*

If we may listen to the antient Critics, who have written on this fubject, they tell us, that PURITY of language confifts in this conformity to analogy and etymology, in an adherence to antient ufage, the practice of fuch writers or speakers, who have themselves been thus directed, and above all to custom, that is, as they themselves + explain it, the general consent of men of fenfe and erudition.

Quem penes arbitrium eft & jus & norma loquendi. HOR. And these are principles of PURE diction, which, we fee, are neither vague nor nor local but, like all the other general precepts of compofition, founded on reafon, and applicable to all languages in which custom however decifive, is yet not guided capriciously or wantonly; but in all cases

:

POPE.

USE will father what's begot by SENSE. He who would write pure English, muft proceed by the fame general directions, with him who would write pure French. The Roman and the Greek followed the fame rules, and prescribed the fame rules, to their respective countrymen. The writer or speaker who tranfgreffes fuch rules, may fairly plead, that the tranfgreffion is not fo great as to obscure his fense; that his circumftances made it neceffary; or that it is mean and disingenuous to cavil at a trifling fault, more than compenfated by the importance of his subject, or the fuperior excellencies of his compofition. But fhould he tell us that his words are as well founding, and no more arbitrary, than those

* Sermo conftat ratione; vetuftate, auctoritate, confuetudine. Rationem præftat præcipue analogia; nonnunquam et Etymologia. — Confuetudo vero certiffima loquendi ma

giftra. Quinct. L. 1. C. 4.

+ Confuetudinem fermonis vocabo confenfum eruditorum, ficut vivendi, confenfum bonorum. Ibid.

which

which we call pure; that both are equally indebted for their origin to chance or caprice; I fear we should do no great honour to his philofophy. Words are frequently called (and * properly) the Dress of our thoughts. Suppofe then a man were to appear publicly, in a garb'partly clerical, partly laical; partly French, partly Turkish. If he pleaded neceffity for this motley mixture, we should accept the apology; if he discovered excellent qualities thro' this disgusting appearance, we should respect him. But if he were to tell us, that dress was no more than fashion, that all fashions were equal, and that his ferved the purposes of cloathing as well as our's; what judgment × should we form of his mind and understanding?

CHAP. VII.

CHAP. VII.

T

I might be obferved, that the Right Reverend Author who paffes fo fevere a censure on every thing in compofition, which deviates from the principles of logic, hath himself been betrayed into a most illogical divifion of Eloquence into it's constituent parts or qualities. For he hath not only enumerated them imperfectly; but, of the three qualities which he hath exhibited, the first is included in the fecond, and the third is not neceffarily and universally a part of Eloquence. For that a speaker may be exquifitely eloquent without fublimity, we may be convinced by reading the speech of the feditious foldier, already quoted from Tacitus.- -But, without dwelling on this objection, let us proceed to confider the second mem ber of his Lordship's divifion, ELEGANCE.

This, faith he, "is fuch a turn of idiom as a fashionable fancy hath brought into repute."--To understand this definition, we must, in the first place, endeavour to diveft it of that figurative disguise which is, of all things, most unsuitable to a definition. By fancy then, are we to understand a man of wild and ungoverned imagination; and, by fashion, that tem

porary favour and applaufe which are fometimes injudiciously bestowed on fuch characters? In this cafe, the explanation of Elegance amounts only to this, that it is the effect of caprice, that it is variable and unftable. But this is the very point to be proved. If, on the other fide, we are to understand by a fashionable fancy, a writer or speaker of wit and ingenuity, generally approved and admired for his correct and accurate, lively, appofite, and expreffive turn of phrafe; then, we have Elegance thus defined, " such a turn of phrase as is ad"mired in elegant speakers or writers."In this difficulty we must have recourfe to critics who have given more accurate defcriptions of an elegant style.

They fometimes define it, generally, to be a union of purity and clearness. Thus the author of the books of Rhetoric to Herennius. Elegantia eft quæ facit ut unum quodque pure & aperte dici videatur. L. 4. C. 12.

Cicero describes it more particularly, as confifting in the use of fuch proper terms, as are not only pure and correct, but well adapted, and most expreffive,and of fuch metaphorical phrases, as exhibit a just and striking fimilitude, with a due regard both to propriety and delicacy: fo as to obferve a proportion to the subject, and to betray nothing disrespectful or brutal. Let us hear the great Roman himself.

Quoniam Eloquentia conftat ex verbis & fententiis, perficiendum eft, ut pure & emendate loquentes, verborum præterea & propriorum, & translatorum ELEGANTIAM perfequamur. In propriis, ut aptiffima eligamus; in tranflatis, ut fimilitudinem fecuti, verecunde utamur alienis. De OPT. GEN. ORAT. C. 2.

In like manner, tho' with ftill greater extent, Ariftotle, in his treatife of Rhetoric (L. 3. C. 10, 11,) describes T A ΑΣΤΕΙΑ & ΤΑ ΕΥΔΟΚΙΜΟΥΝΤΑ. And in fuch defcriptions,

mans.

defcriptions, we may fairly afk what can be difcovered fantaftical, local, or capricious? Elegance among the Greeks we find to be exactly the fame as elegance among the RoAnd when we examine their accurate descriptions of this quality of fpeech, it appears that there is good reafon for this conformity; and that it must be invariably the fame in all nations and languages: founded on good fenfe, and therefore neither local nor accidental.

*

Or if we venture to pass the bounds prescribed by these great masters; and include in our idea of elegance, not only the choice of phrafeology, but the graceful structure and harmonious disposition of period: what are the precepts by which these are regulated? That words fhould be fo ranged and connected, as to convey the fentiment with ease and perfpicuity; relieving the voice and ear, with intervals and pauses, duely difpofed and varied, fo as to adorn and harmonize, without weakening the compofition: that all this fhould be conducted with a due regard to propriety, without discovering a minute and affected follicitude, or diverting the attention from the more important parts of eloquence. -In these again we find nothing capricious or variable. They are the maxims which have been approved and recommended by all polished ages and nations. They have their foundation in truth and nature; in that love of order and harmony, that averfion to confusion and diffonance, which are congenial and effential to the human mind.

debet

effe ho- prior fit. Diffimulatio curæ præcipua, Ufus, pro ut numeri fponte fluxiffe, non arceffití Cura, & coacti effe videantur. Quinct. L. 9. C. 4. in fine.

* Compofitionesta, jucunda, varia.natura rerum quas dicimus. magria, ut fentiendi atque loquendi