as beautiful, which did not appear so to them, or in their considering certain objects as beautiful, which did not appear so to him. There is no instance of this more common than in the case of airs in music. In the first case of such a difference of opinion, we generally endeavor to recollect, whether there is not some accidental association of pleasure which we have with such objects, and which affords us that delight which other people do not share; and it not unfrequently happens, that we assign such associations as the cause of our pleasure, and as our apology for differing from their opinion. In the other case, we generally take it for granted, that they who feel a beauty where we do not, have some pleasing association with the object in question, of which we are unconscious, and which is accordingly productive to them of that delight in which we are unable to share. In both cases, though we may not discover what the particular association is, yet we do not fail to suppose that some such association exists, which is the foundation of the sentiment of beauty, and to consider this difference of opinion as sufficiently accounted for on such a supposition. This very natural kind of reasoning could not, I think, take place, if we did not find from experience, that those objects only are productive of the sentiment of beauty, which are capable of exciting emotion.

3. The different habits and occupations of life produce a similar effect on the sentiments of mankind with regard to the objects of taste, by their tendency to confine their sensibility to a certain class of objects, and to render all others indifferent to them. In our progress from infancy to manhood, how much do our sentiments of beauty change with our years! how often, in the course of this progress, do we look back with contempt, or at least with wonder, upon the tastes of our earlier days, and the objects that gratified them! and how uniformly in all this progress do our opinions of beauty coincide with

had reason to observe? In what instance is this most common? In the first case of such a difference, what do we endeavor to recollect? In the other case, what do we generally take for granted? In both cases, though we may not discover what the particular association is, yet what do we not fail to suppose? Under what circumstances could not this very natural kind of reasoning take place? How do the different habits and occupations of life produce a similar effect on the sentiments of mankind, with regard to objects of taste? How is this remark illustrated in our progress from infancy to man

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the prevalent emotions of our hearts, and with that change of sensibility which the progress of life occasions! As soon as any class of objects loses its importance in our esteem, as soon as their presence ceases to bring us pleasure, or their absence to give us pain, the beauty in which our infant imagination arrayed them disappears, and begins to irradiate another class of objects, which we are willing to flatter ourselves are more deserving of such sentiments, but which have often no other value, than in their coincidence with those new emotions that begin to swell in our breasts. The little circle of infant beauty contains no other objects than those that can excite the af fections of the child. The wider range which youth discovers, is still limited by the same boundaries which nature has prescribed to the affections of youth. It is only when we arrive at manhood, and still more, when either the liberality of our education, or the original capacity of our minds,has led us to experience, or to participate in all the affectionsof our nature, that we acquire that comprehensive taste, which enables us to discover, and to relish, every species of sublimity and beauty.

It is easily observable, also, that besides the natural progress of life, the habits of thought, which men acquire from the diversity of their occupations, tend, in the same proportion, to limit their sense of beauty or sublimity, as they limit their emotions to a particular character or kind. The lover reads or hears with indifference, of all that is most sublime in the history of ambition, and wonders only at the folly of mankind, who can sacrifice their ease, their comforts, and all the best pleasures of life, to the unsubstantial pursuit of power. The man, whose life has been passed in the pursuits of commerce, and who has learned to estimate every thing by its value in money, laughs at the labors of the philosopher or the poet, and beholds, with indifference, the most splendid pursuits of life, if they are not repaid by wealth. The anecdote of a late celebrated ma

hood? What objects only does the little circle of infant beauty contain; and by what is the wide range which youth discovers, still limited? When only do we acquire that comprehensive taste which enables us to discover and to relish every species of sublimity and beauty? What is observed of the influence of particular habits of thought? In the case of the lover, how is this illustrated? How, in the case of the man who has passed his life in the pursuits of commerce? What anecdote is here introduced of a late celebrated

thematician is well known, who read the Paradise Lost, without being able to discover in it any thing that was sublime, but who said he could never read the queries at the end of Newton's Optics, without feeling his hair stand on end, and his blood run cold. There are thousands who have read the old ballad of Chevy Chase, without having their imaginations inflamed with the ideas of military glory. It is the brave only, who in the perusal of it, like the gallant Sir Philip Sidney, feel" their hearts moved, as by the sound of a trumpet."

