§ In questions relating to taste the subject matter is so idealized, that the enthusiastic and the timid equally dread its contact with the more sober powers of reasoning, lest the process of analysis should disenchant its visionary scenes, and dissolve the unreal basis of their delight. Taste the most perfect, without a knowledge of the principles on which it rests, resembles the barren instinct of animals: like them, it gathers but little improvement from experience, and like them it perishes with the extinction of the individual life; its labours leave no inheritance to its race. Taste united with an intimate knowledge of its principles, and still more if conjoined with the power of eliminating from the fleeting relations amongst the objects of its attention, those resemblances which, when sufficiently multiplied and defined, lead up to the discovery of higher generalizations, confers upon its enviable possessor a double source of happiness; it adds the delight of an intellectual triumph to those romantic feelings which are excited by the beautiful, the lovely, or the sublime in Nature, or which are suggested by the most perfect representations of art. The comprehension of the cause of our pleasure renders us more acute to perceive those elements which conduce to its existence, to trace their connexion, to estimate their amount, to mould into form, and to call up for the happiness of others and of ourselves, their endless combinations. There is, however, for that rare union of judgment, imagination, and taste, which we call genius, when each exists in due proportion and in rich abundance, a yet higher object, a still nobler ambition. To have given to mankind those models, which, after twenty centuries, still rivet their attention, commanding unbounded admiration and defying rivalry, is indeed a splendid achievement, justly repaid by the undying fame which accompanies the names of those benefactors to mankind. But great as undoubtedly our gratitude ought to be for such gifts, it is trifling compared with that which civilized society would owe to him, who should instruct us in the _principles_ that guided the intellect as well as the hands, of those by whom such immortal works were executed.