viewing our work with a cool and critical eye, as if it were the performance of another, we shall discover many imperfections which at first escaped us.

Thirdly, acquaintance with the style of the best authors is peculiarly requisite. Hence a just taste will be formed, and a copious fund of words supplied on every subject. No exercise perhaps will be found more useful for acquiring a proper style, than translating some passage from an eminent author into our own words. Thus to take, for instance, a page of one of Addison's Spectators, and read it attentively two or three times, till we are in full possession of the thoughts it contains; then to lay aside the book; to endeavour to write out the passage from memory as well as we can; and then to compare what we have written with the style of the author. Such an exercise will shew us our defects; will teach us to correct them; and from the variety of expression which it will exhibit, will conduct us to that which is most beautiful."

Fourthly, caution must be used against servile imitation of any author whatever. Desire of imitating hampers genius, and generally produces stiffness of expression. They who follow an author closely, commonly copy his faults as well as his beauties. No one will ever become a good writer or speaker, who has not some confidence in his own genius. We ought carefully to avoid using any author's peculiar phrases, and of transcribing passages from him. Such a habit will be fatal to all genuine composition. It is much better to have something of our own, though of moderate beauty, than to shine in borrowed ornaments, which will at last betray the poverty of our genius.

Fifthly, always adapt your style to the subject, and likewise to the capacity of your hearers, if you are to speak in public. To attempt a poetical style, when it should be our business only to reason, is in the highest degree awkward and absurd. To speak with elaborate pomp of words before those who cannot comprehend them, is equally ridiculous. When we are to write or speak, we should previously fix in our minds a clear

idea of the end aimed at; keep this steadily in view, and adapt our style to it.

Lastly, let not attention to style engross us so much as to prevent a higher degree of attention to the thoughts. This rule is more necessary, since the present taste of the age is directed more to style than to thought. It is much more easy to dress up trifling and common thoughts with some beauty of expression, than to afford a fund of vigorous, ingenious, and useful sentiments. The latter requires genius; the former may be attained by industry. Hence the crowd of writers who are rich in style, but poor in sentiment. Custom obliges us to be attentive to the ornaments of style, if we wish our labours to be read and admired. But he is a contemptible writer, who looks not beyond the dress of language; who lays not the chief stress upon his matter, and employs not such ornaments of style to recommend it, as are manly, not foppish.

CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF MR. ADDISON'S STYLE IN NO. 411 OF THE SPECTATOR.

HAVING fully insisted on the subject of language, we shall now commence a critical analysis of the style of some good author. This will suggest observations which we have not hitherto had occasion to make, and will show in a practical light the use of those which have been made.

Mr. Addison, though one of the most beautiful writers in our language, is not the most correct a circumstance which makes his composition a proper subject of criticism. We proceed therefore to examine No. 411, the first of his celebrated essays on the pleasures of the imagination, in the sixth volume of the Spectator. It begins thus:

"Our sight is the most perfect and most delightful of all our senses."

This sentence is clear, precise, and simple. The

author in a few plain words lays down the proposition which he is going to illustrate. A first sentence should seldom be long, and never intricate.

He might have said, our sight is the most perfect and the most delightful. But in omitting to repeat the article the, he has been more judicious; for, as between perfect and delightful there is no contrast, such a repetition is unnecessary. He proceeds:

"It fills the mind with the largest variety of ideas, converses with its objects at the greatest distance, and continues the longest in action, without being tired or satiated with its proper enjoyments."

This sentence is remarkably harmonious, and well constructed. It is entirely perspicuous. It is loaded with no unnecessary words. That quality of a good sentence, which we termed its unity, is here perfectly preserved. The members of it also grow, and rise above each other in sound, till it is conducted to one of the most harmonious closes which our language admits. It is moreover figurative without being too much so for the subject. There is no fault in it whatever, except this, the epithet large, which he applies to variety, is more commonly applied to extent than to number. It is plain, however, that he employed it to avoid the repetition of the word great, which occurs immediately afterward.

"The sense of feeling can, indeed, give us a notion of extension, shape, and all other ideas that enter at the eye, except colours; but at the same time, it is very much straitened and confined in its operations to the number, bulk and distance of its particular objects." But is not every sense confined as much as the sense of feeling, to the number, bulk and distance of its own objects? The turn of expression is also very inaccurate, requiring the two words with regard to be inserted after the word operations, in order to make the sense clear and intelligible. The epithet particular seems to be used instead of peculiar ; but these words, though often confounded, are of a very different import. Particular is opposed to general; peculiar stands opposed to what is possessed in common with others.

"Our sight seems designed to supply all these de. fects, and may be considered as a more delicate and diffusive kind of touch that spreads itself over an infi. nite multitude of bodies, comprehends the largest figures, and brings into our reach some of the most remote parts of the universe."

This sentence is perspicuous, graceful, well arranged, and highly musical. Its construction is so similar to that of the second sentence, that, had it immediately succeeded it, the ear would have been sensible of a faulty monotony. But the interposition of a period prevents this effect.

"It is this sense which furnishes the imagination with its ideas; so that by the pleasures of the imagi nation or fancy (which I shall use promiscuously) I here mean such as arise from visible objects, either when we have them actually in our view, or when we call up their ideas into our minds by paintings, statues, descriptions, or any the like occasion."

The parenthesis in the middle of this sentence is not clear. It should have been terms which I shall use promiscuously; since the verb use does not relate to the pleasures of the imagination, but to the terms fancy and imagination, which were meant to be synony mous. To call a painting or a statue an occasion is not accurate; nor is it very proper to speak of calling up ideas by occasions. The common phrase, any such means, would have been more natural.

"We cannot indeed have a single image in the fancy, that did not make its first entrance through the sight; but we have the power of retaining, altering, and compounding those images which we have once received, into all the varieties of picture and vision that are most agreeable to the imagination; for by this faculty, a man in a dungeon is capable of entertaining himself with scenes and landscapes more beautiful than any that can be found in the whole compass of nature.'

In one member of this sentence there is an inaccuracy in syntax. It is proper to say, altering and compounding those images which we have once received, into all the varieties of picture and vision. `But we cannot

with propriety say retaining them into all the varieties ; yet the arrangement requires this construction. This error might have been avoided by arranging the passage in the following manner: We have the power of retaining those images which we have once received; and of altering and compounding them into all the varieties of picture and vision. The latter part of the sentence is clear and elegant.

"There are few words in the English language, which are employed in a more loose and uncircumscribed sense than those of the fancy and the imagination."

Except when some assertion of consequence is advanced, these little words, it is and there are, ought to be avoided, as redundant and enfeebling. The two

first words of this sentence therefore should have been omitted. The article prefixed to fancy and imagination ought also to have been omitted, since he does not mean the powers of the fancy and imagination, but the words only, the sentence should have run thus: Few words in the English language are employed in a more loose and uncircumscribed sense than fancy and imagination.

"I therefore thought it necessary to fix and determine the notion of these two words, as I intend to make use of them in the thread of my following speculations, that the reader may conceive rightly what is the subject which I proceed upon."

The words fix and determine, though they may appear so, are not synonymous. We fix what is loose; we determine what is uncircumscribed. They may be viewed, therefore, as applied here with peculiar delicacy.

The notion of these words is rather harsh, and is not so commonly used as the meaning of these words. As I intend to make use of them in the thread of my speculations is evidently faulty. A sort of metaphor is improperly mixed with words in their literal sense. The subject which I proceed upon, is an ungraceful close of a sentence; it should have been the subject upon which I proceed.

I must therefore desire him to remember, that by