beauty, their grandeur, or other like ideas, delight and wonder are their neceffary attendants; and that fuch forcible impreffions are inftantly and inftinctively communicated to the voice and language. So that the language of man in a folitary state, before it was directed to inform and persuade his fellow-creatures, must have been in fome degree vehement and animated, the effufions of a mind not in the torpid state of indifference, but moved and agitated by all the objects which furrounded him, and oftentimes eager to exprefs its affections.

The exercise and improvement of reafon, whatever effect it may have in regulating and directing the paffions, neither feeks nor tends to fupprefs them. Every acceffion of knowlege is in itself pleasing and affecting. Even mathematical truths are not received with cold indifference; when confidered as purely fpeculative, without any attention to their use or application, we are delighted with them; nay fometimes even transported by what metaphyfical critics call the beauty of theorem,

And if truths merely fpeculative have fuch an effect upon the mind, much less can those be received with lifeless indifference, which have an obvious connection with our intereft and happinefs. Informations of this kind, whether from fenfe or reafon, are ever attended with joy, pleasure, fear, hope, defire, or averfon; and these are paffions which cannot be fuppreffed; they agitate our whole frame, and break out involuntarily in our looks, our voice, and language.

That intercourse with mankind, in which we are engaged, the Doctor further obferves, calls forth another tribe of paffions and affections, as anger, indignation, benevolence, fympathy, and all those numerous emotions which are excited by the appearance of amiable or odious qualities in our fellow-creatures, by the occupations, interefts, and contests of focial life. We know from general and uniform experience, nay we feel that thefe naturally and unavoidably produce an elevation or vehemence of speech, or a tender and melancholy flow of words, or a diforder and abruptnefs of difcourfe, lively images and fimilitudes, glowing expreffions, or fome other of thofe modes which rhetoricians call tropical and figurative.-Metaphor, fimilitude, and allegory, though fome of them are ranked, by teachers of rhetoric, among the tropes of mere ornament, have yet been ever used most frequently, and with greatest freedom, by those whose understandings, manners, and languages are too rude and unrefined for ornament or artifice,

The Doctor concludes this chapter in the following manner? If then, fays he, paffions and affections are naturally excited

in the human breaft, and have the principal influence on human actions; if they have their peculiar modes of fpeech, not invented for the purpose of pleafing, but arifing from neceffity, -and of neceffity holding a diftinguished place in every language; above all, if we are to conclude with the acute and philofophical Bishop of Cloyne, that "the communication of ideas is not the chief or only end of language, but that there are other ends, as the raifing fome paffion, the exciting to, or deterring from an action, the putting the mind into fome particular difpofition, to which the former is in many cafes barely fubfervient, and fometimes entirely omitted."-It follows, that fuch modes of address as anfwer thefe latter, and (according to this author) the chief ends of language, that is, fuch modes as are generally called eloquent, cannot be deemed the artificial abuse of words, but are really congenial and effential to human speech.'

Our Author, in his fecond, third, and fourth chapters, extends this enquiry ftill farther, and examines thofe forms of figurative language, which rhetoricians point out as inftances of moft exquifite address and refinement in the orator. A little attention, he fays, will convince us, that thefe, as they were not originally the inventions of artifice, but naturally and neceffarily arofe, in the natural and neceffary progrefs of human fpeech, fo they owe the principal part of their beauty, and their whole power of affecting, to their being conceived as the obvious, unftudied refult of a mind labouring with violent emotions, and earnest to convey the whole force of its conceptions.

There is no one fpecies of figurative ftyle, he obferves, which we do not find in the paffionate speeches and foliloquies of Dido; the lively interrogation, the bitter irony, the paffionate exclamation, apostrophe, prosopopæia; in a word, all the powers and all the ornaments of eloquence. The leaft feeling muft determine us to pronounce them highly pleafing and affecting, and to admire the wonderful addrefs of the poet. But why are thefe fpeeches pleasing and affecting? Because they are exactly natural; they are what we call the language of the heart. Their form and manner are the fame in which fuch paffions are ever expreffed by all nations and languages in real life. And why do we admire the Poet? Becaufe his obfervation hath been juft, and his imitation not only lively but accurate. He hath defcribed the real motions of the human heart, and expreffed them in their real and proper language. It is juft it is natural.— This is the praife given to the Poet; and this is the teft by which we try his performance."

So general is the conviction of mankind, we are told, as to the real and natural fignification of tender and impaffioned, ve

hement

bement and animated forms of elocution, that they are confidered as marks of fincerity; and every thing cold and unaffecting in words and action, where the fubject is of an interefting nature, is fometimes urged as a proof of hypocrify and falfhood. The first thing we look for in any person who profeffes to be affected, is the figns of paffion, which nature herself hath impreffed in the countenance and voice, the glaring look of anger, the stern brow of indignation, the

Windy fufpiration of forc'd breath,

--The fruitful river in the eye,

Together with all forms, moods, fhews of grief. Shak. Although they are actions which, as the poet obferves, a man might play, or counterfeit, like all the other marks of truth.

In the fifth chapter our author takes notice of that very fevere cenfure, which the Bishop of Gloucefter has paffed on tropes and figures of compofition. As thefe, fays his Lordhip, (Doct. of Grace, B. 1. 1. 9. p. 58.) are a deviation from the principles of metaphyfics and logic, they are frequently vicious.'

