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from that more toilsome labour to which it must submit in the acquisition of necessary erudition or the investigation of abstract truth.

The cultivation of taste is further recommended by the happy effects which it naturally tends to produce on human life. The most busy man in the most active sphere cannot be always occupied by business. Men of serious professions cannot always be on the stretch of serious thought. Neither can the most gay and flourishing situations of fortune afford any man the power of filling all his hours with pleasure. Life must always languish in the hands of the idle. It will frequently languish even in the hands of the busy, if they have not some employment subsidiary to that which forms their main pursuit. How then shall these vacant spaces, those unemployed intervals, which more or less occur in the life of every one, be filled up? How can we contrive to dispose of them in any way that shall be more agreeable in itself, or more consonant to the dignity of the human mind, than in the entertainments of taste, and the study of polite literature? He who is so happy as to have acquired a relish for these, has always at hand an innocent and irreproachable amusement for his leisure hours, to save him from the danger of many a pernicious passion. He is not in hazard of being a burden to himself. He is not obliged to fly to low company, or to court the riot of loose pleasures, in order to cure the tediousness of existence.

Providence seems plainly to have pointed out this useful purpose to which the pleasures of taste may be applied, by interposing them in a middle station between the pleasures of sense and those of pure intellect. We were not designed to grovel always among objects so low as the former; nor are we capable of dwelling constantly in so high a region as the latter. The pleasures of taste refresh the mind after the toils of the intellect and the labours of abstract study; and they gradually raise it above the attachments of sense, and prepare it for the enjoyments of virtue.

So consonant is this to experience, that, in the education of youth, no object has in every age appeared more important to wise men than to tincture them early with a relish for the entertainments of taste. The transition is commonly made with ease from these to the discharge of the higher and more important duties of life. Good hopes may be entertained of those whose minds have this liberal and elegant turn. It is favourable to many virtues. Whereas, to be entirely devoid of relish for eloquence, poetry, or any of the fine arts, is justly construed to be an unpromising symptom of youth; and raises suspicions of their being prone to low gratifications, or destined to drudge in the more vulgar and illiberal pursuits of life.

There are indeed few good dispositions of any kind with which the improvement of taste is not more or less connected. A cultivated taste increases sensibility to all the tender and humane passions, by giving them frequent exercise; while it tends to weaken the more violent and fierce emotions.

Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros.* The elevated sentiments and high examples which poetry, eloquence, and history are often bringing under our view, naturally tend to nourish in our minds public spirit, the love of glory, contempt of external fortune, and the admiration of what is truly illustrious and great.

I will not go so far as to say that the improvement of taste and of virtue is the same, or that they may

These polished arts have humanised mankind,
Softened the rude, and calmed the boisterous mind.

always be expected to coexist in an equal degree. More powerful correctives than taste can apply are necessary for reforming the corrupt propensities which too frequently prevail among mankind. Elegant speculations are sometimes found to float on the surface of the mind, while bad passions possess the inte rior regions of the heart. At the same time this cannot but be admitted, that the exercise of taste is, in its native tendency, moral and purifying. From reading the most admired productions of genius, whether in poetry or prose, almost every one rises with some good impressions left on his mind; and though these may not always be durable, they are at least to be ranked among the means of disposing the heart to virtue. One thing is certain, that without possessing the virtuous affections in a strong degree, no man can attain eminence in the sublime parts of eloquence. He must feel what a good man feels, if he expects greatly to move or to interest mankind. They are the ardent sentiments of honour, virtue, magnanimity, and public spirit, that only can kindle that fire of genius, and call up into the mind those high ideas, which attract the admiration of ages; and if this spirit be necessary to produce the most distinguished efforts of eloquence, it must be necessary also to our relishing them with proper taste and feeling.

[Difference between Taste and Genius.]

[From the same.]

