dgment--judgment being the action of the intellect; taste "the
instinctive and instant preferring of one material object to another
without any obvious reason," except that it is proper to human nature
in its perfection so to do. But leaving this discussion of this
original taste, taste in art is surely, as it is a thing cultivated,
that for which a reason can be given, and in some measure, therefore,
the result of judgment. For by the cultivation of taste we are
actually led to love, admire, and desire many things of which we have
no instinctive love at all; so that the taste for them arises from the
intellect and the moral sense--our judgment. He proceeds to "Ideas of
Relation," by which he means "to express all those sources of
pleasure, which involve and require at the instant of their
perception, active exertion of the intellectual powers." As this is to
be more easily comprehended by an illustration, we have one in an
incident of one of Turner's pictures, and, considering the object, it
is surprising the author did not find one more important; but he
herein shows that, in his eyes, every stroke of the brush by Mr Turner
is important--indeed, is a considerable addition to our national
wealth. In the picture of the "Building of Carthage," the foreground
is occupied by a group of children sailing toy-boats, which he thinks
to be an "exquisite choice of incident expressive of the ruling
passion." He, with a whimsical extravagance in praise of Turner,
which, commencing here, runs throughout all the rest of the volume,
says--"Such a thought as this is something far above all art; it is
epic poetry of the highest order." Epic poetry of the highest order!
Ungrateful will be our future epic poets if they do not learn from
this--if such is done by boys sailing toy-boats, surely boys flying a
kite will illustrate far better the great astronomical knowledge of
our days. But he is rather unfortunate in this bit of criticism; for
he compares this incident with one of Claude's, which we, however,
think a far better and more poetical incident. "Claude, in subjects of
_the same kind_," (not, by the by, a very fair statement,) "commonly
introduces people carrying red trunks with iron locks about, and
dwells, with infantine delight, on the lustre of the leather and the
ornaments of the iron. The intellect can have no occupation here, we
must look to the imitation or to nothing." As to the "_infantine
delight_," we presume it is rathe