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The Critic, who with nice difcernment knows
What to his country and his friends he owes ;
How various Nature warms the human breast,
To love the parent, brother, friend, or gueft;
What the great functions of our judges are,
Of Senators, and Generals fent to war;
He can diftinguish, with unnerring art,
The strokes peculiar to each different part.

HOR.

Thus we fee Tafte is compofed of Nature improved by Art; of Feeling tutored by Inftruction.

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HAVING explained what we conceive to be True Tafte, and in fome measure accounted for the prevalence of Vitiated Tafte, we fhould proceed to point out the most effectual manner, in which a natural capacity may be improved into a delicacy of judgement, and an intimate acquaintance with the Belles Lettres. We fhall take it for granted that proper means have been used to form the manners, and attach the mind to virtue. The heart cultivated by precept, and warmed by example, improves in fenfibility, which is the foundation of Tafte. By diftinguishing the influence and fcope of morality, and cherishing the ideas of benevolence, it acquires a habit of fympathy, which tenderly feels refponfive, like the vibration of unifons, every touch of moral beauty. Hence it is that a man of a focial heart, entendered by the practice of virtue, is awakened to the moft pathetic emotions by every uncommon inftance of generofity, compaffion, and greatnefs of foul. Is there any man fo dead to fentiment, fo

loft

loft to humanity, as to read unmoved the generous behaviour of the Romans to the States of Greece, as it is recounted by Livy, or embellished by Thomson in his Poem of Liberty? Speaking of Greece in the decline of her power, when her freedom no longer exifted, he says:

As at her Ifthmian games, a fading pomp!

Her full-affembled youth innumerous fwarm'd,
On a tribunal rais'd* FLAMINIUS fat;
A victor he from the deep Phalanx pierc'd
Of iron-coated Macedon, and back
The Grecian tyrant to his bounds repell'd.
In the high thoughtless gaiety of game,
While fport alone their unambitious hearts
Poffefs'd; the fudden trumpet founding hoarfe,
Bad filence o'er the bright affembly reign.
Then thus a herald---" to the ftates of Greece
The Roman People, unconfin'd, restore
Their countries, cities, liberties, and laws;
Taxes remit, and garrifons withdraw."

The crowd, astonish'd half, and half inform'd,

Star'd dubious round; fome question'd, fome exclaim'd
(Like one who dreaming, between hope and fear,

Is loft in anxious joy) "Be that again

- Be that again proclaim'd diftinct and loud!"
Loud and diftinct it was again proclaim'd;
And ftill as midnight in the rural thade,

When the gale flumbers, they the words devour'd.
Awhile fevere amazement held them mute,

Then burfting broad, the boundless fhout to heav'n
From many a thoufand hearts extatic fprung!

On ev'ry hand rebellow'd to them joy;

The fwelling fea, the rocks and vocal hills

-Like Pacchanals they flew,

Each other firaining in a strict embrace,

Nor ftrain'd a flave; and loud acclaims, 'till n'ght,
Round the Proconful's tent repeated rung.

To one acquainted with the Genius of Greece, the character and difpofition of that polished people, admired for fcience, renowned for an unextinguishable love of freedom, nothing can be more affecting than this inftance of generous magnanimity of the Ro

* His real name was QUINTUS FLAMINIUS.

man

man people, in reftoring them unafked to the full fruition of thofe liberties, which they had fo unfortunately loft.

The mind of Senfibility is equally ftruck by the generous confidence of Alexander, who drinks without hesitation the potion prefented by his phyfician Philip, even after he had received intimation that poifon was contiained in the cup; a noble and pathetic fcene which hath acquired new dignity and expreffion under the inimitable pencil of a Le Sueur. Humanity is melted into tears of tender admiration by the deportment of Henry IV. of France, while his rebellious fubjects compelled him to form the blockade of his capital. In chaftifing his enemies, he could not but remember they were his people; and knowing they were reduced to the extremity of famine, he generously connived at the methods practised to fupply them with provifion. Chancing one day to meet two peasants, who had been detected in thefe practices, as they were led to execution' they implored his clemency, declaring in the fight of Heaven, they had no other way to procure fubfiftence for their wives and children. He pardoned them on the fpot, and giving them all the money that was in his purfe, Henry of Bearne is poor (faid he); had he more money to afford, you should have it-go home to your families in peace; and remember your duty to God, and your allegiance to your Sovereign." Innumerable examples of the fame kind may be felected from hiftory, both antient and modern, the study of which we would therefore ftrenuously recommend.

