"of its conftruction, and fomething "to the harmony of its cadence;' he proceeds to fubjoin the following paffage: "When common words were lefs pleafing to the ear, or “less distinct in their fignification, "I have familiarized the terms of philofophy by applying them to "known objects and popular ideas; but have rarely admitted any word "not authorized by former writers: "for I believe that whoever knows "the English tongue in its prefent "extent, will be able to exprefs his "thoughts, without farther help "from other nations." The first of thefe reasons for fubftituting, in place of a received familiar English word, a remote philofophical one, fuch as are moft of Johnson's Latin abftract fubftantives, is its being more pleasing to the ear, But this can only be deemed fufficient by thofe who would fubmit fenfe to found, and for the fake of being admired by fome, would be content not to be understood by others. And though, in fome inftances, for the fake of tempering the conftitutional roughnefs of the English language, this might be admitted, yet it never can be contended for in fuch latitude as would justify the practice of our author. This he well knew, and accordingly defending hard words in an effay in his Idler, he infifts largely on the fecond plea, the greater diftinctness of fignification." Differ"ence of thoughts," he fays, "will "produce difference of language: "he that thinks with more extent “than another, will want words of "larger meaning; he that thinks "with more fubtilty will feek terms "of more nice difcrimination." In this argument there is certainly fome degree of weight, and the exact appropriation and perfpicuity of Johnfon's words in fome meafure Confirms it. But that language,

which he does not admit to have funk beneath Milton, would furely have been futhcient to have fupported him; and, as he himself obferves, "though an art cannot be taught "without its proper terms, yet it is "not always neceffery to teach the "art: in morality it is one thing to "difcufs the niceties of the cafuift, "and another to direct the practice "of common life." Let the nature of periodical publications determine, which fhould be more properly the object of the author. But he is not reduced to the alternative : if the teftimony of many English authors of eminence, confirmed experimentally by their own practice, is to be relied on, exactness of thought is not neceffarily at variance with familiar expreffion: and if this union was not impoffible, would not fome endeavour to effect it have deferved the attention of Johnson? Of Johnson who, while his dictionary proves fuch accurate and copious knowledge of our received words, as could not have failed of accom

plishing the patriotic talk, however arduous, gives in his other works the stronger reasons to lament, that his prejudices in favour of a vicious and affected ftyle fhould have prevented his undertaking it.

"But this fault is furely committed without excufe, in every cafe where the language furnishes a received word adequate to the diftinct communicati n of the idea: and that many fuch have innocently incurred Doctor Johnfon's difpleafure must be abundantly evident to every reader. A page of his writ ings, compared with one of any of our eminent English authors on the fame fubject, will furnish many inftances, which cannot be accounted for by attention to harmony of found, or diftinctnefs of fignification: inftances, to be afcribed merely to

that

wantonnefs of habit which, after quoting Congreve's declaration, that he wrote the Old Batchelor to amufe himself in his recovery "from a fit of fickness," thinks proger, a few lines after to explain in Johnson's words, by faying, "the "Old Batchelor was written in the "languor of convalefcence." It would seem that the aunt of Bellaria, who gives the writings of the Rambler to her niece for her perufal, and promises to tell her the meaning of any word the fhould not underftand, has undertaken a task, which the author him.self fufpects to be not unneceffary, and the reader has reaSon to apprehend the will fcarcely be able to accomplish.

"Johnfon fays indeed, he has rarely admitted any word, not authorized by former writers: but where are we to feek authorities for "refufcitation, orbity, volant, fa"tuity, divaricate, afinine, narcotic, "vulnerary, empyreumatic, papili❝onaceous, and innumerable others of the fame stamp, which a bound in and difgrace his pages? For "obtund, difruption, fenfory or panoply," all occurring in the fhort compafs of a fin le effay in the Rambler Or for" cremation, "horticulture, germination and de"decuffation," within a few pages in his Life of Browne? They may be found, perhaps, in the works of former writers, but they make no part of the English language. They are the illegitimate offspring of learning by vanity; adopted indeed, but not naturalized, and though ufed, yet not authorized for if ufe can fuffiently authorize, there is no defcription of improper words, which can be condemned. Technical words may be defended from Dryden and Milton, obfolete from Shakespeare, vulgar from Swift and Butler. Johnfon's fault lies in this, that he

has made fuch frequent use of remote and abftrufe words of Latin original, that his meaning often becomes unintelligible to readers not poffeffed of a confiderable degree of learning; and whether these words were now first made by him, or having been made by others, had been hitherto denied admittance into the current language, is a matter of perfect indifference.

