no major
alterations in meaning. In general the textual improvements are such
as a bluestocking lady might well wish to make. It will be noted that
on pages 25 and 49 of the copy here reproduced someone has made minor
changes in wording in ink. These corrections are made in the later
printing. Moreover, at the end of the 1789 version there is an errata
list, indicating three alterations from the 1785 text which were
mistakes. The Dedication remained unchanged, but the geometrical
illustration was now placed facing the beginning of Chapter I.

The _Enquiry_ was written in what is now recognized as one of the most
exciting periods in the history of aesthetics, the late eighteenth
century being a crucial point in the gradual shift from absolute
classical standards to the relative approaches of the next age. Most
of the important thinkers of the day--Hume, Burke, Lord Kames, Adam
Smith, among others--were thinking deeply about the problem of taste.
And if Miss Reynolds' essay is not one of the most perceptive of the
discussions, it is at least one of the liveliest.

In brief, the _Enquiry_ is what one might expect from an intelligent
amateur, from one not a professional writer, yet one who has given
much thought to the problems of aesthetics. Of course, many of the
ideas are derivative, with echoes of the "moral sense" of Hutcheson,
the "line of grace" of Hogarth, and the terrible sublime of Burke. The
three divisions of the essay--the development of a mental system, the
origin of our ideas of Beauty, and the analysis of taste--follow the
customary pattern of eighteenth-century discussions. Yet the piece
is no slavish refurbishing of old phrases. It is packed with fresh
arguments and novel suggestions. If these are not always completely
coherent or logical, they do represent original thinking.

Twentieth-century readers may be astonished by some of the ideas:
witness the claim that Negroes could never arrive at true taste,
because their eyes were so accustomed to objects diametrically
opposite to taste. As a further example of Miss Reynolds' occasionally
muddled thinking there is the development of her initial assumption.
While the groundwork of man is perfection, this perfection has been
blemished and man is impelled to recapture it in the sublime. Yet
instead of analyzing this impulse, Miss Reynolds appears to take it
for granted. Nor does she consider how perfection is to be achieved
in taste, preferring to conclude w