“_Il y a à parier_,” says Chamfort, “_que toute idée publique, toute convention reçue, est une sottise, car elle a convenue au plus grand nombre_.”—One would be safe in wagering that any given public idea is erroneous, for it has been yielded to the clamor of the majority;—and this strictly philosophical, although somewhat French assertion has especial bearing upon the whole race of what are termed maxims and popular proverbs; nine-tenths of which are the quintessence of folly. One of the most deplorably false of them is the antique adage, _De gustibus non est disputandum_—there should be no disputing about taste. Here the idea designed to be conveyed is that any one person has as just right to consider his own taste _the true_, as has any one other—that taste itself, in short, is an arbitrary something, amenable to no law, and measurable by no definite rules. It must be confessed, however, that the exceedingly vague and impotent treatises which are alone extant, have much to answer for as regards confirming the general error. Not the least important service which, hereafter, mankind will owe to _Phrenology_, may perhaps, be recognised in an analysis of the real principles, and a digest of the resulting laws of taste. These principles, in fact, are as clearly traceable, and these laws as readily susceptible of system as are any whatever. In the meantime, the inane adage above mentioned is in no respect more generally, more stupidly, and more pertinaciously quoted than by the admirers of what is termed the “good old Pope,” or the “good old Goldsmith school” of poetry, in reference to the bolder, more natural, and _more ideal_ compositions of such authors as Coëtlogon and Lamartine[5] in France; Herder, Körner, and Uhland in Germany; Brun and Baggesen in Denmark; Bellman, Tegnér, and Nyberg[6] in Sweden; Keats, Shelley, Coleridge, and Tennyson in England; Lowell and Longfellow in America. “_De gustibus non_,” say these “good-old-school” fellows; and we have no doubt that their mental translation of the phrase is—“We pity your taste—we pity every body’s taste but our own.” It is our purpose, hereafter, when occasion shall be afforded us, to controvert in an article of some length, the popular idea that the poets just mentioned owe to novelty, to trickeries of expression, and to other meretricious effects, their appreciation by certain readers:—to demonstrate (for the matter is susceptible of demonstration) that such poetry and _such alone_ has fulfilled the legitimate office of the muse; has thoroughly satisfied an earnest and unquenchable desire existing in the heart of man. In the present number of our Magazine we have left ourselves barely room to say a few random words of welcome to these “Ballads,” by Longfellow, and to tender him, and all such as he, the homage of our most earnest love and admiration.