Taste and genius are two words frequently joined together, and therefore, by inaccurate thinkers, confounded. They signify, however, two quite different things. The difference between them can be clearly pointed out, and it is of importance to remember it. Taste consists in the power of judging; genius in the power of executing. One may have a considerable degree of taste in poetry, eloquence, or any of the fine arts, who has little or hardly any genius for composition or execution in any of these arts; but genius cannot be found without including taste also. Genius, therefore, deserves to be considered as a higher power of the mind than taste. Genius always imports something inventive or creative, which does not rest in mere sensibility to beauty where it is perceived, but which can, moreover, produce new beauties, and exhibit them in such a manner as strongly to impress the minds of others. Refined taste forms a good critic; but genius is further necessary to form the poet or the orator.

It is proper also to observe, that genius is a word which, in common acceptation, extends much further than to the objects of taste. It is used to signify that talent or aptitude which we receive from nature for excelling in any one thing whatever. Thus, we speak of a genius for mathematics, as well as a genius for poetry--of a genius for war, for politics, or for any mechanical employment.

This talent or aptitude for excelling in some one particular is, I have said, what we receive from nature. By art and study, no doubt, it may be greatly im proved, but by them alone it cannot be acquired. As genius is a higher faculty than taste, it is ever, according to the usual frugality of nature, more limited in the sphere of its operations. It is not uncommon to meet with persons who have an excellent taste in several of the polite arts, such as music, poetry, painting, and eloquence, all together; but to find one who is an excellent performer in all these arts, is much more rare, or rather, indeed, such a one is not to be

looked for. A sort of universal genius, or one who is rent professions and arts, is not likely to excel in any; equally and indifferently turned towards several diffealthough there may be some few exceptions, yet in general it holds, that when the bent of the mind is

wholly directed towards some one object, exclusive in a manner of others, there is the fairest prospect of eminence in that, whatever it be. The rays must converge to a point, in order to glow intensely.

[On Sublimity.]

[From the same.]

It is not easy to describe in words the precise impression which great and sublime objects make upon us when we behold them; but every one has a conception of it. It produces a sort of internal elevation and expansion; it raises the mind much above its ordinary state, and fills it with a degree of wonder and astonishment which it cannot well express. The emotion is certainly delightful, but it is altogether of the serious kind; a degree of awfulness and solemnity, even approaching to severity, commonly attends it when at its height, very distinguishable from the more gay and brisk emotion raised by beautiful objects.

For the further illustration of this subject, it is proper to remark, that all ideas of the solemn and awful kind, and even bordering on the terrible, tend greatly to assist the sublime; such as darkness, solitude, and silence. What are the scenes of nature that elevate the mind in the highest degree, and produce the sublime sensation? Not the gay landscape, the flowery field, or the flourishing city; but the hoary mountains, and the solitary lake, the aged forest, and the torrent falling over the rock. Hence, too, night scenes are commonly the most sublime. The firmament, when filled with stars, scattered in such vast numbers, and with such magnificent profusion, strikes the imagination with a more awful grandeur than when we view it enlightened with all the splendour of the sun. The deep sound of a great bell, or the striking of a great clock, are at any time grand, but, when heard amid the silence and stillness of the night, they become doubly so. Darkness is very commonly applied for adding sublimity to all our ideas of the Deity: He maketh darkness his pavilion, he dwelleth in the thick cloud.' So Milton:

How oft, amidst

Thick clouds and dark, does heaven's all ruling Sire
Choose to reside, his glory unobscured,
And with the majesty of darkness, round
Circles his throne.

The simplest form of external grandeur appears in the vast and boundless prospects presented to us by nature; such as wide extended plains, to which the eye can see no limits, the firmament of heaven, or the boundless expanse of the ocean. All vastness produces the impression of sublimity. It is to be remarked, however, that space, extended in length, makes not so strong an impression as height or depth. Though a boundless plain be a grand object, yet a Observe with how much art Virgil has introduced high mountain, to which we look up, orn awful pre- all those ideas of silence, vacuity, and darkness, when cipice or tower, whence we look down on the objects he is going to introduce his hero to the infernal rewhich lie below, is still more so. The excessive gran-gions, and to disclose the secrets of the great deep :— deur of the firmament arises from its height, joined to its boundless extent; and that of the ocean not from its extent alone, but from the perpetual motion and irresistible force of that mass of waters. Wherever space is concerned, it is clear that amplitude or greatness of extent in one dimension or other is necessary to grandeur. Remove all bounds from any object, and you presently render it sublime. Hence infinite space, endless numbers, and eternal duration, fill the mind with great ideas.

