called a Gallery of Painters, can never be pleasing for the same reasons,---want of union and harmony. "The present licentious humour of coining and borrowing words seems to portend no good to the English language; and it is grievous to think with what volupty two or Poetararorencouroac* eminent personages have opiniatred the inchoation of such futile barbarisms. "In short, the liberty of coining words ought to be used with great modesty. Horace, they say, gave but two, and Virgil only one to the Latin tongue, which was squeamish enough not to swallow those, even from such hands, without some reluctance. Instead of creating a parcel of awkward new words, I imagine it would be an improvement to degrade many of the old ones from their peerage. I am but a private man, and without authority: but an absolute prince, if he were of my opinion, would make it capital ever to say encroach or encroachment, or any thing that belongs to encroaching. I would commit inculcate, for all its Latinity, to the care of the paviours; and it should never appear above ground again. If you have the least sympathy with the human ear, never say purport while you breathe; nor betwixt, except you have first repeated between till we are quite tired of it. Methinks strongly resembles the broken language of a German in his first attempts to speak English. Methought lies under the same objection, but it sounds better. "It is full time that froward should be turned out of all good company, especially as perverse is ready at hand to supply its place. Vouchsafe is a very civil * An American word for the number three. BS gentleman; gentleman; but as his courtesy is somewhat old-fashioned, we wish he would deign, or condescend, or be pleased, to retire. "From what rugged road, I wonder, did swerve deviate into the English language?-But this subject matter!-In the name of every thing that is disgusting and detestable, what is it? Is it one or two ugly words? What is it? Confound me if ever I could guess! Yet one dares hardly peep into a preface, for fear of being stared in the face with this nasty subject matter.”* CHAP. III. OF PROPRIETY OF STYLE. PROPRIETY of style stands opposed to vulgarisms or low expressions, and to words and phrases which would be less significant of the ideas we mean to convey. An author may be deficient in propriety, either by making choice of such words as do not express the idea which he intends, but some other which only resembles it; or such as express that idea, but not fully and completely. He may also be deficient in this respect, by making choice of words or phrases, which habit has taught us to regard as mean and vulgar. All that I propose in relation to this subject is, to collect a considerable number of vulgar phrases, from the writings of different authors. * Armstrong's Essays, These 1 These and many other particulars might easily choke the faith of a philosopher, who believed no more than what he could deduce from the principles of nature.-Dryden's Life of Plutarch. The kings of Syria and Egypt, the kings of Pergamus and Macedon, without intermission, worried each other for above two hundred years.-Burke's Vindication of Natural Society. Besides his having attained such a mastery in the Greek, Latin and French, languages, he is a very good philosopher, and, in general, possesses all the branches of erudition, except the mathe matics. Spence's Life of Blacklock. I need say no more concerning the drift of these etters. Aikin's Letters to his Son. Archbishop Tillotson is too often careless and languid; and 18 much outdone by Bishop Atterbury, in the music of his periods.Blair's Rhetoric. Every year a new flower in his judgment beats all the old ones, though it is much inferior to them both in colour and shape.-Mandeville on the Nature of Society. I am wonderfully pleased when I meet with any passage in an old Greek or Latin author, that is not blown upon, and which I have never met with in a quotation.-Addison, Spectator. His name must go down to posterity with distinguished honour in the public records of the nation.- Hurd's Life of Warburton. **We enter into their gratitude towards those faithful friends who did not desert them in their difficulties; and we heartily go along with their resentment, against those perfidious traitors who injured, abandoned, or deceived, them.-Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments. Alarmed by the ungoverned, and, in him, unprecedented, emotions of Edgar, he had been to Beech Park.-D' Arblay's Camilla.“ It was but of a piece, indeed, that a ceremony conducted in defiance of humanity, should be founded in contempt of justice.-Melmoth's Letter of Fitzosborne. It so happened that a controversy was agitated with great vehe mènce between those friends of long continuance, Addison and Steele.Johnson's Life of Addison, It is well if the reader, without rejecting by the lump, endeavour patiently to gather the plain meaning.-- Kames's Elements of Criticism. Rabelais Rabelais had too much game given him for satire in that age by the customs of courts and of convents, of processes and of wars, of schools and of camps, of romances and legends.—Temple on Poetry. One would think there was (were) more sophists than one had a finger in this volume of letters -Bentley on Socrates's Epistles. I had as lief say a thing after him as after another.-Lowth's Letter to Warburton. If all these were exemplary in the conduct of their lives, things would soon take a new face, and religion receive a mighty encouragement.-Swift on the Advancement of Religion. Nor would he do it to maintain debate, or shew his wit, but plainly tell me what stuck with him.-—Burnet's life of Rochester. Content, therefore, I am, my lord, that Britain stands in this respect as she now does. Able enough she is at present to shift for herself.-Shaftesbury's Letter concerning Design. Much ado there has been, many words spent, many disputes have been raised upon this argument.-Temple on Poetry. What is it but a kind of rack that forces men to say what they have no mind to ?-Cowley's Essays. Time hangs heavy on their hands; they know not how to employ it, or what to make of themselves.-Logan's Sermons. This is one among the many reasons, which render biography the most agreeable kind of reading in the world.-Roberts, Looker-on. A perfect union of wit and judgment is one of the rarest things in the world,-Burke on the Sublime and Beautiful. Whoever is in the least acquainted with Grecian history, must know that their legislator, by the severity of his institutions, formed the Spartans into a robust, hardy, valiant, nation, made for war.—Leland's History of Philip. He therefore made rhyming tragedies, till, by the prevalence of manifest propriety, he seems to have grown ashamed of making them any longer.-Johnson's Life of Dryden. From that time he resolved to make no more translations. — Johnson's Life of Pupe. It is my design to comprise in this short paper, the substance of those numerous dissertations the critics have made on the subject. - Pope's Discourse on Pastoral Poetry. A few A few reflections on the rise and progress of our distemper, and the rise and progress of our cure, will help us of course to make a true judgment.-Bolingbroke's Dissertation on Parties. This application of the verb make is awkward, as well as familiar. To make tragedies, to make translations, to make dissertations, to make judgments, are expressions which should never be admitted into a dignified composition. A vulgar expression, says Longinus, is sometimes much more significant than an elegant one. This may readily be granted; but however significant it may be, no expression that has a tendency to create sensations of disgust, will, by a judicious writer, be thought worthy of admission. The following quotation will serve to show how the most beautiful descriptions of poetry may be deformed by the introduction of one low or vulgar expression. 'Tis night, dread night, and weary Nature lies No breath of wind now whispers thro' the trees, Longinus de Sublimitate, § xxxi. CHAP. |