perhaps the surest and the shortest, as well as the pleasantest way of arriving at the science of the human mind. It is an humble attempt to lead the mind of the studious inquirer into this track, that the following sheets are now submitted to the examination of the public.

WHEN We consider the manner in which the rhetorical art hath arisen, and been treated in the schools, we must be sensible that in this, as in the imitative arts, the first handle has been given to criticism by actual performances in the art. The principles of our nature will, without the aid of any previous and formal instruction, sufficiently account for the first attempts. As speakers existed before grammarians, and reasoners before logicians; so doubtless there were orators before there were rhetoricans, and poets before critics. The first impulse towards the attainment of every art is from nature. The earliest assistance and direction that can be obtained in the rhetorical art, by which men operate on the minds of others, arises from the consciousness a man has of what operates on his own mind, aided by the sympathetic feelings, and by that practical experience of mankind, which individuals, even in the rudest state of society, are capable of acquiring. The next step is to observe and discriminate, by proper appellations, the

different attempts, whether modes of arguing, or forms of speech, that have been employed for the purposes of explaining, convincing, pleasing, moving, and persuading. Here we have the beginnings of the critical science. The third step is to compare, with diligence, the various effects, favourable or unfavourable, of these attempts, carefully taking into consideration every attendant circumstance, by which the success appears to have been influenced, and by which one may be enabled to discover to what particular purpose each attempt is adapted, and in what circumstances only to be used. The fourth and last is to canvass those principles in our nature, to which the various attempts are adapted, and by which, in any instance, their success, or want of success, may be accounted for. By the first step the critic is supplied with materials. By the second, the materials are distributed and classed, the forms of argument, the tropes and figures of speech, with their divisions, and subdivisions, are explained. By the third, the rules of composition are discovered, or the method of combining and disposing the several materials, so as that they may be perfectly adapted to the end in view. By the fourth, we arrive at that knowledge of human nature, which, beside its other advantages, adds both weight and evidence to all precedent discoveries and rules,

The second of the steps abovementioned, which, by the way, is the first of the rhetorical art, for all that precedes is properly supplied by Nature, appeared, to the author of Hudibras, the utmost pitch that had even to his time been attained:

For all a rhetorician's rules

Teach nothing but to name his tools *.

In this, however, the matter hath been exaggerated by the satyrist. Considerable progress had been made by the ancient Greeks and Romans, in devising the proper rules of composition, not only in the two sorts of poesy, epic and dramatic, but also in the three sorts of orations, which were in most frequent use among them, the deliberative, the judiciary, and the demonstrative. And I must acknowledge, that, as far as I have been able to discover, there has been little or no improvement in this respect made by the moderns. The observations and rules transmitted to us from these distinguished names in the learned world, Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian, have been for the most part only translated by later critics, or put into a modish dress and new arrangement. And as to the fourth and last step, it may be said to bring us into a new country, of which, though there have been some suc

VOL. I.

* P. I. l. I.

B

I

cessful incursions occasionally made upon its frontiers, we are not yet in full possession.

THE performance which, of all those I happened to be acquainted with, seems to have advanced farthest in this way, is the Elements of Criticism. But the subject of the learned and ingenious author of that work, is rather too multifarious to admit so narrow a scrutiny as would be necessary for a perfect knowledge of the several parts. Every thing that is an object of taste, sculpture, painting, music, architecture, and gardening, as well as poetry and eloquence, come within his plan. On the other hand, though his subject be more multiform, it is, in respect of its connection with the mind, less extensive than that here proposed. All those particular arts are examined only on that side, wherein there is found a pretty considerable coincidence with one another; namely as objects of taste, which, by exciting sentiments of grandeur, beauty, novelty, and the like, are calculated to delight the imagination. In this view, eloquence comes no farther under consideration than as a fine art, and adapted, like the others above mentioned, to please the fancy, and to move the passions. But to treat it also as an useful art, and closely connected with the understanding and the will, would have led to a discussion foreign to his purpose.

it

I AM aware, that, from the deduction given above,

may

be urged, that the fact, as here represented, seems to subvert the principle formerly laid down, and that, as practice in the art has given the first scope for criticism, the former cannot justly be considered as deriving light and direction from the latter; that, on the contrary, the latter ought to be regarded as merely affording a sort of intellectual entertainment to speculative men. It may be said, that this science, however entertaining, as it must derive all its light and information from the actual examples in the art, can never in return be subservient to the art, from which alone it has received whatever it has to bestow. This objection, however specious, will not bear a near examination. For let it be observed, that, though in all the arts the first rough draughts, or imperfect attempts, that are made, precede every thing that can be termed criticism, they do not precede every thing that can be termed knowledge, which every human creature, that is not an idiot, is every day, from his birth, acquiring by experience and observation. This knowledge must of necessity precede even those rudest and earliest essays; and if, in the imperfect and indigested state in which knowledge must always be found in the mind that is rather self-taught than totally untaught, it deserves not to be dignified with the title of science, neither does the first awkward attempt