it was intended as a public ornament and a public honour to

Voltaire, as it was procured at the expense of his cotemporary wits

and admirers.

Whoever would reform a nation, supposing a bad taste to prevail in

it, will not accomplish his purpose by going directly against the

stream of their prejudices. Men's minds must be prepared to

receive what is new to them. Reformation is a work of time. A

national taste, however wrong it may be, cannot be totally change

at once; we must yield a little to the prepossession which has

taken hold on the mind, and we may then bring people to adopt what

would offend them if endeavoured to be introduced by storm. When

Battisto Franco was employed, in conjunction with Titian, Paul

Veronese, and Tintoret, to adorn the library of St. Mark, his work,

Vasari says, gave less satisfaction than any of the others: the

dry manner of the Roman school was very ill calculated to please

eyes that had been accustomed to the luxuriance, splendour, and

richness of Venetian colouring. Had the Romans been the judges of

this work, probably the determination would have been just

contrary; for in the more noble parts of the art Battisto Franco

was, perhaps, not inferior to any of his rivals.

Gentlemen,--It has been the main scope and principal end of this

discourse to demonstrate the reality of a standard in taste, as

well as in corporeal beauty; that a false or depraved taste is a

thing as well known, as easily discovered, as anything that is

deformed, misshapen, or wrong in our form or outward make; and that

this knowledge is derived from the uniformity of sentiments among

mankind, from whence proceeds the knowledge of what are the general

habits of nature, the result of which is an idea of perfect beauty.

If what has been advanced be true, that besides this beauty or

truth which is formed on the uniform eternal and immutable laws of

nature, and which of necessity can be but one; that besides this