In poetry or eloquence, to determine how far figurative or

metaphorical language may proceed, and when it begins to be

affectation or beside the truth, must be determined by taste,

though this taste we must never forget is regulated and formed by

the presiding feelings of mankind, by those works which have

approved themselves to all times and all persons.

Thus, though eloquence has undoubtedly an essential and intrinsic

excellence, and immovable principles common to all languages,

founded in the nature of our passions and affections, yet it has

its ornaments and modes of address which are merely arbitrary.

What is approved in the Eastern nations as grand and majestic,

would be considered by the Greeks and Romans as turgid and

inflated; and they, in return, would be thought by the Orientals to

express themselves in a cold and insipid manner.

We may add likewise to the credit of ornaments, that it is by their

means that art itself accomplishes its purpose. Fresnoy calls

colouring, which is one of the chief ornaments of painting, lena

sororis, that which procures lovers and admirers to the more

valuable excellences of the art.

It appears to be the same right turn of mind which enables a man to

acquire the TRUTH, or the just idea of what is right in the

ornaments, as in the more stable principles of art. It has still

the same centre of perfection, though it is the centre of a smaller

circle.

To illustrate this by the fashion of dress, in which there is

allowed to be a good or, bad taste. The component parts of dress

are continually changing from great to little, from short to long,

but the general form still remains; it is still the same general

dress which is comparatively fixed, though on a very slender