She took an averfion to a holly, and was not at ease till the group was extirpated. Such a bias is perfectly harmless. What follows is not fo. The Oxonians difliked the great Newton, because he was educated at Cambridge; and they favoured every book writ against him. That bias, I hope, has not come down to the present time. Refinement of taste in a nation, is always accompanied with refinement of manners: people accustomed to behold order and elegance in public buildings and public gardens, acquire urbanity in private. But it is irksome to trudge long in a beaten track, familiar to all the world; and therefore, leaving what is faid above, like a statue curtailed of legs and arms, I haften to the history of the fine arts. Useful arts paved the way to fine arts. Men upon whom the former had bestowed every convenience, turned their thoughts to the latter. Beauty was ftudied in objects of fight; and men of tafte attached themselves to the fine arts, which multiplied their enjoyments and improved their benevolence. Sculpture and painting made an early figure in Greece; which afforded afforded plenty of beautiful originals to be copied in these imitative arts. Statuary, a more fimple imitation than painting, was fooner brought to perfection: the ftatue of Jupiter by Phidias, and of Juno by Polycletes, though the admiration of all the world, were executed long before the art of light and fhade was known. Appollodorus, and Zeuxis his difciple, who flourifhed in the fifteenth Olympiad, were the first who figured in that art. Another caufe concurred to advance ftatuary before painting in Greece, namely, a great demand for ftatues of their gods. Architecture, as a fine art, made a flower progrefs., Proportions, upon which its elegance chiefly depends, cannot be accurately afcertained but by an infinity of trials in great buildings: a model cannot be relied on; for a large and a fmall building, even of the fame form, require different proportions. Gardening made a ftill flower progress than architecture: the palace of Alcinoous, in the feventh book of the Odyffey, is grand, and highly ornamented; but his garden is no better than what we term a kitchen-garden. Gardening has made a great progrefs in England. In France, na ture ture is facrificed to conceit. The gardens of Versailles deviate from nature no lefs than the hanging gardens at Babylon. In Scotland, a taste is happily commenced for neat houses and ornamented fields; and the circumstances of the people make it probable, that taste there will improve gradually till it arrive at perfection. Few gentlemen in Scotland can afford the expence of London; and fuppofing them to pafs the winter in a provincial town, they return to the occupations of the country with redoubled ardor. As they are fafe from the corruption of opulence, nature will be their guide in every plan; and the very face of their country will oblige them to follow nature; being diversified with hills and plains, rocks and rivers, that require nothing but polishing. It is no unpleasing prospect, that Scotland may in a century, or fooner, compare with England; not, indeed, in magnificence of countryfeats, but in sweetness and variety of con cordant parts. The ancient churches in this island cannot be our own invention, being unfit for a cold climate. The vaft space they occupy, quantity of stone, and gloominefs by by excluding the fun, afford a refreshing coolness, and fit them for a hot climate. It is highly probable that they have been copied from the mosques in the south of Spain, erected there by the Saracens. Spain, when poffeffed by that people, was the centre of arts and sciences, and led the fashion in every thing beautiful and magnificent. From the fine arts mentioned, we proceed to literature. It is agreed among all antiquaries, that the firft writings were in verfe, and that profe was of a much later date. The first Greek who wrote in prose, was Pherecides Syrus: the first Roman, was Appius Cæcus, who compofed a declamation against Pyrrhus. The four books of Chatah Bhade, the facred book of Hindostan, are composed in verse stanzas; and the Arabian compofitions in profe followed long after those in verfe. To account for that fingular fact, many learned pens have been employed; but without fuccess. By fome it has been urged, that as memory is the only record of events where writing is unknown, history originally was compofed in verfe for the fake of memory. This is not fatisfactory. To undertake undertake the painful task of compofing in verfe for the fake of memory, would require more forefight than ever was exerted by a barbarian; not to mention that other means were used for preserving the memory of remarkable events, a heap of ftones, a pillar, or other object that catches the eye. The account given by Longinus is more ingenious. In a fragment of his treatise on verse, the only part that remains, he obferves," that measure or verfe be"longs to poetry, because poetry repre"sents the various paffions with their language; for which reafon the ancients, "in their ordinary discourse, delivered "their thoughts in verse rather than in profe." Longinus thought, that anciently men were more exposed to accidents and dangers, than when they were protected by good government and by fortified cities. But he feems not to have confidered, that fear and grief, infpired by dangers and misfortunes, are better fuited to humble profe than to elevated verfe. I add, that however natural poetical diction may be when one is animated with any vivid paffion, it is not fuppofable that the ancients never wrote nor spoke but |