the English language was never in fo high a ftate of purity and perfection, as in the prefent reign of king George the third.

This can only be fatisfactorily done by adducing a series of infiances.

We will confine ourselves to profe examples. The licence of poetry, and the fetters of verfification, have equally in all ages feduced the poets, in fome degree to deviate from the received language of the age in which they wrote.

Before we enter upon our examples, let us endeavour to fix an idea of the laws of juft compofition or ftyle.

And here I would lay it down as a maxim, that the beauty of ftyle confifts in this, to be free from unneceffary parts and excrefcencies, and to communicate our ideas with the finalleft degree of prolixity and circuitoufnefs. Style fhould be the transparent envelop of our thoughts; and, like a covering of glafs, is defective, if, by any knots and ruggednefs of furface, it introduce an irregularity and obliquity into the appearances of an object, not proper to the object itself. The forming of an excellent compofition, may be compared to the office of a flatuary according to the fanciful idea of one of the ancients, who affirmed, that the ftatue was all along in the block of marble, and the artift did nothing more than

remove thofe parts which intercepted our view of it. If he left any portion of the marble which ought to have been cut away, the ftatue was in fome degree disfigured.

In the mean while this maxim is not to be fo conftrued as to recommend or vindicate the cutting away any words or expreffions that are neceffary to render the grammatical conftruction of a fentence complete. As little does it apply to thofe metaphors and ornaments of compofition, which fhall be found to increase the clearness or force with which an author's ideas are communieated to his readers. It applies only to those fuperfluities which, like dead flesh upon the limb of a human body, would call upon the skilful furgeon for the exercife of the knife or the cauftic.

T

The writers of the fixteenth and feventeenth centuries had for the most part a custom*, of entering upon their fubject with an enumeration of the branches into which, as they fuppofed, it moft naturally divided itfelf, or rather into which the genus of which it was a branch divided itfelf; and then dwelling, with tedious accuracy and minutenefs, upon thofe parts which in no

See Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Taylor's Holy Living and Dying, &c. &c. &c.

fort belonged to their purpose, but which they thought must be defcribed, because they were connected with it. This is an infupportable fault. It is formal, phlegmatic and repulsive. It detains us painfully in difcuffing all those things which we had no defire to know, and then difmiffes us with a tired attention to confider what was material to the purpose. A skilful writer proceeds directly to his object. He fhakes off with vigorous exertion every thing that would impede him*, every thing that is, in the strict sense of the words, foreign and digreffive.

The bad taste which difplays itself in the phrafes of the old writers, is of a fimilar nature to the bad tafte which displays itself in the plan of their compofitions. It is an ill mode of compofition, where we find an author expreffing his thought in ten words, when it might have been expreffed with equal difcrimination and grammatical propriety in five. The five additional words are fo much dead and worthless matter mixed up with the true and genuine fubftance. They cloud

Sweet, roufe yourfelf, and the weak, wanton Cupid
Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold,

And, like a dew-drop from the lion's mane,

Be fhook to air.

SHAKESPEAR.

the

the understanding, and are an inconceivable bar against paffion and fympathy. Nothing wil upon examination appear more certain, than that the forcible expreffion of paffion demands closenefs and compreffion. This is so true, that it will be found impoffible to convey a great and electrical burst of the foul, in phrafes, in which polyfyllabic words, words, as Horace calls them, of a foot and a half long, are freely employed. It is not only neceffary in this refpect for the poet and the orator, where they would give their ftrongest shocks, to diveft themfelves of unneceffary words, but even of unneceffary fyllables.

Another fault, which is perhaps more or lefs imputable to every English writer before the prefent age, is, that they were prone to tell their ftory or unfold their argument in a relaxed and disjointed ftyle, more refembling the illiterate effufions of the nurse or the ruftic, than those of a man of delicate perceptions and claffical cultivation, who watched with nice attention the choice of his words and the arrangement of his phrafes. The English language has lately affumed a loftier port. We may now often meet with it, though fimple and elegant, yet with its nerves well ftrung, and its ftep at once fkilful and

*Sefquipedalia verba.
Bb3

firm,

firm. It is not unfrequent in examining an accidental pamphlet, or a news-paper correspondence, to find the language characterised by that clearness, propriety and compreffion, which command our thoughts, and feize upon a portion of our efteem.

One thing further is to be obferved before we proceed immediately to the fubject. It has been already faid, that the only fatisfactory way of determining the queftion, is by adducing a series of inftances. Thefe inftances therefore will form the main body of our difquifition. It seems proper for the most part that they should be left with the reader, and fuffered to make their own impreffion.

Some readers indeed might feel disposed to call upon the critic," to declare his particular objections to the paffages cited, to diffect their grammar, analyfe their conftruction, and defcant upon each individual error by which they may be fuppofed to be characterifed.".

The reafons that diffuade us from a compliance with this demand, are as follow.

It is obvious to remark how tedious the difquifition would by this means be rendered, and that an effay, already fufficiently long, would thus be fwelled beyond all bounds of proportion. But this is not all.