Emerges. Colours mingle, features join;

And lines converge the fainter parts retire;
The fairer eminent in light advance ;

And every image on its neighbour smiles.

LESSON 104.

280. 1. Render the following Extract into correct Prose, according to Directions No. 241.

2. Give an Analysis with Remarks on the leading topics and arguments, according to No. 242.

3. Observations on the Figures of Speech, Epithets, and instances of Poetical License, according to No. 242.

281. THE NATURE AND CONDUCT OF TASTE.
What then is Taste, but these internal powers
Active, and strong, and feelingly alive
To each fine impulse? a discerning sense
Of decent and sublime, with quick disgust
From things deform'd, or disarrang'd, or gross
In species? This, nor gems, nor stores of gold,
Nor purple state, nor culture can bestow;
But God alone when first his active hand
Imprints the secret bias of the soul.
He, mighty parent! wise and just in all,
Free as the vital breeze or light of Heaven,

Reveals the charms of Nature.—But though Heaven
In every breast hath sown these early seeds
Of love and admiration, yet in vain,
Without fair Culture's kind parental aid,
Without enlivening suns, and genial showers,
And shelter from the blast, in vain we hope
The tender plant should rear its blooming head,
Or yield the harvest promis'd in its spring.

Nor yet will every soil with equal stores
Repay the tiller's labour; or attend
His will, obsequious, whether to produce
The olive or the laurel. Different minds
Incline to different objects: one pursues
The vast alone, the wonderful, the wild;
Another sighs for harmony, and grace,

And gentlest beauty. Hence when lightning fires
The arch of Heaven, and thunders rock the ground,
When furious whirlwinds rend the howling air,
And Ocean, groaning from its lowest bed,
Heaves his tempestuous billows to the sky;
Amid the mighty uproar, while below

The nations tremble, Shakspeare looks abroad
From some high cliff, superior, and enjoys
The elemental war. But Waller longs,
All on the margin of some flowery stream,
To spread his careless limbs amid the cool
Of plantane shades, and to the listening deer
The tale of slighted vows and love's disdain
Resound soft-warbling all the livelong day :
Consenting Zephyr sighs; the weeping rill
Joins in his plaint, melodious; mute the groves;
And hill and dale with all their echoes mourn.
Such and so various are the tastes of men.

BOOK IV.

TASTE AND DESCRIPTIONS.

CHAPTER VIII.

TASTE.

LESSON 105.

282. Before proceeding to the rules and examples in Descriptive Subjects, it will be advantageous to furnish a brief and familiar exposition of the nature and leading principles of Taste.

283. TASTE is that discriminating power or faculty of the mind, by which we determine on the fitness or unfitness of anything intended to excite emotions, either of beauty, of grandeur, or of sublimity. This power is founded on the experience which emotions of beauty, or of grandeur, or sublimity produce; and he who exercises this power successfully is called a Man of Taste.

284. THE DIFferent Kinds OF EMOTIONS.-The emotions excited by objects of beauty, are of a calm, gentle, and agreeable kind, and of much longer continuance than those excited by sublimity or grandeur. The following are instances:

1. When the sun goes down in the West, the surrounding clouds reflect, to our view, a rich variety of colours. We

gaze on the splendid scene, and there is a pleasant emotior excited in our minds.

2. When examining Dr. Paley's reasoning in proof of the existence of the Deity, and observing how every part is brought to bear on the particular object in view, while one example after another gives additional strength to the argument, we admire the skill of the reasoner and the perfection of his work; and in view of this skill and this finished work, a grateful emotion arises in the mind.

285. The emotions excited by objects of grandeur are of a more elevating and ennobling kind, than those excited by objects of beauty. The following are examples:

1. The traveller, when he stands on the banks of some noble river, flowing on with the power of collected waters, and bearing on its bosom the wealth of the surrounding region, is conscious of emotions which, as they rise and swell within him, correspond to the scene on which he looks.

2. The following is Gray's description of the rising sun: "I set out one morning before five o'clock, the moon shining through a dark and misty autumnal air, and got to the seacoast in time to be at the sun's levee. I saw the clouds and dark vapours open gradually to the right and left, rolling over one another in great smoky wreaths, and then slightly tinged with gold and blue, and all at once, a little line of insufferable brightness that, before I can write these five words, is grown to half an orb, and now a whole one, too glorious to be distinctly seen." This is a representation of a scene in Nature, and the writer, in looking on this scene, felt an emotion of grandeur.

286. The emotions excited by objects of sub; limity are less permanent than those of grandeur, but more thrilling and exalting. The following are examples:

1. We are told, that when Newton drew near to the close of those calculations which confirmed his discovery of the laws by which the planets are bound in their courses, he was so overwhelmed with emotion, that he could not proceed, and was obliged to ask the assistance of a friend. No one can think of the mighty, intellectual work that was then accomplished, and not feel, as he did, an overpowering emotion.

2. The engagement of two great armies, as it is the highest exertion of human might, affords a variety of sources of the sublime. Example:-" Like autumn's dark storms, pouring from two echoing hills, towards each other approached the heroes: as two dark streams from high rocks, meet and war on the plain, loud, rough, and dark in battle, meet Lochlin and Innisfail. Chief mixes his stroke with chief, and man with man: steel sounds on steel, and helmets are cleft on high; blood bursts and smokes around: strings murmur on the polished yew darts rush along the sky spears fall like sparks of flame that gild the stormy face of night. As the noise of troubled ocean when roll the waves on high; as the last peal of the thunder of heaven; such is the noise of battle. Though Cormac's hundred bards were there, feeble were the voice of a hundred bards, to send the deaths to future times; for many were the deaths of the heroes, and wide poured the blood of the valiant."- Ossian.

287. REQUISITES OF TASTE.

a. As Taste is an improveable faculty, Exercise is necessary for its cultivation. Thus, Touch becomes more exquisite in men whose employment leads them to examine the polish of bodies, than it is in others whose trade does not require such nice exertions. So, Sight, in discerning the minutest objects, acquires a surprising accuracy in microscopical observers, and those who are accustomed to engrave on precious stones.