ESSAYS

ON

THE NATURE AND PRINCIPLES

OF

TASTE.

BY ARCHIBALD ALISON, LL. B. F. R. S.
"

PREBENDARY OF SARUM, &C.

WITH CORRECTIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS

BY ABRAHAM MILLS,

TEACHER OF RHETORIC AND BELLES LETTRES.

NEW YORK:

G. & C. & H. CARVILL, 108 BROADWAY.

1830.

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK, SS.

BE it remembered, that on the ninth day of September, A. D. 1830, in the fifty-fifth year of the Independence of the United States of America, G. & C. & H. Carvill, of the said district, have deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof they claim as proprietors, in the words following, to wit:

"Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste. By Archibald Alison, LL.B. F.R.S. Prebendary of Sarum, &c. With corrections and improvements by Abraham Mills, Teacher of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres."

In conformity to the act of congress of the United States, entitled "An act for the en couragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned;" and also to an act entitled "An act, supplementary to an act, entitled An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints." FRED. J. BETTS,

Clerk of the Southern District of New York.

Sleight & Robinson, printers, 26 William street.

IN offering to the public, a new edition of Dr. Alison's "Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste," it affords me peculiar pleasure to acknowledge the gratification that the flattering reception of my editions of Burke's "Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful,” and Blair's "Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres," afforded; and while, in the present case, I may have criticised with a bolder hand, and attempted to improve to a greater extent than in either of the former, it is to be hoped, that the responsibility assumed in editing works of so much importance, and so deservedly popular, will be regarded as a sufficient apology for what has been done.

Previous editions of this work, notwithstanding the interest that the subject excites, contain many inaccuracies which greatly interrupt the pleasure that the subject itself is so well calculated to afford; but as the inaccuracies are of a nature to be observed by those only, who have, in some degree, kept pace with the rapid improvement of our language during the last thirty years, they have, hitherto, been overlooked. It is by no means, however, pretended, that the present edition is free from errors: all that is claimed is to have improved it ;