# A Dissertation on Reading the Classics and Forming a Just Style/Dissertation

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DISSERTATION, &c.
My Lord,
CAN hardly prevail with myself to give Your Lordship this Trouble, without making an Apology for it in the Entrance, and begging Your Lordship's Pardon for intruding without Leave, and offering You a Present before I am sure of Your Acceptance. I might be very large upon the ​Importance and Advantages of Education, and say a great many Things which have been said before, but that Point is so well considered by Your Lordship's most Noble Parents, that I need not say any Thing upon it; and Your Lordship's Application to the excellent Methods taken for making a great, and a good Man, will answer, I am persuaded, all the fair Expectations every body conceiveth of You, that knoweth You.
And therefore, as You want no Instructions suitable to Your Birth and Quality, I have rather chosen to present Your Lordship with some peculiar Thoughts, than to run a needless Treatise ​upon the Subject at length; and tho' what I say, is no doubt inculcated to Your Lordship by better Hands, yet Variety may engage Your Attention, and the same Precepts differently applyed will make the deeper Impression, where Your Mind hath received the Characters before, and is readier to admit a second Stamp, when it is so well prepared by the ﬁrst.
Your Lordship will at least have the Advantage of seeing Things together; and Leisure to weigh and consider the Reasonableness of what is recommended to You: And if I offer any Thing which is not commonly observed, I hope it will ​not be interpreted any Singularity, but such, as may render Your Lordship more Eminent, and Distinguished in the World.
The great Obligations I have to those of Your Illustrious Family incline me to make some Acknowledgment, and since I am not capable of doing it to them, I have chosen this Way to give Your Lordship a Token of the great Honour I have for the House of Rutland; and if am of any Service to Your Lordship, I shall gratify a particular Inclination of my own to serve You.
Your Lordship's Years begin to make You capable of ​Reflection, and Your good Parts advancing far before Your Years; discover a solid judgment joined with a quick Apprehension, which, if duly improved, will teach You to think right, and bring You to so just a Conclusion in all Emergencies, that to apprehend and determine will be but one Trouble; so vast an Advantage is a natural Penetration in an Understanding like Yours, when it comes to be exercised in Knowledge, and acquainted with the World.
I have observed, besides the Readiness of Parts, a Goodness of Nature, an excellent Disposition of Mind derived, to Your ​Lordship from the Parents of two Generations to whom I have the Honour to be known; and those excellent Seeds implanted in Your Birth, will, if cultivated, be most flourishing in Production; and as the Soil is good, and no Cost nor Care wanting to improve it, we must entertain Hopes of the richest Harvest: The Ear must be Admirable and Full, when the Blade is so Fair and Promising
Your Birth is attended with peculiar Advantages of Title and Estate, of Worth and Goodness in Your Ancestors and Parents: The Honour and Dignity of Your Family; the great Examples of Virtue in Your ​Progenitors for a long Descent; and the living, and more prevailing Example of Your most Illustrious Grand-Father and Father will fire a Soul like Yours to a generous Emulation, and, l hope, Your Lordship will follow them with equal Steps, if You do not go beyond them.
So select a Conjunction of the happiest Circumstances must have a blessed Inﬂuence on the whole Course of Your Life; and if Families are the more Noble for being more Ancient, Your Lordship will shine in true Nobility, and reﬂect a Lustre on all the long Gallery of Your Predecessors.
​But, my Lord, the fairest Diamonds are rough till they are polished, and the purest Gold must be run and washed, and sifted in the Oar. We are untaught by Nature, and the ﬁnest Qualities will grow wild and degenerate, if the Mind is not formed by Discipline, and cultivated with an early Care. In some Persons, who have run up to Men without a liberal Education, we may observe many great Qualities darken'd and eclips'd; their Minds are crusted over like Diamonds in the Rock, they flash out sometimes into an irregular Greatness of Thought, and betray in their Actions an ​unguided Force, and unmanaged Virtue; something very Great and very Noble may be discerned, but it looketh cumbersome and awkard, and is alone of all Things the worse for being natural. Nature is undoubtedly the best Mistress and the aptest scholar, but Nature herself must be civilized, or she will look savage, as she appears, in the Indian Princes, who are vested with a native Majesty, a surprizing Greatness and Generosity of Soul, and discover what we always regret, Fine Parts, and excellent natural Endowments without Improvement. In those Countries, which we call Barbarous, where Art and ​Politeness are not understood, Nature hath the greater Advantage in this, that Simplicity of Manners often secureth the Innocence of the Mind; and as Virtue is not, so neither is Vice civilized and reﬁned; But in these Politer Parts of the World, where Virtue excelleth by Rules and Discipline, Vice also is more instructed, and with us good Qualities will not spring up alone: Many hurtful Weeds will rise with them, and choak them in their Growth, unless removed by some skilful Hand; nor will the Mind be brought to a just Perfection, without cherishing every hopeful Seed, ​and representing every superfluous Humour: The Mind is like the Body in this Regard, which cannot fall into a decent and easy Carriage, unless it be fashioned in Time: An untaught Behaviour is like the People that use it, truly rustic, forced, and uncouth, and Art must be applied to make it Natural.
