the particular: so spake the grisly terror. All this is highly poetical expression. Dryden, in versifying the celebrated simile of Virgil's nightingale, has happily called the young, "the unfeathered innocence:" how superior to "the young birds!" Virgil has also, in his Georgics, an expression, so truly inimitable, that our language appears not to afford a correspondent delicacy. When the poet describes Eurydice at the moment before she is wounded by the snake concealed in the grass, as if animated by a prescient fervour, he exclaims, "moritura puella" The reader of taste feels an emotion of surprise and curiosity. Translate this happy word literally into prose, and the grace must be as fugitive as Eurydice herself," the maid about to die." The charm arises, if I may so express myself, from the concise amplitude of idea the single word conveys. All our translators have failed in catching the evanescent beauty: Dryden calls her the dying bride; Trapp translates she doomed to death; while Warton denominates her the fated maid*. In none of these is a similar emotion raised in the mind of the reader, which he receives from the moritura. Dryden's, indeed, is most faulty, and Warton's the least; yet fated is a general idea, and loses that delicate shade of appropriation, of the about to die. This phrase, indeed, which each poet, in his zeal for a lofty style, carefully shuns, is the only true one in this place.

writers. One of their peculiar charms is their ancient style; "and certain phrases, which are generally understood, delight, like a painting which is just embrowned and mellowed by the hand of time. If we contrast a fine passage in Shakespeare, with a rival one in a modern poet, allowing them equal force, we should not hesitate to give the preference to the elder bard. The lively pleasure with which some men of taste read Chaucer may be ascribed to their sensibility of a language, which displays many graces, invested with that novelty of poetical expression, which would cease to strike were they familiar. The venerable dignity of the Scriptures much depends upon their ancient style, and their simplicity, delightful in the old English, would evaporate, transfused into modern language.

One of the weakest arguments, therefore, urged by modern translators of the Bible, in favour of new versions, is, that the style of the ancient one is obsolete. Their modernizings have sometimes a ludicrous effect: for instance, instead of the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, Purver has it moved a-top of the waters. Another translator thinks it much more dignified to call Job a certain opulent gentleman, than simply a rich man of Uz. He turns publicans into exeise men; elders into justices; David's chief captain, into generalissimo, with many improvements

of the like nature.

rence.

The effect of the same principle may be traced in our own earlier

The term maid, in this place, is a whimsical blunder.

poet nicely picked out of the performances of his predecessors, to embroider his own; and though, sometimes, a new combination of ideas, or felicity of subject, renders a poem interesting, yet the poetical treasury of diction receives but few accessions.

This has been an effect felt by many poets. Milton, whose notions of poetry were of the most exalted nature, when he proposed composing an epic, perceived the necessity of constructing a new diction, or, as himself expresses it, to build the lofty rhyme. In his smaller productions, he was satisfied to employ the language of his contemporaries, because, in a short composition, he might form new combinations of style, without pursuing any particular system. What, therefore, has this great poet attempted? An introduction of all the happiest idioms of every language with which his extensive learning was acquainted. Hebraisms and Grecisms, Latinisms and Italianisms, poured themselves into his copious mind; and what Johnson has termed the pedantry of his style, true taste will, perhaps, acknowledge as an attempt to seize

on

those felicitious expressions which more nicely reveal our sensations. Dryden adorned his language also with many Latinisms; and Pope is acknowledged to have formed a diction which in his day had all the attractions of novelty. Of all our poets, Gray had the liveliest sensibility for this beauty, which he has expressed by words that burn. A poet of his ability, who studied so much, and produced so little, seems to show that he could not satisfy his own delicacy of taste, in the creation of a new poetical diction; and this, I think, appears by those few exquisite performances he has left, for almost every expression in the poetry of Gray appears to have been imitated from his predecessors. He justly observes that the language of the age is never the language of poetry. What he has given evinces his aim; and we may conclude that it is one of the grand

characteristics of modern poetry, and one of the greatest obstacles in that pleasing art.

Whenever, in the progress of refinement, the poetical language becomes thus difficult, it is observable that true genius, often weary with imitatively echoing the established diction, at once falls back into the manner of the earlier poets. Some expressions of our elder writers have a marvellous effect in modern verse. The poet Rousseau has, in many of his compositions, essayed to seize on the naiveté of Marot, by copying his style, but his strained affectation produces a disagreeable effect. Churchill rejected an artificial diction, and too often versifies like Oldham; for an editor of this poet's works has contrasted passages from the modern satirist, which equal the discordance of Oldham's verse. When Churchill introduces a poetical expression from our elder poets, it has often a very pleasing effect. Cowper, and his imitators, can only be considered as having assumed the diction and manner of our old poets; a critical feeling perceives, in their blank verse, the tones of Shakespeare.

