An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of our Ideas of Beauty, etc Part 1

An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of our Ideas of Beauty, etc.

by Frances Reynolds, et al.

INTRODUCTION

Since the early nineteenth century it has been known that Frances Reynolds, the sister of Sir Joshua, was the author of an essay on taste, which she had printed but did not publish. Yet persistent search failed to turn up a single copy. It remained one of those lost pieces which every research scholar hoped someday to discover.

In 1935 it appeared that the search was over. Among some ma.n.u.scripts of Mrs. Thrale-Piozzi, long hidden in Wales, was found a printed copy of an anonymous _Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of Our Ideas of Beauty_, which seemed to be the lost essay.

The date was correct; the _Enquiry_ was dedicated to Mrs. Montagu; it contained a quotation from Dr. Johnson; and, best of all, there was attached to the pamphlet a copy (in an unidentified handwriting) of Johnson's well-known letter to Miss Reynolds concerning her essay.

Only one thing stood squarely in the way of the identification. James Northcote in his _Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds_, published in 1818 (II, 116-19), after describing Johnson's connection with the ma.n.u.script, gives two pages of short excerpts. Most of the quotations are general statements such as "Dress is the strong indication of the moral character" or "The fine arts comprehend all that is excellent in the moral system, and, at the same time, open every path that tends to the corruption of moral excellence." Unfortunately none of these excerpts appears directly in the _Enquiry_. Although some of the ideas are similar, the wording and specific details are different. By no stretch of the imagination could they be considered to come from the same piece. Thus Northcote blocked the solution of the mystery for nearly fifteen years.

Recently, however, evidence has turned up which makes the attribution a certainty. It is now obvious that Northcote must have been mistaken in the source of his quotations. Writing as he did many years after the events he was describing, Northcote either had found a copy of the first draft of Miss Reynolds' essay, or erroneously quoted from another anonymous piece which he a.s.sumed was by Miss Reynolds. In any event he was not quoting from the final version which she wished the world to see.

The story of Miss Reynolds' attempts to publish her essay can at last be pieced together from various bits of evidence, some hitherto unpublished. Just when the essay was written is uncertain. All that we know is that a preliminary version was submitted to the rigorous criticism of Dr. Johnson in 1781. Johnson, who had corrected some of her verses in red ink the year before, commented on 21 July 1781:

There is in these such force of comprehension, and such nicety of observation as Locke or Pascal might be proud of. This I say with intention to have you think that I speak my opinion.

They cannot however be printed in their present state. Many of your notions seem not very clear in your own mind, many are not sufficiently developed and expanded for the common reader; the expression almost every where wants to be made clearer and smoother. You may by revisal and improvement make it a very elegant and curious work.[1]

But Miss Reynolds was not easily discouraged, and Johnson wrote again on 8 April 1782:

Your work is full of very penetrating meditation, and very forcible sentiment. I read it with a full perception of the sublime, with wonder and terrour, but I cannot think of any profit from it; it seems not born to be popular.

Your system of the mental fabric is exceedingly obscure, and without more attention than will be willingly bestowed, is unintelligible. The Ideas of Beauty will be more easily understood, and are often charming. I was delighted with the different beauty of different ages.

I would make it produce something if I could but I have indeed no hope. If a Bookseller would buy it at all, as it must be published without a name, he would give nothing for it worth your acceptance.[2]

In pa.s.sing it might be pointed out that this letter has previously not been a.s.sociated with Miss Reynolds' essay on taste, largely because the available text of the letter has been so faulty. Where Johnson wrote "The Ideas of Beauty," obviously referring to the second section of the _Enquiry_, Croker, followed by G.B. Hill, printed "The plans of Burnaby." To this Hill added a note; "Burnaby, I conjecture, was a character in the book," with the result that scholars have fruitlessly been searching ever since for the fict.i.tious Mr. Burnaby, One more example of the dangers of using nineteenth-century transcripts!

