ELEMENTS

OF

CRITICISM.

BY THE HONOURABLE

HENRY HOME OF KAMES,

ONE OF THE SENATORS OF THE COLLEGE OF JUSTICE, AND ONE OF THE
LORDS COMMISSIONERS OF JUSTICIARY IN SCOTLAND.

THE EIGHTH EDITION.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

EDINBURGH:

PRINTED BY NEILL AND COMPANY,

FOR BELL & BRADFUTE, AND WILLIAM CREECH;

AND T. CADELL AND W. DAVIES,

LONDON.

1807.

ELEMENTS

OF

CRITICISM.

CHAPTER XVIII.

BEAUTY OF LANGUAGE.

OF

F all the fine arts, painting orly and fculpture are in their nature imitative. An ornamented field is not a copy or imitation of nature, but nature itself embellished. Architecture is productive of originals, and copies not from nature. Sound and motion may in fome measure be imitated by mufic; but for the most part mufic, like architecture, is productive of originals. Language copies not from nature, more than mufic or architecture; unless, where, like mufic, it is imitative of found or motion. Thus, in the defcription of particular founds, language fometimes furnisheth words, which, befide their customary power of exciting ideas, resemble by their softness or harshA 2 nefs