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appear to me to exhibit models of this species of style. From the latter of these authors I shall endeavour to select an apposite passage.

We sympathize even with the dead, and overlooking what is of real importance in their situation, that awful futurity which awaits them, we are chiefly affected by those circumstances which strike our senses, but can have no influence upon their happiness. It is miserable, we think, to be deprived of the light of the sun; to be shut out from life and conversation; to be laid in the cold grave a prey to corruption and the reptiles of the earth; to be no more thought of in this world, but to be obliterated in a little time from the affections and almost from the memory of their dearest friends and relations. Surely, we imagine, we can never feel too much for those who have suffered so dreadful a calamity. The tribute of our fellow-feelings seems doubly due to them now when they are in danger of being forgot by every body; and by the vain honours which we pay to their memory, we endeavour, for our own misery, artificially to keep alive our melancholy remembrance of their misfortune. That our sympathy can afford them no consolation, seems to be an addition to their calamity; and to think that all we can do is unavailing, and that what alleviates all other distress, the regret, the love, and the lamentations of their friends, can yield no comfort to them, serves only to exasperate our sense of their misery. The happiness of the dead, however, most assuredly is affected by none of these circumstances; nor is it the thought of these things which can ever disturb the profound security of their repose. The idea of that dreary and endless melancholy which the fancy naturally ascribes to their condition, arises altogether from our joining to the change which has been produced upon them, our own consciousness of that change, from our putting ourselves in their situation, and from our lodging, if I may be allowed to say so, our own living souls in their inanimated bodies, and thence conceiving what would be our emotions in this case. It is from this very illusion of the imagination, that the foresight of our own dissolution is so terrible to us, and that the idea of those circumstances, which undoubtedly can give us no pain when we are dead, makes us miserable while we are alive. -Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments.

THE GRACEFUL STYLE.

NOTWITHSTANDING the powerful effect which graceful composition produces upon the mind, it is difficult to reduce grace to a definition. Where language does not supply us with proper words to express the ideas of the mind, we can only convey our sentiments in figurative terms; a defect which necessarily introduces some obscurity.

Grace in writing may be compared to that easy air which so remarkably distinguishes well-bred persons.* It consists not only in the particular beauty of single parts, but in the general symmetry and construction of the whole. An author may be just in his sentiments, lively in his figures, and clear in his expression, yet at the same time may be wholly a stranger to graceful composition. The several members of a discourse must be so agreeably united as mutually to reflect beauty upon each other: their arrangement must be so happily disposed as not to admit of the least interposition without manifest prejudice to the entire piece. The thoughts, the metaphors, the allusions, and the diction, should appear easy and natural, and seem to arise like so many spontaneous productions, rather than as the effects of labour or art. Whatever therefore is forced or affected in the sentiments, whatever pompous or pedantic in the expression, is the very reverse of grace.

*"Do not take me for a disciple of Lord Chesterfield, nor imagine that I mean to erect grace into a capital ingredient of writing-but I do believe that it is a perfume that will preserve from putrefaction; and is distinct even from style, which regards expression; grace I think belongs to manner. It is from the charm of grace that I believe some authors not in your favour, obtained part of their renown."-Walpoliana, vol. i. p. 48.

Her mien is neither that of a prude, nor that of a coquette; she is regular without formality, and sprightly without being fantastical. Grace is to good writing, what a proper light is to a fine picture; it not only shows all the figures in their several proportions and relations, but shows them in the most advantageous manner. As good-breeding appears in the most minute actions, and improves the most inconsiderable gesture, so grace is discovered in the placing even of a single word, or in the turn of a mere expletive. Nor is this inexpressible quality confined to one species of composition; it extends from the humble pastoral to the lofty epic, from the slightest letter to the most solemn discourse.

It is generally considered that Sir William Temple was the first writer who introduced a graceful manner into English prose ;* but I am rather inclined to assign this honour to Cowley. The general merit of this author's essays has been acknowledged by Johnsont and Goldsmith; but they have never been referred to as instances of graceful composition. They however seem entitled to this mark of distinction. His sentiments are natural, and his diction is simple and unaffected: nothing appears far-fetched, or artificially constructed; and our ears are seldom or never assailed with pompous and pedantic expressions.

