THE TRIUMPH OF TASTE. 449 



infatuated was Beattie, when his otherwise powerful pen defended 

 native melodies ! That period of darkness hath vanished ; and now, 

 such are the miracles of modern mind, that the accomplished tallow- 

 chandler's wife, instead of weighing soap or retailing dips, reads " La 

 Belle," and maintains that no person of taste can tolerate English 

 after Italian songs, except such as the delightful " Cherry Ripe" 

 especially at that classic part of it, 



K< If so be you ask me where 

 They do grow, I answer there f(^ 

 Where my Julia's lips do smile, 

 That's the land of Cherry Isle ! " 



This has acquired universal popularity by its intrinsic merit, as is 

 evinced by the countless multitude who warble it to their rapt and 

 admiring friends.* But even " the like of this," must give way to 

 such as " Di TantL" The ignorance of the language is thought to 

 give great effect to the Italian songs. The harmonious combinations 

 of the poetical language of modern Rome, instil sweets to every ear 

 recipient of genuine harmony, without the aid of that obsolete and 

 detested thing called the understanding. There is always a reaction 

 from public opinion ; and hence the Royal Academy of Music have 

 adopted measures consonant with the popular taste and sentiments. 

 The pupils whom that august institution hath sent forth, have echoed 

 none but the enchanting strains of Italy, and left those of Gothic 

 Scotland, England, and Ireland to be warbled by dustmen for the 

 edification of tap-rooms. How triumphant is taste, in thus causing a 

 relish for foreign beauties, and a dislike for the coarseness of native 

 productions ! Cannot the few remaining particles of the original 

 British character be destroyed ? 



From the mere dulce of that advancing principle of mind, whose 

 progress and operations we have attempted to illustrate, let us read 

 to the utile, as manifested in some modern demonstrations of phi- 

 losophy. 



First, then, we mention the celebrated Hume, (not the financier, 

 but the philosopher), (not the M.P. but the historian.) His taste 

 was sublimated to that degree of celestial purity, that he could not 

 tolerate any thing so gross as matter. He was, emphatically, " all 

 mind." His system excluded the vulgar necessity of arms, legs, and 

 body the culinary osseous, muscular and integumental parts, and 

 which were not bona .fide, solid and substantial regular flesh and so 

 forth but immaterial and notional, mere refined concretions of ab- 

 stract ideas. He had, in short, by his own account, the essential 

 attributes of a ghost, though there is no authenticated record that 

 they ever evaporated up a chimney, vanished through a key-hole, or 



* Perhaps there is scarcely one of the thousand and one " first-rate singers," 

 to say nothing of the multiplied myriads of amateurs, that have perpetrated this 

 ditty upon their friends and the public, who has the least notion that it was 

 written by Herrick, one of the truest and most original of poets. We feel it 

 due to the spirit of Herrick to say, that no man has written more brilliant things ; 

 and it is indeed hard, when an author's faults are remembered, that his beauties 

 should be forgotten. 



M . M. No. 94. 2 M 



