OF REFINEMENT IN THE ARTS.

Luxury is a word of a very uncertain signification, and may be taken in a good as well as in a bad sense. In general, it means great refinement in the gratification of the senses, and any degree of it may be innocent or blameable, according to the age, or country, or condition of the person. The bounds between the virtue and the vice cannot here be fixed exactly, more than in other moral subjects. To imagine that the gratifying any of the senses, or the indulging any delicacy in meats, drinks, or apparel, is in itself a vice, can never enter into a head that is not disordered by the frenzies of enthusiasm. I have, indeed, heard of a monk abroad who, because the windows of his cell opened upon a very noble prospect, made a covenant with his eyes never to turn that way, or receive so sensual a gratification. And such is the crime of drinking champagne or burgundy, preferably to small beer or porter. These indulgences are only vices when they are pursued at the expense of some virtue, as liberality or charity; in like manner as they are follies when for them a man ruins his fortune, and reduces himself to want and beggary. Where they entrench upon no virtue, but leave ample subject whence to provide for friends, family, and every proper object of generosity or compassion, they are entirely innocent, and have in every age been acknowledged such by almost all moralists. To be entirely occupied with the luxury of the table, for instance, without any relish for the pleasures of ambition, study, or conversation, is a mark of gross stupidity, and is incompatible with any vigour of temper or genius. To confine one’s expense entirely to such a gratification, without regard to friends or family, is an indication of a heart entirely devoid of humanity or benevolence. But if a man reserve time sufficient for all laudable pursuits, and money sufficient for all