a small dissertation prefixed to that work. "A view," he calls it," of the epic poem," in which short title there are two improprieties. First, the word poem, which always denotes with us a particular performance, is here used, agreeably to the French idiom, for poetry in general, or the art which characterizes the performance; secondly, the definite article the is employed, which, though it be always given to abstracts in French, is never so applied in English, unless with a view to appropriate them to some subject. And this, by-the-way renders the article with us more determinative than it is in French, or perhaps in any other tongue.* Accordingly, on the first hearing of the title above mentioned, there is no English reader who would not suppose that it were a critical tract on some particular epic poem, and not on that species of poesy. Another error of the same kind is the Latinism. Of this, indeed, the examples are not so frequent. Foppery is a sort of folly much more contagious than pedantry; but as they result alike from affectation, they deserve alike to be proscribed. An instance of the latter is the word affection, when applied to things inanimate, and signifying the state of being affected by any cause. Another instance is the word integrity, when used for entireness. But here I think a distinction ought to be made between the familiar style and that of philosophical disquisition. In the latter it will be reasonable to allow a greater latitude, especially in cases wherein there may be a penury of proper terms, and wherein, without such indulgence, there would be a necessity of recurring too often to periphrasis. But the less, even here, this liberty is used, it is the better. To these properly succeeds that sort of the vulgarism,† in which only a low and partial use can be pleaded in support of the application that is made of a particular word. Of this you have an example in the following quotation: ""Tis my humble request you will be particular in speaking to the following points." The preposition ought to have been on. Precisely of the same stamp is the on't for of it, so much used by one class of writers. The pronoun it is, by a like idiom, made sometimes to follow neuter verbs, as in the following passage: "He is an assertor of liberty and property; he rattles it out against popery and arbitrary power, and priestcraft, and high church."§ Accordingly, Bossu hath styled his performance on the same subject, Traité du Poème Epique. It is this title, I suppose, which hath misled the English poet. I say that sort of the vulgarism, because, when the word is in no acceptation in good use, it is a sort that partakes of the barbarism; but when a particular application of a good word is current only among the lower classes, it belongs to the impropriety. Guardian, No. 5" Swift's Project for the Advancement of Religion. The auxiliaries should, should have, and should be, are sometimes used in the same improper manner. I am not sensible of the elegance which Dr. Priestley seems to have discovered in the expression, "The general report is that he should have said" for "that he said." It appears to me not only as an idiomatical expression, but as chargeable both with pleonasm and with ambiguity; for what a man said is often very different from what he should have said. I shall finish all that I propose to offer on the idiotism when I have observed that these remarks are not to be extended to the precincts of satire and burlesque. There, indeed, a vulgar, or even what is called a cant expression, will sometimes be more emphatical than any proper term whatsoever. The satirist may plead his privilege. For this reason, the following lines are not to be considered as falling under this criticism: "Whether the charmer sinner it or saint it, It remains to give some instances wherein sound and sense both concur in misleading us. Of this the word enough is an example, which is frequently confounded with enow, and used for it. Both denote sufficiency, the former in quantity or in degrees of quality, the latter in number. Thus we say properly, "We have courage enough and ammunition enough, but we have not men enow." The derivatives falseness, falsity, falsehood, from the root false, are often, by mistake, employed for one another, though in the best use they are evidently distinguished. The first falseness, is properly used in a moral sense for want of veracity, and applied only to persons; the other two are applied only to things. Falsity denotes that quality in the abstract which may be defined contrariety to truth. Falsehood is an untrue assertion. The word negligence is improperly used in the following passage: "The negligence of this leaves us exposed to an uncommon levity in our usual conversation."t He ought to have said neglect. The former implies the habit, the latter denotes the act-perhaps in this case I should say the instance; for an act of a habit of not doing hath itsel the appearance of impropriety. Precisely of the same kind is the misapplication of the word conscience in this quotation: "The conscience of approving one's self a benefactor to mankind, is the noblest recompense for being so." Properly, the consciousness; the former denotes the faculty, the latter a particular exertion. This impropriety is reversed in the citation following: "I apprehend that all the sophism which has been or can be employed, will not be sufficient to acquit this system at the triSpect., No. 58A * Pope. + Spect., No. 76. bunal of reason."* For sophism he should have said sophistry, this denotes fallacious reasoning, that only a fallacious argument. This error is of the same kind with poem for poetry, which was remarked above. Sometimes the neuter verb is mistaken for the active. "What Tully says of war may be applied to disputing; it should be always so managed as to remember that the only end of it is peace." Properly, remind us. Sometimes, again, the active verb is mistaken for the neuter. "I may say, without vanity, that there is not a gentleman in England better read in tombstones than myself, my studies having laid very much in churchyards." Properly, lien or lain. The active verb lay, for the neuter lie, is so frequently to be met with in some very modern compositions, as to give room for suspecting that it is an idiom of the cockney language, or of some provincial dialect. In that case it might have been classed under the idiotism. Perhaps under the same predicament ought also to be ranked the word plenty, used adjectively for plentiful, which indeed appears to me so gross a vulgarism, that I should not have thought it worthy a place here if I had not sometimes found it in works of considerable merit. The relative whom, in the following quotation, is improperly used for which, the former always regarding persons, the latter always things: "The exercise of reason appears as little in them as in the beasts they sometimes hunt, and by whom they are sometimes hunted."