As the Arts of Painting, Sculpture, and Poetry are imitative of these, their Excellence, as ARISTOTLE observes, consists in Faithfulness to their Original:  nor have they any primary Beauty in themselves, but derive their shadowy Existence in a mimetic Transcript from Objects in the Material World, or from Passions, Characters, and Manners.  Nevertheless that internal Sense we call TASTE (which is a Herald for the whole human System, in it’s three different Parts, the refined Faculties of Perception, the gross Organs of Sense, and the intermediate Powers of Imagination) has as quick a Feeling of this secondary Excellence of the Arts, as for the primary Graces; and seizes the Heart with Rapture long before the Senses, and Reason in Conjunction, can prove this Beauty by collating the Imitations with their Originals.

If it should be asked why external Objects affect the human Breast in this Manner, I would answer, that the ALMIGHTY has in this, as well as in all his other Works, out of his abundant Goodness and Love to his Creatures, so attuned our Minds to Truth, that all Beauty from without should make a responsive Harmony vibrate within.  But should any of those more curious Gentlemen, who busy themselves With Enquiries into Matters, which the Deity, for Reasons known only to himself, has placed above our limited Capacities, demand how he has so formed us, I should refer them, with proper Contempt, to their more aged Brethren, who may justly in Derision be stiled the Philosophers of ultimate Causes.  To you, my dear Friend, whose truly philosophical and religious Taste concludes that whatever GOD ordains is right, it is sufficient to have proved that Truth is the Cause of all Beauty, and that Truth flows from the Fountain of all Perfection, in whose unfathomable Depth finite Thought should never venture with any other Intention than to wonder and adore.  But I find I have been imperceptibly led on from Thought to Thought, not only to trespass upon the common Stile of a Letter, by these abstruse Reasonings and religious Conclusions, but upon the ordinary length of one likewise; therefore shall conclude by complimenting my own Taste in Characters, when I assure you that I am,

  Your most affectionate Friend, &c.

LETTER II.

To the SAME.

It gave me no small Pleasure to find, by your Answer to my last Letter, that you now allow BEAUTY to be the Daughter of TRUTH; and I in my turn will make a Concession to you, by confessing that BEAUTY herself may have acquired Charms, but then they are altogether such as are consistent with her divine Extraction.  What you observe is very true, that the human Form (the most glorious Object, as you are pleased to call it, in the Creation) let it be made with the most accurate Symmetry and Proportion, may receive additional Charms from Education, and