This retrogression has assumed a new form, and has probably reached its utmost point in our own times. In the hands of Wordsworth and Southey, the poetical style has dwindled down to the level of absolute talk: not to the talk of the wellbred and enlightened, but of clowns and chambermaids The current of fashion, which has risen so strongly in favour of this false simplicity, is probably turning, and, in a short time, the school of Southey will be extinct.

It has been considered as a poetical beauty to aggrandise the little by the pomp of expression. When objects, or circumstances, by their exility or meanness would occasion no agreeable sensation, some have thought it an evidence of higher art to dignify them by grandeur of style; in a word, as I heard a man of genius say of a painter, he knew to give dignity to a dunghill. But

The pathos is here in the expression, not in the idea; for if we employ here the word senate, as Pope himself has elsewhere done, in paying a similar compliment to the duke of Argyle, there will be nothing ridiculous; the familiarity of the expression is the only cause of this unfortunate passage. When words are not familiar, they take away from the offence which some ideas may give, in common terms. Homer has been ridiculed by certain critics, for having so minutely described the dog Argus, lying on a dunghill, nearly devoured by vermin. The annotator then observes, "It is certain that the vermin which Homer mentions, would debase our poetry; but in the Greek that very word is noble and sonorous, Kurogaïgiwv."

Here then is a word which can give dignity to a circumstance very offensive in itself; but we cannot at present, I think, decide whether this word, which appears to us so noble and sonorous, affected an ancient Greek in the same manner. All that appears certain, is, that the Kuvogaïge of Homer is a noble and sonorous term to our ear, and has not the debasing familiarity of corresponding English words.

As another proof to show the effect of expressions that are not familiar, I shall quote Kaimes, who has a curious observation, which seems to relate to this subject, though by him applied to a different pect is charming, but we soon tire "A sea prospurpose. He writes, of an unbounded prospect. It would not give satisfaction to say, that it is too extensive; for why should not a prospect be relished, however ex

tensive ?"

term, and say that it is trop vaste, But employ a foreign we enquire no farther; a term that is not familiar makes an impression, and captivates weak reason. This observation accounts for a mode of writing formerly in common use, Latin words and phrases. that of stuffing our language with It also throws light upon the reverence entertained by Roman catholics for the Latin language. Protestants, by making the disuse of Latin in religious offices a point of conscience, cannot comprehend the peculiar energy and sanctity which this language possesses, in the apprehension of Romanists. The "Ave Maria" of the Romanist is as much or more superior to the equivalent phrase in his own language, as the "hail" of our Bible and poetical English is superior to the how d'ye do of our common dialect.

Purity of language is not a characteristic of style in an age of refinement. Gibbon observes that, in a polite age, in which a language is thoroughly cultivated, every writer who is a man of education, of letters, and of taste, speaks nearly the same language; and very often genius and eloquence, instead of being

companions to purity, are enemies, to it, by diverting the attention to nobler aims. Bouhours is much purer than either Corneille or Bayle. The great writers will solicitously domiciliate the most elegant foreign idioms, and hence the Latinisms of Johnson, and the Gallicisms of Gibbon. The more exquisite our taste, the more desirous are we of expressing its exquisiteness; no writer complains of paucity of expression in the first progress of taste; for it is long before we are aware of the difficulty of giving the delicacies of conception, and communicating the precise quantity of our feelings. A refined writer is willing to lose something of idiomatic language, to gain something of expressive language. Some of our finest idioms become common; and a writer then attempts to give an equivalent in sense, that may not offend by its commonness; and this attempt, perhaps, may arise into affectation, The more polished a language becomes, certain significant expressions become obsolete; a complaint made by some writers who were more solicitous of forcible, than of elegant expression. We are not to be censured too severely for an occasional adoption of a foreign phrase, though this permission may degenerate into licentiousness with unskilful writers.

From all this we may infer, that the diction of poetry is the poet's greatest difficulty. It is a misfortune attending the progress of art. It is our opulence that produces this poverty; for we may say with the ancient Romans, alluding to their numerous conquests, we perish, because of our abundance.

0.

For the Literary Magazine. ON HABITUATING OURSELVES TO

AN INDIVIDUAL PURSUIT.

