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Burns had a fine genius for poetry, but it is said he had not that delicacy and refinement of taste which might have tile outlet been expected in so great a poet. In prose composition he had not a relish for the beauty of simplicity, but preferred the quaintness of point and antethesis. Poor Burns, highly gifted as he was, the lowest pleasures, so incompatible with true refinement, led him to the tavern,'there to display the wild sallies of his wit, and show the strength and degradation of his genius.*
ýýIn Coleridge, we have an example of the delicacy of taste united with the strength of genius; an illustration of his own idea of a great mind. Strong minds, he says, maybe imposing, coarse, as often wrong as right; great minds unite feminine softness with masculine power. Coleridge is thus described in his visit to the British Gallery of Paintings. "He was in high spirits and seemed to kindle in his mind at the contemplation of the splendid pictures before him. I can yet distinctly recall him, half leaning on his old simple stick, with his hat off in his hand. What the company thought of jhis silver-haired, brighteyed, music-breathing old man, I cannot guess. His admiration for Reubens showed itself in a sort of brotherly fondness. "Reubens," said he, "does not take for his subjects grand or
ýý* Life of Robert Burns, by Dr. Currie.
novel conformations of objects; he has no precipices, no forests, no frowning castles. No, he gets some little ponds, old tumble-down cottages, two or three peasants, a hay-rick and other such humble images, and handles these every-day ingredients of ceramic wall tile all common landscape as they are handled in nature. He extracts the latent poetry out of these common objects - that poetry and harmony which every man of genius perceives in the face of nature." He would sometimes say after looking a minute at a picture, generally a modern one, "There is no use in stopping" at this; for ceramic tile I see the painter had no idea. It is mere mechanical drawing. Come on, here the artist meant something for the mind." It was just the same with his knowledge of music. His appetite for what he thought good was inexhaustible. He told me he could listen to fine music for twelve hours together, and go away refreshed. But he required in music either thought or feeling; mere addresses to the sensual ear he could not away with."*
This long quotation will give to you a better idea of Taste in the Fi"e Arts than perhaps I could convey by explanation. When the mind is truly refined its perceptions and corresponding emotions will accord with truth natural and moral. In the works of imagination it will de~~* Table Talk.
tect a departure from nature, from reason, and morality. Such a mind will find delight in the varied loveliness which nature spreads over the flowers of the field, the plumage tile for kitchen of the bird, the clouds of heaven, but it will turn wearied,
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