An honest farmer, or shepherd, who is acquainted with no
language but what is spoken in his own county, may have a much truer
relish of the _English_ writers than the most dogmatical pedant that
ever erected himself into a commentator, and from his _Gothic_ chair,
with an ill-bred arrogance, dictated false criticism to the gaping
multitude.
But even those who are endued with good natural taste, often judge
implicitly and by rote, without ever consulting their own taste.
Instances of this passive indolence, or rather this unconsciousness of
one's own faculties, appear every day; not only in the fine arts, but
in cases where the mere _taste_, according to the original meaning
of the word, is alone concerned. For I am positive there are many
thousands who, if they were to bring their own palate to a severe
examination, would discover that they really find a more delicious
flavour in mutton than in venison, in flounder than in turbut, and yet
prefer middling or bad venison to the best mutton; that is, what is
scarcest and dearest, and consequently what is, from the folly of
mankind, the most in vogue, to what is really the most agreeable to
their own private taste.
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