ELEMENTS

O F

CRITICISM.

VOLUME II.

The SECOND EDITION.

With ADDITIONS and IMPROVEMENTS.

EDINBURG H:

Printed for A. MILLAR, London;

AND

A. KINCAID & J. BELL, Edinburgh.

MDCCLXIII.

ELEMENTS

O F

CRITICISM.

CHA P. X.

Congruity and Propriety.

M

AN is diftinguished from the brute, not more remarkably by the fuperiority of his rational faculties, than by the greater delicacy of his perceptions and feelings. They probably are upon a level with respect to the grofs pleasures of fenfe; and the brutes may also have fome obfcure perception of beauty: but the more delicate conceptions of regularity, order, uniformity, and congruity, are probably withheld from the brutes. Such refined conceptions,

A 2

ceptions, being connected with morality
and religion, are referved to dignify the
chief of the terrestrial creation. Upon
this account, no difcipline is more fuit-
able to man, or more congruous to the
dignity of his nature, than that by which
his tafte is refined, to distinguish in every
fubject, what is regular, what is orderly,
what is fuitable, and what is fit and pro-
*.
Per *

No difcerning person can be at a lofs about the meaning of the terms congruity and propriety, when applied to drefs, behaviour, or language; that a decent garb, for example, is proper for a judge, modest behaviour for a young woman, and a lofty

Nec vero illa parva vis naturæ eft rationifque, quod u num hoc animal fentit quid fit ordo, quid fit quod deceat in faetis dictifque, qui modus. Itaque eorum ipforum, quæ afpe-. tu fentiuntur, nullum aliud animal, pulchritudinem, venuftatem, convenientiam partium, fentit. Quam fimilitudinem natura ratioque ab oculis ad animum transferens, multo etiam magis pulchritudinem, conftantiam, ordinem, in confiliis faEtifque confervandum putat, cavetque ne quid indecorè cffeminatève faciat; tum in omnibus et opinionibus et factis ne quid libidinosè aut faciat aut cogitet. Quibus ex rebus conflatur et efficitur id, quod quærimus, honeftum. Cicero de officiis, l. 1.

ftyle

style for an epic poem. In the following examples every one is fenfible of an unfuitableness or incongruity; a little woman funk in an overgrown farthingale, a coat richly embroidered covering coarfe and dirty linen, a mean fubject in an elevated ftyle, an elevated fubject in a mean style, a first minister darning his wife's stocking, and a reverend prelate in lawn fleeves dancing a hornpipe.

But it is not fufficient that these terms be understood; the critical art requires, that' their meaning be traced to its foundation, to which I proceed. Many effects depend on the relations that connect objects together: their influence in directing the train of our perceptions, is handled in the first chapter, and in the fecond, their influence in generating paffion; and here is a new effect which regards the present subject. We are fo framed by nature, as to require a certain fuitablenefs or correfpondence among things connected by any relation. This fuitablenefs or correfpondence is termed congruity or propriety; and the want of it incongruity or impropriety. Among the