Evidently Johnson's stringent objections temporarily halted her plans, for we hear nothing more about the essay for two years. Meanwhile, as appears from a later letter, she showed it to Bennett Langton, hoping in vain for his help. Nevertheless, she was determined to go ahead and print the work, even at her own expense. Johnson, still counted upon for aid, wrote to her on 12 April 1784:

I am not yet able to wait on you, but I can do your business commodiously enough. You must send me the copy to show the printer. If you will come to tea this afternoon we will talk together about it.[3]

On 30 April he commented further: "Mr. Allen has looked over the papers and thinks one hundred copies will come to five pounds."

Something, however, made her suspicious of his advice, and on 28 May there came an end to Johnson's connection with the matter. He wrote: "I have returned your papers, and am glad that you laid aside the thought of printing them."

But Miss Reynolds had no intention of permanently giving up her project. Instead she rewrote parts of the essay which had displeased her critics, and shortly after Johnson's death proceeded to have 250 copies privately printed, with a dedication to Mrs. Montagu. With Johnson gone, "The Queen of the Bluestockings" must have appeared the next best patron. That Mrs. Montagu, while no doubt flattered by the dedication, was herself not overly enthusiastic about the essay may be gathered from a letter written to her by Miss Reynolds on 12 July 1785. Miss Reynolds began by insisting that "the slightest hint" of disapprobation on the part of Mrs. Montagu would "consign the work to oblivion"; then continued:

I never did entertain any desire to publish it, tho I might to sell it. And my desire of printing it, originated from a motive which tho' vain I allow, is an natural vanity I wishd to leave behind me a respectable memorial of my existence, which I then flatterd myself this would be. Ten impressions or twenty at the most, were all I wishd to have taken off. Why I had so many as 250 was because Dr. Johnson advised me to print that number, and to sell them, to stand the sale of them was his expression, but I must do Dr. Johnson the justice to say, that, that advice was given me with a proviso that no person was in the secret but himself, for on my informing him to the contrary, he declined or seemd to decline the affair of getting them printed for me, which I perceiving sent to him for the ma.n.u.script, foolishly entertaining a slight suspicion which I much reproach myself for, that some other motives besides the want of merit in the work had influenced this change of behaviour. Unluckily from the beginning I made too great allowance in its favour, from an opinion I had con too of Dr. Johnsons being strongly prejudiced against womens literary productions. But I deceived myself. He was sincere, he judged justly of the work, and his opinion exactly corresponded with yours![4]

Not that she regretted the cost of printing the 250 copies. That was a minor consideration. She concluded:

If I ever should shew it to any person it will be to Mr.

Langton, from a motive of wis.h.i.+ng him to see the alteration I have made in it for the better, since he saw it, and as it is also since Dr. Johnson saw it, and particularly that part he most objected to, my belief that I had obviated that objection, is another apology for my printing it.

To this Mrs. Montagu returned a wordy and diffuse reply, commenting that "having for many years past left off all metaphysical studies,"

she was "not a competent judge of any work on subjects of that nature," yet insisting that she doubted if contemporary readers would like it. It was obvious that Mrs. Montagu refused to be a party to further dissemination of the printed copies. And there the matter rested for almost three more years.

The wish to have some of the copies read by the general public proved too strong, and on 15 April 1788 Miss Reynolds wrote again to Mrs.

Montagu, asking her aid in recovering a letter, or transcription of a letter, of Johnson's:

It is of great importance to me the recovery of this letter particularly so as I perceive I must not presume to hope for the only patronage that could countervail the loss of Dr.

