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to fhine in borrowed ornaments, which will at laft be tray the poverty of our genius.

Fifthly, always adapt your style to the subject, and likewife to the capacity of your hearers, if you are to fpeak in public. To attempt a poetical ftyle, when it fhould be our bufinefs only to reason, is in the highest degree awkward and abfurd. To fpeak with elaborate pomp of words before thofe, who cannot comprehend them, is equally ridiculous. fpeak, we should previoufly fix in our minds a clear idea of the end aimed at; keep this steadily in view, and adapt our style to it.

When we are to write or

Laftly, let not attention to ftyle engrofs us fo much, as to prevent a higher degree of attention to the thoughts. This rule is more neceffary, fince the prefent tafte of the age is directed more to ftyle, than to thought. It is much more easy to dress up trifling and common thoughts with fome beauty of expreffion, than to afford a fund of vigorous, ingenious, and useful fentiments. The latter requires genius; the former may be attained by industry. Hence the crowd of writers, who are rich in style, but poor in fentiment. Cuftom obliges

style, if we wish

us to be attentive to the ornaments of our labors to be read and admired. But he is a contemptible writer, who looks not beyond the dress of language; who lays not the chief stress upon his matter, and employs not fuch ornaments of style to recommend it, as are manly, not foppish.

CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF MR. ADDISON's

STYLE IN No. 411 OF THE SPECTATOR.

HAVING

AVING fully infifted on the fubject of language, we shall now commence a critical analysis of the style of fome good author. This will fuggeft obfervations, which we have not hitherto had occafion to make, and will fhow in a practical light the ufe of thofe, which have been made.

Mr. Addison, though one of the most beautiful writers in our language, is not the most correct; a circumstance, which makes his compofition a proper fubject of criticism. We proceed therefore to examine No. 411, the first of his celebrated effays on the pleasures of the imagination in the fixth volume of the Spectator. It begins thus ;

Our fight is the most perfect, and most delightful of all our fenfes.

This fentence is clear, precife and fimple. The author in a few plain words lays down the proposition, which he is going to illuftrate. A first sentence should feldom be long, and never intricate.

He might have faid, our fight is the most perfect and the moft delightful. But in omitting to repeat the particle the he has been more judiciots; for, as between perfe

and delightful there is no contraft, fuch a repetition is unneceffary. He proceeds;

It fills the mind with the largest variety of ideas, converfes with its objects at the greatest distance, and continues the longeft in action, without being tired or fatiated with its proper enjoyments.

This fentence is remarkably harmonious, and well conftructed. It is entirely perfpicuous. It is loaded with no unneceffary words. That quality of a good fentence, which we termed its unity, is here perfectly preferved. The members of it alfo grow, and rise above each other in found, till it is conducted to one of the most harmonious closes, which our language admits. It is moreover figurative without being too much fo for the fubject. There is no fault in it whatever, except this, the epithet large, which he applies to variety, is more commonly applied to extent, than to number. It is plain however, that he employed it, to avoid the repetition of the word great, which occurs immediately afterward.

The fenfe of feeling can, indeed, give us a notion of extenfion, Shape, and all other ideas that enter at the eye, except colours; but, at the fame time, it is very much straitened and confined in its operations, to the number, bulk, and distance of its particular objects. But is not every fenfe confined as much, as the fenfe of feeling, to the number, bulk, and distance of its own objects? The turn of expreffion

is also very inaccurate, requiring the two words, with regard, to be inferted after the word operations, in order to make the fenfe clear and intelligible. The epithet par ticular feems to be used inftead of peculiar; but these words, though often confounded, are of very different import. Particular is oppofed to general; peculiar ftands opposed to what is poffeffed in common with others.

Our fight feems defigned to fupply all these defects, and may be confidered as a more delicate and diffufive kind of touch, that Spreads itself over an infinite multitude of bodies, comprehends the largest figures, and brings into our reach fome of the most remote parts of the univerfe.

This fentence is perfpicuous, graceful, well arranged, and highly mufical. Its conftruction is fo fimilar to that of the second sentence, that, had it immediately fucceeded it, the ear would have been fenfible of a faulty monotony. But the interpofition of a period prevents this effect.

It is this fenfe which furnishes the imagination with its ideas; fo that by the pleasures of the imagination or fancy, (which I fhall ufe promifcuously) I here mean fuch as arife from vifible objects, either when we have them actually in our view, or when we call up their ideas into our minds by paintings, ftatues, defcriptions, or any the like occafion.

The parenthefis in the middle of this fentence is not

N

clear. It fhould have been, terms which I fhall ufe pro mifcuously; fince the verb ufe does not relate to the pleafures of the imagination, but to the terms, fancy and imagination, which were meant to be fynonymous. To call a painting or a statue an occafion is not accurate; nor is it very proper to speak of calling up ideas by occa fions. The common phrase, any fuch means, would have

been more natural.

ages

We cannot indeed have a fingle image in the fancy, that did not make its firft entrance through the fight; but we have the power of retaining, altering, and compounding thofe imwhich we have once received, into all the varieties of picture and vifion that are moft agreeable to the imagination for, by this faculty, a man in a dungeon is capable of entertaining himself mith scenes and landscapes more beautiful than any that can be found in the whole compafs of nature.

In one member of this fentence there is an inaccuracy in fyntax. It is proper to fay, altering and compounding thofe images which we have once received, into all the va rieties of picture and vifion. But we cannot with propriety fay, retaining them into all the varieties; yet the arrangement requires this conftruction. This error might have been avoided by arranging the paffage in the following manner; "We have the power of retaining "thofe images, which we have once received; and of 66 altering and compounding them into all the varieties "of picture and vifion." The latter part of the fen, tence is clear and elegant.

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