TWO things in human life are at continual variance; and if we can.

not escape from the one, we must lose the other; disatisfaction and pleasure. Dissatisfaction, or ennui, is an afflicting sensation, if we may thus express it, from a want of sensation; and pleasure is more pleasure ac cording to the quantity of sensation. Let us invent a scheme, by which at once we repel ennui, and acquire and augment pleasure. Sensation is received according to the capacity of our organs; our organs may be almost incredibly improved by practice; as in the cases of the blind, who have a finer tact, and the jeweller, who has a finer sight, than other men, who are not so much interested in refining their vision and their touch. Intense devotion to ar object must, therefore, present means of deriving more numerous and keener pleasures from that object.

Hence the poet, long employed on a poem, has received a quantity of pleasure, which no reader can ever feel; and hence one reader receives a quantity of pleasure unfelt by another. In the progress of any pursuit, there are a hundred delicious sensations, which are too intellectual to be embodied by language. Every artist knows what uncommon combinations his meditations produce; and though some, too imperfect, or too subtile, resist his powers of displaying them to others, yet between the thought that first gave rise to his design, and each one which appears in it, there are innumerable intermediate sensations, which no man felt but himself. These pleasures are in number according to the intenseness of his faculties, and the quantity of his labour.

Though this remark alludes to works of art, I would not confine it to these pursuits; for any employ ment, from the manufacturing of pins, to the construction of philosophical systems, appears susceptible of similar pleasures. We shall see that every individual can exert that quantity of mind necessary to his wants, and adapted to his situation; and that the quality of pleasure is nothing in the present question. For I think that we are mistaken con

cerning the gradations of human felicity. It at first appears, that an astronomer, rapt in abstraction, while he gazes on a star, must feel more exquisite delight than a farmer who is conducting his team; or a poet must experience a higher gratification in modulating verses, than a trader in arranging sums. But, in truth, the happiness of the ploughman and the trader may be as satisfactory as that of the astronomer and the poet. Our mind can only be conversant with those sensations which surround us, and possessing the skill of managing them, we can form an artificial felicity; it is certain, that what the soul does not feel, no more affects it, than what the eye does not see. It is thus that the mean trader, habituated to low pursuits, can never be unhappy because he is not the general of an army; for this idea of felicity he has never harboured. The philosopher, who gives his entire years to mental pursuits, is never unhappy because he is not in possession of an Indian opulence, for the idea of accumulating this exotic splendour has never entered the range of his desires. Nature, an impartial mother, renders felicity as perfect in the school-boy who lashes his top, as in the astronomer who regulates his star. The thing contained can only be equal to the container; a full glass is as full as a full bottle; and a human soul may be as much satisfied, in the lowest of human beings, as in the highest.

In this devotion to a particular object, what philosophers call the ASSOCIATING IDEA exists in all its activity and energy; and it may be rendered productive of the sensations we desire; for, when attached to one pursuit, this idea will generally point and conduct our thoughts to it. The associating power is a sovereign seated on his throne, while all our other ideas bend towards and obey its mandates. Hence the persons who experience their completest happiness are, a student in the midst of his books; an artist among his productions; a farmer amid his lands; a merchant

in his trade; a horseman in his menagerie; a captain in his ship, &c. These are all persons who respectively enjoy more real felicity at those hours than in any other portion of their lives.

Many peculiar advantages attend the cultivation of one master passion, or occupation. In superior minds it is a sovereign that exiles others, and in inferior minds it enfeebles pernicious propensities. It may render us useful to our fellow citizens, and, what is of great consequence, it imparts the most perfect independence to the individual. The more also the sovereign passion is directed to intellectual gratifications, the more exalted and perfect is its independence. It is observed, by a great mathematician, that a geometrician would not be unhappy in a desert.

We might therefore recommend the same unity in life, which gives such a value when found in a picture or a poem. This unity of design, with a centripetal force, draws together all the rays of our existence, and the more forcibly it draws, the more perfect is human felicity. But if, regardless of this, we yield ourselves to a distracting variety of opposite pursuits with an equal passion, our soul is placed amid a continual shock of ideas, and happiness is lost by mistakes. How often, when accident has turned the mind firmly to one object, does it discover that its occupation is another name for happiness; for this occupation is a means of escaping from incongruous sensations. It secures us from the dreadful and dark vacuity of soul, as well as from the terrible whirlwind of ideas; reason itself is passion, but passion full of serenity.

It is observable of those, who have devoted themselves to an individual object, that its importance is incredible enlarged to their view. Close attention magnifies like a microscope; but we may apologize for their seeming extravagance, by observing that they really perceive excellences not discovered by others. I confess this passion has been