Note 95 — Chapter II · THE RALLY OF GERMANY—LESSING.

By an accident not worth dilating upon I was unable to incorporate the results of careful reading of König and Conti in the text. The former’s treatise on Taste is very respectable for its time, and must then have been quite stimulating; but it belongs to the obsolete box of our matter. Taste, excellent in the palmy times of Greek literature, declined later, was revived by the Romans, lost in the Middle Ages, recovered at the Renaissance, lost again and recovered by the French, and so on. He is much cumbered (as some other excellent persons have been) about the origin of the word Taste—deprives the Spaniards of the honour of inventing it, and very properly finds its origin in Græco-Roman times. It must be natural, but can be improved by acquirement. It is more immediate than judgment. It extends to quite trivial things—snuff, wine, foppery in dress, sensual pleasures, &c.

Conti’s work, in the edition quoted, has the great drawback of being presented almost wholly, as far as the critical part of it is concerned, in abstracts made from MS. by the editor. It consists, besides Letters to the Doge Marco Foscarini, to Maffei, to Muratori, &c., of Treatises on “Imitation,” “Poetic Fantasy,” and the like and of animadversions on classical and Italian Poetry, on Fracastoro, on Gravina, and others. It does not come to very much.