From this some have imagined that vastness or amplitude of extent is the foundation of all sublimity. But I cannot be of this opinion, because many objects appear sublime which have no relation to space at all. Such, for instance, is great loudness of sound. The burst of thunder or of cannon, the roaring of winds, the shouting of multitudes, the sound of vast cataracts of water, are all incontestably grand objects. I heard the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters, and of mighty thunderings, saying, Hallelujah.' In general, we may observe that great power and force exerted always raise sublime ideas; and perhaps the most copious source of these is derived from this quarter. Hence the grandeur of earthquakes and burning mountains; of great conflagrations; of the stormy ocean and overflowing waters; of tempests of wind; of thunder and lightning; and of all the uncommon violence of the elements: nothing is more sublime than mighty power and strength. A stream that runs within its banks is a beautiful object, but when it rushes down with the impetuosity and noise of a torrent, it presently becomes a sublime one. From lions, and other animals of strength, are drawn sublime comparisons in poets. A race-horse is looked upon with pleasure; but it is the war-horse, 'whose neck is clothed with thunder,' that carries grandeur in its idea. The engagement of two great armies, as it is the highest exertion of human might, combines a variety of sources of the sublime, and has accordingly been always considered as one of the most striking and magnificent spectacles that can be either presented to the eye, or exhibited to the imagination in description.

Ye subterranean gods, whose awful sway
The gliding ghosts and silent shades obey;
Oh, Chaos, hear! and Phlegethon profound!
Whose solemn empire stretches wide around!
Give me, ye great tremendous powers, to tell
Of scenes and wonders in the depth of hell;
Give me, your mighty secrets to display
From those black realms of darkness to the day.-Pitt.
Obscure they went; through dreary shades, that led
Along the waste dominions of the dead;

As wander travellers in woods by night,

By the moon's doubtful and malignant light.-Dryden.

These passages I quote at present, not so much as instances of sublime writing, though in themselves they truly are so, as to show, by the effect of them, that the objects which they present to us belong to the class of sublime ones.

Obscurity, we are further to remark, is not unfavourable to the sublime. Though it render the object indistinct, the impression, however, may be great; for, as an ingenious author has well observed, it is one thing to make an idea clear, and another to make it affecting to the imagination; and the imagination may be strongly affected, and, in fact, often is so, by objects of which we have no clear conception. Thus we see that almost all the descriptions given us of the appearances of supernatural beings, carry some sublimity, though the conceptions which they afford us be confused and indistinct. Their sublimity arises from the ideas, which they always convey, of superior power and might, joined with an awful obscurity. We may see this fully exemplified in the following noble passage of the book of Job :-'In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, fear came upon me and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up: it stood still; but I could not discern the form thereof; an image was before mine eyes; there was silence; and I heard a voice-Shall mortal man be more just than God !' (Job iv. 15.) No ideas, it is plain, are so sublime as those taken from the Supreme Being, the most unknown, but the greatest of all objects; the infinity

works are, a Translation of the Four Gospels, worthy of his talents, some sermons preached on public occasions, and a series of Lectures on Ecclesiastical History, which were not published till after his death. It is worthy of remark that Hume himself admitted the 'ingenuity' of Campbell's reply to his sceptical

of whose nature, and the eternity of whose duration, joined with the omnipotence of his power, though they surpass our conceptions, yet exalt them to the highest. In general, all objects that are greatly raised above us, or far removed from us, either in space or in time, are apt to strike us as great. Our viewing them as through the mist of distance or antiquity is favour-opinions, and the 'great learning' of the author. The able to the impressions of their sublimity.

