very art, like our own, has in its composition fluctuating as well as
fixed principles. It is an attentive inquiry into their difference that
will enable us to determine how far we are influenced by custom and
habit, and what is fixed in the nature of things.

To distinguish how much has solid foundation, we may have recourse to the
same proof by which some hold wit ought to be tried--whether it preserves
itself when translated. That wit is false which can subsist only in one
language; and that picture which pleases only one age or one nation, owes
its reception to some local or accidental association of ideas.

We may apply this to every custom and habit of life. Thus the general
principles of urbanity, politeness, or civility, have been ever the same
in all nations; but the mode in which they are dressed is continually
varying. The general idea of showing respect is by making yourself less:
but the manner, whether by bowing the body, kneeling, prostration,
pulling off the upper part of our dress, or taking away the lower, is a
matter of habit. It would be unjust to conclude that all ornaments,
because they were at first arbitrarily contrived, are therefore
undeserving of our attention; on the contrary, he who neglects the
cultivation of those ornaments, acts contrarily to nature and reason. As
life would be imperfect without its highest ornaments, the arts, so these
arts themselves would be imperfect without _their_ ornaments.

Though we by no means ought to rank these with positive and substantial
beauties, yet it must be allowed that a knowledge of both is essentially
requisite towards forming a complete, whole, and perfect taste. It is in
reality from the ornaments that arts receive their peculiar character and
complexion; we may add that in them we find the characteristical mark of
a national taste, as by throwing up a feather in the air we know which
way the wind blows, better than by a more heavy matter.

The striking distinction between the works of the Roman, Bolognian, and
Venetian schools, consists more in that general effect which is produced
by colours than in the more profound excellences of the art; at least it
is from thence that each is distinguished and known at first sight. As
it is the ornaments rather than the proportions of architecture which at
the first glance distinguish the different orders from each other; the
Doric is known by its triglyphs, the Ionic by its volutes, and the
Corint