PHILOLOGICAL INQUIRIES,

ADDRESSED TO MY MUCH ESTEEMED RELATION AND FRIEND, EDWARD HOOPER, ESQ.

OF HURN-COURT, IN THE COUNTY OF HANTS.

DEAR SIR,-Being yourself advanced in years, you will the more easily forgive me, if I claim a privilege of age, and pass from Philosophy to Philology.

You may compare me, if you please, to some weary traveller, who, having long wandered over craggy heights, descends at length to the plains below, and hopes, at his journey's end, to find a smooth and easy road.

For my writings, (such as they are,) they have answered a purpose I always wished, if they have led men to inspect authors far superior to myself, many of whose works (like hidden treasures) have lain for years out of sight.

Be that, however, as it may, I shall at least enjoy the pleasure of thus recording our mutual friendship; a friendship which has lasted for more than fifty years, and which I think so much for honour to have merited so long.

my

But I proceed to my subject.

a

As the great events of nature led mankind to admiration; so curiosity to learn the cause whence such events should arise, was that which by due degrees formed Natural Philosophy.

What happened in the natural world, happened also in the literary. Exquisite productions, both in prose and verse, induced men here likewise to seek the cause; and such inquiries, often repeated, gave birth to Philology.

Philology should hence appear to be of a most comprehensive character, and to include, not only all accounts both of criticism and critics, but of every thing connected with letters, be it speculative or historical.

The treatise which follows is of this philological kind, and will consist of three parts, properly distinct from each other.

The first will be an investigation of the rise and different species of criticism and critics.

a Some of these great events are enumerated by Virgil-the course of the heavens-eclipses of the sun and moon-earthquakes the flux and reflux of the sea

the quick return of night in winter, and the slow return of it in summer. Virg. Georg. ii. 475, &c.

The second will be an illustration of critical doctrines and principles, as they appear in distinguished authors, as well ancient as modern.

The third and last part will be rather historical than critical, being an essay on the taste and literature of the middle age. These subjects of speculation being despatched, we shall here conclude these Philological Inquiries.

First therefore for the first, the rise and different species of criticism and critics.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

CONCERNING THE RISE OF CRITICISM IN ITS FIRST SPECIES, THE PHILOSOPHICAL. EMINENT PERSONS, GREEKS AND ROMANS, BY WHOM THIS SPECIES WAS CULTIVATED.

THOSE who can imagine that the rules of writing were first established, and that men then wrote in conformity to them, as they make conserves and comfits by referring to receipt-books, know nothing of criticism, either as to its origin or progress. The truth is, they were authors who made the first good critics, and not critics who made the first good authors, however writers of later date may have profited by critical precepts.

If this appear strange, we may refer to other subjects. Can we doubt that men had music, such, indeed, as it was, before the principles of harmony were established into a science? that diseases were healed, and buildings erected, before medicine and architecture were systematized into arts? that men reasoned and harangued upon matters of speculation and practice, long before there were professed teachers either of logic or of rhetoric? To return therefore to our subject, the rise and progress of

criticism.

Ancient Greece in its happy days was the seat of liberty, of sciences, and of arts. In this fair region, fertile of wit, the epic writers came first; then the lyric; then the tragic; and lastly the historians, the comic writers, and the orators; each in their turns delighting whole multitudes, and commanding the attention and admiration of all. Now when wise and thinking men, the subtle investigators of principles and causes, observed the wonderful effect of these works upon the human mind, they were prompted to inquire whence this should proceed; for that it should happen merely from chance, they could not well believe.

Here therefore we have the rise and origin of criticism, which in its beginning was "a deep and philosophical search into the primary laws and elements of good writing, as far as they could be collected from the most approved performances."

In this contemplation of authors, the first critics not only attended to the powers and different species of words; the force of numerous composition, whether in prose or verse; the aptitude of its various kinds to different subjects; but they further considered that which is the basis of all, that is to say, in other words, the meaning or the sense. This led them at once into the most curious of subjects; the nature of man in general; the different characters of men, as they differ in rank or age; their reason and their passions; how the one was to be persuaded, the others to be raised or calmed; the places or repositories to which we may recur when we want proper matter for any of these purposes. Besides all this, they studied sentiments and manners; what constitutes a work, one; what a whole and parts; what the essence of probable, and even of natural fiction, as contributing to constitute a just dramatic fable.

b

Much of this kind may be found in different parts of Plato. But Aristotle, his disciple, who may be called the systematizer of his master's doctrines, has in his two treatises of Poetry and Rhetoric, with such wonderful penetration, developed every part of the subject, that he may be justly called the father of criticism, both from the age when he lived, and from his truly transcendent genius. The criticism which this capital writer taught, has so intimate a correspondence and alliance with philosophy, that we can call it by no other name than that of philosophical criticism.

