ABSTRACT
In 1808, Joseph Woods read ‘An Essay on Modern Theories of Taste’ which was subsequently republished in Essays of the London Architectural Society (Part the Second). He explained that his intention in the essay was to examine several different authors’ ideas on the subject of taste, in particular, in relation to buildings. Of smells and tastes, as productive of emotions, Joseph Woods says nothing; of sounds, he finds such sublime as are connected with power or danger; divest them of these, they cease to be sublime. But if this be the case, surely it is very erroneous to call the sound sublime; the power or danger must be sublime, not the sound, which is nothing but as it announces the presence of one or the other. “Magnitude,” according to Alison, “Is expressive of vastness;” this is a wonderful discovery; yet a careful definition of the terms employed, would reduce many of his propositions to the same nothingness.
