be just in his sentiments, lively in his figures, and clear in his expression; yet may have no claim to be admitted into the rank of finished writers. Those several members must be so agreeably united, as mutually to reflect beauty upon each other their arrangement must be so happily disposed as not to admit of the least transposition, without manifest prejudice to the entire piece. The thoughts, the metaphors, the allusions, and the diction, should appear easy and natural, and seem to arise like so many spontaneous productions, rather than as the effects of art or labour.

"Whatever, therefore, is forced or affected in the sentiments; whatever is pompous or pedantic in the expression; is the very reverse of grace. Her mien is neither that of a pedant nor a coquet; she is regular without formality, and sprightly without being fantastical. Grace, in short, is to good writing, what a proper light is to a fine picture; it not only shews all the figures in their several proportions and relations, but shews them in the most advantageous manner.

"As gentility (to resume my former illustra tion) appears in the minutest action, and improves the most inconsiderable gesture; so grace is discovered in the placing even of a single word, or the turn of a mere expletive. Neither is this inexpressible quality confined to one species of

composition only, but extends to all the various kinds; to the humble pastoral as well as the lofty epic; from the slightest letter to the most solemn discourse.

"I know not whether Sir William Temple may not be considered as the first of our prose authors, who introduced a graceful manner into our language. At least, that quality does not seem to have appeared early, or spread far, amongst us. But wheresoever we may look for its origin, it is certainly to be found in its highest perfection, in the essays of a gentleman, whose writings will be distinguished so long as politeness and good sense have any admirers. That becoming

air which Tully esteemed the criterion of fine composition, and which every reader, he says, imagines so easy to be imitated, yet will find so difficult to attain, is the prevailing characteristic of all that author's most elegant performances. In a word, one may justly apply to him what Plato, in his allegorical language, says of Aristophanes; that the graces having searched all the world round for a temple wherein they might for ever dwell, settled at last in the breast of Mr. Addison."*

That a large portion of the grace which Mr. Melmoth has so happily described in this passage,

* Fitzosborne's Letters, p. 133-136.

is to be found in his own classical pages, no scholar who has studied his writings will probably deny; nor will he hesitate to allow, that by verbal elegance and harmony of period, by delicacy of phrase and beauty of arrangement, he imparted a high degree of polish and refinement to English composition.

Of the eight authors which we have now enumerated as occupying the space that elapsed between Addison and Johnson, all have contributed, either by perspicuity, simplicity, energy, of modulation of style, to the progress of fine writing in this country. It must be obvious, however, that several authors, learned or popular, who flourished during this period, have been omitted; an omission easily accounted for, when it is considered, that great as might be their erudition or their powers of imagination, the style which they had formed, was rather calculated to deteriorate than improve their native language. As a profound theologian, as an acute controver sialist, as an ingenious but imperious critic, Warburton for many years filled a large space in the public eye, but his diction was singularly slovenly, coarse, and impure. As writers of fiction in prose, as men intimately acquainted with human nature, and possessed of powers adequate, in their own department, to the representation of all her

varied passions, what nation can bring forward greater names than those of Richardson, Fielding, and Smollet; and yet, strange as it may appear, to their style they are, assuredly, very little indebted for the durable impressions which they have created. Than the diction of Richardson, nothing can be more careless, jejune, and incompact; than that of Fielding, nothing more nerveless, ungrammatical, and vulgar: the style of Smollet, indeed, is superior to both in spirit and animation; but it is equally incorrect, and alike void of modulation.*

formation of a more
"I have laboured,"

When Johnson commenced his Rambler, one of his primary objects was the improvement of his native language, by the correct and dignified style. he remarks in his concluding Rambler," to refine our language to grammatical purity, and to clear it from colloquial barbarisms, licentious idioms, and irregular combinations. Something, perhaps, I have added to the elegance of its construction, and something to the harmony of its cadence." How far he has succeeded in his efforts, and in

I a am speaking in this place, solely of his novels; the diction in his " History of England" is of another cast; he has there laboured to attain harmony of cadence, but has generally failed, and his style is frequently clogged with injudicious metaphors.

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what degree fallen short of his purpose, it is now our business to enquire; and in doing this, we shall first notice the defects, and afterwards the beauties of his style.

He has laid it down as a position in the preface to his Dictionary, that "our language, for almost a century, has been deviating toward a Gallick structure and phraseology, from which it ought to be our endeavour to recal it." In his attempt to correct this tendency, however, he has not applied, as was incumbent upon him, and as he professed to do, to the wells of English undefiled, to those ancient volumes whose style was grounded on a Teutonick original, but to the authors of ancient Rome, to a language in its genius and construction totally dissimilar to his own.

In his Life of Milton, our author has censured that great poet for his pedantry in attempting "to use English words with a foreign idiom." There is assuredly, however, not less pedantry in the reverse of this, in the plan which Johnson has adopted, of using Latin words with the English idiom. To this he was probably led, not only by his partiality to, and critical knowledge of, the Latin language, but by his attachment to the works of Sir Thomas Browne, the most copious master of the Anglo-Latin style, and by his aversion to a Gallic structure, apprehensive, as