As obscurity, so disorder too is very compatible with grandeur; nay, frequently heightens it. Few things that are strictly regular and methodical appear sublime. We see the limits on every side; we feel ourselves confined; there is no room for the mind's exerting any great effort. Exact proportion of parts, though it enters often into the beautiful, is much disregarded in the sublime. A great mass of rocks, thrown together by the hand of nature with wildness and confusion, strike the mind with more grandeur than if they had been adjusted to one another with the most accurate symmetry.

well-known hypothesis of Hume is, that no testimony for any kind of miracle can ever amount to a probability, much less to a proof. To this Dr Campbell opposed the argument that testimony has a natural and original influence on belief, antecedent to experience, in illustration of which he remarked, that the earliest assent which is given to testimony by children, and which is previous to all experience, is in fact the most unlimited. His answer is divided into two parts; first, that miracles are capable of proof from testimony, and religious miracles not less than others; and, secondly, that the miracles on which the belief of Christianity is founded, are suffiIn the feeble attempts which human art can make ciently attested. Campbell had no fear for the retowards producing grand objects (feeble, I mean, insult of such discussions:-'I do not hesitate to comparison with the powers of nature), greatness of dimensions always constitutes a principal part. No pile of buildings can convey any idea of sublimity, unless it be ample and lofty. There is, too, in architecture, what is called greatness of manner, which seems chiefly to arise from presenting the object to us in one full point of view, so that it shall make its impression whole, entire, and undivided upon the mind. A Gothic cathedral raises ideas of grandeur in our minds by its size, its height, its awful obscurity, its strength, its antiquity, and its durability. There still remains to be mentioned one class of sublime objects, which may be called the moral or sentimental sublime, arising from certain exertions of the human mind, from certain affections and actions of our fellow-creatures. These will be found to be all, or chiefly of that class, which comes under the name of magnanimity or heroism; and they produce an effect extremely similar to what is produced by the view of grand objects in nature; filling the mind with admiration, and elevating it above itself. Wherever, in some critical and high situation, we behold a man uncommonly intrepid, and resting upon himself, superior to passion and to fear; animated by some great principle to the contempt of popular opinion, of selfish interest, of dangers, or of death, there we are struck with a sense of the sublime.

High virtue is the most natural and fertile source of this moral sublimity. However, on some occasions, where virtue either has no place, or is but imperfectly displayed, yet if extraordinary vigour and force of mind be discovered, we are not insensible to a degree of grandeur in the character; and from the splendid conqueror, or the daring conspirator, whom we are far from approving, we cannot withhold our admiration.

DR GEORGE CAMPBELL.

DR GEORGE CAMPBELL, professor of divinity and afterwards principal of Marischal college, Aberdeen, was a theologian and critic of more vigorous intellect and various learning than Dr Blair. His Dissertation on Miracles, written in reply to Hume, is a conclusive and masterly piece of reasoning; and his Philosophy of Rhetoric (published in 1776) is perhaps the best book of the kind since Aristotle. Most of the other works on this subject are little else but compilations, but Campbell brought to it a high degree of philosophical acumen and learned research. Its utility is also equal to its depth and originality: the philosopher finds in it exercise for his ingenuity, and the student may safely consult it for its practical suggestions and illustrations. Dr Campbell's other