My Lord, the Necessity of Education is plain, but the Methods of it are in many Points ungrateful to Persons is of Your Lordship's Years. Sprightly Youth, and close Application will hardly stand together: Long Attention to the same Thing is tedious to tender ​Minds; and 'tis difficult to fix the Mercury, and settle a brisk, lively Temper in a laborious, plodding Track of Learning. This Your Lordship's Parts are too delicate to admit of, and too ready to need: Your Lordship will always use Application enough to apprehend Things fully, and a shorter Attention, if it be close, will master any Difficulty, that falls in Your way: I believe, Your Lordship is of that generous Temper so natural to Persons of Your great Parts, to suffer no Difficulty to be too hard for You, and to master every Opposition, that would obstruct Your Passage.
​For, my Lord, 'tis in Knowledge as in War; Open Places are easily taken in, and Towns not strongly fortiﬁed make but a weak Resistance; but where Art and Nature conspire to render any Fortress impregnable; it must be won by the most powerful Assaults, and noblest Resolution. Brussels and Louvain are easy Conquests, they do not so much resist, as admit the Victor; but if the Duke of Marlborough, or Prince Eugene had expected other Towns would have made them the same Complements, Lisle had still remained to the French, and Mons, and Tournay might still have been thought ​impregnable. 'Tis familiar to our Troops to beat an Army in plain Fight, and open Field; but when the Enemy lieth entrenched behind Lines, as strong as Walls, the late bloody, and glorious Battle at the Woods of Sart and Sansart will show, that the last Degrees of Bravery and Resolution, the most absolute Points of Courage and Conduct are required to surmount such insuperable Difﬁculties, and return with Victory.
To leave this Digression, my Lord, if I may call it so, Knowledge will not be won without Pains and Application: Some Parts of it are ​easier, some more difficult of Access: We must proceed at once by Sap and Battery, and when the Breach is practicable, Your Lordship hath Nothing to do, but to press boldly on, and enter: It is troublesome and deep Digging for pure Waters, but when once You come to the Spring, they rise and meet You: The Entrance into Knowledge is oftentimes very Narrow, Dark, and Tiresome, but the Rooms are Spacious, and gloriously furnished: The Country is admirable, and every Prospect entertaining. Your Lordship need not wonder, that fine Countries have strait Avenues, when the ​Regions of Happiness, like those of Knowledge, are impervious, and shut to lazy Travellers, and the Way to Heaven it self is Narrow.
Common Things are easily attained, and no body valueth what lieth in every body's Way: What is Excellent is placed out of ordinary Reach, and Your Lordship will easily be persuaded to put forth Your Hand to the utmost Stretch, and reach whatever You aspire at.
Many are the Subjects, my Lord, which will invite and deserve the steadiest Application from those who would excell, and be distinguished in ​them. Humane Learning in general: Natural Philosophy: Mathematicks, and the whole Circle of Science: But, my Lord, there is no Necessity of leading Your Lordship thro' these several Fields of Knowledge: It will be most Commendable for Your Lordship to gather some of the fairest Fruit from them all, and to lay up a Store of good Sense, and sound Reason, of great Probity, and solid Virtue: This is the true Use of Knowledge, to make it subservient to the great Duties of our most Holy Religion, that as You are daily grounded in the true and saving Knowledge of a ​Christian, You may use the Helps of humane Learning, and direct them to their proper End. Your Lordship will meet with great and wonderful Examples of an irregular and mistaken Virtue in the Greeks and Romans; with many Instances of Greatness of Mind, of unshaken Fidelity, Contempt of humane Grandeur, a most passionate Love of their Country, Prodigality of Life, Disdain of Servitude, inviolable Truth, and the most publick disinterested Souls, that ever threw off all Regards in Comparison with their Country's Good; Your Lordship will discern the Flaws and Blemishes ​of their fairest Actions, see the wrong Apprehensions they had of Virtue, and be able to point them right, and keep them within their proper Bounds. Under this Correction Your Lordship may extract a generous and noble Spirit from the Writings and Histories of the Ancients. And I would in a particular Manner recommend the Classic Authors to Your Favour, and they will recommend themselves to Your Approbation.