"It must be allowed that these terms are reftrained by our author to fuch precision, that they cannot often refign their places to others more familiar, without fome injury to the fenfe. But fuch is the copi oufnefs of our language, that there are few ideas on ordinary fubjects, which an attentive examination will find incommunicable in its ordinary words. Though we may not have a term to denote the existence of a quality in the abftract, we may perhaps find one to denote it in the concrete; and even though there may be none to exprefs any mode of its existence, there may readily occur one to exprefs its direct negation. It is the business of the writer who wifhes to be understood, to try all poffible variations of the grammatical ftructure of his fentence, to fee if there be not fome which may poffibly make known his thought in familiar words. But that this was not the practice of Johnfon, his compofitions and his celebrated fluency afford the ftrongeft evidence. He feems to have followed the first impulse of his mind in the structure of his fentence, and when he found in his progrefs no English word at hand to occupy the predetermined place, it was eafy to fupply the deficiency by calling in a Latin one.

"Of this overbearing prejudice, which thus fubdued a ftrongly rational understanding, and mifled a judgmeat eminently critical, it may not

be

ly, the difficulty of fearching of their authorities imprints them more ftrongly. The writings of Sir Thomas Browne were to Johnson the copious vocabularies of the Anglo-Latin ftyle; and the numberless quotations from them in his Dictionary, as well as the Life of Browne, which he wrote, are proofs of the attention with which he perused them, and of the eftimation in which he held their author. "Finding;" as he fays, "that our language had "been for near a century deviating

be ufelefs to enquire the reafons. To the first and principal of thefe, no man can be a stranger who has fo read the works of Johnfon as to have formed a juft notion of the peculiar genius of the author. Poleffed of the most penetrating acuteness and refolute precifion of thought he delights to employ hiinfelf in difcriminating what common inaccuracy had confounded, and in feparating what the grofliefs of vulgar concepion had united. A judgment, thus employed (as he would perhaps himfelf defcribe it) in fubtilizing diftinctions, and diffociating concrete qualities to the state of individual existence, naturally called for language the moft determinate, for words of the most abstract significations. Of thefe common fpeech could furnish him with but a fcanty fupply. Familiar words are ufually either the names of things actually fubfifting, or of qualities denoted adjectively, by reference to thofe fubftantives to which they belong befides, common ufe gives to familiar words fuch a latitude of meaning, that there are few which it does not admit in a variety of accepta tions. Johnson, unwilling to fubmit to this inconvenience, which, in every country, to avoid a multiplicity of terms, had been acquiefced in, fought out those remote and abftrufe Latin derivatives, which as they had for the most part hitherto been used but once, were as yet appropriated to one fignification exclufively. What the natural bent of his genius thus gave birth to, his fucceffive employments ftrengthen ed to maturity. The fchoolmafter may plead prefcription for pe dantry; the writer of a dictionary, if attached to words of any defcription has peculiar advantages towards ftoring them in his memory; and if they be terms which occur but rare

towards a Gallic ftructure and "phrafeology," he entered into a confederacy with the Latins to prevent it, without confidering that many nations had fallen beneath their own auxiliaries. As fome moralifts would recommend the overcoming of one paffion by raising up another to oppofe it, he seems to have thought the tendency of out language towards the French would be beft corrected by an equal impulfe towards the Latin. That he was well verfed in all the Latin learning, and minutely critical in the power of its words, is clearly manifested in his writings. His earliest work was a tranflation of Mr. Pope's Meffiah into Latin, and the first eftablishment of his fame was his imitation of a Latin fatirift. We find too, from Mr. Boswell, that he continued his studies in that language to a very late period, and thought it not too learned even to a female ear: Not confined folely to the claffics, he quotes the obfcure remains of monkifh learning, and has delivered precife decifions on the performances of our English poets in that language. His Life of Milton more particularly, whom he might have confidered as a rival in learning, abounds in proof that Johnson pi qued himself not a little on his knowledge of Latin. He opposes

in

in form the fyftem of school-education recommended and adopted by Milton: he is happy in communicating a new authority for a particubar acceptation of the word "per"fona;" fuggefts incidentally whether" vir gloriofiffimus" be not an impure expreffion; and takes efpecial care to inform us that " vapu landus" is a folecifm. Thus his accurate knowledge of the Latin

tongue furnished him with materials to engraft into ours; and his oftentatious defire to difplay that knowledge concurred with the other caufes above enumerated to vitiate his ftyle: Determined to deviate from the English language, while his antipathy to the French reftrained him on the one fide, his predilection for the Latin as naturally enticed him to the other.

