Taste, in its highest grade, ranks above talent, and stands next to genius; nay, it is sometimes known as _receptive_ genius. It is the faculty of recognizing the Beautiful in the world of thought, art, and nature; in words, tones, forms, and colors. Taste is a higher faculty than is generally supposed. Genius and Taste are the Eros and Anteros of art. Without his brother, the first would remain ever a child. Taste is that innate and God-given faculty which at once perceives and hails as true, ideas, which it, however, has not the power to discover for itself. It should be educated and carefully fostered; but no amount of cultivation will give it where not already in existence, for it is as truly innate as genius itself. In its lowest form, it is the comprehension of the scientific principles of art, and the judging of artistic works in accordance with scientific rules. What is known as tact, is a curious social development of the same faculty. Taste is the child of the mind and soul; tact, of the soul and heart. Both are incommunicable. The word taste is frequently misapplied. Thus a man, with what is blunderingly called a classical taste, is incapable of aught but the classic; that is to say, he recognizes in a new work that which makes the charm of an old one, and pronounces it worthy of admiration. Put the right foot of an Apollo forward, instead of the left, and call it Philip of Pokanoket, and he will fall into ecstasies over a work at once so truly national and classic. He would have stood dumb and with an untouched heart, before the Apollo, fresh from the chisel of the sculptor. Such men have graduated at Vanity Fair, and are the old-clothesmen of art.