ON THE

NATURE AND PRINCIPLES

TASTE.

BY

ARCHIBALD ALISON, LL. B.
F, R. S. LONDON AND EDINBURGH,
PREBENDARY OF SARUM,

&c. &c. &c.

THE FOURTH EDITION.

VOLUME I.

EDINBURGH:
PRINTED BY GEORGE RAMSAY AND COMPANY,
FOR ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY, EDINBURGI;
AND LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN,

LONDON.

1815.

TO

DUGALD STEWART, ESQ.

IN WHOSE FRIENDSHIP

THE AUTHOR HAS FOUND THE HONOUR,

AND THE HAPPINESS OF HIS LIFE;

THESE ESSAYS

ARE

MUST RESPECTFULLY

AND APPECTIONATELY

INSCRIBED.

EDINBURGH, November 22, 1810.

ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE SECOND EDITION.

The first Edition of this work was published in the year 1790. After so long an interval, I should not have presumed again to present it to the public, if I had not been informed by my booksellers, that some wish had lately been expressed for a Second Edition. In preparing it for the press, I have thought it my duty to add a few observations on the Origin of the Beauty and Sublimity of the Human Countenance and Form, to complete the Second Essay..

Of the general plan which I have sketched in the Introduction, I lament to think that so little has been accomplished; and still more, that the progress of years, and