The effect of such habits of mind upon the sense of beauty, may, in some degree, be observed in all the different classes of mankind; and there are probably few men, who have not had occasion to remark how much the diversity of taste corresponds to the diversity of occupations, and, even in the most trifling things, how strongly the sentiments of beauty, in different men, are expressive of their prevailing habits, or turn of mind. It is only in the higher stations, accordingly, or in the liberal professions of life, that we expect to find men of either a deli. cate, or a comprehensive taste. The inferior situations of life, by contracting the knowledge and the affections of men, within very narrow limits, produce, insensibly, a similar contraction in their notions of the beautiful or the sublime. The finest natural taste is seldom found able to withstand that narrowness and insensibility of mind, which is, perhaps, necessarily acquired by the minute and uninteresting details of the mechanical arts; and they who have been doomed, by their professions to pass their earlier years in populous and commercial cities, and in the narrow and selfish pursuits which prevail there, soon lose that sensibility which is the most natural of all-the sensibility to the beauties of the country: because they lose all those sentiments of tenderness and innocence, which are the foundation of much the greater part of the associations we connect with the scenery of nature.

mathematician? Of the old ballad of Chevy Chase, what is observed? How extensively may the effect of such habits of mind be observed? What have most men had occasion to remark? Where only, then, can we expect to find men of either a delicate or comprehensive taste? Of the inferior stations of life, what is observed? What is the finest natural taste seldom found able to withstand? What is observed of those who have been doomed, by their pro

4. The difference of original character, or the natural tendency of our minds to particular kinds of emotion, produces a similar difference in our sentiments of beauty, and serves, in a very obvious manner, to limit our taste to a certain class or character of objects. There are men, for instance, who, in all the varieties of external nature, find nothing beautiful but as it tends to awaken in them a sentiment of sadness-who meet the return of spring with minds only prophetic of its decay, and who follow the decline of autumn with no other remembrance than that the beauties of the year are gone. There are men, on the contrary, to whom every appearance of nature is beautiful, as awakening a sentiment of gaiety :-to whom spring and autum are equally welcome, because they bring to them only different images of joy; and who, even in the most desolate and wintry scenes, are yet able to discover something in which their hearts may rejoice. It is not surely, that nature herself is different, that so different effects are produced upon the imaginations of these men; but it is because the original constitution of their minds has led them to different habits of emotion-because their imaginations seize only those expressions in nature which are allied to their prevailing dispositions, and because every other appearance is indifferent to them, but those which fall in with the peculiar sensibility of their hearts. The gaiety of nature is beautiful only to the cheerful man; it is melancholy to the man of sadness; because these alone are the qualities which accord with the emotions they are accustomed to cherish, and in which their imaginations delight to indulge.

The same observation is equally applicable to the different tastes of men in poetry, and the rest of the fine arts; and the productions that all men peculiarly admire, are those which suit that peculiar train of emotion, to which, from their origi

fessions, to pass their earlier years in populous and commercial cities; and why? What produces a similar difference in our sentiments of beauty; and what does it serve to limit? How is this remark fully illustrated? To what are we to attribute the different effects upon the imaginations of these men? What effect does the gaiety of nature produce upon the cheerful man, what upon the man of sadness; and why? To what is the same observation equally applicable; and what are the productions which all men peculiarly admire? How is this remark illustrated from the ardent and gallant mind? How from

nal constitution, they are most strongly disposed. The ardent and gallant mind sickens at the insipidity of pastoral, and the languor of the elegetic poetry, and delights only in the great interests of the tragic and the epic muse. The tender and romantic peruse, with indifference, the Iliad and the Paradise Lost, and return with gladness to those favorite compositions, which are descriptive of the joys or sorrows of love. The gay and the frivolous, on the contrary, alike insensible to the sentiments, either of tenderness or magnanimity, find their delight in that cold, but lively style of poetry, which has been produced by the gallantry of modern times, and which, in its principal features, is so strongly characteristic of the passion itself. In general, those kinds of poetry only are delightful, or excite, in us, any very sensible emotions of sublimity or beauty, which fall in with our peculiar habits of sentiment or feeling; and if it rarely happens, that one species of poetry is relished to the exclusion of every other, it arises only from this, that it is equally rare, that one species of emotion should have so completely the dominion of the heart, as to exclude all emotions of any other kind. In proportion, however, as our sensibility is weak, with regard to any other class of objects, it is observable, that our sense of sublimity or beauty in such objects, is weak in the same proportion; and wherever it happens, for it sometimes does happen, that men, from their original constitution, are incapable of any one species of emotion, I believe it will also be found, that they are equally insensible to all the sublimity or beauty which the rest of the world find in the objects of such emotion.

5. Besides the influence of permanent habits of thought, or of the diversities of original disposition upon our sentiments or beauty, every man must have had opportunity to observe, that the perception of beauty depends also on the temporary sensibility of his mind; and that even objects of the most experi

the tender and romantic? In what do the gay and the frivolous find their delight? In general, what kinds of poetry only are delightful? If it rarely happens that one species of poetry is relished to the exclusion of others, from what does it arise? In proportion as our sensibility is weak, with regard to any class of objects, what is observable; and what remark follows? Besides the influence of permanent habits of thought, &c., what must every man