Men and Manners; Sketches and Essays. Sketches and Essays (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1852. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... ON TASTE. Taste is nothing but sensibility to the different degrees and kinds of excellence in the works of Art or Nature. This definition will perhaps be disputed; for I am aware the general practice is to make it consist in a disposition to find fault. A French man or woman will in general conclude their account of Voltaire's denunciation of Shakspeare and Milton as barbarians, on the score of certain technical improprieties, with assuring you that "he (Voltaire) had a great deal of taste." It is their phrase, II avait beaucoup de gout. To which the proper answer is, that this may be, but that he did not show it in this case; as the overlooking great and countless beauties, and being taken up only with petty or accidental blemishes, shows as little strength or understanding as it does refinement or elevation of taste. The French author, indeed, allows of Shakspeare, that "he had found a few pearls on his enormous dunghill." But there is neither truth nor proportion in this sentence, for his works are (to say the least)-- "Rich aa the oozy bottom of the sea, With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries." Genius is the power of producing excellence: taste is the power of perceiving the excellence thus produced in its several sorts and degrees, with all their force, refinements, distinctions, and connections. In other words, taste (as it relates to the productions of art) is strictly the power of being properly affected by works of genius. It is the proportioning admiration to power, pleasure to beauty: it is entire sympathy with the finest impulses of the imagination, not antipathy, not indifference to them. The eye of taste may be said to reflect the impressions of real genius, as the even mirror reflects the objects of Nature in all their clearness and lu...