a view of serving their country, and much too negligent and degage to aim at serving themselves, I charitably conclude, in order to give them some motive for action, that they commence candidates purely from this principle, as wanting only to push themselves into a present momentary crowd at the ensuing election, and to secure to themselves a septennial crowd, by getting into parliament. I could enumerate many more instances of the same kind, but really I have scribbled till I am tired: I have however one word to say to your friends the poets before I conclude. You know, Sir, they frequently make similes about us women, and are particularly fond of taking them from the feathered part of the creation; for instance, if a woman is constant (as perhaps some women have formerly been), they compare her to a turtle if she sings well, they instantly clap a nightingale into her throat; and if she is fair, the swan's plumage immediately becomes dirty by comparison. Now all these similes may do well enough in the confined way they use them; but they never yet found out any single bird that could be made use of as a general symbol of the whole sex. I have, Mr.

Fitz-Adam; and I shall give it them to put into verse if they please; assuring myself, that if they are convinced of the truth of my foregoing reasonings, they will think it a just one; not to keep them or you longer in suspense, it is a wild-goose.

I am, among the crowd of your admirers,

M. B.'

N° 67. THURSDAY, APRIL 11, 1754.

ALL the fashionable part of mankind set out with the ambition of being thought men of taste.

This is the present universal passion; but the misfortune is, that, like sportsmen, who lose their hare, and start coneys, which lead them over warrens, where their horses break their legs, and fling their riders; so in the affair of taste, we frequently see men following some false scent, with the same ardour that they would have pursued the proper object of a chase, and with much greater inconveniences.

'Of all the various subjects that have yet exercised the geniuses of modern writers, that of taste has appeared to be the most difficult to treat; because almost all of them have lost themselves in endeavouring to trace its source. They have generally indeed referred us for its origin to the polite and imitative arts; whereas those are rather its offspring than its parents. Perhaps their mistakes in treating this delicate subject may have arisen from the great resemblance which false taste bears to true, which hasty and inaccurate observers will find as difficult to distinguish, as to discern Pinchbeck's metal from genuine gold at the first transient glance. To the end therefore that our ideas of our fine gentlemen may be somewhat more precisely adjusted upon this important article, I shall venture to assert, that the first thing necessary for those who wish to acquire a true taste is, to prepare their minds by an early pursuit

and love of moral order, propriety, and all the rational beauties of a just and well-regulated conduct. "True taste, like good breeding in behaviour, seems to be the easiest thing in nature to attain; but yet, where it does not grow spontaneously, it is a plant, of all others the most difficult to cultivate. It must be sown upon a bed of virgin-sense, and kept perfectly clean of every weed that may prevent or retard its growth. It was long erroneously thought to be an exotic; but experience has convinced us that it will bear the cold of our most northern provinces. I could produce instances to confirm this assertion, from almost every county of Great Britain and Ireland.

The folly is, that every man thinks himself capable of arriving at perfection in this divine accomplishment; but nature hath not dispensed her gifts in such profusion. There is but one sun to illuminate our earth, while the stars that twinkle with inferior lustre are innumerable. Thus those great geniuses that are the perfect models of true taste, are extremely rare, while thousands daily expose themselves to ruin and ridicule by vain and awkward imitations.

'Perhaps to arrive at taste in one single branch of polite refinement, might not be altogether so fruitless an ambition; but the absurdity is, to aim at a universal taste. Now this will best appear by observing what numbers miscarry even in the most confined pursuit of this difficult accomplishment. One seeks this coy mistress in books and study; others pursue her through France, through Italy, nay, through Spain; and after all their labours, we have frequently seen them ridiculously embracing pedantry and foppery with the raptures due alone to taste. Thus it happens with many deluded travellers in the fields of gallantry, who enjoy fancied familiarities with

strumpets have assumed, to deceive the vain, the ignorant, and the unwary.

'It is thought the Bona Dea of the Romans, was nothing more than the goddess of taste. Ladies alone were admitted to her mysteries. The natural indelicacy indeed of the stronger sex seems to countenance this opinion; women in general having finer and more exquisite sensations than men; and it is a thorough acquaintance with the virtues and charms of that most amiable part of our species which constitutes the most essential quality of a man of taste. Who indeed ever knew a mere soldier, a mere politician, a mere scholar, to be a man of taste?

'Were we to erect a temple to taste, every science should furnish a pillar, every virtue should there have an altar, and the three graces should hold the high-priesthood in commission.

We daily see pretenders to this quality endeavour. ing to display it in a parade of dress and equipage; but these, alas! can only produce a beau. We see others set up for it amongst cards and dice; but these can create nothing better than a gamester. Others in brothels, which only form a debauchee. Some have run for it at Newmarket; some have drank for it at the King's-arms; the former, to their great surprise, have acquired only the title of good jockeys, the latter, of jolly bucks. There are many who aim at it in literary compositions, and gain at most the character of intruding authors.

However, this general pursuit of taste has its uses; those numbers who go in quest of it, where it is never to be found, serve at least as so many marks that teach us to avoid steering the same unsuccessful course.

The plain truth of the matter is, a house filled with fine pictures, the sideboard loaded with massy plate, the splendid equipage, with all the hey-dukes, pages,

and servants, that attend it, do not entitle the posessor to be called a man of taste: they only bring with them either anxiety or contempt to those whose rank and fortunes are not equal to such ostentation. I will be bold to say therefore, notwithstanding some of your readers will doubtless look upon me as an unpolished Vandal, that the best instance any man can give of his taste, is to shew that he has too much delicacy to relish any thing so low and little, as the purchase of superfluities, at another's cost, or with his own ruin. At least the placid satisfaction of that man's heart who prudently measures his expenses, and confines his desires within the circle of his annual revenue, begets that well-ordered disposition of mind, without which it is impossible to merit the character of a man of just refined taste.

"Certain it is, that he best discovers the justness of his taste, who best knows how to pursue and secure the most solid and lasting happiness. Now where shall we look for this, with so much probability of finding it, as in temperance and tranquillity of mind, in social and domestic enjoyments? Are not these the first and most essential objects of taste? Certainly they are; and when a man has once acquired these, he may, if fortune and nature has properly qualified him, launch out into a more extensive compass, and display his genius in a larger circle.

'But it will be difficult, I fear, to persuade those young men of the present generation, who are ambitious for establishing a character for taste, to advance towards it by so slow and regular a progression. They seem in general to be possessed with a kind of epic madness, and are for hurrying at once into the midst of things. But perhaps you, Mr. Fitz-Adam, may be able, by reason or by ridicule, to call back their attention to the previous steps; to persuade them to learn to walk before they attempt