The moral powers are greatly improved, also, by thought, and as a consequence, the moral taste. It is unfortunate, we think, that so much should have been said, and written, as there has been, on beauty and taste, and moral beauty, and moral taste, so often left out of the account. The order and harmony in Nature, has never wanted admirers; and eulogists, by scores, are found, to speak of high deeds, and heroic attachments. In the Arts, too, the ideal symmetry of Phidias; the burning canvass of Michael Angelo; and the fabulous shell of Orpheus—these have never lacked encomium. On the contrary, there has been something like a mad emulation among men, from the bright era of Grecian Pericles until now, to invent epithets of admiration. But how are high deeds and heroic virtues ennobled—what added grace and dignity is afforded the Fine Arts, when the principles of moral beauty are associated! Our object here, however, shall not be to discover, why moral taste is neglected, but rather to find out some principles by which it may be seen, and improved, wherever there is a wish for its culture. Taste is doubtless an inherent faculty; and, if the doctrine of innate ideas is admitted, then moral taste is an inherent faculty. Now every thing which relates to morals, affects moral taste; they cannot be dissociated: hence, would you look for its liveliest exercise, you will take the most elevated character. In such you will observe it, not in great display, but in the thousand little offices of life, ‘Those little, nameless, unremember’d acts Of kindness and of love.’ It checks them, at every little departure from rectitude, and is a good and efficient guide, in all their intercourse with men. If a man would _improve_ his moral taste, let him, instead of that pernicious habit of revery to which there are so many inducements, especially in retirement, give his thoughts to the excellence of moral virtues: let him look at those sparks of beauty, so to speak, sometimes struck off from heroic characters, in trying circumstances: let him trace them in their two-fold results, as affecting others, and then refracting on himself; and much have we mistaken the human mind, if the practice do not benefit him. We are not aware of the extent of the benefit of a taste rightly understood, and rightly directed, because it is so very subtle and delicate; nevertheless, those many imperceptible advances which it makes against an ill regulated mind, operate powerfully as a whole, and do modify the disposition to a degree little dreamed of. It improves a man’s _whole_ character, and throws a charm around it, not otherwise, than as the flush sometimes seen lying along the sky of evening, which, thrown down to the earth by the atmosphere, gives it all a mellow glow of beauty.