If Your Lordship would resolve to master the Greek as well as the Latin Tongue, You will ﬁnd that the one is the Source and Original of all that is most Excellent in the other; I do ​not mean so much for Expression, as Thought, though some of the most beautiful Strokes of the Latin Tongue are drawn from the Lines of the Grecian Orators and Poets; but for Thought, and Fancy, for the very Foundation, and Embellishment of their Works, You will see, the Latins have ransacked the Grecian Store, and as Horace advises all, who would succeed in Writing well, had their Authors Night and Morning in their Hands.
And they have been such happy Imitators, that the Copies have proved more exacting than the Originals; and Rome hath triumphed over Athens, as ​well in Wit, as Arms; for tho' Greece may have the Honour of Invention, yet 'tis easier to strike out a new Course of Thought, than to equal old Originals, and therefore it is more Honour to surpass, than to invent anew. Verrio is a great Man from his own Designs, but if he had attempted upon the Cartons, and out-done Raphael Urbin in Life and Colours, he had been acknowledged greater than that celebrated Master, but now we must think less.
If I may detain Your Lordship with a short Comparison of the Greek and Roman Authors, I must needs own, the ​last have the Preference in my Thoughts, and I am not Singular in my Opinion. lt must be confessed, the Romans have left no Tragedies behind them, that may compare with the Majesty of the Grecian Stage; the best Comedies of Rome were written on the Grecian Plan, but Menander is too far lost to be compared with Terence; only if we may judge by the Method Terence used in forming two Greek Plays into one we shall naturally conclude, since his are perfect upon that Model, that they are more perfect than Menander's were. I shall make no great Difficulty in preferring Plautus to Aristophanes for Wit ​and Humour, Variety of Characters, Plot and Contrivance in his Plays.
Virgil has been so often compared with Homer, and the Merits of those Poets so often canvassed, that I shall only say, that if the Roman shines not in the Grecian's Flame and Fire, 'tis the Coolness of his Judgment rather than the Want of Heat. Your Lordship will generally ﬁnd the Force of a Poet's Genius, and the Strength of his Fancy display themselves in the Descriptions they give of Battles, Storms, Prodigies, &c. and Homer's Fire breaks out on these Occasions in more Dread and Terror: But Virgil mixes ​Compassion with his Terror, and by throwing Water on the Flame maketh it burn the brighter; so in the Storms, so in his Battles on the Fall of Pallas and Camilla: and that Scene of Horror, which his Hero opens in the second Book: the Burning of Troy: the Ghost of Hector: the Murder of the King: the Massacre of the People: the sudden Surprize and the Dead of Night are so reliev'd by the Piety and Pity that is every where intermix'd, that we forget our Fears, and join in the Lamentation. All the World acknowledgeth the Æneid to be most Perfect in its Kind; and considering the Disadvantage of ​the Language, and the Severity of the Roman Muse, the Poem is still more Wonderful, since without the Liberty of the Grecian Poets, the Diction is so Great and Noble, so Clear, so Forcible and Expressive, so Chaste and Pure, that even all the Strength and Compass of the Greek Tongue joined to Homer's Fire cannot give us stronger and clearer Ideas, than the great Virgil hath set before our Eyes; some few Instances excepted, in which Homer thro' the Force of Genius hath excelled.
