perspicuous style; and the gaudy and studied fancies which abound in most of the prose writings of Pope, sparkle only on the surface of the same sweet natural diction. But it was most happily suited to the simple genius of Addison. Indeed he recommended it no less by the critical precepts, than by the example of his periodical writings; and to these, more than to any other cause, must be referred the introduction of a polite taste in English composition, at the commencement of the last century.

Still much remained to be done, to a perfect organization even of this pure style of composition, which was often loose, feeble, and ungrammatical. The successive labor of many fine writers gradually supplied these defects, and made it both vigorous and correct; and before the appearance of the Rambler in 1750, it had been carried to a point which it cannot hope to surpass in the gracefulness of Melmoth, and the Attic simplicity of Hume.

The publication of the Rambler forms an important era in the history of English style. Johnson would have been fitted by his giant strength to have grappled with all the obstacles that impeded the first adventurers in our language. He was therefore well fitted for the mighty task which he assumed in a riper period of that language of reclaiming the ἔπεα πτερόεντα, those fleeting beauties which had already escaped in the lapse of years, and of preventing their future progress to oblivion, by chaining them down to a permanent standard of accurate definition. His researches as a lexicographer no doubt much contributed to the elaborate pomp of his diction, by storing it with all the obsolete terms of a copious vocabulary. But he was still farther led to it by the natural complexion of his mind. He wanted a language that would afford scope for the free play of a grand and vigorous intellect; he would have broken through the fine and delicate texture of the style of Addison. He accordingly preferred the sententiousness of a Latin idiom; he was a great admirer of Browne*, who, as we before remarked, was more distinguished than any of the elder writers for antiquated, latinized phraseology; Johnson would, in all probability, therefore, have attempted to reintroduce the old fashioned dialect, but happily the taste of the age was too far advanced to admit of it, and he substituted a measured antithetical construction of sentence, which although in the highest degree artificial, was both more elegant

Vide Murphy.

and more conformable to the idiom of his native tongue, than the awkward inversions of the old school. He still farther invigorated his language with a great number of Latin derivatives, and technical terms of science. By these expedients he built up a grand and imposing style, well fitted for the exhibition of brilliant fancy and powerful thought, but very ill adapted to the common purposes and every day business of life.

These two peculiar manners of Addison and of Johnson may be looked upon as the extreme and opposite points in English composition, which no writer can go beyond without feebleness on the one hand, or bombast on the other. Indeed these are the faults to which their respective styles have a natural tendency; where extraordinary efforts are demanded, the former manner seems tame and cold, while in the familiar topics of common life, the latter has a truly ridiculous air of ostentatious formality. Many examples of these failures may be found both in the Spectator and the Rambler, and still more in the productions of their countless imitators.

The Rambler was not in great demand at the time of its publication; but it made a permanent impression on the character of English style, and by presenting a captivating model of vigorous composition, has done much to preserve the energies of the language, from being frittered away under the servile and humble followers of Addison. New beauties constantly developed themselves under these mutual influences; and as philological criticism soon advanced the grammar of the tongue to a high degree of accuracy, we may look upon the last half of the last century, a period embellished by the pens of Hume, Johnson, Hawkesworth, Goldsmith, Burke, Robertson, Gibbon, Junius, and M'Kenzie, as the Augustan age of English fine writing; (our remarks will be understood as applying to language, and not to literature;) a period in which precision, perspicuity, copiousness, grace and vigor, in short whatever constitutes the perfection of style, were carried to a height which has not since been surpassed, and seldom been equalled.

English composition, then, may be said to have reached its meridian during the last half of the eighteenth century; what its tendencies have since been, and what they are now, forms an interesting subject of inquiry; and we trust our readers will pardon us, if we make a few general reflections

upon it, although we fear we have already trespassed upon their patience, by the length of our remarks on the influence of periodical writings.

Language, no less than literature, has a constant tendency to change; what is capable of being made more perfect, is also capable of becoming less so, and with this principle of revolution within it, having once reached its acme of perfection, its next tendency must obviously be to decay. Both reflection and the experience of past ages will suggest to us several causes perpetually acting to produce such a revolution, and will enable us to determine with some degree of accuracy, its probable symptoms. The art of printing, a cause unknown to the ancients, is extremely unfavorable to the general preservation of a pure standard of composition, since by the increased relish, and consequently the increased demand for books, which it creates, it induces the ignorant to write, and the learned to write rapidly, and of course negligently. Thus the language becomes debased alike in the hands of dunces, and of men of genius; and we think we may see examples of this, every day of our lives.

