burlesque itself despised and set aside.”[289] Perhaps there is not a more unhappily selected single epithet in the whole range of criticism than “the _cold_ Lucretius.”[290] On the other hand, both in the more speciously literary parts of his desultory discourses _de quodam Ashleio_, and outside of them, he has frequent remarks on the Kinds;[291] he is quite copious on Correctness;[292] and there can be no doubt that he deserves his place in this chapter by the fashion in which he endeavours to utilise his favourite _pulchrum_ and _honestum_ in reference to Criticism, of which he is a declared and (as far as his inveterate affectation and mannerism will let him) an ingenious defender. The main _locus_ for this is the Third Miscellany, and its central, or rather culminating, passage[293] occurs in the second chapter thereof. The Beautiful is the principle of Literature as well as of Virtue; the sense whereby it is apprehended is Good Taste; the manner of attaining this taste is by a gradual rejection of the excessive, the extravagant, the vulgar.[294] A vague enough gospel, and not over well justified by the fruits of actual appreciation quoted above;[295] but not perhaps much vaguer, or possessing less justification, than most metacritic. [Sidenote: _Hume._] The position of Hume in regard to literary criticism has an interest which would be almost peculiar if it were not for something of a parallel in Voltaire. If the literary opinions of the author of the _Enquiry into Human Nature_ stood alone they would be almost negligible; and if he had worked them into an elaborate treatise, like that of his clansman Kames, this would probably, if remembered at all, be remembered as a kind of “awful example.” In their context and from their author, however, we cannot quite “regard and pass” Hume’s critical observations as their intrinsic merit may seem to suggest that we should do: nay, in that context and from that author, they constitute a really valuable document in more than one relation. [Sidenote: _Examples of his critical opinions._]