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Show 80 ADDITIONAL NOTES. XIII. ANALYSIS OF TASTE. Fond Fancy's eye recalls the form divine, And Taste sits smiling upon Beauty's shrine. CANTO III. l. 221. THE word Taste in its extensive application may express the pleasures received by any of our senses, when excited into action by the stimulus of external objects; as when odours stimulate the nostrils, or flavours the palate; or when smoothness, or softness, are perceived by the touch, or warmth by its adapted organ of sense. The word Taste is also used to signify the pleasurable trains of ideas suggested by language, as in the compositions of poetry and oratory. But the pleasures, consequent to the exertions of our sense of vision only, are designed here to be treated of, with occasional references to those of the ear, when they elucidate each other. When any of our organs of sense are excited into their due quantity of action, a pleasurable sensation succeeds, as shown in Zoonomia, Vol. I. Sect. IV. These are simply the pleasures attending perception, and not those which are termed the pleasures of Taste; which consist of additional pleasures arising from the peculiar forms or colours of objects, or of their peculiar combinations or successions, or from other agreeable trains of ideas previously associated with them. There are four sources of pleasure attendant on the excitation of the nerves of vision by light and colours, besides that simply of per- ception above mentioned; the first is derived from a degree of novelty of the forms~ colours, nun1bers, combinations, or successions, and visible objects. The second is derived from a ·degree of repetition of their forms, colours, numbers, combinations, or successions. Where these two circumstances exist united in certain quantities, and com. rose the principal part of a landscape, it is termeJ picturesque by Aualysis of Taste. 81 modern writers. The third source of pleasure f 1·om th t' f 1 · · e percep 1011 o t 1e n s1blc world may be termed the melody of colours, which wi ll be shown to coiucid~ with melody of sounds: this circumstance may also accompany t lJC p1c turcsque, and will add to the pleasure it afford Th~ fourth sonrce of pl~asure from the perception of visible objects . ;~ denved from the prevwus association of other pleasurable t 1·a· f · l · 111S 0 1( eas With certain forms, colours, combinations, or successions of them. \¥hence · the Lcautiful, sub lime, romantic, melancholic and other emotions, which have not acquired names to express them: We may add, th~t all these four sources of pleasure from perceptions are equally appl tcable to those of sounds as of sights. I. l{o·oelty or irif'requency if visible ofdects. The first circumstance, which sugges ts an additional pleasure in the contemplation of visi ble ohj ects, besides that of simple perception, arises from their novelty or infrequency; that is from the unusual combinations or successions of their forms or colours. From this source is derived the perpetual cheerfulness of }Tou th, and the want of it is liable to add a gloom to the countenance of age. It is this which produces variety in landscape compared with the common course of nature, an intricacy which incites investigation, and a curiosity which leads to explore the works of nature. Those who travel into fo reign regions instigated by curiosity, or who examine and unfold the intricacies of sciences at home, arc led by novelty; which not only supplies ornament to beauty or to grandeur, but adds agreeable surprise to the point of the epigram, and to the double meaning of the pun, and is courted alike by poets and philosophers. It should be here premised, that the word Novelty, as used in these pages, admits of degrees or quanti t ies, some objects, or the ideas excited by them, possessing more or less 1i0velty, as they are more· or less unusual. 'Vhich the reader will please to attend to, as we have used the word Infrefluency of obj ects, or of the ideas excited by them, to express the degrees or quantities of their novelty. The source, from which is derived the pleasure of novelty, is a . M |