Another cause of depreciation is the tendency to abstract speculation, which seems to prevail most in the advanced age of a nation. Philosophy shines brightest in the last page of Grecian literature: it cheered the decline of the Roman; and in Great Britain, the fondness for metaphysical science seems to have grown with the growth of the people, and, so far from being confined to prose, at the present day enters deeply into the very spirit of her poetry. Now the influence of all this upon language is decidedly bad, inasmuch as it tends to substitute the complex abstract phraseology of science, for the simple intelligible dialect, which naturally grows out of the habit among the earliest writers of directing their attention to the visible objects of external nature.

A third source of this adulteration (paradoxical as it may appear) is the tendency to excessive refinement. Language in time gets to be cultivated as a luxury; sound is preferred to sense; and even good writers, infected with the same effeminacy, grow dissatisfied with the simple familiar forms of antiquity, and superadd the embellishments of their own more luxurious taste.

A fourth and a last cause, and which is most operative on feeble minds, is that indiscriminate passion for notoriety, which New Series. No. 10.

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prompts them, in the despair of obtaining it by surpassing their predecessors in the right way, to deviate into all sorts of affectation and conceit.

With these causes at work to undermine the purity of a language, it requires the utmost vigilance to preserve it long in a healthful and vigorous state. The symptoms above enumerated indicated the corruption of the Latin tongue; and perhaps a curious observer might fancy, that he already discerned something like these symptoms of degeneracy in the style of the popular English compositions of the present day. A few examples must suffice to explain our meaning.

A favorite manner with some, even of the best writers of our time, is that ornamented and highly artificial style, which is well illustrated by the philosophical writings of Stewart. No model of fine writing enjoys greater celebrity. Now we cannot but think, that for the severe subjects upon which it is employed, this manner is the very worst possible, and every way inferior to the chaste and simple diction of his learned predecessor, Dr Reid; indeed, whatever may be the subject, we think such a fastidious selection of melodious epithets, such a copious expansion both of imagery and illustration, inconsistent with directness, manly vigor, or simplicity of thought.

Although this effeminate taste has prevailed to excess of late years, among the Scottish writers more particularly, yet we think it is not so prevalent, nor half so pernicious, as that mystical, fine spun, indefinite phraseology, whose object seems to be, rather to conceal thought, than to express it. Coleridge's Auto-Biography, Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk, (both of which have gone into American editions,) are two examples among others that occur of this popular species of writing. It seems to have been borrowed from the very worst manner of the German mystics. Writers of this class never talk directly to the purpose. They explain to you what a thing is, by enumerating all that it is not, and, in the management of their ideas, remind us of the manner in which our Indians are said to have treated their captives, setting them up as marks for their arrows, not to hit, but to come as near to them as possible without hitting. They have also great proneness to abstract speculation, to which their mystical dialect is admirably fitted; and should the reader escape from this double darkness, without being utterly confounded, he will carry off such cloudy indistinct notions of things, as will be of very little service to him in his intercourse with the world.

A third, perhaps the most numerous, and certainly the most contemptible class of writers, consists of those, who, from corrupt taste, or a greedy appetite for notoriety, wander from the plain and beaten track into all kinds of affectation. The most current of these affectations is an uncommon familiarity, even homeliness of manner, and a forced, foolish sensibility, which claims to be extreme naturalness. All this is very pitiable, and, if widely cultivated, would in a short time melt down the very marrow of our language into the insipid prattle of a nursery dialect. The best sample in this way is found in the productions of a body, who (as we have somewhere remarked in a previous number) have obtained a niche for themselves in the temple of contemporary fame, as the Cockney school; and who, first in poetry and afterwards in prose, established their claim to this title, no less by the smart city air of their sentiments, than by the seat of their peculiar jurisdiction. We regret that the influence of these writers should not have been circumscribed by their own Cockney land; and still more deeply, that they should have found some men of unquestionable genius on this side of the Atlantic, who have condescended to adopt their puerile affectations.

From what we have said, we would not have it understood as our opinion, that English style has suffered any material or general debasement, or that it is in any immediate danger; on the contrary, when we consider the unprecedented fertility of the press of late years, we are astonished at its purity, and we could select many fine writers of the present day, whose chaste and eloquent diction would adorn the most flourishing period of the English language, no less than of its literature. But we do think, that we should always be solicitous for the preservation of beauties so delicate and perishable in their nature, as forms of expression, and that we should not only expose, and guard against corruption, but against the least tendency to corruption. We are the more solicitous, from the peculiar relation in which we stand to England, in this respect, a new people with an old language. Our own streams are fed from the more copious fountains of her literature; and if these are in the least degree contaminated, how shall ours escape the pollution?

The style hitherto predominating in the compositions of men of education in our own country, has been for the most part that plain, unvarnished style, better fitted to give information