sculptors; and one of the finest ornaments of the Vatican, the Jupiter of Phidias, is of his invention. But why speak the praises of Homer? Horace has praised him; Boileau has praised him the Eneid, and the Jerusalem Delivered, praise him from beginning to end. : Some criticks condemn him because they say he wants sense and reason; and he appears to them to want reason and sense, because they do not know that the Greek allegories (which they call chimeras and marvellous) were all founded upon reason and truth; and that they contained the finest morality, which made Horace say, that Homer taught philosophy better than many others who were philosophers by profession. TASTE. I HAVE looked for ideas for many years on the subject of taste, but never could find any satisfactory, either in conversation or in books. M. de Voltaire has said in his Temple du Gout, Je vis ce Dieu qu'en vain j' implore, Ce Dieu charmant que l'on ignore I have the greatest respect for the opinion of M. de Voltaire in matters of taste; but with all the deference that I owe him, I believe a man's not being able to define a thing, is but a bad sort of proof than he understands it. I should even be tempted to believe the contrary; and I should consider a person's showing that he was able to analyze a subject, as a strong presumption that he understood that subject. I conceive beforehand that all men think they have taste, and that all those who do not know how to define it will be of M. de Voltaire's opinion The term taste is a metaphor taken from the palate. A good partridge is served up to three men one finds it good; another finds it bad; the third neither finds it good nor bad. The third is a man without taste; the second man's taste is bad; the first man has a good taste. Bring a German grenadier to see the Belvedere Apollo, he will neither find it beautiful nor ugly; this is a man without taste: show this stat ue to a Dutch Burgo, he will find it two light, he would wish it a little heavier; this is a man of a perfidious taste: show it afterwards to ten Italians, ten Frenchmen, and ten Englishmen, they will all find it beautiful, and yet each of them may have a different taste. Jean Jaques Rousseau says, "Le gout est le microscope du jugement ;" and in another place he says, "il sert de lunettes à la raison." In these two expressions the idea is the same, and the idea is false; and the reason why Rousseau mistook is the same that has misled all the men who have written upon taste. They thought it a simple idea, and it is a conplex one. The cause of their errour is this: taste, in its literal sense, is a simple idea; in its metaphorical .sense, it is a compounded idea. I explain myself by an example. The piece of pheasant that I eat is addressed to a single sense, to my palate, which decides upon it. To what is the qu'il mour út addressed? To my judgment. Is it fine? I answer, that it is. Have I then taste? No; I have only judgment: but after having passed through my judgment, it has still another address: where? to my feeling. Do I feel then the beauty of this qu'il mourût? Yes; then I have taste; and this taste is a compound idea, and compounded of these two parts, judgment and feeling. The degrees of judgment are extremely varied in men; the degrees of feeling are not less so; the combinations of these two parts are therefore infinitely diversified; and hence arises that astonishing variety of tastes that we meet in the world. Of those thirty men of good taste who found the Apollo beautiful, I said, perhaps each of them had a different taste; for even supposing the judgments of all equal, it is more than probable that each of them felt differently the beauties of this work; and in that case each of them had a different taste. The three greatest criticks that ever existed were Boileau, Horace, and Longinus. Show a sublime beauty to these criticks; the taste of the three was good; they would all agree, but their taste was not the same; the faculty of judging was equal in all, but their feelings were different, and they would not feel this beauty equally; Boileau would feel it as a hundred ; Horace as a hundred; Longinus as a thousand. I am sure that these ideas upon taste are new: I am not sure that they are just. not, I have no taste; if they are, I drew them from myself. If they are ANCIENT ENGLISH POETS. ROBERT GREEN WAS born at Norwich, about the middle of the sixteenth century. He was educated at Cambridge, and on leaving that university made the tour of Europe. In this tour he is said to have learned that debauchery which characterized the greater part of his life, and embittered his latter days. After having resided some years in London, he took his degree in arts at Cambridge, and was incorporated at Oxford in the year 1588. He was married to a very amiable woman, by whom he had one son. But this lady he quitted in the year 1586, being offended at her having given him good advice. He then lived with a prostitute, wrote obscene pamphlets for his support, and fully exemplified by his manners, the doctrines that he taught.. Towards the latter end of his life, however, hẹ appears to have repented sincerely. A letter, which he addressed to his wife, discovers a great degree of contrition. He died in the year 1.592 of a surfeit, occasioned by eating pickled herrings and drinking rhenish wine. The pamphlets of Green are numerous, but now very scarce. He is said to have been the first author who wrote for bread. AN ODE From Green's Never too late." DOWNE the valley gan he tracke, Bagge and bottle at his backe, ; Such were Palmers on the way; Such rare mixture Venus seekes, |