begun to form to ourselves any thing like an ear in harmony and the proportions of just mufic. And whatever magifterial airs our fashionable workmen. in the dramatic and poetical kinds may give themselves in their prologues and prefaces, it is no fecret to fuch as have looked into the ancient mafters, or have made an acquaintance with the ftyle and manner of the politer moderns, that we are far from poffeffing a right taste in these things, and that the Muses have hitherto fhewn themselves but little indulgent to us,

THE Courtship, we have paid to them, has been preffing and ardent, if you will but this circumftance, though it may do much, nay is thought to do every thing with the sex, seems not to have fucceeded with these coy Ladies. Paffion and affiduity are not the only things: fomewhat of an addrefs and management is looked for in our advances. Wherever

the defect lies, and whatever be the cure for it, certain it is, there is much of the Gothic manner in the performances of our best artifts: there is neither chaftenefs of defign, nor elegance of hand, in our manual operations: nothing like correctness of thought, fimplicity of style, or the grace of numbers, in our literate productions.

'Tis true, the ftrength and vigour of our genius has been exerted in other things. We have been folicitous to procure a just taste in policy and government, and have at length fucceeded in this first and highest emulation. It may now be proper to apply the liberty, we have fo happily gained, to other im provements. There is fomething, I have ever obferved, congenial to the liberal arts in the reigning fpirit of a free people. It must then be our own fault, if our progrefs in every elegant purfuit do

not

not keep pace with our excellent conftitution.

But the likeliest way to quicken the growth of these studies, is to turn our attention from the bad models of our own country, and enter into a free commerce and generous ftruggle, as it were, with our more advanced neighbours. And it is here again, as in the manners and arts of life, the feeds of good tafte cannot be committed to the mind too foon. It were then to be wished, that our young men had right impreffions of art in their tender years; and that, forming their relish among the ableft proficients in Europe, they might afterwards communicate their improvements to their own country.

THUS, it might be hoped, in fome convenient time, we should have fomething of our own to oppose to the wit, learning, and elegance of France, and that, in the mechanic

E 4

mechanic execution of the fine arts, we fhould come at length to vye with the Italian mafters.

NOR think, that such an emulation as this would be without its ufe, even in a moral and political view. Beauty and virtue are nearer of kin, than every one is perhaps aware of: and the mind that is taken with the charm of what is true and becoming in the representation of fenfible things, cannot be inattentive to thofe qualities in the higher species and moral forms. It is thither indeed the virtuofo paffion naturally tends; and there, it finally acquiefces.

Quid VERUM atque DECENS emnis in boc fum.

curo et rogo, et

BUT I fee what you think of this language. Let me add then, that policy, as well as philofophy, is on the fide of these studies. Who can doubt their virtue in foftening and refining the man

ners

hers of a people? or, to take policy in its vulgar fenfe, where would be the hurt, if Britain were the feat of arts and letters, as well as of trade and liberty? Then might we be travelled to, in our turn, as our neighbours are at prefent; and our country, amidst its other acquifitions, be alfo enriched (I use the word in its proper, not metaphorical fenfe) with a new fpecies of commerce.

NOT to infift, that the ascendant which one nation takes over another in all public concerns, is very much owing to this pre-eminence of taste and politeness, to its acknowledged fuperiority, I may fay, in the literate and virtuofo character: of which France is an inftance in our days; as Italy is well known to have been in the days of our forefathers.

AND, if there be use and value in fuch things, how fhall our ingenuous youth be tinctured with a right fenfe of them,

but