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    standard . But in proceeding to such application we are met by a startling difficulty , nothing less than an appearance that the standard is variable ; or in other words , that it is no standard at all .

    The diversity of effect which the same object produces upon the imaginations of different men at the same time , or even of the same man at different times , has indeed passed into a proverb . The poem which excites in one man feelings of exquisite beauty ; to another is simply pretty ; to a third , perhaps , vapid , dull , common-place . A face , which to one man is expressive of all the sublimity of heroic enterprise , affects his

    companion only with a sentiment of preposterous absurdity , of simple ridiculousness . But if an object excite the feeling of beauty , it is beautiful . The same object , however , also excites the emotions of sublimity , and of ludicrousness , in other instances . The same object , it is therefore concluded by one party , being at the same time beautiful , sublime , and ridiculous , there is no Standard of Taste .

    We cannot predicate beauty , or sublimity , absolutely of any object ; these qualities or powers vary in every instance ; the comparative values of several objects of imagination , to each individual , are to be determined solely by the degrees of pleasure with which they affect him ! The tastes of all are equally casual ; and of no one , therefore , has the taste

    any claim to be set up as a rule or standard for others . That is to say , if a picture of a cabbage , a candlestick , or a brass saucepan , please a Dutchman , as well as the Raising of Lazarus , in the National Gallery , his taste is as good as any other—his picture is for him the more beautiful of the two , and let none affect a superiority for which they hav £ no grounds ! Or , to reduce the opinion to a still more glaring

    absurdity , we are enjoined by it to consider that—if a committee of taste discern beauty or sublimity in a monumental group , which represents—I refer to St Paul ' s Cathedral—a Lireguardsman in full regimentals , falling back into the arms of Hercules , and receiving a laurel crown from what is apparently an Angel—their taste is as correct as any other would be , and equally desirable ! Amidst this chaos , is there any law of order discoverable ? Or must we sit down contented to admit

    our inability to reduce a most interesting and extensive class of mental phenomena to any general laws ? There are many circumstances which provoke us , as well as many which encourage us , to reject this course , and still to persevere . Our predilection for our own opinions , and the consequent eagerness with which we search for arguments ' and instances by which we may recommend them to others—dtfr eagerness for the sympathy pf others in our feeltags- ^ the uri-

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    Ts there a Standard of Taste ? 29

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1837, page 29, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1827/page/31/