No. 62. The praise of Bouhours by Addison. and Chesterfield will never rescue him from the contempt of every man who hath read or thought much. Good ftomachs cannot be fatisfied with fyllabubs. The critique on Gothic architecture fhews the pitiful gout de comparaifon. Addison did not know that every Art admits of infinite modes of beauty; and that to confine it to one of these modes is the reverfe of an attempt to enlarge human knowlege and enjoyment. No. 160. This effay on Genius cannot be read without laughter, and a certain affurance that the author knew not what it was. No. 267. What critic ever heard of an heroic poem? Why examine a poem upon principles utterly inanalagous to it? I REMEMBER not that Ariftotle allows that Homer's fable wants unity. If he doth, he is a poor critic; if he doth not, Addison is a poorer. THE perpetual quotations of Ariftotle give difguft. Why doth he never quote Nature? No. 273. A Greek's regard for Achilles muft have been very fmall; like the regard of a Spaniard for a Portuguese, No. 285. That the names of figures of fpeech were invented to palliate defects of fpeech, is perhaps the only new critical remark Addison hath eyer made; and it is unhappily quite void of foundation. Mr. Addifon forgot that grammar was invented for fpeech, not fpeech for grammar. No, 297. There is no occafion in Nature for an epic poem always ending happily. If fuch a rule exifted in the foolish axioms of criticism, Milton knew to despise it. Addifon fhould have drawn new rules from Milton, and not have pretended to judge him by foreign laws, as he doth all along. No. 315. The criticism on the Third Book of Paradife Loft is not fufficiently fevere. It is all beneath the middling from beginning to end. No. 321. The device of Uriel's defcent on a funbeam is almost praised in Milton: in Taffo it would have been tinfel. Taffo hath nothing fo fo tinfical: but thus it is when critics are ruled by prejudice and not by investigation, No. 339. The golden compasses ought to have been reprobated. All metaphors applied from Art to Nature are the very reverse of fublime. No. 305. The first original of the drama was a religious worship confifting only of a 'Chorus, which was nothing else, but an hymn to a deity.' There are rather more errors in this fentence than words, as I believe you will judge from former Letters. The deity was Bacchus, yet we are told in the next fentence of innocence and religion. Was Mr. Addifon fo very entire a stranger to Greek science as not to know that the worship of Bacchus was utterly inconsistent with innocence and religion? No. 412. We are now arrived at the greatest critical effort of Addison; that on the pleasures of imagination. One of the three causes which he lays down as productive of these pleasures is of no foundation. Novelty never pleases, except when accompanied with the other caufes Grandeur or Beauty. The firft fight of an ugly object only makes it more difgufting than when ufc 2 ufe hath in fome meafure reconciled us to it. Dr. Akenfide, you will obferve from a communication I made to you some time ago, had ftruck it out of his Poem, very justly, upon more mature confideration. Ir is not novelty, but beauty, that makes natural objects more pleafing in the fpring. Befide, they are new to no man. Mr. Addifon furely did not mean his criticisms for those who had never seen the beauties of Spring before. No. 413. Mr. Addison is the firft writer who difcovered that final caufes lie bare to our obfervation. Bacon would have faid that final causes are utterly unknown to man. Such is the difference between deep and fuperficial science. Ignorance is always rafh. Knowlege doubts and trembles. No. 415. For every thing that is majestic imprints an awfulness and reverence on the • mind of the beholder, and strikes in with the • natural greatness of the foul.' Braviffimo! Cheese is cheese! This is a lively inftance of what they call criticism. I QUES I QUESTION if it was Phidias who propofed to cut Mount Athos into a ftatue of Alexander. But I beg pardon for fuch a remark, for nothing is more pardonable than a flip of this kind. Indeed they who remember names and dates feldom remember any thing else. No. 420. Mr. Addifon tells us of the most agreeable talents of an hiftorian; and seems to think they confift in entertaining his reader. If fo, fabulous hiftorians are beft. The most agreeable talent of an hiftorian is to inftruct. This is done by difcuffion of human actions, and of the characters who were their agents. SUCH are the brief remarks which at present occur to me upon the critical errors of Addifon. Volumes might have been written to refute feveral of them; but I know that to you they need only be hinted. Befides I was quite impatient to get rid of this ungrateful task; .for Addison is one of my most favorite writers, and nothing but my facred love of critical equity could have been an inducement to its execution. THE |