PREFACE.
Every reader turns with pleasure to those passages of Horace, and
Pope, and Boileau, which describe how they lived and where they
dwelt; and which, being interspersed among their satirical writings,
derive a secret and irresistible grace from the contrast, and are admirable
examples of what in painting is termed repose.
We have admittance to Horace at all hours. We enjoy the company
and conversation at his table; and his suppers, like Plato's,
“non solum in præsentia, sed etiam postero die jucundæ sunt.” But,
when we look round as we sit there, we find ourselves in a Sabine
farm, and not in a Roman villa. His windows have every charm of
prospect; but his furniture might have descended from Cincinnatus;
and gems, and pictures, and old marbles, are mentioned by him more
than once with a seeming indifference.
His English imitator thought and felt, perhaps, more correctly on
the subject; and embellished his garden and grotto with great industry
and success. But to these alone he solicits our notice. On
the ornaments of his house he is silent; and he appears to have reserved
all the minuter touches of his pencil for the library, the chapel,
and the banqueting-room of Timon. “Le savoir de notre siècle,”
says Rousseau, “tend beaucoup plus à détruire qu'à édifier. On
censure d'un ton de maitre; pour proposer, il en faut prendre un
antre.”
It is the design of this Epistle to illustrate the virtue of True
Taste; and to show how little she requires to secure, not only the
comforts, but even the elegancies of life. True Taste is an excellent
Economist. She confines her choice to few objects, and delights in
producing great effects by small means: while False Taste is for
ever sighing after the new and the rare; and reminds us, in her
works, of the Scholar of Apelles, who, not being able to paint his
Helen beautiful, determined to make her fine.