I have argued hitherto, my Lord, for Virgil, and it will be no Wonder, that his Poem ​should be more correct in the Rules of Writing, if that strange Opinion prevaileth, that Homer writ without any View or Design at all, that his Poems are loose, independent Pieces tacked together, and were originally only so many Ballads or Songs upon the Gods and Heroes, and the Siege of Troy. If this be true, they are the completest String of Ballads I ever met with, and whoever collected them, and put them in the Method we now read them in; whether it were Pisistratus, or any other, hath placed them in such Order, that the Iliad and the Odysseïs seem to have been composed ​with one View and Design, one Scheme and Intention, which are carried on from the Beginning to the End all along Uniform and Consistent with themselves. Some, my Lord, have argued the World was made by a wise Being, and not jumbled together by Chance from the very Absurdity of such a Supposition; and they have illustrated their Argument from the Impossibility, that such a Poem, as Homer's, and Virgil's should rise in such beautiful Order out of Millions of Letters eternally shaken together; but this Argument is half spoiled, if we allow, that the Poems of Homer, ​in each of which appeareth one continued formed Design from one End to the other, were written in loose Scraps on no settled premeditated Scheme. Horace, we are sure, was of another Opinion, and so was Virgil too, who built his Æneid upon the Model of the Iliad, and the Odysseïs; after all, Tully, whose Relation of this Passage hath given some Colour to this Suggestion, sayeth no more, than that Pisistratus, whom he commendeth for his Learning, and condemneth for his Tyranny, observing the Books of Homer to lie confused and out of Order, placed them in the Method the great Author, ​no doubt, had first formed them in: But all this Tully giveth us only as Report. And it would be very strange that Aristotle should form his Rules on Homer's Poems, that Horace should follow his Example, and propose Homer for the Standard of Epic Writing with this bright Testimony, that he never undertook any Thing inconsiderately, nor never made any foolish Attempts, if indeed this celebrated Poet did not intend to form his Poems in the Order and Design we see them in: If we look upon the Fabrick and Construction of those great Works, we shall ﬁnd an admirable Proportion ​in all the Parts, a perpetual Coincidence, and Dependence of one upon another; I will venture an Appeal to any learned Critic in this Cause; and if it be a sufficient Reason to alter the common Readings in a Letter, a Word, or a Phrase from the Consideration of the Context, or Propriety of the Language, and call it the Restoring of the Text, is it not a Demonstration that these Poems were made in the same Course of Lines, and upon the same Plan we read them in at present, from all the Arguments, that Connection, Dependence and Regularity can give us? If those Critics, who maintain this odd ​Fancy of Homer's Writings, had found them loose, and undigested, and restored them to the Order they stand in now, I believe they would have gloried in their Art, and maintained it with more uncontested Reasons, than they are able to bring for the Discovery of a Word, or a Syllable hitherto falsly printed in the Text of any Author. But, my Lord, if any learned Men of singular Fancies and Opinions will not allow these Buildings to have been originally designed after the present Model, let them at least allow us one poetical Supposition on our Side, that Homer's Harp was as Powerful to command ​his scattered incoherent Pieces into the beautiful Structure of a Poem, as Amphion's was to summon the Stones into a Wall, or Orpheus's to lead the Trees a Dance. For certainly, however it happeneth, the Parts are so justly disposed, that You cannot change any Book into the Place of another without spoiling the Proportion, and confounding the Order of the Whole.
The Georgicks are above all Controversy with Hesiod; but Idylliums of Theocritus have something so inimitably Sweet in the Verse and Thoughts, such a native Simplicity, and are so genuine, so natural a Result of ​the rural Life; that I must in my poor judgment, allow him the Honour of the Pastoral.
In Lyricks the Grecians may seem to have excelled, as undoubtedly they are superior in the Number of their Poets, and Variety of their Verse. Orpheus, Alcæus, Sappho, Simonides and Stesichorus are almost entirely lost: Here and there a Fragment of some of them is remaining, which, like some broken Parts of ancient Statues, preserve an imperfect Monument of the Delicacy, Strength, and Skill of the great Master's Hand.
Pindar is sublime, but obscure, impetuous in his Course; and unfathomable in the Depth ​and Loftiness of his Thoughts: Anacreon floweth soft and easy, every where diffusing the Joy and Indolence of his Mind thro' his Verse, and tuning his Harp to the smooth, and pleasant Temper of his Soul: Horace alone may be compared to both, in whom are reconciled the Loftiness and Majesty of Pindar, and the gay, careless, jovial Temper of Anacreon: And, I suppose, however Pindar may be admired for Greatness, and Anacreon for Delicateness of Thought; Horace, who rivals one in his Triumphs, and the other in his Mirth and Love, surpasseth them both in Justness, Elegance, and Happiness of ​Expression. Anacreon hath another Follower among the choicest Wits of Rome, and that is Catullus, whom I could recommend for the Softness and Delicacy of his Verse, but must decline for the Looseness of his Thoughts too immodest for chaste Ears to bear. Otherwise in his more solemn Lines he riseth to the Majesty of the Roman Genius.
