90
The PRESENT STATE
fine. I must own it, though, perhaps, by this opinion's prevailing, many a scholium of the ancients, and many a folio of criticism translated from the French, now in repute among us, would infallibly sink into oblivion. English taste, like English liberty, should be restrained only by laws of its own promoting.
But to use argument as well as assertion, let us take a nearer view of what is called taste, examine its standard, see if foreign critics are just in setting up theirs as a model to us, or whether we be right in adopting their proffered improvements. As the disquisition, however, is dry, I shall study conciseness.
All objects affect us with pleasure one of these two ways, either by immediatelygratify-
