Masterly Strokes of a great Author every
time he peruses him; Besides that he naturally wears himself into the
same manner of Speaking and Thinking.

Conversation with Men of a Polite Genius is another Method for improving
our Natural Taste. It is impossible for a Man of the greatest Parts to
consider anything in its whole Extent, and in all its Variety of Lights.
Every Man, besides those General Observations which are to be made upon
an Author, forms several Reflections that are peculiar to his own Manner
of Thinking; so that Conversation will naturally furnish us with Hints
which we did not attend to, and make us enjoy other Men's Parts and
Reflections as well as our own. This is the best Reason I can give for
the Observation which several have made, that Men of great Genius in the
same way of Writing seldom rise up singly, but at certain Periods of
Time appear together, and in a Body; as they did at Rome in the Reign of
Augustus, and in Greece about the Age of Socrates. I cannot think that
Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Boileau, la Fontaine, Bruyere, Bossu, or the
Daciers, would have written so well as they have done, had they not been
Friends and Contemporaries.

It is likewise necessary for a Man who would form to himself a finished
Taste of good Writing, to be well versed in the Works of the best
Criticks both Ancient and Modern. I must confess that I could wish there
were Authors of this kind, who beside the Mechanical Rules which a Man
of very little Taste may discourse upon, would enter into the very
Spirit and Soul of fine Writing, and shew us the several Sources of that
Pleasure which rises in the Mind upon the Perusal of a noble Work. Thus
although in Poetry it be absolutely necessary that the Unities of Time,
Place and Action, with other Points of the same Nature, should be
thoroughly explained and understood; there is still something more
essential to the Art, something that elevates and astonishes the Fancy,
and gives a Greatness of Mind to the Reader, which few of the Criticks
besides Longinus have considered.

Our general Taste in England is for Epigram, Turns of Wit, and forced
Conceits, which have no manner of Influence, either for the bettering or
enlarging the Mind of him who reads them, and have been carefully
avoided by the greatest Writers, both among the Ancients and Moderns. I
have endeavoured in several of my Speculations to banish this Gothic
Taste, which has taken Possession among us. I enter