ly be strengthened into vigour.

TASTE exerts itself at first but feebly and imperfectly: it is
repressed and kept back by a crowd of the most discouraging
prejudices: like an infant prince, who, though born to reign, yet holds
an idle sceptre, which he has not power to use, but is obliged to see
with the eyes, and hear through the ears of other men.

A WRITER of correct taste will hardly ever go out of his way, even in
search of embellishment: he will study to attain the best end by the
most natural means; for he knows that what is not natural cannot be
beautiful, and that nothing can be beautiful out of its own place; for
an improper situation will convert the most striking beauty into a
glaring defect. When by a well-connected chain of ideas, or a judicious
succession of events, the reader is snatched to "Thebes or Athens,"
what can be more impertinent than for the poet to obstruct the operation
of the passion he has just been kindling, by introducing a conceit
which contradicts his purpose, and interrupts his business? Indeed, we
cannot be transported, even in idea, to those places, if the poet does
not manage so adroitly as not to make us sensible of the journey: the
instant we feel we are travelling, the writer's art fails, and the
delirium is at an end.

PROSERPINE, says Ovid, would have been restored to her mother Ceres,
had not Ascalaphus seen her stop to gather a golden apple, when the
terms of her restoration were, that she should taste nothing. A story
pregnant with instruction for lively writers, who by neglecting the main
business, and going out of the way for false gratifications, lose sight
of the end they should principally keep in view. It was this false taste
that introduced the numberless _concetti_, which disgrace the brightest
of the Italian poets; and this is the reason, why the reader only feels
short and interrupted snatches of delight in perusing the brilliant but
unequal compositions of Ariosto, instead of that unbroken and
undiminished pleasure, which he constantly receives from Virgil, from
Milton, and generally from Tasso. The first-mentioned Italian is the
Atalanta, who will interrupt the most eager career, to pick up the
glittering mischief, while the Mantuan and the British bards, like
Hippomenes, press on warm in the pursuit, and unseduced by temptation.

A WRITER of real taste will take great pains in the perfection of his
style, to make the reader believe that he took none at all.