and a sermon, or philosophical treatise, in a neat style, will be read with pleasure. The writings of Middleton, Blackstone, and Smith, appear to me to exhibit models of this species of style. From the last of these authors I shall endeavour to select an apposite passage. We sympathize even with the dead, and overlooking what is of real importance in their situation, that awful futurity which awaits them, we are chiefly affected by those circumstances which strike our senses, but can have no influence upon their happiness. It is miserable, we think, to be deprived of the light of the sun; to be shut out from life and conversation; to be laid in the cold grave a prey to corruption and the reptiles of the earth; to be no more thought of in this world, but to be obliterated in a little time from the affections and almost from the memory of their dearest friends and relations. Surely, we imagine, we can never feel too much for those who have suffered so dreadful a calamity. The tribute of our fellow-feelings seems doubly due to them now when they are in danger of being forgot by every body; and, by the vain honours which we pay to their memory, we endeavour, for our own misery, artificially to keep alive our melancholy remembrance of their misfortune. That our sympathy can afford them no consolation, seems to be an addition to their calamity; and to think that all we can do is unavailing, and that, what alleviates all other distress, the regret, the love, and the lamentations of their friends, can yield no comfort to them, serves only to exasperate our sense of their misery. The happiness of the dead, however, most assuredly is affected by none of these circumstances; nor is it the thought of these things which can ever disturb the profound security of their repose. The idea of that dreary and endless melancholy which the fancy naturally ascribes to their condition, arises altogether from our joining to the change which has been produced upon them, our own consciousness of that change, from our putting ourselves in their situation, and from our lodging, if I may be allowed to say so, our own living souls in their inanimated bodies, and thence conceiving what would be our emotions in this case. It is from this very illusion of the imagination, that the foresight of our own dissolution is so terrible to us, and that the idea of those circumstances, which undoubtedly can give us no pain when we are dead, makes us miserable while we are alive. -Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments. CHAP. XXIII. OF THE GRACEFUL STYLE. NOTWITHSTANDING the powerful effect which graceful composition produces upon the mind, it is difficult to reduce it to a definition. Where language does not supply us with proper words to express the ideas of the mind, we can only convey our sentiments in figurative terms; a defect which necessarily introduces some obscurity. Grace in writing may be compared to that easy air which so remarkably distinguishes persons of a genteel and liberal cast. * It consists not only in the particular beauty of single parts, but in the general symmetry and construction of the whole. An author may be just in his sentiments, lively in his figures, and clear in his expression, yet at the same time may be wholly a stranger to graceful composition. The several members of a discourse must be so agreeably united as mutually to reflect beauty upon each other: their arrangement must be so happily disposed as not to admit of the least interposition without manifest prejudice to the entire piece. The thoughts, the metaphors, the allusions, and the diction, should appear easy and natural, and seem to arise like so many spontaneous productions, rather than as the effects of labour or art. Whatever therefore is forced or affected in the sentiments, whatever pompous or pedantic in the expression, is the very reverse of grace. Her mien is neither that of a prude, nor that of a coquette; she is regular without being formal, and sprightly without being fantastical. Grace is to good writing what a proper light is to a fine picture; it not only shews all the figures in their several proportions and relations, but shews them in the most advantageous manner. As gentility appears in the most minute actions, and improves the most inconsiderable gesture, so grace is discovered in the placing even of a single word, or in the turn of a mere expletive. Nor is this inexpressible quality confined to one species of composition; it extends from the humble pastoral to the lofty epic, from the slightest letter to the most solemn dis * " Do not take me for a disciple of Lord Chesterfield, nor imagine that I mean to erect grace into a capital ingredient of writingbut I do believe that it is a perfume that will preserve from putrefaction; and is distinct even from style, which regards expression ; grace I think belongs to manner. It is from the charm of grace that I believe some authors, not in your favour, obtained part of their renown." (Walpoliana, vol. i. p. 48.) This passage I quote from a letter which the earl of Orford appears to have addressed to Mr. Pinkerton, one of the most ungraceful of all writers. course. It is supposed that Sir William Temple was the first writer who introduced a graceful manner into English prose; * but I am rather inclined to think that this honour is due to Cowley. The general merit of this author's essays has been acknowledged by Johnson* and Goldsmith; † but they have never been referred to as instances of graceful composition. They however seem entitled to this mark of distinction. His sentiments are natural, and his diction simple and unaffected: nothing appears far-fetched, or artificially constructed; and our ears are seldom or never assailed with pompous and pedantic expressions. * Melmoth's Letters of Sir Thomas Fitzosborne, p. 137. 7th edit. Lond. 1769, 8vo. But wherever we may look for the origin of this quality, it is certainly to be found in its highest perfection in the compositions of Mr. Addison, an author whose writings will be distinguished as long as politeness and good sense find any admirers. That becoming air which Cicero esteems the criterion of fine writing, and which every reader, he says, imagines so easy to be imitated, yet will find so difficult to attain, is the prevailing characteristic of all this excellent author's performances. We may justly apply to him what Plato, in his allegorical language, says of Aristophanes: the Graces, having searched all the world round for a temple in which they might for ever dwell, settled at last in the breast of Addi * Johnson's Lives of English Poets, vol. i. p. 103. "Addison + Dr. Young speaks of him in the following terms. wrote little in verse, much in sweet, elegant, Virgilian prose; so let me call it, since Longinus calls Herodotus, most Homeric, and Thucydides is said to have formed his style on Pindar. Addison's compositions are built with the finest materials in the taste of the ancients, and (to speak his own language) on truly classic ground; and though they are the delight of the present age, yet am I persuaded that they will receive more justice from posterity. I never read him but I am struck with such a disheartening idea of perfection, that I drop my pen; and indeed far superior writers should forget his compositions if they would be greatly pleased with their own." (Conjectures on Original Composition: Works in Prose, p. 321. Lond. 1765, 12mo.) His style is thus characterized by Dr. Johnson. "His prose is the model of the middle style; on grave subjects not formal, on light occasions not grovelling; pure without scrupulosity, and exact without apparent elaboration; always equable, and always easy, without glowing words or pointed sentences. Addison never deviates from his track to snatch a grace; he seeks no ambitious ornaments, and tries no hazardous innovations. His page is always luminous, but never blazes in unexpected splendour. "It was apparently his principal endeavour to avoid all harshness and severity of diction: he is therefore sometimes verbose in his transitions and connections, and sometimes descends too much to the language of conversation; yet if his language had been less idiomatical, it might have lost somewhat of its genuine Anglicism.† What he attempted, he performed; he is never feeble, and he did not wish to be energetick; he is never rapid, and he never stagnates. His sentences have neither studied • Brunck, Analecta veterum Poetarum Graecorum, tom. i. p. 171. Αἱ Χάριτες τέμενός τι λαβεῖν, ὅπερ οὐχὶ πεσεῖται, Ζητοῦσαι, ψυχὴν εὗρον ̓Αριστοφάνους. + This appears to be a truism. The remark, when duly analyzed, seems to comprehend the following averment :-if his language had been less idiomatical, it would have been less idiomatical. |