affirm,' he says, that our religion has been indebted
to the attempts, though not to the intentions, of its
bitterest enemies.
indeed, and, by trying, they have displayed its
They have tried its strength,
strength; and that in so clear a light, as we could
never have hoped, without such a trial, to have
viewed it in. Let them, therefore, write; let them
argue, and, when arguments fail, even let them
should be heartily sorry that ever in this island, the
cavil against religion as much as they please; I
asylum of liberty, where the spirit of Christianity
is better understood (however defective the inhabi-
tants are in the observance of its precepts) than in
any other part of the Christian world; I should, I
say, be sorry that in this island so great a disservice
were done to religion as to check its adversaries in
any other way than by returning a candid answer
to their objections. I must at the same time ac
knowledge, that I am both ashamed and grieved
when I observe any friends of religion betray so
great a diffidence in the goodness of their cause (for
to this diffidence alone can it be imputed), as to show
an inclination for recurring to more forcible methods.
The assaults of infidels, I may venture to prophecy,
will never overturn our religion. They will prove
not more hurtful to the Christian system, if it be
allowed to compare small things with the greatest,
than the boisterous winds are said to prove to the
sturdy oak. They shake it impetuously for a time,
and loudly threaten its subversion; whilst, in effect,
they only serve to make it strike its roots the deeper,
and stand the firmer ever after.'

In the same manly spirit, and reliance on the ultimate triumph of truth, Dr Campbell was opposed to the penal laws against the Catholics; and in 1779, when the country was agitated with that intolerant zeal against Popery, which in the following year burst out in riots in London, he issued an Address to the People of Scotland, remarkable for its cogency of argument and its just and enlightened sentiments. For this service to true religion and toleration the mob of Aberdeen broke the author's windows, and nicknamed him 'Pope Campbell.' In 1795, when far advanced in life, Dr Campbell received a pension of £300 from the Crown, on which he resigned his professorship, and his situation as principal of Marischal college. He enjoyed this well-carned reward only one year, dying in 1796, in his seventyseventh year. With the single exception of Dr Robertson the historian (who shone in a totally different walk), the name of Dr Campbell is the greatest which the Scottish church can number among its clergy.

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MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.

DR SAMUEL JOHNSON.

the whole is the injustice done to some of our greatest masters of song, in consequence of the political or personal prejudices of the author. To Milton he is strikingly unjust, though his criticism on Paradise Lost is able and profound. Gray is treated with a coarseness and insensibility derogatory only to the critic; and in general, as we have before had occasion to remark, the higher order of imaginative poetry suffers under the ponderous hand of Johnson. Its beauties were too airy and ethereal for his grasp too subtle for his feeling or understanding. A few extracts are subjoined, to illustrate his peculiar but impressive and animated style.

[From the Preface to the Dictionary.]

It is the fate of those who toil at the lower employments of life to be rather driven by the fear of evil, than attracted by the prospect of good; to be exposed to censure without hope of praise; to be disgraced by miscarriage, or punished for neglect, where success would have been without applause, and diligence without reward.

Among these unhappy mortals is the writer of dictionaries; whom mankind have considered, not as the pupil, but the slave of science, the pioneer of literature, doomed only to remove rubbish and clear obstructions from the paths through which learning and genius press forward to conquest and glory, without bestowing a smile on the humble drudge that facilitates their progress. Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach, and even this negative recompense has been yet granted to very few.

I have, notwithstanding this discouragement, attempted a dictionary of the English language, which, while it was employed in the cultivation of every suffered to spread, under the direction of chance, into species of literature, has itself been hitherto neglected; wild exuberance; resigned to the tyranny of time and fashion; and exposed to the corruptions of ignorance,

