been sometimes appealed to as the criterion of taste, is nothing but the common capacity, applied to common facts and feelings; but it neither is, nor pretends to be, the judge of anything else.-To suppose that it can really appreciate the excellence of works of high art, is as absurd as to suppose that it could produce them. Taste is the highest degree of sensibility, or the impression of the most cultivated and sensible minds, as genius is the result of the highest powers of feeling and invention. It may be objected that the public taste is capable of gradual improvement, because in the end the public do justice to works of the greatest merit. This is a mistake. The reputation ultimately and slowly affixed to works of genius, is stamped upon them by authority, not by popular consent, nor the common sense of the world. We imagine that the admiration of the works of celebrated men has become common, because the admiration of their names has become so. But does not every ignorant connoisseur pretend the same veneration, and talk with the same vapid assurance of M. Angelo, though he has never seen even a copy any of his pictures, as if he had studied them accurately,-merely because Sir J. Reynolds has praised him? Is Milton more popular now than when the Paradise Lost was first published? Or does he not rather owe his reputation to the judgment of a few persons in every successive period, accumulating in his favour, and overpowering by its weight the public indifference? Why is Shakspeare popular? Not from his refinement of character or sentiment, so much as from his power of telling a story,-the variety and in of vention, the tragic catastrophe, and broad farce, of his plays? His characters of Imogen or Desdemona, Hamlet or Kent, are little understood or relished by the generality of readers. Does not Boccaccio pass to this day for a writer of ribaldry, because his jests and lascivious tales were all that caught the vulgar ear, while the story of the Falcon is forgotten? No. IX. TRANSLATION OF A SONNET BY GIOVANNI DELLA CASA ON A PORTRAIT BY TITIAN OF HIS MISTRESS.-VOL. II. P. 208. TITIAN! it is herself-in other guise Thy living tints my idol here present; See-she unfolds-she turns her beauteous eyesShe speaks-she breathes-nay, seems to move intent! What joy is mine, amid continual sighs, Here to regain some portion of content, As now on her-now this sweet image bent, My doubting heart to find the impostor tries. But I shall ever I the inward part This heavenly shape's diviner soul pourtray? Ah! hand too weak for enterprise supreme! Help, Phoebus, thou! (since Love o'erwhelms my lay) Guide thou my pen, and let the glorious theme To fame transcendant raise thy noble art! THE END. LONDON: PRINTED BY C. AND W. REYNELL, Broad street, Golden square, |