GILMORE the elder might be faid to be a fingular inftance of being moft yearned without any obligation to the civil law; and his own genius made him equal to the Roman jurifprudence. In the practice of the Courts of Judicature in Scotland, he might be faid to rether give than declare the law; his clients confulted him as a judge more than as an advocate; and like another Hercules, is knotty club laid his adverfaries proftrate; in fhort, he was eloquent without rhetoric, learned without literature.

Providence pitted him with NISBET, who managed caufes with fuch profound knowledge, and fuch confummate cloquence, that he made the fcales of juftice equipoife; however, from his always ufing too much art, he rendered it fufpicious; fo that whenever they became opponents the glory was GIL MORE's, the victory NISBET's, from the latter's poffeffing moft art and having had the beft education, and the former most natural endowments and ftrength.

NICHOLSON the younger made ufe of a fanatic, not the Roman clocution, fo that he rather preached than plead ed; a leffon more apt to perfuade pofterity than to pleafe that corrupt age, and thofe lefs acute judges: but if this learned advocate fhould happen to tranfmit his orations to future times, it will appear that he copied the Auguftan era, with which he was perfectly acquainted.

GILMORE the younger pleaded more from vigour than ftudy; his method in which he made fo conformable to his own genius, that what nature or what art dictated to him was fcarcely perceptible, inafmuch as what he was in debted to nature was fo elegant, that it feemed to be embellished by art. Being the judge not the flave of his own abilities, he fometimes advised with fenatorial gravity, fometimes diverted with fanciful facetioufnefs; at other times he briefly exhaufted a vast quan

tity of matter, and then fapplied barren fubje&t with unexpected copioufnefs; as thofe who can do every thing may do any thing: never had man more command over his faculties, never man conceded more to them. His innate generofity caufed him to make great allowances to young advocates; no one was more happy than himself in commending them ;-he defpifed riches, and was greedy of fame only.

WEDDERBURNE brought the judges over in favour of his client by his fanctity of manners, and could, if he pleafed, have prejudiced them by the agreeablenefs of his difcourfe; but he never urged any fact seriously unlefs it was true, nor point of law unless it was juft; he was always reading Cicero with great attention, whence he procured his uniform and perfuafive manner of delivery. None of the juniors of the bar could imitate him as he did Cicero; he adorned the fabje&t by his eloquence, and his eloquence by the gracefulness of his action; the quality of which, though flecting, he rendered perpetual to his fame.

LOCKHART might be confidered as a fecond code of civil law, and as another Cicero: his peculiar gift was, to arrange his arguments in fuch order, that they fupported one another, as ftones do the arches in buildings. Thefe arguments fuggefted themselves to him in the moment, while he was pleading; his ready wit pointed them out, and difpofed them in their proper places. He was not at a lofs as to any part of jurifprudence. As foon as ever his client opened his cafe to him, he unravelled all the arguments on both fides the question, and inveftigated the merits of the caufe, which finally determined it: anger, which confufed other orators, only animated LockHART; however it made him hoarse, and disfigured his countenance.

KERR, while he ftudied at Bourges, that Athens of Lawyers (to which Sir George Mackenzie was indebted for his jurifprudence, fuch, fays he, as it was), though a Tyro in the practice of the Scots judicature, he procured himfelf a reputation by relying on his own learning, forced a way into court, whereby he expofed himself to the ridicule of his feniors, who were mean enough to fet even their fervants at him. They laughed at his ignorance of the most common technical terms. KERR,

however,

latter must be interrupted every time the artift perceives that it is neceffary to roufe the attention. Immenfe plains, where a continual uniformity reigns, fatigue the eye of the traveller. Order ought to facilitate the perception of the whole. Large groups formed by ftriking objects do not leave the fpectator

leifure to obferve the want of order; they please and engage his attention by their majestic grandeur.

Noble fimplicity belongs to every thing which pleases by its effence; it will charm good tafte, wherever it may be. It will please equally in the Rotunda, and in the character and conduct of Abraham; the voice of Epic Poetry will render it as interefting as the Shepherd's Pipe. A noble fimplicity reigns throughout all the works of the Creator; a happy imitation of nature is therefore the fureft road to immortality. When the artift difdains to take her for his guide, or when he has not been initiated into her myfteries, Gothic turrets, overloaded with phantaftical ornaments, arife in the room of temples which difplay all the noble fimplicity of architecture. The mufician, inftead of calling forth tears by fimple and melodious tones, wanders then in the intricacies of difficult and ftudied modulations, in order to obtain the applauses of the multitude.

Beauty, in the most extenfive sense of the word, is afcribed to every thing which pleases us, and taste attaches itself to every object which, by the great and the fublime, excites admiration and aftenishment. A ftorm at fca; the enormous rocks of Terra del Fuego, piled upon one another with horrid and majeftic grandeur, and covered with fnow; a burning torrent of lava, which, with the noife of bursting thunder, throws itself into the fea, and makes it recede from the fhores; a pure fky, fuch as Brydone beheld in the night-time on the top of Mount Etna, while innumerable orbs fparkled with delightful brightnefs over his head, and an immenfe gulph bellowed below his feet; are grand fcenes of nature, which a man of tafte will always contemplate with ecftafy.

