fruitful field harvest yield. tuneful measures, nymphs and swains, flowery plains, &c. Should our student turn his thoughts to panegyric, we would advise that he adhere to the endings we have here prescribed, as If the practitioner should perchance be possessed of a great fund of humour, and be inclined to employ his wicked wit in ridiculing the clergy, we would admonish him to adhere to the following terminations, in order as they are appointed, being careful only to confine his lines to eight syllables.. musty knowledge Farce on Parson vicar ease fees fire ale spouse carouse breed feed. Should the public approve of this specimen of my friend's abilities, I may perhaps in some future paper present them with a sample of his projected publication.-D. No 36. MONDAY, JULY 16, 1787. -Neglectum adhibere clientem.-Juv. A long neglected client to admit.-DRYDEN. I FEEL myself so much obliged by the continued notice of my correspondents, that I should consider myself as highly ungrateful, if I did not sometimes leave wholly to them the weekly entertainment of our readers. Ἡδὲ τρίτηγε καὶ ΜΕΣΗ των ειρημένων δυοῖν Αρμονιων ἣν ΚΟΙΝΗΝ καλῶ σπανειτε κυρίου καὶ ΚΡΕΙΤΤΟΝΟΣ Ονόματος, σχῆμα μέν ἴδιον οὐδὲν ἔχει κεκέραται δέ πως ἐξ ἐκείνων μετρίως. ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΙΝ ΕΚΛΟΓΗ ΤΙΣ ΤΩΝ ΕΝ ΕΚΑΤΕΡΑ ΚΡΑΤΙΣΤΩΝ ΔΙΟΝΥΣ: Περί ΣΥΝΘ: Τμ: κδ. But this third and MIDDLE of the two styles already mentioned, which from want of a better name I call the common, has no peculiar dress of its own ; but is composed equally of both the other, and is, as it were, a selection of the beauties of each.' SIR, TO GREGORY GRIFFIN, Esq. As being commendably and successfully engaged in the same track, perhaps you will accept this Vindication of an illustrious predecessor, in the province of a periodical essayist; the inventor of that happy mode of imparting knowledge, of cultivating taste, and of recommending virtue. 'I therefore make use of the medium of your paper to entreat the public clemency in favour of an author, who though more than pasable for his day, is in danger of being absolutely eclipsed by the tran scendent radiance of these modern luminaries; or, to speak with antiquated simplicity, whose supposed purity of style is falling into contempt, from a comparison with the perfect models exhibited by the Johnsonian school,-though of that school the more characteristic merit perhaps be "turgid Eloquence," expressed in a style which no inferior genius could harmonize with such eloquence; "a style refined to a degree of immaculate purity." You see, Sir, that when deviating into the silly plainness of the unpolished days of Anne, I exalt my phrase and reinforce my style by calling in auxiliaries of a nobler port and gigantic elevation; auxiliaries, who, by the union of incompatible qualities may consistently be accounted potent beyond the limits of possibility. But 'till a perfect uniformity of style be established among men, 'till the "want of a consecutive series of senses in their nature collateral, when the radical idea branches into parallel ramifications" shall be tunefully lamented by the maidens, and significantly recited by the lisping babes, the rude and the ignorant, in their advancement to a happier cultivation, may be permitted to indulge themselves with an occasional page of ADDISON. It is indeed for this unfortunate writer, that I dare to plead; notwithstanding he is convicted of two such faults in style (if one be not rather of the sentiment), as would render any one who has written so long since, and upon such subjects, utterly unworthy to be read" feebleness and inanity." I will not say, that to those who walk on stilts, a natural walk may appear a feeble one; or that where there is nothing gross, nothing crowded, nothing out of its place, the medium pure, the object of aerial brightness, it may be lost to some in the simplicity of its own light; like the sky of a summer's evening, without elouds or mist. I will not say this, because it must occur to critics who are so accomplished, as to see But I must say Addison so far beneath them. something respecting the "MIDDLE STYLE" of which he is ironically accused. For the formidable eensor, ex Cathedra, thus pronounces, "I am not willing to deprive him of the honour implied in Johnson's testimony, that his prose is the model of the Middle Style; but if he be but a Mediocrist, he is surely not a subject of imitation; it being a rule, that of examples, the best are always to be selected." 6 Now here I must move in arrest of judgment," for that in the record there is manifest error," and shall contend, with certainty of success, that, upon the face of the indictment, no crime is charged; that he is perhaps the only instance in our virtuous days, of a person indicted and convicted of a virtue. But "the Middle Style" is first taken as synonymous with "the middling one," and that being equivalent to indifferent, low, vulgar, &c. Addison is concluded to have been thus an author of the Middle Style. But, Sir, the word is a word of good fame and honourable estimation. It shall not, like the innocent Quaker, be brought under the disgrace of prostitution, because another word of very different character appears habited like it. ' "If I were to call my witnesses to its reputation, I could fill the court with the first literary worthies, from Aristotle, to Harris of Salisbury. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Longinus, Hermagenes, Quintilian, Cicero himself, at once the commender and the great example-are perpetual in its praise. The ΜΕΣΗ, ΚΟΙΝΗ Λεξις, the aquabile et temperatum dicendi Genus, has Homer, Isocrates in his best productions, Demosthenes in parts of his most finished compositions; Plato in a variety of beautiful instances; Xenophon in his general character; Virgil and Livy, for its examples; it is placed in literature as the golden mean in ethics; the virtue be tween the extremes of the austere and the luxuriant. The sons of Eton, those who have been formed by a Barnard or a Foster; those who now listen to a Davies,--have this evidence already in their breasts. But, Sir, I call no witnesses: I am not moving for a new trial upon a verdict by misdirection and against evidence though upon that I must proceed, if this were denied me:-but I plead in arrest of judgment; that there is no crime on the record. That the legal sense of the Middle Style is perfectly ascertained in the courts of criticism; and were it necessary to cite a written authority in affirmance of the common law of good sense and taste in so clear a case, I would cite one which would be acknowledged by the judge, who has pronounced this sentence, to be equal to an act of parliament; though it be but an ordinance or a proclamation of the late literary monarch. The words of Johnson himself deciding on Addison. "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 with unexpected splendour;—if his language had been less idiomatical (this is his adoption of vulgar phrase) it would have lost something of its genuine Angli cism. 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. Whoever wishes to attain an English Style, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison." 'This is the Middle Style, for which Addison is to |