! no original difference betwixt the right and the left hand: custom however has eftablished a difference, so as to make it aukward and disagreeable to use the left where the right is commonly used. The various colours, though they affect us differently, are all of them agreeable in their purity. But custom has regulated this matter in another manner: a black skin upon a human creature, is to us disagreeable; and a white skin probably not less so to a negro. Thus things originally indifferent, become agreeable or disagreeable by the force of custom. Nor ought this to be furprising after the dif covery made above, that the original agreeableness or disagreeableness of an object, is, by the influence of custom, often converted into the oppofite quality. Concerning now those matters of tafte where there is naturally a preference of one thing before another; it is certain, in the first place, that our faint and more delicate feelings are readily fufceptible of a bias from custom; and therefore that it is no proof of a defective taste, to find these in fome meafure under the government of custom. Dress, Dress, and the modes of external behaviour, are justly regulated by custom in every country. The deep red or vermilion with which the ladies in France cover their cheeks, appears to them beautiful in spite of nature; and strangers cannot altogether be juftified in condemning this practice, confidering the lawful authority of custom, or of the fashion, as it is called. It is told of the people who inhabit the skirts of the Alps facing the north, that the swelling they universally have in the neck is to them agreeable. So far has custom power to change the nature of things, and to make an object originally disagreeable take on an opposite appearance. But as to the emotions of propriety and impropriety, and in general as to all emotions involving the sense of right or wrong, custom has little authority, and ought to have none at all. Emotions of this kind, being qualified with the confciousness of duty, take naturally place of every other feeling; and it argues a shameful weakness or degeneracy of mind, to find them in any case so far fubdued as to submit to custom. Thefe These few hints may enable us to judge in fome measure of foreign manners, whether exhibited by foreign writers or our own. A comparison betwixt the ancients and the moderns, was some time ago a favourite subject. Those who declared for the former, thought it a sufficient justification of ancient manners, that they were supported by the authority of custom. Their antagonifts, on the other hand, refusing submiffion to custom as a standard of taste, condemned ancient manners in several inftances as irrational. In this controverfy, an appeal being made to different principles, without the flightest attempt on either fide to establish a common standard, the dispute could have no end. The hints above given tend to establish a standard, for judging how far the lawful authority of custom may be extended, and within what limits it ought to be confined. For the sake of illustration, we shall apply this standard in a few instan ces. Human facrifices, the cruellest effect of blind and groveling fuperftition, wore gradually out of use by the prevalence of rea fon 1 son and humanity. In the days of Sophocles and Euripides, the traces of this favage practice were still recent; and the Athenians, through the prevalence of custom, could without disgust suffer human sacrifices to be represented in their theatre. The I phigenia of Euripides is a proof of this fact. But a human sacrifice, being altogether inconsistent with modern manners, as producing horror instead of pity, cannot with any propriety be introduced upon a modern stage. I must therefore condemn the Iphigenia of Racine, which, instead of the tender and sympathetic paffions, substitutes disgust and horror. But this is not all. Another objection occurs against every fable that deviates so remarkably from improved notions and sentiments. If it should even command our belief, by the authority of genuine history, its fictitious and unnatural appearance, however, would prevent its taking such hold of the mind as to produce a perception of reality *. A human facrifice is so unnatural, and to us so improbable, * See chap. 2. part 1. sect. 6. that : that few will be affected with the reprefentation of it more than with a fairy tale. The objection first mentioned strikes alfo against the Phedra of this author. The queen's paffion for her stepson, being unnatural and beyond all bounds, creates averfion and horror rather than compaffion. The author in his preface observes, that the queen's paffion, however unnatural, was the effect of destiny and the wrath of the gods; and he puts the fame excuse in her own mouth. But what is the wrath of a heathen god to us Christians? We acknowledge no desti ny in paffion; and if love be unnatural, it never can be relished. A supposition, like what our author lays hold of, may possibly cover flight improprieties; but it will ne ver engage 'our sympathy for what appears to us frantic or extravagant. Neither can I relish the catastrophe of this tragedy. A man of taste may peruse, without disgust, a Grecian performance describing a fea-monster sent by Neptune to destroy Hippolytus. He confiders, that such a story might agree with the religious creed of Greece; and, entering into ancient opiVOL. II. nions, P |