The property of pleafing is not confined to phyfical beauty alone; the imagination and the mind may create images

which produce the fame effect. The thought that beyond the Milky Way there may be a thoufand others of the fame kind, muft excite the most exalted ideas in the mind of a man of tafte. Repeated meditation on the fublime, and a frequent contemplation of the beautiful and the agreeable, nourish and purify the tafte, and bring it towards perfection. The flights of a wild imagination will aftonish thofe who are not acquainted with the laws by which invention ought to be regulated and put in practice. The favage American is tranf ported with pleasure, when he hears the found of his rude inftrument formed of a gourd; certainly he would not be fo had he been accuftomed to hear the ftrains of Handel in his forefts. He who has become familiar with the fpirit of Terence, will turn with indignation from the disgusting farces which give fo much delight to the loweft of the vulgar. A pure tafte more and more awakens the ardent defire of attaining to the highest degree of beautyfweet foretaste of immortality! The fenfations occafioned by the beautiful, become fo much the livelier as the belief of perfection is ftronger, and as the imagination is warmer, and fenfibility more exquifite. There are a thousand degrees of tafte, and it is ftill respected whilft it adheres to truth. But happy is he who may be called a man of fuperior tafte! He hath reached the fource of pure, innocent, and fublime pleasure. All nature is obedient to his power; art lays before him her productions, which, while they increase his pleasures, add to his knowledge; his imagination is enriched with a thoufand agreeable images, and black melancholy never embitters a fingle moment of his life. Tafte diffufes certain charms over all the actions of a man who really poffeffes it. In his mouth common truths acquire more force; they make an impreffion with more facility, and carry readier conviction along with them. The exquifite and delicate ideas which he entertains of order and harmony, remove every thing that offend them; and he defpifes exaggeration, bombaft, childish conceits, vain fubtleties, falfe wit, and, in short, every thing that characterifes bad taste. Tafte, by foftening his manners, ren

ders

ders his foul more fufceptible of whatever is noble and good, It excites him. to be more familiar with Nature, to carry his refearches farther, to elevate his fentiments, and to prepare himself for the converfation of fuperior beings. The beauties and treasures of Nature every where open to his view the delightful vallies of Greece, the burning defarts of Peru, the Heavens beftudded with ftars, and, in a word, the whole univerfe in all its grandeur prefents, him with fubjects for meditation. The cafe is the faine with the productions of art. Mufic, painting, fculpture, architecture, poetry, eloquence, and the theatre, when properly regulated, fo as to become a Ichool of virtue and morality, furnith innumerable fources of pleafure to the man of genuine taste.

Thefe obfervations are, doubtlefs, fufficient to convince one of the neceffity of forming and purifying the tafte, and to point out the advantages that must thence refult to fociety. Some gloomy cenfors, who would condemn man tovegetate on the earth, pretend to deny the influence of tafte on the manners; they even affert that it becomes hurtful to virtue. It muft, indeed, be allowed, that men of fine tafte have often abandoned themfelves to vice; but thefe monsters are exceptions from the general rule, and the teftimony and example of the greatest men of antiquity, as well as of modern times, are fufficient to prove the contrary. Who can read the MESSIAH of Klopftock, and the immortal work of Sulzer, without being convinced that tafte naturally incites to virtue? O inftructors of youth, never

forget that virtue is the only and furcft means of forming the hearts of your pupils, and that by rectifying their tafte your fuccefs will be more speedy. Experience will convince you that young minds, in which a fenfe of phyfical beauty is brought to perfection, will be more fenfible alfo of moral beauty. Reafon, tafte, and what Hutchefon and Shaftesbury call the moral fenfe, are, according to Sulzer, the fame faculty, only modified by different objects. It has not been indeed demonftrated, that the moral fenfe is innate; but all the faculties of the foul being intimately connected, we may conclude that they must be reciprocally influenced by onc another. Who will deny, that the magic of mufic and poetry open the innoceat heart of friendship to pity, and, in a word, to every foft and tender pailion But let us never forget, that as the fine arts have often been abufed, the man of tafte is obliged to chroote their productions with difcernment. Pocts and painters, hurried away by a loose ima gination, have often proftituted their talents on the most infamous fubjects: the man of real tafte, however, will decry all thofe fubjects which, by offending againft modefty, corrupt the morals and, whatever their merit may be, he will confign them to eternal oblivion; while he laments that men of genius, formed to do honour to the fine arts, and to the age in which they live, have fo little refpect for themselves, as to feck the contemptible glory of meriting the fuffrages of the meaneft part of their nation,