One other advantage of criticism is reserved to the last place, being of all the most important, that it is a great support to morality. I insist on it with entire satisfaction, that no occupation attaches a man more to his duty than that of cultivating a taste in the fine arts. A just relish of what is beautiful, proper, elegant, and ornamental, in writing or painting, in architecture or gardening, is a fine preparation for discerning what is beautiful, just, elegant, or magnanimous, in character and behaviour. To the man who has acquired a taste so acute and accomplished, every action, wrong or improper, must be highly disgustful. If, in any instance, the overbearing power of passion sway him from his duty, he returns to it upon the first reflection, with redoubled resolution never to be swayed a second time. He has now an additional motive to virtue, a conviction derived from experience, that happiness depends on regularity and order, and that a disregard to justice or propriety never fails to be punished with shame and remorse[5]. Rude ages exhibit the triumph of authority over reason. Philosophers anciently were divided into sects: they were either Epicureans, Platonists, Stoics, Pythagoreans, or Sceptics. Men relied no farther upon their own judgement than to chuse a leader, whom they implicitly followed. In later times, happily, reason hath obtained the ascendant. Men now assert their native privilege of thinking for themselves, and disdain to be ranked in any sect, whatever be the science. I must except criticism, which, by what fatality I know not, continues to be not less slavish in its principles, nor less submissive to authority, than it was originally. Bossu, a celebrated French critic, gives many rules; but can discover no better foundation for any of them, than the practice merely of Homer and Virgil, supported by the authority of Aristotle. Strange, that in so long a work, the concordance or discordance of these rules with human nature, should never once have entered his thoughts! It could not surely be his opinion, that these poets, however eminent for genius, were intitled to give laws to mankind, and that nothing now remains but blind obedience to their arbitrary will. If in writing they followed no rule, why should they be imitated? If they studied nature, and were obsequious to rational principles, why should these be concealed from us?