It were to be wifhed, our author juftly obferves, that his Lordship had pleafed to exprefs his fentiment with a little more precifion; that we might have clearly and diftinctly been informed, when, and whom, to condemn or to acquit as all men, who have ever written or spoken, have frequently used this mode of elocution, which is faid to be frequently vicious. The heathen poet speaks of a river fpurning with indignation" at a bridge-pontem indignatus Araxes, Æneid. 1. 8. 1. 728; the Evangelift fpeaks of a fhip not being able to look a storm in the face, ΑΝΤΟΦΘΑΛΜΕΙΝ τῳ ανέμω. Με. 27. 15. - Act. The deviation from metaphyfical principles is equal in both. In the poet we may allow it to be vicious; but we must be more cautious in deciding on the character either of the Evangelift, or his ftyle. In a pofition, therefore, fo bold, and in its application fomewhat dangerous, bounds and diftinctions fhould have been ascertained with exactnefs.

If by the deviation from the principles of metaphyfics, which is charged on figurative compofitiön, be meant the joining of attributes and fubjects ftrictly and naturally incongruous, the reprefenting things inanimate as living and acting, and fuch like, it might deferve the attention of the most rigid philofopher; pur author fays, that in all fuch cases,

-More is meant than meets the ear.

Milt.

And that the fobereft good fenfe, and even a philosophical ac

curacy

curacy of thought, may be conveyed by the livelieft figures. Of this he gives fome very pertinent inftances, and proceeds to defend tropical and figurative compofition, againft the general charge of deviating from the principles of logic. It does not indeed define, he fays, with philofophical and logical precifion; but it is not its intention to define. It may not divide with fuch accuracy as may be neceflary in calm fpeculation, and the investigation of truth: but this is not its province. Its reafoning however, and its method, may be strict and accurate.

But although it were granted, that tropical and figurative Speech is utterly unphilofophical, that it is nothing but à flagrant violation of metaphyfical truth and logical accuracy, yet it still remains to be proved, that for this reason it is vicious, whether by vice we are to understand immorality, or fomething erroneous or faulty in compofition. Ask the moralift, whence it is that fpeech is criminal? He answers, from its being used with a fettled purpose of wrongfully deceiving, or injuring, from exciting wicked paffions or difhoneft thoughts, or from fome other cause of the fame nature. Ask the critic, in what cases tropical and figurative expreffions are faults in compofition? He anfwers, when they are grofs and indelicate; when they are obfcure and unnatural; puerile or frigid; or when they are difproportioned and utterly unfuitable to the subject.

In order to demonftrate that eloquence is not effential to human fpeech, but merely arbitrary, dependent on fashion and cuftom, the Bishop of Gloucester enters into a regular examination of its constituent parts.-Eloquence, he fays, is a compound of these three qualities of fpeech, purity, elegance, and fublimity. Purity is the ufe of fuch terms, with their multiplied combinations, as the intereft, the complexion, or the caprice of fome writer or speaker of authority hath preferred to its equals. Elegance is fuch a turn of idiom as a fashionable fancy hath brought into repute. Sublimity is the application of such images as arbitrary and cafual connections, rather than their own native grandeur, have dignified and ennobled. Since then the conftituent parts are arbitrary and capricious, the compound must be equally nominal and unfubftantial.

I freely confefs, fays our author, that in confidering this argument, I cannot fo entirely diveft myself of all prejudice, as is ftrictly proper, in an enquiry after truth. I cannot help feeling a fecret hope, and an inclination to believe, that his Lordship may have been here betrayed into fome mistake. Particularly, as it appears from his definition of fublimity, that the cenfure is not confined to the ftyle of eloquence, but extends to the things fuggefted, the objects prefented to the mind, by fuch a style.

• Poets

• Poets and orators have been ever the admiration of mankind. They have poffeffed their several stations in the temple of Fame, for many ages, unmolefted: and it is fomewhat mortifying to be now at length awakened from an agreeable dream, and to find this auguft temple diffolve,

< Like the bafelefs fabric of a vifion.

To find, I fay, whatever ages have admired as elegant or grand, ftripped of its imaginary value, and refolved into chance, caprice, and fashion.-So that the poet of the piping winds, and the twisted curls of flame, whom Longinus quotes with so much difrefpect, poffeffed as great intrinfic excellence, was as elegant in his diction, in his images as fublime, as the author of the Iliad, however the fickleness of fashion hath been pleased to confign the very name of one to oblivion, and to cast such a blaze of glory round the other, as time hath never been able to extinguifh.-Gorgias, Amphicrates, and Matris, have then their appeal to the tribunal of reafon and philofophy, against the arbitrary determinations of mankind, in favour of the nominal and unfubftantial merit of Demofthenes. And to come nearer home.-How cruel is the contempt which the author of the Bathos has expreffed for poor Blackmore, when Milton hath no fuperiority but what is capricious, arbitrary, and cafual? And the commentator on Pope, who discovers the five kinds of fublimity mentioned by Longinus, in the concluding verses of the Effay on Man, hath done no more honour to his poet, than to inform the world, that he was fortunate in fetting the fashion, or nice and exact in following the fashion; and that it is the cafual pleasure of the world, to confer fo great a degree of authority and reputation on his writings, while thofe of Jofuah Sylvefter are as capriciously neglected.'

Our author, in his fixth, and the fix following chapters, enters into a full and particular examination of his Lordfhip's divifion of eloquence; but for what he has advanced on the fubject, we must refer our Readers to the Differtation, where they will find many pertinent and juft obfervations.

Doctor Browne, in his Effays on the Characteristics, afcribes the various modes of elocution, which have prevailed in different countries, to the arbitrary nature of words as figns of our ideas. Language, fays he, (Effay 3. p. 376. Ed. Lond. 1741.) being the voluntary application of arbitrary figns, according to the confent of different men and nations, there is no fingle uniform model of nature to be followed. Hence, gracefulness or ftrength of ftyle, harmony or foftnefs, copious expreffion, terfe brevity, or contrafted periods, have by turns gained the approbation of particular countries.