To Aristotle succeeded his disciple Theophrastus, who followed his master's example in the study of criticism, as may be seen in the catalogue of his writings, preserved by Diogenes Laertius. But all the critical works of Theophrastus, as well as of many others, are now lost. The principal authors of the kind now remaining in Greek, are Demetrius of Phalera, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Dionysius Longinus, together with Hermogenes, Aphthonius, and a few others.

Of these the most masterly seems to be Demetrius, who was the earliest, and who appears to follow the precepts, and even the text of Aristotle, with far greater attention than any of the rest. His examples, it must be confessed, are sometimes obscure; but this we rather impute to the destructive hand of time, which has prevented us from seeing many of the original authors.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the next in order, may be said to

b To such as read not this author in the original, we recommend the French translation of his Rhetoric by Cassandre, and

that of his Art of Poetry by Dacier; both of them elaborate and laudable performances.

Vid. Diog. Laert. lib. v. s. 46, 47, &c.

have written with judgment upon the force of numerous composition, not to mention other tracts on the subject of oratory, and those also critical as well as historical. Longinus, who was in time far later than these, seems principally to have had in view the passions and the imagination; in the treating of which he has acquired a just applause, and expressed himself with a dignity suitable to the subject. The rest of the Greek critics, though they have said many useful things, have yet so minutely multiplied the rules of art, and so much confined themselves to the oratory of the tribunal, that they appear of no great service as to good writing in general.

Among the Romans, the first critic of note was Cicero, who, though far below Aristotle in depth of philosophy, may be said, like him, to have exceeded all his countrymen. As his celebrated treatise concerning the Oratord is written in dialogue, where the speakers introduced are the greatest men of his nation, we have incidentally an elegant sample of those manners, and that politeness, which were peculiar to the leading characters during the Roman commonwealth. There we may see the behaviour of free and accomplished men, before a baser address had set that standard, which has been too often taken for good-breeding ever since.

Next to Cicero came Horace, who often in other parts of his writings acts the critic and scholar, but whose Art of Poetry is a standard of its kind, and too well known to need any encomium. After Horace arose Quinctilian, Cicero's admirer and follower; who appears by his works not only learned and ingenious, but (what is still more) an honest and a worthy man. He likewise dwells too much upon the oratory of the tribunal, a fact no way surprising, when we consider the age in which he lived; an age, when tyrannic government being the fashion of the times, that nobler species of eloquence, I mean the popular and deliberative, was, with all things truly liberal, degenerated and sunk. The latter Latin rhetoricians there is no need to mention, as they little help to illustrate the subject in hand. I would only repeat that the species of criticism here mentioned, as far at least as handled by the more able masters, is that which we have denominated criticism philosophical. We are now to proceed to another species.

d This treatise, being the work of a capital orator on the subject of his own art, may fairly be pronounced a capital performance. The proem to the third book,

both for language and sentiment, is perhaps as pathetic, and in that view as sublime, as any thing remaining among the writings of the ancients.

CHAPTER II.

CONCERNING THE PROGRESS OF CRITICISM IN ITS SECOND SPECIES, THE HISTORICAL, GREEK AND ROMAN CRITICS, BY WHOM THIS SPECIES OF CRITICISM WAS CULTIVATED.

As to the criticism already treated, we find it not confined to any one particular author, but containing general rules of art, either for judging or writing, confirmed by the example not of one author, but of many. But we know from experience, that, in process of time, languages, customs, manners, laws, governments, and religions insensibly change. The Macedonian tyranny, after the fatal battle of Chæronea, wrought much of this kind in Greece; and the Roman tyranny, after the fatal battles of Pharsalia and Philippi, carried it throughout the known world. Hence, therefore, of things obsolete, the names became obsolete also; and authors, who in their own age were intelligible and easy, in after-days grew difficult and obscure. Here, then, we behold the rise of a second race of critics, the tribe of scholiasts, commentators, and explainers.

These naturally attached themselves to particular_authors. Aristarchus, Didymus, Eustathius, and many others, bestowed their labours upon Homer; Proclus and Tzetzes upon Hesiod; the same Proclus and Olympiodorus upon Plato; Simplicius, Ammonius, and Philoponus upon Aristotle; Ulpian upon Demosthenes; Macrobius and Asconius upon Cicero; Calliergus upon Theocritus; Donatus upon Terence; Servius upon Virgil; Acro and Porphyrio upon Horace; and so with respect to others, as well philosophers as poets and orators. To these scholiasts may be added the several composers of lexicons, such as Hesychius, Philoxenus, Suidas, &c.; also the writers upon grammar, such as Apollonius, Priscian, Sosipater, Charisius, &c. Now all these pains-taking men, considered together, may be said to have completed another species of criticism, a species which, in distinction to the former, we call criticism historical.

And thus things continued, though in a declining way, till, after many a severe and unsuccessful plunge, the Roman empire sunk through the West of Europe. Latin then soon lost its purity; Greek they hardly knew; classics and their scholiasts were no longer studied; and an age succeeded of legends and crusades.

e See Hermes, p. 239, 240.