"I

Nvention, with refpect to the arts of Defign, as well as Poetry is fometimes confidered, or at leaft talked of, as a fpecies of real infpiration; whereas, according to my idea of it, Invention is nothing more than that power by which we are capable of calling up into one view, and at the fame time attend ing to a variety of ideal objects, which are retained and held together in the memory, either by their own natural connections, or by artificial ones, for our occafional ufe; and in execution of the fine arts, they are differently felected and arranged by the imagination, under the guidance of our judgment and tafte. The powers of Invention in the arts, muft, therefore, be exactly in proportion to the greater ftock of agreeable ideas we have been capable of laying up, and the greater number of connections which we have inftituted as the means of recalling them, in order to compofe agreeable forms or pictures, or af femblages of harmonious founds, for the entertainment of the eye or

ear. It might be a ufeful digreffion to enlarge upon this fubject of affociations in a moral light. I might point out to you what neceffity there is for caution in the forming our ideal connections, fince much not only of the amufement, but of the virtue and credit, and fubftantial happinefs of life, may depend upon the train in which our ideas are dif pofed to follow; and particularly as thefe connections lead us to the choice of our acquaintance, and the objects of our purfuits; but this I have not time for at prefent; let me only obferve, by the way, to af fift you in forming a judgment of men's different characters, and to conduct yourself with refpect to their ruling principles-That the man of wit is directed in his opini nions, and influenced by thofe objets chiefly, whofe adjoinment entertains his fanciful imagination the mifer is fcarcely more biaffed by his fordid intereft than the man of wit by ftriking and uncommon images; and however agreeable he may be in converfation, his judg

ment

ment and his friendship are in general not to be relied on. The man of humour has his opinions influenced by thofe objects which are connected by opponition; and ridicule with him is made the test of juftice, honour, and integrity; in fhort, of every thing. The man of tafte is fwayed by elegance, which, as it is in unifon with virtue, fuch a one is truly amiable: the man of rigid judgment, has often an appear ance of feverity and morofenefs, but his ideas are connected by truth, and there is an integrity in his conduct, which is above deception. The man of genius, whofe ideas are connected by elegance, or truth or contraft, or agreeable novelty, is apt to be various in his conduct, but in general he may be depended on nor is it to be wondered at, confidering the fuperiority which fuch numerous connections muft give him over the rest of the world, if in ruder or enthufiaftic ages he was confidered as owing that fuperiority of invention, which diftinguishes him in fo extraordinary a manner, to the inftructions of fome genius or attendant fpirit: thefe times indeed have been long paft, and yet instead of the plain account above given of a power, which no man who looks attentively into his own mind can be a stranger to, we have been told, in the preface, to Frefnoy's Art of Painting, that "In"vention is a mufe, being poffeffed

of the other advantages common "to her fifters, and being warmed by the fire of Apollo, is raifed "higher than the reft, and fhines "with a brighter and more glori

ous flame." This is the principal paffage you wanted to have put into fuch plain terms as would throw light upon the enquiry; and I muft own I am furprifed that fo great a man as Mr. Dryden could fatisfy

himself, or think to impofe upon his readers, by fuch metaphorical nonfenfe; but thus the imagination very often ftill continues to be addreffed upon this fubject, in painted words, without any determinate meaning; and wherever it is treated of, you are generally fet down just where you was taken up, without having made the leaft advance towards a knowledge of what wants fo little explanation, when fimply and unmetaphorically confidered.

"By Tafte, the other article of your enquiry, is properly to be underftood that power of the mind, whofe province is the difcernment and relifh of whatever is elegant, or of whatever is beautiful, as beauty or as elegance belongs either to particular ideas, and to objects confidered fingly, or otherwife to the arrangement and difpofition of a number of them. It is by this ability of the mind, therefore, that we are capable of felecting from our ideas called up by the invention, thofe which may be combined, fo as to form new or beautiful, or fublime images and pictures in the fancy. You may urge, perhaps, that the idea of beau ty is abfolutely undetermined, being entirely dependent upon custom and fashion. This is true only to a certain degree, and the pleasures of mental tafte, like thofe of the palate, have their foundation notwithftanding, in our common feelings and perceptions, as they were conftituted by a law of nature, to make certain and determined impreffions; but the ftrongeft natural feelings, we know, may be oppofed, and in fome meafure altered; and that every power implanted in our conftitution, may be improved by culture, as it may be debafed by the abufe or neglect of it, is equally evident; perfectum nihil eft, faith Quintilian, nifi ubi Natura curâ ju

vetur ;