Johnsons, should I ever be induced to publish the work. I do not mean that I would publish the letter, but that the testimony it conveys of Dr. Johnsons approbation, would be highly advantageous to me in the disposal of the copy to a Bookseller, indeed _approbation_ is an improper Word, inadequate to the praises he bestows on the work, I durst not repeat his expressions tho I well remember them. Some friendly strictures also the letter contained, all these I remember I transcribed verbatim in a letter I sent to you in the beginning of the year 82. they begin

Many of your notions seem not to be very clear in your own imagination....[5]

It was not until the next year that with the help of James Northcote she finally made active preparations to have the work published. As Miss Reynolds wrote to Mrs. Montagu on 5 February,

I forgot to say that Mr. Nurse recommended Mr. Northcote to a Mr. Bladen in Paternoster Row for a Publisher, but I sent in the utmost haste to him to prevent his taking any steps towards so disgraceful a place as I imagine that to be so incongruous.[6]

In preparation for the new printing, Miss Reynolds had further revised her essay, and in order to enhance the value of the piece for general readers she decided to add three letters from Johnson of which she chanced to have copies. Totally unconnected with the essay, one was to Sir Joseph Banks concerning the motto for his goat's collar; the others concerned the unfortunate Dr. Dodd. But before going ahead she again asked the advice of her patroness. Mrs. Montagu replied:

I do not see that there is any objection to publis.h.i.+ng the 3 letters, but I own I think Dr Johnson judges too lightly of the crime of forgery ... I believe the tenderness of sentiment Dr Johnson expresses for Dr Dodd in his afflictions will do him honour in the eyes of the Publick, & therefore as his friend you may with propriety publish the letters.[7]

Mrs. Montagu concluded, "I wish some name that would do more honour to your work was to appear in the dedication, but to be presented to the publick with such a mark of Mrs Reynolds' friendly regard, will certainly be esteemed an honour...."

Sometime between February and July 1789 the _Enquiry_ was reprinted, this time by J. Smeeton (copies of this version may be found in the Bodleian Library and the Library of Congress). The terminal date for the reprinting is established by the fact that the three letters of Johnson which were appended to the essay were reprinted without comment in the July issue of the _European Magazine_.

Just where Miss Reynolds secured copies of the Johnson letters is not certain. It is suggestive, however, that the letter to Banks had originally been sent under cover to Sir Joshua Reynolds and that Sir Joshua's copy is now among the Boswell papers at Yale University.

There would have been ample opportunity for Frances Reynolds also to have secured a copy. And the letter to Charles Jenkinson of 20 June 1777 and to Dr. Dodd of 26 June were of the sort that an enterprising lady might well have wheedled copies from the Doctor. The important point is that the inclusion of the letters in the 1789 printing of the _Enquiry_ provides incontrovertible proof of Miss Reynolds' connection with the piece.

For this second printing the entire pamphlet was reset, with numerous minor changes of wording and punctuation, but with no major alterations in meaning. In general the textual improvements are such as a bluestocking lady might well wish to make. It will be noted that on pages 25 and 49 of the copy here reproduced someone has made minor changes in wording in ink. These corrections are made in the later printing. Moreover, at the end of the 1789 version there is an errata list, indicating three alterations from the 1785 text which were mistakes. The Dedication remained unchanged, but the geometrical ill.u.s.tration was now placed facing the beginning of Chapter I.

The _Enquiry_ was written in what is now recognized as one of the most exciting periods in the history of aesthetics, the late eighteenth century being a crucial point in the gradual s.h.i.+ft from absolute cla.s.sical standards to the relative approaches of the next age. Most of the important thinkers of the day--Hume, Burke, Lord Kames, Adam Smith, among others--were thinking deeply about the problem of taste.

And if Miss Reynolds' essay is not one of the most perceptive of the discussions, it is at least one of the liveliest.

In brief, the _Enquiry_ is what one might expect from an intelligent amateur, from one not a professional writer, yet one who has given much thought to the problems of aesthetics. Of course, many of the ideas are derivative, with echoes of the "moral sense" of Hutcheson, the "line of grace" of Hogarth, and the terrible sublime of Burke. The three divisions of the essay--the development of a mental system, the origin of our ideas of Beauty, and the a.n.a.lysis of taste--follow the customary pattern of eighteenth-century discussions. Yet the piece is no slavish refurbis.h.i.+ng of old phrases. It is packed with fresh arguments and novel suggestions. If these are not always completely coherent or logical, they do represent original thinking.

