his words, that his language might be properly adjusted to his sense, and the sublimity of the latter be uniformly fupported by the grandeur of the former.

But further, there appears not in Him the leaft fhew or affectation of learning, tho' his stock was wonderfully large, yet without any prejudice to the brightness of his fancy. Some writers are even profufe of their commendations of him in this refpect. For how extenfive must his reading have been, to deserve those appellations given him by Eunapius, that he was a living library, and a walking mufæum? Large reading, without a due balance of judgment, is like a voracious appetite with a bad digeftion. It breaks out, according to the natural complexion of different persons, either into learned dulnefs, or a brifk but infipid pedantry. In Longinus, it was fo far from palling or extinguishing, that on the contrary it sharpened and enlivened his taste. He was not fo furly as to reject the fentiments of others without examination, but he had the wisdom to ftick by his own,

Let us pause a little here, and confider what a disagreeable and shocking contrast there is, between the Genius, the Tafte, the Candor, the Good-nature, the Generofity, and Modesty

of

of Longinus, and the Heaviness, the Dulness, the fnarling and fneering Temper of modern Critics, who can feast on inadvertent flips, and triumph over what they think a blunder. His very Rules are shining Examples of what they inculcate; his Remarks the very Excellencies he is pointing out. Theirs are often Inverfions of what is right, and finking other men by clogging them with a weight of their own Load. He keeps the fame majestic pace, or foars aloft with his authors; they are either creeping after, or plunging below them, fitted more by nature for Heroes of a Dunciad, than for Judges of fine fenfe and fine writing. The business of a Critic is not only to find fault, nor to be all bitterness and gall. Yet fuch behaviour, in those who have ufurped the name, has brought the office into fcandal and contempt. An Essay on Criticism appears but once in an age; and what a tedious interval is there between Longinus and Mr. Addison.

Having traced our author thus far as a Critic, we must view him now in another light, I mean as a Philofopher. In Him these are not different, but mutually depending and co-exifting parts of the fame character. To judge in a worthy manner of the performances of men, we must know the dignity of human

nature,

nature, the reach of the human understanding, I the ends for which we were created, and the means of their attainment. In thefe fpeculations Longinus will make no contemptible figure, and I hope the view will not appear fuperfluous or useless.

Man cannot arrive to a juft and proper understanding of himself, without worthy notions of the fupreme Being. The fad depravations of the pagan world are chiefly to be attributed to a deficiency in this refpect. Homer has exalted his heroes at the expence of his deities, and funk the divine nature far below the human; and therefore deferves that cenfure of blafphemy, which Longinus has paffed upon him. Had the poet defigned to have turned the imaginary gods of his idolatrous countrymen into ridicule, he could hardly have taken a better method. Yet what he has faid has never been understood in that light; and tho' the whole may be allegorical, as his Commentators would fain perfuade us, yet this will be no excufe for the malignancy of its effects on a superftitious world. The difcourfes of Socrates, and the writings of Plato, had in a great measure corrected the notions of inquifitive and thoughtful men in this particular, and caused the diftinction of religion

into vulgar and philofophical. By what Longinus has faid of Homer, it is plain to me, that his religion was of the latter fort. Tho' we allow him not to be a Christian or a Jewish convert, yet he was no idolater, fince without a knowledge and reverence of the divine perfections, he never could have formed his noble ideas of human nature.

This Life he confiders as a public theatre, on which men are to act their parts. A thirft after glory, and an emulation of whatever is great and excellent, is implanted in their minds, to quicken their pursuits after real grandeur, and to enable them to approach, as near as their finite abilities will admit, to Divinity itself. Upon these principles, he accounts for the vast stretch and penetration of the human understanding; to these he afcribes the labours of men of genius; and by the predominancy of them in their minds, afcertains the fuccefs of their attempts. In the fame manner he accounts for that turn in the mind, which biaffes us to admire more what is great and uncommon, than what is ordinary and familiar, however useful. There are other masterly reflexions of this kind in the 33d and 34th Sections, which are only to be excelled by Mr. Addison's Effay on the imagination. Whoever reads this

part

part of Longinus, and that piece of Mr. AddiJon's with attention, will form notions of them both, very much to their honour,

Yet the telling us we were born to pursue what is great, without informing us what is so, would avail but little. Longinus declares for a close and attentive examination of all things. Outfides and furfaces may be fplendid and alluring, yet nothing be within deferving our applause. He that fuffers himself to be dazled with a gay and gaudy appearance, will be betrayed into admiration of what the wife contemn; his pursuits will be levelled at wealth, and power, and high rank in life, to the prejudice of his inward tranquillity, and perhaps the wreck of his virtue. The pageantry and pomp of life will be regarded by fuch a person, as true honour and glory; and he will neglect the nobler acquifitions, which are more fuited to the dignity of his nature, which alone can give merit to ambition, and centre in folid and ! substantial grandeur.

The Mind is the fource and ftandard of whatever can be confidered as great and illuftrious in any light. From this our actions and our words must flow, and by this must they be weighed. We must think well, before we can act or speak as we ought. And it is the