There are others which, though imperfect, yet are produced with such skill, and sustained and managed with such sense and grace, that they even deserve to be admired.
III. On Taste.
Some persons have more wit than taste, others have more taste than wit. There is greater vanity and caprice in taste than in wit.
The word taste has different meanings, which it is easy to mistake. There is a difference between the taste which in certain objects has an attraction for us, and the taste that makes us understand and distinguish the qualities we judge by.
We may like a comedy without having a sufficiently fine and delicate taste to criticise it accurately. Some tastes lead us imperceptibly to objects, from which others carry us away by their force or intensity.
Some persons have bad taste in everything, others have bad taste only in some things, but a correct and good taste in matters within their capacity. Some have peculiar taste, which they know to be bad, but which they still follow. Some have a doubtful taste, and let chance decide, their indecision makes them change, and they are affected with pleasure or weariness on their friends' judgment. Others are always prejudiced, they are the slaves of their tastes, which they adhere to in everything. Some know what is good, and are horrified at what is not; their opinions are clear and true, and they find the reason for their taste in their mind and understanding.
Some have a species of instinct (the source of which they are ignorant of), and decide all questions that come before them by its aid, and always decide rightly.
These follow their taste more than their intelligence, because they do not permit their temper and self-love to prevail over their natural discernment. All they do is in harmony, all is in the same spirit. This harmony makes them decide correctly on matters, and form a correct estimate of their value. But speaking generally there are few who have a taste fixed and independent of that of their friends, they follow example and fashion which generally form the standard of taste.
In all the diversities of taste that we discern, it is very rare and almost impossible to meet with that sort of good taste that knows how to set a price on the particular, and yet understands the right value that should be placed on all. Our knowledge is too limited, and that correct discernment of good qualities which goes to form a correct judgment is too seldom to be met with except in regard to matters that do not concern us.