainly in possession of a new idea. But what is the merit of an affected obscurity? It may serve, indeed, as a cloak for ignorance; but it can neither enlighten nor instruct. If a certain degree of obscurity be characteristic of good taste, I doubt whether it is possible to determine the exact degree to which this obscurity may be