But wherever we may look for the origin of this quality, it is certainly to be found in its highest perfection in the compositions of Addison, an author whose writings will be distinguished as long as good taste and good sense find any admirers. That becoming air which Cicero esteems the criterion of fine writing, and which every reader, he says, imagines so easy to be imitated, yet will find so difficult to attain, is the prevailing characteristic of all this excellent author's performances. We may justly apply to him what Plato, in his allegorical language, says of Aristophanes: the Graces, having searched all the world round for a temple in

* Melmoth's Letters of Fitzosborne. + Johnson's Lives of English Poets + Goldsmith's Essays and Criticisms.

which they might for ever dwell, settled at last in the breast of Addison.

His style is thus characterized by Dr. Johnson. "His prose is the model of the middle style; on grave subjects not formal, on light occasions not grovelling; pure without scrupulosity, and exact without apparent elaboration; always equable, and always easy, without glowing words or pointed sentences. Addison never deviates from his track to snatch a grace; he seeks no ambitious ornaments, and tries no hazardous innovations. His page is always luminous, but never blazes in unexpected splendour.

"It was apparently his principal endeavour to avoid all harshness and severity of diction: he is therefore sometimes verbose in his transitions and connexions, and sometimes descends too much to the language of conversation; yet if his language had been less idiomatical, it might have lost somewhat of its genuine Anglicism. What he attempted he performed; he is never feeble, and he did not wish to be energetic; he is never rapid, and he never stagnates. His sentences have neither studied amplitude, nor affected brevity: his periods, though not diligently rounded, are voluble and easy."+

Dryden, Pope, and Atterbury, are generally reckoned among the number of graceful writers; and to these we may safely add the names of Berkeley and Hume. reference to Berkeley, Sir James Mackintosh has made the following remarks: "Of the exquisite grace and beauty of his diction, no man accustomed to English composition can need to be informed. His works are, beyond dispute, the finest models of philosophical style since Cicero. Perhaps they surpass those of the orator, in the wonderful art by which the fullest light is thrown on the most minute and evanescent parts of the most subtile of human conceptions. Perhaps he also sur

*This appears to be a truism. The remark, when duly analyzed, seems to amount to this:-if his language had been less idiomatical, it would have been less idiomatical. + Johnson's Lives of English Poets.

passed Cicero in the charm of simplicity; a quality eminently found in Irish writers before the end of the eighteenth century; conspicuous in the masculine severity of Swift, in the Platonic fancy of Berkeley, in the native tenderness and elegance of Goldsmith, and not witholding its attractions from Hutcheson and Leland, writers of classical taste, though of inferior powers."* As a polished writer, Hume appears to great advantage in some of his essays; and his History of England, whatever may be thought of its matter or spirit, is written with consummate art. His style is often possessed of uncommon grace and suavity. It must, however, be acknowledged, that he sometimes adopts French idioms; a fault which was undoubtedly owing to his long residence on the continent.

Of a light and graceful style we discover many examples in the writings of Horace Walpole. It is very rare to find so much talent united to so much frivolity. His epistolary composition exhibits a peculiar air of ease and pleasantry; and if we could divest ourselves of the idea that we are reading the effusions of a heartless coxcomb, his letters might be read with a high degree of pleasure.

* Mackintosh's Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy.

+ Dr. Aikin, speaking of the style of philosophical writings, makes the following observations. "Great precision in the use of words, clear arrangement of all the members of a sentence, closeness of method, strength and conciseness of expression, without harshness or obscurity, are essential to perfection in this department of writing; and if somewhat of the grace and amenity of language be added, which is not incompatible with the other requisites, the effect of conviction may be promoted, by leading on the reader pleasantly through a topic perhaps naturally dry and unalluring. I conceive Cicero and Hume to be examples of this union of every useful and agreeable quality in discussions purely philosophical. (Letters to his Son, vol. ii. p. 59.)

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