y the word _taste_, other than as giving vague and unsatisfactory
terms to the reader in measuring the subject in hand. _Taste_ is a term
universally applied in criticism of the fine-arts, such as painting,
sculpture, architecture, &c., &c., of which there are many schools--of
_taste_, we mean--some of them, perhaps natural, but chiefly
conventional, and all more or less arbitrary. The proverb, "there is no
accounting for taste," is as old as the aforesaid schools themselves,
and defines perfectly our own estimate of the common usage of the term.

As we have intended to use it, Webster defines the word _taste_ to be
"the faculty of discerning beauty, order, congruity, proportion,
symmetry, or whatever constitutes excellence; style; manner with respect
to what is pleasing." With this understanding, therefore; a fitness to
the purpose for which a thing is intended--got up in a manner agreeable
to the eye and the mind--preserving also a harmony between its various
parts and uses; pleasing to the eye, as addressed to the sense, and
satisfactory to the mind, as appropriate to the object for which it is
required;--these constitute _good-taste_, as the term is here
understood.

The term _style_, also, is "the _manner_ or _form_ of a thing."
When we say, "that is a stylish house," it should mean that it is in,
or approaches some particular style of building recognized by the
schools. It may or may not be in accordance with good taste, and is,
consequently, subject to the same capricious test in its government. Yet
_styles_ are subject to arrangement, and are classified in the several
schools of architecture, either as distinct specimens of acknowledged
orders, as the Doric, the Ionic, the Corinthian, in Grecian
architecture, or, the Tuscan and Composite, which are, more distinctly,
styles of Roman architecture. To these may be added the Egyptian, the
most massive of all; and either of them, in their proper character,
grand and imposing when applied to public buildings or extensive
structures, but altogether inapplicable, from their want of lightness
and convenience, to country or even city dwellings. Other styles--not
exactly orders--of architecture, such as the Italian, the Romanesque,
the Gothic, the Swiss, with their modifications--all of which admit of a
variety of departures from fixed rules, not allowed in the more rigid
orders--may be adapted in a variety of ways, to the most agreeable and
harmonious arrangement in arch