the mass to system. She improves upon all that has gone before her, in her search after truth, while poetic genius still emulates her in the production of beauty.

As art and science advance to perfection, genius abandons its own instincts, and is guided by caprice. Taste is formed, as well as cultivated, from the examination of models. Books are no longer written from nature, but from other books, and they reflect other men's thoughts, instead of nature.

When fame can be attained without the least genius, when for this purpose it is sufficient to display an intimate acquaintance with what has been written upon most subjects, and when volumes are made by drafts upon common place books, none readily deny themselves the distinction of authorship. Learned men rise up to preside over the arts and sciences, to rule in matters of taste and reason, as fast as colleges can confer degrees, or bestow distinctions of merit. These men, like Patroclus, clad in the armor of the heroes that have gone before them, make such a flourish, that simple, unadorned truth sinks in despair, or is scouted from the field.

The memory may be strengthened and enlarged by such exercises, but the mind remains undeveloped by the power of thought and reflection.

The fine arts, poetry, eloquence and history, addressing themselves to the imagination, and the heart, develop and cherish the finest sensibilities, and shed a lustre upon the age in which they flourish. Through these the spirit, the sentiment, and the genius of one age are transmitted to succeeding generations in the

various forms of beauty they incarnate all of the past that is worthy of resuscitation, of immortality.

In honor of human nature, it is observed that a tragic effect can never be drawn from an incident which manifests the least tendency to immorality. However depraved human nature may be represented to be, it delights only in the contemplation of the beautiful and the good. The brightest fancy, the richest imagination, cannot give a lasting charm to vice. The poet or the artist that hopes for immortality, that is, to please and instruct the mind, of all succeeding time, must rest his hopes of success on his truthfulness to nature, to virtue, in the portraiture of the human passions and character.

Virtue forms that mysterious link which binds the soul to the beautiful in all her varied forms, and changeful shades. It unites the moral and physical worlds between the rose, the rainbow, the placid stream, the serene firmament, and love, sensibility, the gentle spirit, and the magnanimous soul, it reveals an analogy. There is an affinity between the emotions which are excited by whatever is beautiful in nature or grand in art, and that beauty or grandeur.

Refined taste and the moral sense are allied to each other, and both being rooted in human nature, and governed by principles common to all mankind, they furnish an immutable standard for judgment.

Guided by these the largest scope may be given to fancy and imagination, and the productions of genius will always please. By yielding to its own. impulses, it displays all that is affecting in the pas

sions, and all that is beautiful in the aspects of nature and in tracing the relations which exist among the affections, and the objects with which they are conversant, it explores the recesses of morality, and discovers the secret springs of all that is beautiful and good.

It cannot be too often remarked, nor too strongly enforced, that the relation which exists among our faculties, is such, that by improving our tastes we adorn and dignify our whole nature. As our sensibilities are refined, the springs of action become susceptible and elastic, and pure.

A refined taste opens to the mind a source of pleasure, as exhaustless as the stores of nature, and the productions of art. Develop the sensibilities of the soul, and it becomes alive to each fine impulse: it makes,

"All nature, beauty to his eye

Or music to his ear: well pleased he scans
The goodly prospect; and with inward smiles
Treads the gay verdure of the painted plain.”—

Cultivate the seeds of love and admiration which are sown in every human breast, and every form of beauty charms the enlivened soul, and endows it with a richer treasure and an ampler state, than gems or gold can bestow :

"What e'er adorns

The princely dome, the column and the arch,
The breathing marble and the sculptured gold,
Beyond the proud possessor's narrow claim
His tuneful breast enjoys. For him, the Spring

Distils her dews, and from the silken germ
Its lucid leaves unfold; for him, the hand
Of Autumn tinges every fertile branch

With blooming gold and blushes like the morn.
Each passing hour sheds tribute from her wings:
And still new beauties meet his lonely walk,

And loves unfelt attract him."

Taste affords an exhaustless source of pleasure; it chastens the passions, and induces independence and originality of thought and action. The mind meditating upon the charm and order of external things, returns to itself to seek a kindred state of things, and in this contemplation exalts itself to the grand design of Nature in which the lesser grades are subordinate to and aid the beauty and harmony of the great whole. It feels within itself a restive energy, and spurns the restraints of custom and caprice.

The beauties of language combine with, and increase, and sweeten all our pleasures derived from literary exercises. The refined taste relishes the fitness, the fine sequences, and the delicate modulation of words as sensibly as the cultivated ear enjoys the charm of music. If the charms of music are ever wholly independent of language, its fine harmonies always increase the effect of music, and being always in unison with, and responsive to the chords of melodious sensibility which the soul itself possesses, it chimes in with the varied melodies of nature, and is a source of constant pleasure.

As the improvement of taste increases our pleasures, so the progress of literature develops every species of generous emotion; and as literature advances, the products of genius and manners change.

It

The literature of a nation is as local in its nature, and as dependent upon the country in which it flourishes, as are the productions of the earth. cannot be transplanted from another region and flourish at once: it must first naturalize itself to the soil, and the language become rooted in the affections. The soil, the scenery, the climate, the productions of the earth, and the treasures in its bosom, all contribute by natural causes, by determining the pursuits of men, to determine also the nature and form of their literature. Character itself, is not independent of the pursuits of mankind: difference of pursuit draws the line of distinction, and separates the sage from the savage, and the philosopher from the barbarian.

In the infancy of nations, as in youth, imagination is vigorous and active. When a nation takes possession of a new country whose scenery has never been described, romance and mystery attend upon all its movements: surprised and delighted with every thing it beholds, its intellectual creations partake of the spirit of the new world it has entered. The mind, excited by the new prospect, buoyant with hopes of the future, and freed in a great measure from artificial systems, yields to its own impulses, and the guidance of nature. The climate, acting upon the body and mind, in the course of time, modifies their organization and temperament; and to these thus changed, the literature and language assimilate themselves; that species of literature which is chiefly the offspring of the imagination springs up immediately,