Twentieth-century readers may be astonished by some of the ideas: witness the claim that Negroes could never arrive at true taste, because their eyes were so accustomed to objects diametrically opposite to taste. As a further example of Miss Reynolds' occasionally muddled thinking there is the development of her initial a.s.sumption.

While the groundwork of man is perfection, this perfection has been blemished and man is impelled to recapture it in the sublime. Yet instead of a.n.a.lyzing this impulse, Miss Reynolds appears to take it for granted. Nor does she consider how perfection is to be achieved in taste, preferring to conclude with a diatribe in the manner of Rousseau on the depravity of the times and the corrupting effect of the arts. (For this and many of the following comments I am indebted to Mr. Ralph Cohen of the College of the City of New York.)

The cause of some of the ambiguities in her discussion may perhaps be traced to a rather careless use of terms. At one time "instinct"

or "impulsion," the moral force driving man toward perfection, is a potentiality developed by cultivation, and at another a force that is created by cultivation. Although the sublime is the apex of her mathematically-definite program and is a moral quality attained by the few, every human being has his point of sublimity in the idea of a Supreme Being. On the one hand, beauty is a preconceived idea in the human species; on the other it is not preconceived, but developed.

Finally, the rules of art are perceptions of moral virtue, yet art which exhibits these rules can corrupt.

It is easy to pick flaws in Miss Reynolds' thinking, for the lack of sustained logic which Johnson early recognized is apparent at every turn. Yet for students of the history of ideas the _Enquiry_ contains much of interest. As a painter, Miss Reynolds throughout stresses the visual, a concentration which leads her to several valuable insights.

She divides form into two categories, masculine and feminine, but makes a novel use of these Ciceronian divisions. All non-human objects--flowers, animals, etc.--are seen as exhibiting male or female attributes. It might almost be said that with this anthropomorphic approach she is attempting to develop a "philosophical" basis for the pathetic fallacy. Furthermore, if the human is used to measure beauty in the non-human, the implication is that man, not G.o.d, is the measure of beauty. By setting up man as the mediator between the material and the divine, she points to the concentration in the next century on human values.

When discussing the _Enquiry_ in his book on the _Sublime_, Samuel Monk pointed out certain other tendencies which fore-shadow the coming Romantic revolt. This s.h.i.+ft may also be noted in Miss Reynolds'

extension of countenance, the reflection of internal virtue, to mean "form," and the extension of internal virtue to mean "disposition,"

"object," or content. In developing this form-content division, she stumbles on a key criticism of a.s.sociationism: "From a.s.sociation of ideas, any object may be pleasing, though absolutely devoid of beauty, and displeasing with it. The form is _then_ out of the question; it is some _real_ good or evil, with which the object, but not its form, is a.s.sociated." This notion that a.s.sociationism leads away from the work of art as such is a perceptive comment. Her notion that form and disposition (or content) must correspond in order to give aesthetic pleasure suggests, though the terms are different, certain of Coleridge's basic ideas.

One other point might be stressed: Miss Reynolds takes an extreme moralistic position toward the arts. Again and again it is insisted that taste and beauty are moral attributes, not purely aesthetic concepts. Chapter II ends with the ringing statement: "Of this I am certain, that true refinement is the effect of true virtue; that virtue is truth, and good; and that beauty dwells in them, and they in her." And the next chapter begins: "Taste seems to be an inherent impulsive tendency of the soul towards true good." On the other hand, she sees that the arts are not to be encouraged because such encouragement is apt to lead to the destruction of moral virtue--the desire for fame and wealth. The value of art as education is dismissed as of importance only to the few; the dangers of encouragement will imperil the many. "Though the arts are thus beneficial to the growing principles of taste, respecting a few individuals, it is well known that their establishment in every nation has had a contrary effect on the community in general...."

To conclude: despite its many deficiencies Frances Reynolds' _Enquiry_ is worth reading. It serves admirably to mirror the conflicting eighteenth-century theories out of which our own aesthetic concepts have been formed.