LIBERAL ARTS. 
or pantomime; to that fucceeded articulate founds, or 
fpeech ; that of modulated founds, or mufic, followed, 
owing its origin to joy or gratitude; and thefe three inodes 
of expreffion, images of the thoughts, are as quick and as 
tranfient as they ; in a moment they are gone, or they live 
to the memory only, not to the eye. Painting, fculpture, 
and architecture, are three other languages, vvhofe expref- 
fions, on the contrary, are permanent, and which continue 
to fpeak in ages when their immediate authors are no 
more. 
Much has been written upon the fine arts, yet fcarcely 
have they ever been precifely and fatisfaClorily defined. 
Among the Greeks and Romans, thefe arts had a deno¬ 
mination from the firft and greateft of all blefiings, liberty: 
they were called the liberal arts, becaufe at that time they 
made a part of the education of free men only ; and we 
learn from Pliny that they began not to degenerate till 
riches and patronage became the price of adulation and 
l'ervitude. Upon the revival of letters, or rather of the 
human mind, (iince we regard as abfolute death that le¬ 
thargy in which it lay under the dominion of barbarifm,) 
our anceftors, to diltinguifti the arts they were labour¬ 
ing to revive from the mere mechanical arts, continued 
the fame denomination which had been tifed by the Greeks 
and Romans; they called them liberal , though liberty no 
longer remained on the earth. To this appellation, which, 
like fo many others borrowed from the Greek and Latin 
tongues, retained no mark of truth, they added another, 
more vague indeed, but much more juft, and which feems 
to have fuperfeded the former. The liberal arts are now 
more commonly called the fine arts ; whether becaufe 
they have their origin in the fined faculties of our being, 
the thought, the imagination, the fentiment; or becaufe 
their objeCl is to embellifh all the fined productions of 
nature. 
Among the Greeks and Romans, the dominion of the 
liberal arts was much more extenfive than is that of the 
fine arts with us. The liberal arts included mulic, dan¬ 
cing, drawing, grammar, hillory, eloquence, poetry, geo¬ 
metry, racing, wreftling, riding, and the various exercifes 
of the gymnalium. But, at prefent, Iince our political 
conftitution neither forbids nor commands thefe exercifes 
to be ufed by any particular clafs of perlons, we in gene¬ 
ral confider the fine arts as confined to painting, fculp- 
ture, engraving, architecture, mufic, and dancing. We 
fhould indeed have mentioned the art of poetry, and even 
have placed it in the fore-ground ; but it is now included 
in the clafs of belles lettres, or polite literature; and cer¬ 
tainly, in the prefent Hate of our manners and ideas, poetry 
belongs to literature rather than to the arts. 
The fine arts are clofely connected with the mechanical 
arts; for, except in mufic and dancing, there is in each a 
part that is manual and mechanical. But thefe are raifed 
to a certain rank by the hand of the artift who executes 
them. All human operations, as well as all human ac¬ 
tions, are raifed by their principles or by their effeCts : the 
hand which, to reprefent an action or an idea, grinds or 
lays on colours, moiltens or moulds, or chips away the in¬ 
equalities of marble, is not more degraded than by the 
lefs-aCtive exercife of the writer, who to communicate his 
thoughts handles and directs a pen. While the employ¬ 
ment is to trace ideas, exprefs the fentiments of the heart, 
to paint the paflions, to lhow images of men or things, 
what fignifies the nature of the infirument employed ? 
The firft and molt refpe&able of public employments 
could hardly exilt without the liberal arts ; it could not 
employ the fenfes, but muft be merely perfonal, interior, 
confequently deprived of unanimity, without the aflift- 
ance of the liberal arts ; that is, without the language of 
aition, requifite to explain and imprefs upon the fight of 
an affembled multitude the refpeCt due to the molt holy 
of inflitutions ; of fentimental eloquence, which inftruCts, 
exhorts, touches, confoies ; of poetry and mufic, which, 
exalting our gratitude and devotion, raife them towards 
heaven, make them audible to a great number of men 
579 
collected together, and caufe them to be adopted as it 
were in unifon ; of an architecture, which furniflies the 
means of conveniently collecting together a number of 
perfons of fimilar fentiments, and by its forms and pro¬ 
portions contributes to infpire and maintain in them reli¬ 
gious fentiments and imprellions ; the very intent of their 
meeting ; laltly, painting and fculpture, the better to im¬ 
prefs on the memory obje&s and events connected with 
religious worfhip. 