This department of our literature was unusually rich at the present period, as it included nearly all the great names that shone in poetry, fiction, politics, philosophy, and criticism. First, as exercising a more commanding influence than any other of his contemporaries, may be mentioned DR JOHNSON, already distinguished as a moral poet and essayist. In 1755 Johnson published his Dictionary of the English Language, which had occupied the greater part of his time for seven years. In 1765 appeared his edition of Shakspeare, containing little that is valuable in the way of annotation, but introduced by a powerful and masterly preface. In 1770 and 1771 he wrote two political pamphlets in support of the measures of government, The False Alarm, and Thoughts on the late Transactions respecting the Falkland Islands. Though often harsh, contemptuous, and intolerant, these pamphlets are admirable pieces of composition-full of nerve and controversial zeal. In 1775 appeared his Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland; and in 1781 his Lives of the Poets. It was the felicity of Johnson, as of Dryden, to improve as an author as he advanced in years, and to write best after he had passed that period of life when many men are almost incapable of intellectual exertion. In reviewing the above works, little other language need be employed than that of eulogy. The Dictionary is a valuable practical work, not remarkable for philological research, but for its happy and luminous definitions, the result of great sagacity, precision of understanding, and clearness of expression. A few of the definitions betray the personal feelings and peculiarities of the author, and have been much ridiculed. For example, 'Excise,' which (as a Tory hating Walpole and the Whig excise act) he defines, A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged, not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.' A pension is defined to be an allowance made to No book was ever turned from one language into any one without an equivalent. In England it is another without imparting something of its native generally understood to mean pay given to a state-idiom; this is the most mischievous and comprehenhireling for treason to his country.' After such a definition, it is scarcely to be wondered that Johnson paused, and felt some compunctious visitings' before he accepted a pension himself! Oats he defines, 'A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.' This gave mortal offence to the natives of Scotland, and is hardly yet forgiven; but the best reply was the happy observation of Lord Elibank, 'Yes, and where will you find such horses and such men?' The Journey to the Western Isles' makes no pretension to scientific discovery, but it is an entertaining and finely written work. In the Highlands, the poetical imagination of Johnson expanded with the new scenery and forms of life presented to his contemplation. His love of feudalism, of clanship, and of ancient Jacobite families, found full scope; and as he was always a close observer, his descriptions convey much pleasing and original information. His complaints of the want of woods in Scotland, though dwelt upon with a ludicrous perseverance and querulousness, had the effect of setting the landlords to plant their bleak moors and mountains, and improve the aspect of the country. The 'Lives of the Poets' have a freedom of style, a vigour of thought, and happiness of illustration, rarely attained even by their author. The plan of the work was defective, as the lives begin only with Cowley, excluding all the previous poets from Chaucer downwards. Some feeble and worthless rhymesters also obtained niches in Johnson's gallery; but the most serious defect of

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and caprices of innovation.

sive innovation; single words may enter by thousands, and the fabric of the tongue continue the same; but new phraseology changes much at once; it alters not the single stones of the building, but the order of the columns. If an academy should be established for the cultivation of our style-which I, who can never wish to see dependence multiplied, hope the spirit of English liberty will hinder or destroy-let them, instead of compiling grammars and dictionaries, endeavour, with all their influence, to stop the license of translators, whose idleness and ignorance, if it be suffered to proceed, will reduce us to babble a dialect of France.

If the changes that we fear be thus irresistible, what remains but to acquiesce with silence, as in the other insurmountable distresses of humanity. It remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that we palliate what we cannot cure. Life may be lengthened by care, though death cannot be ultimately defeated; tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration; we have long preserved our constitution, let us make some struggles for our language.

In hope of giving longevity to that which its own nature forbids to be immortal, I have devoted this book, the labour of years, to the honour of my country, that we may no longer yield the parm of philology, without a contest, to the nations of the continent. The chief glory of every people arises from its authors: whether I shall add anything by my own writings to the reputation of English literature, must be left to time; much of my life has been

lost under the pressures of disease; much has been trifled away; and much has always been spent in provision for the day that was passing over me; but I shall not think my employment useless or ignoble, if, by my assistance, foreign nations and distant ages gain access to the propagators of knowledge, and understand the teachers of truth; if my labours afford light to the repositories of science, and add celebrity to Bacon, to Hooker, to Milton, and to Boyle.

