A Critical Dissertation ON THE NATURE AND PRINCIPLES OF TASTE. BY M. M DERMOT, AUTHOR OF A LETTER TO THE REV. W. L. BOWLES, IN REPLY TO HIS LETTER TO HON. LORD BYRON, IN VINDICATION OF THEIR DEFENCE OF THE POETICAL CHARACTER OF POPE. TO THOMAS CAMPBELL, Esq. As an ardent admirer of that creative art which gives the most expansive scope to the refined perceptions of Taste, and the divine associations of Genius-that art in which you have so eminently excelled, and through which you have not only revived, but redeemed, the native spirit and chaste simplicity, the classic elegance and impassioned enthusiasm, of a more poetic and a happier age,-permit me to acknowledge the honour which I feel conferred upon me, in being permitted to prefix your name to the following work. MARTIN M'DERMOT. PREFACE. WHETHER Taste be an original faculty, or an acquired power of discriminating such qualities in sensible and intellectual being, as produce certain pleasing emotions in the mind, all writers are not agreed; but whether it be original or acquired, we all agree in acknowledging the dignity of its nature, and the extent of its influence. It is conversant with all the objects of animate and inanimate creation, nor are even the unembodied forms of intellectual being placed beyond the expansive range of its dominion a dominion, however, the precise limits of which seem not as yet distinctly marked out by the critics, though it has been frequently made the subject of critical and philosophical investigation. It is acknowledged, however, to belong only to him who possesses that exquisite discrimination which distinguishes, in all the works of nature, whatever qualities are most pleasing and agreeable to man, and which discerns whether these qualities are |