No perfons bear criticizing better than they who have the greatest right to commendation. 8vo. ART. I. An Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Tafe. By Richard Payne Knight. The Third Edition. 473 pp. 8s. 6d. Payne. 1806. THE HE author of this work embraces every opportunity that occurs, and fometimes deviates from his fubject in queft of opportunities, to pour abuse on periodical reviewers in general, and on the British Critics in particular. What offence our brother journalists may have given to him does not appear; but his hoftility has been excited against us, as well by our bestowing only moderate praise on a poem of not more than moderate merit*, as by our reprobating the obfcenity of a certain work of which he is known to be the author; and expofing to merited deteftation the materialifm and other impious abfurdities which difgrace his Progrefs of Civil Society. To fuch hoftility we cheerfully fubmit; See British Critic, Vol. iii. p. 382, &c. + Vol. viii. p. 24, &c. B BRIT, CRIT, VOL, XXIX, JAN. 1807. and, and, were Mr. Knight a much more formidable antagonist than he is, we should say, with great fincerity, "Welcome for thee, fair virtue! all the past; For thee fair virtue! welcome even the lait." We will not, however, follow his example, nor, though he has declared his enmity to us, refufe to him our praife, whe e praife appears to be due. He is certainly no good poet, and on fome topics he is a fuperficial philofopher; bat he appears to have ftudied, with fuccefs, the principles of tafte; and has favoured us with a work on that fubject, to which, though it is not all of equal merit, nothing fuperior will be readily found in the compafs of English lite rature. Inftead of arbitrary definitions, with which it is too much the fashion among metaphyfical writers to introduce their difquifitions to the public, Mr. Knight prepares his readers for the analyfis which he is to lay before them, by what he calls a fceptical view of the fubject to be analyfed. Scepticifm is a word of ominous found; and it might, perhaps, have been as well omitted in the table of contents; for, in the introduction, which bears this title, there is no other fcepticifm than that which every man feels, who, without prejudice, inveftigates the firft principles of any fcience. The author, indeed fhows, that tafte, in building, furniture, addrefs, is influenced by fafhion, not only among individuals, but among nations, and even in the fame nation at different periods; and this is a pofition which no man will controvert, who is not the flave of fome learned fyftem. To the hacknied obfervation that the precious remains of Grecian art have been univerfally admired; and that, therefore, the vicious extravagancies which temporary and local fafhions have introduced, muft have been tacitly condemned, even by thofe who adopted and encouraged them, Mr. Knight replies, by afking if it be certain that this admiration of ancient art, and confequent condemnation of modern fafhions, have always been fincere; and if men's practice be not a better teft of their real feelings than their profeffions. The queftions are pertinent; and we could give several triking inftances, which are confiftent with our own knowledge, to corroborate the inferences which this author draws from the only anfwers that can be given to them, without deviating from truth. He admits, however, that in judging of the works of nature, there appears to have been lefs inconftancy; while he fhows, that even in appreciating the beauty of trees and animals, the caprices of fafhion have been fuch as to render doubtful thofe axioms of tafte, from which fome philofophers, of deferved celebrity, have derived that admiration of the works of nature, which, in a greater or lefs degree, is felt by all men. "The word beauty is a general term of approbation, of the most vague and extenfive meaning, applied indifcriminately to almost every thing that is pleafing, either to the fenfe, the imagination, or the underftanding; whatever the nature of it be, whether a material fubftance, a moral excellence, or an intellectual theorem. We do not, indeed, fo often speak (Q. do we ever fpeak?) of beautiful smells or flavours, or of beautiful colours, forms, and founds; but, nevertheless, we apply the epithet to a problem, a fyllogifm, or a period, as familiarly, and (as far as we can judge from authority) as correctly as to a rofe, a landfcape, or a woman. We fpeak alfo, and, I believe, with equal propriety, not only of the beauties of fymmetry and arrangement, but of thofe of virtue, charity, holiness, &c. The illuftrious author, indeed, of the Inquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful, chooses to confider fuch expreffions as improper, and to confine beauty to the fenfible qualities of things. But, as an ancient grammarian obferved, even Cæfar though he could command the lives and fortunes of men, could not command words, nor alter, in a fingle instance, the cuftomary idiom of fpeech, and, in this inftance, customary idiom has established thefe expreflions, not only in the English, but in all the other polifhed languages of Europe, both ancient and modern; xaos in the Greek, pulcher in the Latin, bello in the Italian, and beau in the French, being constantly applied to moral and intellectual, as well as to phyfical or material qualities. It is in vain, therefore, for individuals to difpute about their propriety or impropriety; for, after all, the ultimate criterion must be common ufe. "Quem penes arbitrium eft, et jus et norma loquendi, and from which he, who chooses to depart, only makes his meaning less intelligible." P. 9. All this is very true, if meant of the language of hiftory, poetry, or common converfation; but we are not, therefore, inclined to cenfure the author of the Inquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful, for withing, in a philofophical difquifition, to reftrain the word beauty to fome particular fenie t. In common language xxx, pulcher, beau and beauty, are in deed * Part iii. S. 1 and 9. "By beauty, I mean that quality, or thofe qualities in bodies, by which they caufe love, or fome paffion fimilar to it. I confine this definition to the merely fenfible qualities of things, B 2 for deed ufed in all the fenfes enumerated by the present author; but that beauty, which is the immediate object of external fenfe, is fomething very different from the beauty of virtue, or the beauty of a problem; and what is true of the one, may not be true of the other; may, indeed, be jargon, when predicated of the other. When a word has, by the jus et norma loquendi, various meanings, its proper meaning, if ftill in ufe, muft be its radical meaning, or that which it was originally intended to exprefs; and there cannot be a doubt, but that words, which are now fignificant of both bodily and mental qualities, were originally intended to exprefs only the former. The Greek word xa, which is certainly employed by claffic authors in all the fenfes enumerated by Mr. Knight, feems to have been derived from the Hebrew ha, which fignifies to be perfect; but what kind of perfections firft attracted the notice of the rude people, among whom that language was ori ginally fpoken? External perfections unquestionably. Pulcher again, was probably at firft employed to denote corporeal trength, which attracted the greatest regard and excited the greateft approbation of any human perfection, among the rude people of Latium; and there can be no doubt, but that beau, beauté, and beauty, were at firft employed to exprefs the pleafing qualities of fomething external, and thence transferred by metaphor to the qualities and affections of the mind. This author accordingly admits, that the word beauty changes its meaning with every complete and genuine change of its application; and that the pleafures refulting from the different kinds of beauty, though mixed in their effects, are utterly diftin&t in their caufes. This leads him to confider the objects of tafte as they affect the fenfes, the imagination, reafon, and the paffions; and to divide his work into three parts, entitled-1. Of Senfation: 2. Of the Affociation Ideas: and 3. Of. the Pafions. The reason of this divifion will be difcovered as we proceed in our analyfis of the work. for the fake of preferving the utmoft fimplicity in a fubject, which must always diftract us, whenever we take in those various caufes of fympathy which attach us to any perfons or things from fecondary confiderations, and not from the direct force which they have merely on being viewed.” Sublime and Beautiful, p. 130. Ed. 1801. Pulcher is probably a contraction of route, which means frong, or skilful in the employment of bodily ftrength. So, at least, Scaliger; but fome derive it from polic, and fome from oxapis. |