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Hiftorical knowledge indeed becomes neceffary on many other accounts, which in its place we will explain but as the formation of the heart is of the first confequence, and thould precede the cultivation of the understanding, fuch striking inftances of fuperior

:

fuperior virtue ought to be culled for the perufal of the young pupil, who will read them with eagernefs, and revolve them with pleafure. Thus the young mind becomes enamoured of moral beauty, and the paffions are lifted on the fide of humanity. Meanwhile knowledge of a different fpecies will go hand in hand with the advances of morality, and the understanding be gradually extended. Virtue and fentiment reciprocally affift each other, and both conduce to the improvement of perception. While the fcholar's chief attention is employed in learning the Latin and Greek languages, and this is generally the task of childhood and early youth, it is even then the business of the Prceptor to give his mind a turn for obfervation, to direct his powers of difcernment, to point out the diftinguifhing marks of character, and dwell upon the charms of moral and intellectual beauty, as they may chance to occur in the Claffics that are used for his inftruction. In reading Cornelius Nepos and Plutarch's Lives, even with a view to grammatical improvement only, he will infenfibly imbibe and learn to compare ideas of greater importance. He will become enamoured of virtue and patriotism, and acquire a deteftation for vice, cruelty, and corruption. The perufal of the Roman story in the works of Florus, Salluft, Livy, and Tacitus, will irrefiftibly engage his attention, expand his conception, cherish his memory, exercife his judgment, and warm him with a noble spirit of emulation. He will contemplate with love and admiration the difinterested candour of Ariftides, furnamed the Juft, whom the guilty cabals of his rival Themistocles exiled from his ungrateful country by a sentence of Oftracism. He will be furprised to learn, that one of his fellow-citizens, an illiterate artifan, bribed by his enemies, chancing to meet him in the street without knowing his perfon, defired he would write

Ariftides

Ariftides on his shell (which was the method thofe plebeians ufed to vote against delinquents), when the innocent patriot wrote his own name without complaint or expoftulation. He will with equal aftonithment applaud the inflexible integrity of Fabricius, who preferred the poverty of innocence to all the pomp of affluence, with which Pyrrhus endeavoured to feduce him from the arms of his country. He will approve with tranfport the noble generofity of his foul in rejecting the propofal of that Prince's phy fician, who offered to take him off by poifon; and in fending the caitiff bound to his fovereign, whom he would have fo bafely and cruelly betrayed..

In reading the antient authors, even for the purposes of fchool education, the unformed tafte will begin to relish the irrefiftible energy, greatnefs, and fublimity of Homer, the ferene majefty, the melody, and pathos of Virgil, the tenderness of Sappho and Tibullus, the elegance and propriety of Terence; the grace, vivacity, fatire, and fentiment of Horace.

Nothing will more conduce to the improvement of the fcholar in his knowledge of the languages, as well as in tafte and morality, than his being obliged to tranflate choice parts and paffages of the moft approved Claffics, both poetry and profe, efpecially the latter; fuch as the orations of Demofthenes and Ifocrates, the Treatife of Longinus on the Sublime, the Commentaries of Cæfar, the Epiftles of Cicero and the Younger Pliny, and the two celebrated fpeeches in the Catilinarian confpiracy by Salluft. By this practice he will become more intimate with the beauties of the writing and the idioms of the language, from which he tranflates; at the fame time it will form his ftyle, and by exercifing his talent of expreffion make him a more perfect mafter of his mother tongue. Cicero tells us, that in tranflating two orations, which the most celebrated orators of VOL. IV. Cc Greece

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