236] ANNUAL REGISTER, 1800. 



med up by the artifices of composi- 

 tioHj taught by professors of rhetoric; 

 but from the progressive intercourses 

 of men with men, and minds with 

 minds: of navigation, commerce, 

 arts, and sciences. 



Solitary, barbarous, and rude na- 

 tions, have few restraints on theii- 

 appetites and passions. Multiplied 

 relations,and attentions to propriety, 

 grace, and decorum, and the opi- 

 nions of mankind, in a state of cul- 

 tivated and polite society, mingle, 

 modify, and reduce, as it were, the 

 corrosive sublimate o{ the selfish and 

 angry passions of men, into a gentle 

 sympathy with all around them. — 

 The sciences arrest prejudice and 

 passion, and teach men to think 

 fairly and candidly on the situations 

 of other men, and other individuals, 

 as well as on themselves. Still more 

 immediately is the cause of humanity 

 promoted by the arts: in aU of 

 which, we principally contemplate 

 and sympathize with human nature, 

 placed in various attitudes and situ- 

 ations. In poetry, painting, sculp- 

 ture, music, and architecture, it is 

 still human nature, seen or fancied, 

 that gives the principal charm : 

 human passions, feelings, emotions, 

 and conveniences. 



— Didicisse fideliter artes, 



Emollit, mores nee sinit esse feros. 



HOBAT. 



Of the progress and state of the 

 arts, in the eighteenth century, we 

 have little to observe, that can be 

 considered as characteristicalof that 

 period. The epic poem, which de- 

 pends on machinery and fable, af- 

 ter some respectable efibrts by Vol- 

 taire, Glover, and VVilkie, has, at 

 last, died a kind of natural death ; 

 having pined away under the too 

 powerful rays of the sun of science. 

 The only species of poetry that has 



flourished, for a longtime, is the de- 

 scriptive. The muses that now ani- 

 mate poetry, are the sciences : the 

 sciences that can give dignity to all 

 things, by combining them with the 

 general laws of moral and physical 

 nature. 



In painting, gardening, and ar- 

 chitecture, there has been a happy 

 retreat from too much drapery, or- 

 nament, and various nick-nackery, 

 and an approach to the simple, love- 

 ly, and majestic form of nature. In 

 music, there has been much im- 

 provement in harmony and contra- 

 punto : but none of the mathema- 

 tico-musical compositions of our mu- 

 sical doctors, for real effect on the 

 imagination and heart, are to be 

 compared with some of those sim- 

 ple melodies that have been formed 

 by a mere imitation, or rather, in- 

 deed, participation of human sen- 

 timent and passion. 



We shall wind up this sketch of 

 the eighteenth century, with an 

 anecdote of some mad philosophers, 

 which, though ridiculous, may serve 

 perhaps to illustrate our present sub- 

 ject more than all that has been now 

 said. About the year 17.00, the 

 progress of discovery, particularly 

 in chymistry and mineralogy, had 

 become so great, and the reign of 

 art over nature so extensive, that 

 some of the same philosophers, who 

 set up for political reformers, parti- 

 cularly those connected with a semi- 

 nary of dissenters at Hackney, be- 

 lieved not only that the period was 

 approaching, when men were to be 

 governed by the purity of their own 

 minds, and the moderation of their 

 own desires, without any external 

 coercion, but when the life of man 

 might be prolonged, ad hifinitum, 

 and philosophers, if they chose it,| 

 become immortal. 



