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ESSAY I.

OF THE DELICACY OF TASTE AND PASSION.

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OME People are fubject to a certain delicacy of passion, which makes them extremely sensible to all the accidents of life, and gives them a lively joy upon every profperous event, as well as a piercing grief, when they meet with misfortunes and adverfity. Favours and good offices eafily engage their friendship; while the smallest injury provokes their resentment. Any honour or mark of diftinction elevates them above measure; but they are as fenfibly touched with contempt. People of this character have, no doubt, much more lively enjoyments, as well as more pungent forrows, than men of cool and fedate tempers: But, I believe, when every thing is balanced, there is no one, who would not rather chufe to be of the latter character, were he entirely master of his own difpofition. Good or ill fortune is very little at our own difpofal: And when a person, that has this fenfibility of temper, meets with any misfortune, his forrow or refentment takes intire poffeffion of him, and deprives him of all relish in the common occurrences of life; the right enjoyment of which forms the greatest part of our happiness. Great pleafures are much less frequent than great pains; fo that a fenfible temper must meet with fewer trials in the former way than in the latter. Not to mention, B 2 that

that men of fuch lively paffions are apt to be transported beyond all bounds of prudence and difcretion, and to take false steps in the conduct of life, which are often irretrievable.

There is a delicacy of taste obfervable in fome men, which

very much resembles this delicacy of paffion, and produces the fame fenfibility to beauty and deformity of every kind, as that does to profperity and adverfity, obligations and injuries. When you prefent a poem or a picture to a man poffeffed of this talent, the delicacy of his feeling, makes him be touched very fenfibly with every part of it; nor are the masterly strokes perceived with more exquifite relish and satisfaction, than the negligences or abfurdities with disgust and uneafiness. A polite and judicious conversation affords him the highest entertainment; rudenefs or impertinence is as great a punishment to him. In fhort, delicacy of tafte has the fame effect as delicacy of paffion: It enlarges the sphere both of our happiness and misery, and makes us sensible to pains as well as pleasures, which escape the reft of mankind..

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I believe, however, there is no one, who will not agree with me, that notwithstanding this refemblance, a delicacy of tafteis as much to be defired and cultivated as a delicacy of paffion is to be lamented, and to be remedied, if poffible. The good or ill accidents of life are very little at our own difpofal; but it is much in our power what books we fhall read, what diverfions we shall partake of, and what company we shall keep. Philo fophers have endeavoured to render happiness entirely independent of every thing external. That is impoffible to be attained: But every wife man will endeavour to place his happiness. on fuch objects as depend moft upon himself: and that is not to be attained fo much by any other means as by this delicacy

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of fentiment. When a man is poffeffed of that talent, he is. more happy by what pleases his tafte, than by what gratifies his appetites, and receives more enjoyment from a poem or a piece of reasoning than the moft expenfive luxury can afford.

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How far delicacy of taste, and that of paffion, are connected together in the original frame of the mind, it is hard to deter-mine. To me there appears a very confiderable connexion between them. For we may obferve that women, who have more delicate paffions than men, have also a more delicate taste of the ornaments of life, of dress, equipage, and the ordinary decencies of behaviour. Any excellency in thefe hits their tafte much fooner than ours; and when you please their taste, you foon engage their affections.

But whatever connexion there may be originally between: thefe difpofitions, I am perfuaded, that nothing is fo proper to cure us of this delicacy of paffion, as the cultivating of that higher and more refined taste, which enables us to judge of the characters of men, of compofitions of genius, and of the pro-ductions of the nobler arts. A greater or lefs relish of those obvious beauties which ftrike the fenfes, depends entirely upon the greater or lefs fenfibility of the temper: But with regard to the sciences and liberal arts, a fine tafte is, in fome measure, the fame with strong sense, or at least depends fo much upon it, that they are infeparable. To judge aright of a compofition of genius, there are so many views to be taken in, fo many circumstances to be compared, and fuch a knowledge of human nature requifite, that no man, who is not poffeffed of the foundeft judgment, will ever make a tolerable critic in fuch performances. And this is an additional reason for cultivating a relish in the liberal arts. Our judgment will ftrengthen by this exer-cife:

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