ent; the judgment is for the greater part employed
in throwing stumbling-blocks in the way of the imagination, in
dissipating the scenes of its enchantment, and in tying us down to the
disagreeable yoke of our reason: for almost the only pleasure that men
have in judging better than others, consists in a sort of conscious
pride and superiority, which arises from thinking rightly; but then this
is an indirect pleasure, a pleasure which does not immediately result
from the object which is under contemplation. In the morning of our
days, when the senses are unworn and tender, when the whole man is awake
in every part, and the gloss of novelty fresh upon all the objects that
surround us, how lively at that time are our sensations, but how false
and inaccurate the judgments we form of things! I despair of ever
receiving the same degree of pleasure from the most excellent
performances of genius, which I felt at that age from pieces which my
present judgment regards as trifling and contemptible. Every trivial
cause of pleasure is apt to affect the man of too sanguine a complexion:
his appetite is too keen to suffer his taste to be delicate; and he is
in all respects what Ovid says of himself in love,

Molle meum levibus cor est violabile telis,
Et semper causa est, cur ego semper amem.

One of this character can never be a refined judge; never what the
comic poet calls _elegans formarum spectator_. The excellence and force
of a composition must always he imperfectly estimated from its effect on
the minds of any, except we know the temper and character of those
minds. The most powerful effects of poetry and music have been
displayed, and perhaps are still displayed, where these arts are but in
a very low and imperfect state. The rude hearer is affected by the
principles which operate in these arts even in their rudest condition;
and he is not skilful enough to perceive the defects. But as the arts
advance towards their perfection, the science of criticism advances with
equal pace, and the pleasure of judges is frequently interrupted by the
faults which we discovered in the most finished compositions.

Before I leave this subject, I cannot help taking notice of an opinion
which many persons entertain, as if the taste were a separate faculty of
the mind, and distinct from the judgment and imagination; a species of
instinct, by which we are struck naturally, and at the first glance,
without any previous reasoning, with t