A HISTORICAL ESSAY ON TASTE. 



hings, — man being, in fact, himself but a link in God's chain of creation; and it is but 

 according to experience to suppose, there resulted a preference for this or that form, just 

 as the mind was more or less charmed by the images transmitted to it through the senses. 



Thus even with respect to the works around us, you would find in men of different cli- 

 mates, or accustomed to different scenery, a diversity of taste: he whose native land is a 

 very garden adorned with an endless variety of foliage, rife with flowers, intersected by 

 by rivers, and also thronged with graceful animals, and birds of all brilliant hues and mo- 

 difications of song — such a man, I say, would probably possess a taste for that which is 

 florid, rich, vivid in idea; his feeling would be rather for the beautiful, than for the grand; 

 he would prefer that wliich charms to that which astonishes; — the fault, perhaps, of his 

 taste, would be an inclination towards redundancy; the advantage of it, a sparkling gor- 

 geous fancy; a bright imagination ; a magnificent versatility of thought ; and, perhaps, a 

 capacity for detail. On the other hand, a man accustomed to the waste sublimity of the 

 desert, would possess a corresponding taste for extent, even for boundlessness; an inha- 

 bitant of a mountainous region would admire what is lofty, aspiring, towering, free; the 

 capacity of the two last would probably be for generalising; and with respect to what is 

 free, we are well aware that both Arabs and Swiss are noted for their devotion to liberty. 

 A maritime nation would prefer the bold, strong, extensive. Such would be the taste of 

 each of these with respect to nature; but it is curious to observe, how, when man came 

 by degrees to express his mind in buildings, he appears in certain respects concerning art, 

 to have sought that which he had not in nature around him ; as though in some lands he 

 had said — I have no mountains — I will build them ; I will raise something that shall over- 

 awe its own creator — something vast, by which I myself shall be astounded — and so, fur- 

 ther, according to the excess of the designing mind above its fellows, was the amount of 

 awe and wonder inspired among them. But this subject will further develop itself as we 

 advance, and, having premised thus much concerning taste in general, I will proceed to 

 consider it more particularly with respect to individual nations. Of the earliest building 

 of the world, such as the ark, probably by no means elegant, or the tower of Babel, we 

 should think a huge, unsightly mass, possessing no element of the sublime, but that of 

 size, it is not necessary to dilate. Whether the latter was really built, as we have seen it 

 drawn, like a huge snake rising on its coils, curling up to heaven, and most industriously 

 lifting the nations to the stars, is of little moment; but it was probably built of a kind of 

 brick, cemented with the bitumen that abounded in the Babylonian territory; and as the 

 object was to build to heaven, it would no doubt be raised in a great hurry, and with lit- 

 tle regard to design. It is not here, then, we shall look for taste. In passing, we might 

 observe, that the scriptural story is strongly resembled by the heathen fable of the giants 

 piling Ossa on the top of Pelion to dethrone Jove. But as we shall have occasion to re- 

 turn to Babylon, let us pass into Egypt, historically more ancient. Here we find the sub- 

 limity of magnitude extraordinarily developed; a massiveness that is suggestive of eterni- 

 ty: and an imitation of nature in many respects unbounded. Here are the mountainous 

 pyramids; here is the Sphinx, whose head only now rises above the surrounding deserts, 

 once thronged by its superstitious worshippers. Here are the palaces, where their kings 

 dwelt; the temples where their priests deceived; the tombs which have given up their 

 dead for the daily inspection of the curious in modern museums, where death itself has 

 become the subject of impertinence. 



The Sphinx was originally a huge block of stone that stood before the pyramids, and it 

 shows the grand taste of the Egyptians to have converted it into the wonderful figure 

 Avhich still remains. The taste of the Egyi>tians was evidently for a solid, gloomy gran 



