culty of the Soul,
which discerns the Beauties of an Author with Pleasure, and the
Imperfections with Dislike. If a Man would know whether he is possessed
of this Faculty, I would have him read over the celebrated Works of
Antiquity, which have stood the Test of so many different Ages and
Countries, or those Works among the Moderns which have the Sanction of
the Politer Part of our Contemporaries. If upon the Perusal of such
Writings he does not find himself delighted in an extraordinary Manner,
or if, upon reading the admired Passages in such Authors, he finds a
Coldness and Indifference in his Thoughts, he ought to conclude, not (as
is too usual among tasteless Readers) that the Author wants those
Perfections which have been admired in him, but that he himself wants
the Faculty of discovering them.

He should, in the second Place, be very careful to observe, whether he
tastes the distinguishing Perfections, or, if I may be allowed to call
them so, the Specifick Qualities of the Author whom he peruses; whether
he is particularly pleased with Livy for his Manner of telling a Story,
with Sallust for his entering into those internal Principles of Action
which arise from the Characters and Manners of the Persons he describes,
or with Tacitus for his displaying those outward Motives of Safety and
Interest, which give Birth to the whole Series of Transactions which he
relates.

He may likewise consider, how differently he is affected by the same
Thought, which presents it self in a great Writer, from what he is when
he finds it delivered by a Person of an ordinary Genius. For there is as
much Difference in apprehending a Thought cloathed in Cicero's Language,
and that of a common Author, as in seeing an Object by the Light of a
Taper, or by the Light of the Sun.

It is very difficult to lay down Rules for the Acquirement of such a
Taste as that I am here speaking of. The Faculty must in some degree be
born with us, and it very often happens, that those who have other
Qualities in Perfection are wholly void of this. One of the most eminent
Mathematicians of the Age has assured me, that the greatest Pleasure he
took in reading Virgil, was in examining AEneas his Voyage by the Map; as
I question not but many a Modern Compiler of History, would be delighted
with little more in that Divine Author, than in the bare Matters of
Fact.

But notwithstanding this Faculty must in some measure be born with us,
there are several Metho