He may likewise consider, how differently he is affected by the same Thought, which presents it self in a great Writer, from what he is when he finds it delivered by a Person of an ordinary Genius.  For there is as much Difference in apprehending a Thought cloathed in Cicero’s Language, and that of a common Author, as in seeing an Object by the Light of a Taper, or by the Light of the Sun.

It is very difficult to lay down Rules for the Acquirement of such a Taste as that I am here speaking of.  The Faculty must in some degree be born with us, and it very often happens, that those who have other Qualities in Perfection are wholly void of this.  One of the most eminent Mathematicians of the Age has assured me, that the greatest Pleasure he took in reading Virgil, was in examining AEneas his Voyage by the Map; as I question not but many a Modern Compiler of History, would be delighted with little more in that Divine Author, than in the bare Matters of Fact.

But notwithstanding this Faculty must in some measure be born with us, there are several Methods for Cultivating and Improving it, and without which it will be very uncertain, and of little use to the Person that possesses it.  The most natural Method for this Purpose is to be conversant among the Writings of the most Polite Authors.  A Man who has any Relish for fine Writing, either discovers new Beauties, or receives stronger Impressions from the Masterly Strokes of a great Author every time he peruses him; Besides that he naturally wears himself into the same manner of Speaking and Thinking.

Conversation with Men of a Polite Genius is another Method for improving our Natural Taste.  It is impossible for a Man of the greatest Parts to consider anything in its whole Extent, and in all its Variety of Lights.  Every Man, besides those General Observations which are to be made upon an Author, forms several Reflections that are peculiar to his own Manner of Thinking; so that Conversation will naturally furnish us with Hints which we did not attend to, and make us enjoy other Men’s Parts and Reflections as well as our own.  This is the best Reason I can give for the Observation which several have made, that Men of great Genius in the same way of Writing seldom rise up singly, but at certain Periods of Time appear together, and in a Body; as they did at Rome in the Reign of Augustus, and in Greece about the Age of Socrates.  I cannot think that Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Boileau, la Fontaine, Bruyere, Bossu, or the Daciers, would have written so well as they have done, had they not been Friends and Contemporaries.