¿ I shall add but two instances more of impropriety in single words, instances which I have reserved for this place, as being somewhat peculiar, and, therefore, not strictly reducible to any of the classes above mentioned; instances, too, from authors of such eminence in respect of style, as may fully convince us, if we are not already convinced, that infallibility is not more attainable here than in other articles. "As I firmly believe the divine precept delivered by the Author of Christianity, there is not a sparrow falls to the ground without my Father, and cannot admit the agency of chance in the government of the world, I must necessarily refer every event to one cause, as well the danger as the escape, as well the sufferings as the enjoyments of life." There is very little affinity, either in sense or in sound, between precept and doctrine; and nothing but an oscitancy, from which no writer whatever is uniformly exempted, can account for so odd a misapplication of a familiar term. The words in connexion might have shown the error. Bol. Ph. Fr., 20. Spect., No. 518. It is the doctrines of our reli Pope's Thoughts on various Subjects. General Introduction to the Account of the Voyages of Commodore Byron, &c., by Hawkesworth. gion that we are required to believe, and the precepts that wo are required to obey. The other example is, "Their success may be compared to that of a certain prince, who placed, it is said, cats and other animals, adored by the Egyptians, in the front of his army when he invaded that people. A reverence for these phantoms made the Egyptians lay down their arms, and become an easy conquest.' What the author here intended to say it is hard to conjecture; but it is unquestionable that in no sense whatever can cats and other animals be called phantoms. I shall now, before I proceed to consider impropriety as it appears in phrases, make a few reflections on those princi ples which most frequently betray authors into such misapplications in the use of single words. As to that which hath been denominated the vulgarism, its genuine source seems to be the affectation of an easy, familiar, and careless manner. The writers who abound in this idiom generally imagine that their style must appear the more natural the less pains they bestow upon it. Addison hath exactly hit their notion of easy writing. "It is," says he, "what any man may easily write." But these people, it would seem, need to be informed that ease is one thing, and carelessness is another; nay, that these two are so widely different, that the former is most commonly the result of the greatest care. It is like ease in motion, which, though originally the effect of discipline, when once it hath become habitual, has a more simple and more natural appearance than is to be observed in any manner which untutored Nature can produce. This sentiment is well expressed by the poet : "But ease in writing flows from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learned to dance."t True ease in composition, accompanied with purity, d as much from that homely manner which affects the familiarity of low phrases and vulgar idioms, as the appearance of a woman that is plainly but neatly dressed differs from that of a slattern. But this affectation is to be considered as the spring of one species of impropriety only. All the rest, unless when chargeable on inadvertency, as they sometimes doubtless are, seem naturally to flow from one or other of these two sources, which are almost diametrically opposite to the former. One is, the love of novelty; the other, a fondness for variety. The former, when excessive, tends directly to misguide us, by making us disdain the beaten track, for no other reason but because it is the beaten track. The idea of vulgarity in the imaginations of those who are affected by this principle is connected with everything that › Bolinb. l'h., Es. iv., sect. i. + Pope's Imitations. 's conceived as customary. The genuine issue of this extreme, much worse, I acknowledge, than the former, is not only improprieties, but even absurdities, and fustian, and bombast. The latter, to wit, a fondness for variety, produceth often the same effect, though more indirectly. It begets an immoderate dread of becoming tedious, by repeating too frequently the same sound. In order to avoid this, a writer resolves at any rate to diversify his style, let it cost what it will; and, indeed, this fancied excellence usually costs more than it is worth. Very often propriety and perspicuity both are sacrificed to it. It is justly observed by Abbé Girard,* that when a performance grows dull through an excess of uniformity, it is not so much because the ear is tired by the frequent repetition of the same sound, as because the mind is fatigued by the frequent recurrence of the same idea. If, therefore, there be a remarkable paucity of ideas, a diversity of words will not answer the purpose, or give to the work the agreeable appearance of variety. On the contrary, when an author is at great pains to vary his expressions, and for this purpose even deserts the common road, he will, to an intelligent reader, but the more expose his poverty the more he is solicitous to conceal it. And, indeed, what can more effectually betray a penury of words than to be always recurring to such as custom hath appropriated to purposes different from those for which we use them? Would the glitter of jewels which we know to be stolen produce an opinion of the wearer's affluence? And must not such alienations of words, if I may be allowed the metaphor, awaken a suspicion of some original defects which have given occasion to them? We should hardly say that a house were richly furnished, I am sure we could not say that it were well furnished, where we found a superfluity of utensils for answering some purposes, and a total want of those adapted to other purposes not less necessary and important. We should think, on the contrary, that there were much greater appearance both of opulence and taste, where, though there were little or nothing superfluous, no vessel or piece of furniture useful in a family were wanting. When one is obliged to make some utensil supply purposes to which they were not originally destined-when, for instance, "the copper pot boils milk, heats porridge, holds small beer, and, in case of necessity, serves for a jorden❞— there are always, it must be confessed, the strongest indications of indigence. On the contrary, when every real use hath some instrument or utensil adapted to it, there is the appearance, if not of profusion, of what is much more valuable, plenty. * Synonymes François, Preface. + Swift. |