out introducing other speakers or actors. If his language be not elegant, his obfervations uncommon, his fense strong and mafculine, he will in vain boaft his nature and fimplicity. He may be correct; but he never will be agreeable. It is the unhappiness of such authors, that they are never blamed or cenfured. The good fortune of a book, and that of a man, are not the fame. The fecret deceiving path of life, which HORACE talks of, fallentis femita vita, may be the happieft lot of the one; but is the greatest misfortune, which the other can poffibly fall into.

On the other hand, productions, which are merely furprifing, without being natural, can never give any lafting entertainment to the mind. To draw chimeras is not, properly speaking, to copy or imitate. The juftnefs of the representation is loft, and the mind is difpleased to find a picture, which bears no refemblance to any original. Nor are fuch exceffive refinements more agreeable in the epiftolary or philofophic ftile, than in the epic or tragic. Too much ornament is a fault in every kind of production. Uncommon expreffions, ftrong flashes of wit, pointed fimilies, and epigrammatic turns, especially when they recur too frequently, are a disfigurement, rather than any embellishment of dif course. As the eye, in furveying a GOTHIC building, is diftracted by the multiplicity of ornaments, and lofes the whole by its minute attention to the parts; fo the mind, in perufing a work overstocked with wit, is fatigued and difgufted with the constant endeavour to shine and furprize. This is the cafe where a writer overabounds in wit, even though that wit, in itself, fhould be juft and agreeable. But it commonly happens to fuch writers, that they feek for their favourite ornaments, even where the subject does not afford them; and by

that

that means, have twenty infipid conceits for one thought which is really beautiful.

There is no fubject in critical learning more copious, than this of the juft mixture of fimplicity and refinement in writing; and therefore, not to wander in too large a field, I fhall confine myself to a few general obfervations on that head.

First, I obferve, That though exceffes of both kinds are to be avoided, and though a proper medium ought to be ftudied in all productions; yet this medium lies not in a point, but admits of a confiderable latitude. Confider the wide distance, in this refpect, between Mr. POPE and LUCRETIUS. These seem to lie in the two greatest extremes of refinement and fimplicity, in which a poet can indulge himfelf, without being guilty of any blameable excess. All this interval may be filled with poets, who may differ from each other, but may be equally admirable, each in his peculiar ftile and manner. CORNEILLE and CONGREVE, who carry their wit and refinement somewhat farther than Mr. POPE (if poets of fo different a kind can be compared together) and SOPHOCLES and TERENCE, who are more fimple than LUCRETIUS, feem to have gone out of that medium, in which the most perfect productions are found, and to be guilty of fome excess in these oppofite characters. Of all the great poets, VIRGIL and RACINE, in my opinion, lie nearcft the center, and are the farthest removed from both the extremities.

My fecond obfervation on this head is, That it is very difficult, if not impossible, to explain by words, where the just medium lies between the excesses of fimplicity and refinement, or to give any rule by which we can know precisely the bounds between the fault and the beauty. A critic may not only difcourfe very judicioufly on this head, without inAtructing his readers, but even without understanding the

matter

matter perfectly himfelf. There is not a finer piece of criticifm than the differtation on paftorals by FONTENELLE; in which, by a number of reflections and philofophica! reafonings, he endeavours to fix the juft medium, which is fuitable to that fpecies of writing. But let any one read the paftorals of that author, and he will be convinced, that this judicious critic, notwithstanding his fine reafonings, had a falfe taste, and fixed the point of perfection much nearer the extreme of refinement than paftoral poetry will admit of. The fentiments of his fhepherds are better fuited to the toilettes of PARIS, than to the forefts of ARCADIA. But this it is impoffible to difcover from his critical reafonings. He blames all exceffive painting and ornament as much as VIRGIL could have done, and he wrote a differtation on that fpecies of poetry. However different the taftes of men, their general discourse on these subjects is commonly the same. No criticism can be inftructive, which defcends not ta particulars, and is not full of examples and illuftrations. It is allowed on all hands, that beauty, as well as virtue, lies always in a medium; but where this medium is placed, is the great queftion, and can never be fufficiently explained by general reasonings.

I fhall deliver it as a third obfervation on this fubject, That we ought to be more on our guard against the excess of refinement than that of fimplicity; and that because the former excess is both lefs beautiful, and more dangerous than the latter.

It is a certain rule, that wit and paffion are entirely incompatible. When the affections are moved, there is no place for the imagination. The mind of man being naturally limited, it is impoffible, that all its faculties can operate at once: And the more any one predominates, the less room is there for the others to exert their

vigour.

vigour. For this reafon, a greater degree of fimplicity is required in all compofitions, where men, and actions and paffions are painted, than in fuch as confift of reflections and obfervations. And as the former fpecies of writing is the more engaging and beautiful, one may fafely, upon this account, give the preference to the extreme of fimplicity above that of refinement.

We may also obferve, that thofe compofitions, which we read the ofteneft, and which every man of taste has got by heart, have the recommendation of fimplicity, and have nothing furprizing in the thought, when divefted of that elegance of expreffion, and harmony of numbers, with which it is cloathed. If the merit of the compofition lie in a point of wit; it may ftrike at first ; but the mind anticipates the thought in the fecond perufal, and is no longer affected by it. When I read an epigram of MARTIAL, the firft line recalls the whole; and I have no pleature in repeating to myfelf what I know already. But each line, each word in CATULlus, has its merit; and I am never tired with the perusal of him. It is fufficient to run over COWLEY once: But PARNEL, after the fiftieth reading, is as fresh as at the firft. Befides, it is with books as with women, where a certain plainness of manner and of dress is more engaging than that glare of paint and airs and apparel, which may dazzle the eye, but reaches not the affections. TERENCE is a modest and bashful beauty, to whom we grant every thing, because he affumes nothing, and whose purity and nature make a durable, though not a violent impreffion on us.

But refinement, as it is the lefs beautiful, so is it the more dangerous extreme, and what we are the aptest to fall into. Simplicity paffes for dulnefs, when it is not

accompanied

accompanied with great elegance and propriety. On the contrary, there is fomething furprizing in a blaze of wit and conceit. Ordinary readers are mightily ftruck with it, and falfely imagine it to be the moft difficult, as well as moft excellent way of writing. SENECA abounds with agreeable faults, fays QUINTILIAN, abundat dulcibus vitiis; and for that reason is the more dangerous, and the more apt to pervert the taste of the young and incon

fiderate.

I fhall add, that the excess of refinement is now more to be guarded against than ever; because it is the extreme, which men are the most apt to fall into, after learning has made fome progrefs, and after eminent writers have appeared in every fpecies of compofition. The endeavour to please by novelty leads men wide of fimplicity and nature, and fills their writings with affectation and conceit. It was thus the ASIATIC eloquence degenerated fo much from the ATTIC: It was thus the age of CLAUDIUS and NERO became fo much inferior to that of AuGUSTUS in taste and genius: And perhaps there are, at prefent, fome fymptoms of a like degeneracy of tafte, in FRANCE as well as in ENGLAND.