But again, as in every species of experimental science, those researches, in their practice the most carefully conducted, and in their inferences the most consistent, are regarded as the canons of scientific truth; so in the liberal arts, those noble monuments which, during the longest period, and to the greatest number of competent judges, have yielded the most satisfaction, are justly esteemed standards of taste--rules by which other works are to be tried. Such standards, or final experiments, in the science of taste, are fortunately possessed in the literary compositions, and in the remains of the sculpture and architecture of antiquity; as also in the labours of those moderns who have emulated the teachers of the olden time. These accredited relics of genius obtain a deserved and venerable mastery over future aspirings, first, from their own inborn excellence; secondly, from the effects of that excellence in a continually increasing influence over association and feeling. Imagination thus combines with reason in hallowing both the original cause and the attendant influence into precepts of an immutable authority, consecrated by the suffrages of the wise and the refined of every later age. Reason, however, first established, and subsequently demonstrates, the principles upon which this standard has become unchanged and unchangable; namely, perfect simplicity in the means, and perfect truth in the results, through all their varied combinations. Consideration even of the vicissitudes and revolutions in taste seems farther to confirm these general views. Opinion, indeed, has vacillated in the estimation of elegance; but, as in the constantly returning eccentricities of a planetary body, some secret power has maintained certain limits to these changes, and round certain principles, though at times obscured, art has continued to revolve. Now these checks to barbarous novelty and innovation, have been derived from the not-altogether-forgotten remembrance of admitted standards, or from the natural effects upon which these have been founded. The temporary derelictions of good taste have ever occurred in the most ignorant ages, and in extent as in duration have corresponded with the intellectual darkness of the period; the returning light of knowledge has in this respect also invariably dispelled error, afresh disclosing the pristine beauty of the ancient models, and recalling the judgment to the rectitude of those precepts on which they are composed. Even the tyranny of fashion and the inveteracy of prejudice yield before the majesty of antique excellence, or produce a passing absurdity adopted for a day, to be forever forgotten. Surely, then, there must be in these abiding modes in literature and art, as likewise in that science of taste which appreciates and determines their canons, a beauty--an excellence, the offspring and the object of truth and reason--and like these, ever consistent, immutable, imperishable.