Some are struck with the beauties which really exist in an object, while others give up to the impression made by the privation of some beauties in it.

The Egyptians chiefly admired grandeur and magnificence in their works of architecture; the Goths were fond of variety. But our architects have found the pleasing art of joining both together, and forming an agreeable proportion.

As it is with music, so it is with architecture. Some value only bold and elevated pieces of music; others again are most delighted with an exact imitation of nature; but an eminent musician admits both kinds into his composition. He has the art of giving a just softness to the

most jarring sounds, so as to make them produce the most delightful harmony; but what he principally aspires at, is to excite sensations; and he thinks he has not arrived at the perfection of his art, till he knows how to conquer the soul as well as flatter the ear.

Whate'er the passion, knowledge, fame, or pelf,
Not one will change his neighbour with himself;
The learn'd is happy nature to explore;

The fool is happy that he knows no more;
The rich is happy in the plenty giv'n;

The poor contents him with the care of Heav'n:
See the blind beggar dance, the cripple sing,

The sot a hero, lunatic, a king,

The starving chymist in his golden views
Supremely blest, the poet in his muse.

Happy are those nations where men of such wonderful abilities rise up, who can

perceive and make use of all these various sorts of beauties, and join them together in a just proportion! We may say that Nature, with a penurious hand, has dispersed such geniuses far distant from each other in the progress of ages. Their works, which are founded upon the most refined taste, infuse the same delicacy into a whole people: they become the ensigns of comparison; and it frequently happens that an object, which before engaged our admiration, loses all its charms. and grows insipid, according to the Italian proverb, "That the greatest enemy to any thing that is good, is what is best."

Bring some warm water to two persons, one of whom we shall suppose to be full of heat, the other pierced with cold;

the same water will feel warm to the one, and cold to the other. The laws of sensation are the same in both, but the standard of their comparison is different; the one forms his opinion of the quality of the water from the cold in his hand, the other from the heat of his.

The dispositions of the heart likewise cause a disagreement in our tastes. Envy, that tenebrious lover, hates the living, and occasions artists to depreciate each other. On the other hand, if the rival is not contemporary, or of the same country with us, then he avoids the darts of envy.

Men that make

Envy and crooked malice nourishment,
Dare bite the best.

Ambition also is sometimes concerned in deciding the fame of artists, as well as that of their works. The Romans only valued those talents, which enabled them to become commanders in the commonwealth, or to triumph over the adjoining nations; so that those same pictures and statues which struck a Grecian with admiration, appeared to a Roman quite low and insignificant.

Such is the effect of those passions which possess the soul, that they throw an air of deformity upon whatever is not adapted to the end which they pursue.

It sometimes happens that our religious principles have an ascendancy over