When we extend this idea onward to heroifin and pa- 
triotilin, we (hall be convinced, that the governors of a ci-r . 
vilized nation ought to regard live liberal arts, not as ob- 
jefts merely of pleafure and of luxury, but as the expref- 
fions or languages of the molt noble, important, and ele¬ 
vated, fentiments, that man is fufceptible of. And in¬ 
deed, if the perfection of thefe languages be neceffary for 
expreffing, for communicating, for imprelfing with ftrehgth 
and dignity, the fentiments of religion, heroifm, and pa- 
triotifin ; if words, accents, and reprefentations, excite 
emulation and enthufiafm,- the imperfeftion of thefe arts 
muft contribute to degrade the moll noble inflitutions, 
by exciting ridicule and irony ; and we know that the 
imprellions made upon the fenfes of the multitude have a 
greater effeCt upon their aftions than what is directed to 
the reafon, or even to the imagination. It is therefore of 
the greateft importance, for maintaining the authority and 
refpeCt of high inflitutions, that, when they fall under the 
notice of the fenfes, they fhould be as little as poflible ex- 
pofed to what may degrade them; and it is an indifpu- 
table advantage for thofe wdio are efteemed at once mi- 
nifters of the Supreme Being, models of heroic virtue, and 
reprefentatives of the country, to carry to perfection the 
languages of thofe high inflitutions with which they are 
identified by the rank they hold in civilized fociety. 
In confidering the lels fublime ufes of the liberal arts, 
and the enjoyments and pleafures of which they are an 
inexftauftible fource, may we not fay that governors are 
bound to turn the very amufements of the people to the 
encouragement of the fine arts, by making every thing 
conformable to the order which fhould reign in a well- 
regulated community? 
If our governors at length turn their attention to the 
loweft branches of the arts, fti 11 keeping in view the con¬ 
necting chain, they will find that the induftry which 
promotes commerce, namely the manufactures, or thofe 
profeffions where the mechanical part is ennobled by 
the liberal, thofe objects, in fhort, in which coniifts that 
fuperfluity which the richnefs of dates renders neceffary, 
and even indifpenfable,—cannot preferve an advantageous 
fuperiority, unlefs the fublimity of the higher kinds, re¬ 
flecting upon the fecond rank to increafe pleafure and 
convenience, extends its influence alfo upon the lowed, 
fo as to make good tafte completely prevalent. 
Yet it is eafy to judge, that the power of the governors 
of nations over the fine arts cannot be coercive: the libe¬ 
ral arts are free, as their name imports; they cannot be- 
conftrained, any more than thought can be confined. 
What afcendency then, it may be afked, have perfons in 
authority over the fine arts ? Not that of forcing or con- 
ftraining them; but of encouraging and favouring them: 
they may recommend them by difeourfe ; encourage them 
by example; favour and proteCf them by patronifing 
works of genius and men of genius. For it may be re¬ 
marked, that every word which falls from him who is at 
the head of a particular order of men is of importance ; a 
painful diftinClion, no doubt, when they are aware of their 
own confequence; but they muft be amply repaid by the 
pleafure of fo eafily directing the opinions of men to lau¬ 
dable purpoles. 
And, as it is the duty of thofe who hold the firft rank 
in civilized fociety to encourage and fuftain the liberal 
■arts, we may fuppofe it to be the intereft and the enjoy¬ 
ment of a vaft number of the middle clafles to promote 
them ; and thus the patrons of art are multiplied without 
number. Herein they find matter of recreation and of 
perfonal 