When I am animated by this wish, I look with pleasure on my book, however defective, and deliver it to the world with the spirit of a man that has endeavoured well. That it will immediately become popular, I have not promised to myself; a few wild blunders and risible absurdities, from which no work of such multiplicity was ever free, may for a time furnish folly with laughter, and harden ignorance into contempt; but useful diligence will at last prevail, and there never can be wanting some who distinguish desert, who will consider that no dictionary of a living tongue ever can be perfect, since, while it is hastening to publication, some words are budding and some falling away; that a whole life cannot be spent upon syntax and etymology, and that even a whole life would not be sufficient; that he whose design includes whatever language can express, must often speak of what he does not understand; that a writer will sometimes be hurried by eagerness to the end, and sometimes faint with weariness under a task which Scaliger compares to the labours of the anvil and the mine; that what is obvious is not always known, and what is known is not always present; that sudden fits of inadvertency will surprise vigilance, slight avocations will seduce attention, and casual eclipses of the mind will darken learning; and that the writer shall often in vain trace his memory at the moment of need for that which yesterday he knew with intuitive readiness, and which will come uncalled into his thoughts to-morrow.

In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed; and though no book was ever spared out of tenderness to the author, and the world is little solicitous to know whence proceeded the faults of that which it condemns, yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it, that the English Dictionary was written with little assistance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academic bowers, but amid inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow. It may repress the triumph of malignant criticism to observe, that if our language is not here fully displayed, I have only failed in an attempt which no human powers have hitherto completed. If the lexicons of ancient tongues, now immutably fixed, and comprised in a few volumes, be yet, after the toil of successive ages, inadequate and delusive; if the aggregated knowledge and co-operating diligence of the Italian academicians did not secure them from the censure of Beni; if the embodied critics of France, when fifty years had been spent upon their work, were obliged to change its economy, and give their second edition another form, I may surely be contented without the praise of perfection, which, if I could obtain in this gloom of solitude, what would it avail me? I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds. I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise.

[Reflections on Landing at Iona.] [From the Journey to the Western Isles."] We were now treading that illustrious island which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, |

whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible if it were endeavoured, and would be foolish if it were possible. Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and my friends be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. The man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force on the plains of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of lona.

[Parallel between Pope and Dryden.]

[From the Lives of the Poets.]

Pope professed to have learned his poetry from Dryden, whom, whenever an opportunity was presented, he praised through his whole life with unvaried liberality; and perhaps his character may receive some illustration, if he be compared with his master.

Integrity of understanding and nicety of discernment were not allotted in a less proportion to Dryden than to Pope. The rectitude of Dryden's mind was sufficiently shown by the dismission of his poetical prejudices, and the rejection of unnatural thoughts and rugged numbers. But Dryden never desired to apply all the judgment that he had. He wrote, and professed to write, merely for the people; and when he pleased others he contented himself. He spent no time in struggles to rouse latent powers; he never attempted to make that better which was already good, nor often to mend what he must have known to be faulty. He wrote, as he tells us, with very little consideration; when occasion or necessity called upon him, he poured out what the present moment happened to supply, and, when once it had passed the press, ejected it from his mind; for when he had no pecuniary interest, he had no further solicitude.

Pope was not content to satisfy: he desired to excel, and therefore always endeavoured to do his best: he did not court the candour, but dared the judgment of his reader, and expecting no indulgence from others, he showed none to himself. He examined lines and words with minute and punetilious observation, and retouched every part with indefatigable diligence, till he had left nothing to be forgiven.

For this reason he kept his pieces very long in his hands, while he considered and reconsidered them. The only poems which can be supposed to have been written with such regard to the times as might hasten their publication, were the two satires of Thirtyeight, of which Dodsley told me that they were brought to him by the author that they might be fairly copied. Almost every line,' he said, 'was then written twice over; I gave him a clean transcript, which he sent sometime afterwards to me for the press, with almost every line written twice over a second time.'

His declaration, that his care for his works ceased at their publication, was not strictly true. His parental attention never abandoned them; what he found amiss in the first edition, he silently corrected in those that followed. He appears to have revised the Iliad,' and freed it from some of its imperfections; and the Essay on Criticism' received many improvements after its first appearance. It will seldom be found that he altered without adding clearness, elegance, or vigour.

Pope had perhaps the judgment of Dryden, but Dryden certainly wanted the diligence of Pope.

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