source of most terrible evils. New men and new models have been the dread of the wisest politicians; and when things are tolerably well, to maintain them upon the old footing, has been generally thought the safest maxim for the happiness of the community. Too great a desire of novelty, either in the governed, or in the governing, has often disturbed the peace of kingdoms. When it goes no farther than to decide the dress of the person, or the ornaments of our equipage, all is safe; its highest degree of excess will then only afford a subject of ridicule, a smart cocked hat, or embroidered sleeve, a short petticoat, or well-fancied furbelow, will neither endanger the church, nor embroil the state. The pursuit indeed of such kind of novelties may rather occasion many advantages to the public; while that vanity which is absurd in the particular, is useful in the general. Novelty and fashion are the source and support of trade, by constantly supplying matter for the employment of industry. By increasing the wants they increase the connexions of mankind; and so long as they do not, by too great an extravagance, defeat their own end, in disabling the rich from paying the reward of that industry to the poor, they answer excellent purposes to society.

Not only the improvements of every invention for the convenience and ease of life, but even of those which constitute its real ornament, are owing to this desire of novelty. Yet here too we may grow wanton; and nature seems to have set us bounds, which we cannot pass without running into great absurdities. For the very principle which has contributed to the perfection of the finer arts, may become the cause of their degeneracy and corruption. The search of the something new has step by step conducted mankind to the discovery of all

search (for the desire of novelty never stops) already begins to urge us beyond that point to which a just taste should always confine itself.

Hence it is that musical composition ceases to be admired for merely touching the passions, and for changing the emotions of the heart from the soft to the strong, from the amorous to the fierce, or from the gay to the melancholy, and only seems to be then considered as highly excellent, when it impresses us with the idea of difficulty in the execution.

Images unnatural and unconnected, and a style quaint and embarrassed with its own pomp, but void of meaning and sentiment, will always be the consequence of endeavouring, in the same way, to introduce a new taste into poetry. Hence it will become vehement without strength, and ornamented without beauty; and the native, warm, and soft winning language of that amiable mistress, will cease to please her more judicious lovers by an affectationof pleasing only in a new manner.

Strange as it may appear that this should find admirers, yet it is not any more to be wondered at than the applause which is so fondly given to Chinese decorations, or to the barbarous productions of a Go thic genius, which seems once more to threaten the ruin of that simplicity which distinguished the Greek and Roman arts as eternally superior to those of every other nation.

Few men are endued with a just taste; that is, with an aptitude to discover what is proper, fit, and right, and consequently beautiful, in the several objects which offer themselves to their view. Though beauty in these external objects, like truth in those of the understanding, is self-evident and immutable, yet, like truth, it may be seen perversely, or not at all, because not considered. Now all men are equally struck with the novelty of an appearance; but few,

after this first emotion, call in their judgment to correct the decision of their eye, and to tell them whether the pleasure they feel has any other cause than mere novelty. It is certain that a frequent review and comparing of the same objects together would. greatly improve an indifferent taste; and that hardly any one would be unable to determine, when once accustomed to such an attention, whether the proportions of architecture taken from the theatre of Marcellus at Rome, or from the Emperor of China's palace at Pekin, produced the most agreeable forms.

The present vogue of Chinese and Gothic architecture has, besides its novelty, another cause of its good reception; which is, that there is no difficulty in being merely whimsical. A spirit capable of entering into all the beauties of antique simplicity, is the portion of minds used to reflection, and the result of a corrected judgment: but here all men are equal. A manner confined to no rules cannot fail of having the crowd of imitators in his party, where novelty is the sole criterion of elegance. It is no objection that the very end of all building is forgot; that all reference to use and climate, all relation of one proportion to another, of the thing supporting to the thing supported, of the accessory to the principal, and of the parts to the whole, is often entirely subverted.

The paintings, which, like the architecture, continually revolt against the truth of things, as little surely deserve the name of elegant. False lights, false shadows, false perspective and proportions, gay colours, without that gradation of tints, that mutual variety of enlightened and darkened objects, which relieve and give force to each other at the same time that they give repose to the eye, in short every in

pression and without meaning, are the essentials of Chinese painting.

As this Chinese and Gothic spirit has begun to deform some of the finest streets in this capital, whenever an academy shall be founded for the promoting the arts of sculpture, painting, and architecture, some scheme should be thought of at the same time to discourage the encroachment of this pretended elegance; and an Anti-Chinese society will be a much more important institution in the world of arts, than an Anti-Gallican in that of politics. A correspondent of mine, I dare say, would be glad to be a member of it, if we may be allowed to judge of his sentiments from the following letter:

'MR. FITZ-ADAM,

'I am married to a lady of great fortune, of which, as I had little or none myself, she has reserved the sole disposition to her own management by the marriage-articles. She is passionately fond of novelty, and changes her dress and furniture as often almost as she does her temper. In short, every thing about her is a proof of her mutability. She has not more new head-dresses in a year, than new words, which she is perpetually coining, because she would pass for a wit. The unintelligibility of her dialect occasions sometimes great confusion in the family; and her acquaintance no sooner begin to understand her, than she changes her phraseology, and they are puzzled again by a new mode of expression. She came home the other morning from a visit, in raptures with Lady Fiddlefaddle's Chinese dressing-room; since which we have had most terrible revolutions. Her grandfather, who left her every thing, was a man celebrated for his taste; but his fine collection tures by the best Italian masters, is now con

to Indian paintings; and the beautiful vases,

busts, and statues, which he brought from Italy, are flung into the garret as lumber, to make room for great-bellied Chinese pagods, red dragons, and the representation of the ugliest monsters that ever, or rather never existed. This extravagance is not confined within doors. The garden is filled with whimsical buildings, at a prodigious expense; with summer-houses without shade, and with temples that seem to be dedicated to no other deities than the winds. If by reading your paper she should be persuaded to leave off every Chinese fashion, but that of pinched feet and not stirring abroad, I should think myself a happy man, and very much, Mr. Fitz-Adam,

Your obliged humble servant.'

No 118. THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 1755.

Vicinas urbes alit.-HOR.

INSTEAD of lamenting that it is my lot to live in an age when virtue, sense, conversation, all private and public affections, are totally swallowed up by the single predominant passion of gaming, I endeavour to divert my concern by turning my attention to the manners of the times, where they happen to be more elegant, more natural, or more generally useful than those of preceding ages. I am particularly pleased with considering the progress which a just taste and real good sense have made in the modern mode of gardening. This science is at present founded on such noble and liberal principles, that the very traveller now receives more advantages from the embellishments he rides by, than the visitor did for