I will go no further in the Poets only for the Honour of our Country, let me observe to Your Lordship, that while Rome hath been contented to produce some single Rivals to the Grecian Poetry, England hath brought forth the wonderful Cowley's Wit, who was beloved by every Muse he ​courted, and hath rivalled the Greek and Latin Poets in every Kind, but Tragedy.
I will not trouble Your Lordship with the Historians any farther, than to inform You, that the Contest lyeth chieﬂy between Thucydides and Salust, Herodotus and Livy, though I think Thucydides and Livy may on many Accounts more justly be compared: The Critics have been very free in their Censures, but I shall be glad to suspend any farther judgment, till Your Lordship shall be able to read them, and give me Your Opinion.
Oratory and Philosophy are the next disputed Prizes; and whatever Praises may be ​justly given to Aristotle, Plato, Xenophon and Demosthenes, I will venture to say, that the divine Tully is all the Grecian Orators and Philosophers in One.
And now, my Lord, having possibly given You same Prejudice in Favour of the Romans, I must beg Leave to assure You, that if You have not Leisure to master Both, You will ﬁnd Your Pains well rewarded in the Latin Tongue; when once You enter into the Elegancies, and Beauties of it. 'Tis the peculiar Felicity of that Language to speak good Sense in suitable Expressions: to give the finest Thoughts in the happiest Words, and in an easy ​Majesty of Style, to write up to the Subject. "And in this my Lord, lieth the great Secret of Writing well. It is that elegant Simplicity, that ornamental PIainness of Speech, which every common Genius thinketh so plain, that any Body may reach it, and ﬁndeth so very Elegant, that all his Sweat and Pains, and Study fail him in the Attempt."
In Reading the excellent Authors of the Roman Tongue, whether You converse with Poets, Orators or Historians, Your Lordship will meet with all that is admirable in Humane Composure: And tho' Life, and Spirit, Propriety, ​and Force of Style, be common to them all, You will see, that nevertheless every Writer shineth in his peculiar Excellencies, and that Wit, like Beauty, is diversified into a Thousand Graces of Feature and Complexion.
I need not trouble Your Lordship with a particular Character of these celebrated Writers. What I have said already, and what I shall say further of them as I go along, render it less necessary at present; and I would not pre-engage Your Lordship's Opinion implicitly to my Side. It will be a pleasant Exercise of Your judgment to distinguish them ​Yourself; and when Your Lordship and I shall be able to depart from the common received Opinions of the Critics and Commentators, I may take some other Occasion of laying them before Your Lordship, and submitting what I shall then say of them to Your Lordship's Approbation.
In the mean time, I shall only give Your Lordship two or three Cautions, and Directions for Your reading them, which to some People will look a little odd, but with me they are of great Moment, and very necessary to be observ'd.
The ﬁrst is, that Your Lordship would never be persuaded ​into what they call Common-Places, which is a Way of taking an Author to Pieces, and ranging him under proper Heads, that You may readily ﬁnd what he hath said upon any Point, by consulting an Alphabet. This Practice is of no Use but in Circumstantials of Time and Place, Custom, and Antiquity, and in such Instances where Facts are to be remembred, not where the Brain is to be exercised. In these Cases it is of great Use: It helpeth the Memory, and serveth to keep those Things in a Sort of Order and Succession. But, my Lord, Common Placing the Sense of an ​Author is such a stupid Undertaking, that, if I may be indulged in saying it, they want Common Sense that practice it. What Heaps of this Rubbish have I seen! O the Pains and Labour to record what other People have said, that is taken by those, who have Nothing to say themselves! Your Lordship may depend upon it, the Writings of these Men are never worth the Reading; the Fancy is cramp'd, the Invention spoiled, their Thoughts on every Thing are prevented, if they think at all; but 'tis the peculiar Happiness of these Collectors of Sense, that they can write without Thinking.
​I do most readily agree, that all the bright sparkling Thoughts of the Antients; their ﬁnest Expressions, and noblest Sentiments, are to be met with in these Transcribers: But how wretchedly are they brought in, how miserably put together! Indeed, my Lord, I can compare such Productions to nothing but rich Pieces of Patch-work, sewed together with Pack-thread.
When I see a beautiful Building of exact Order and Proportion taken down, and the different Materials laid together by themselves, it putteth me in mind of these Common-Place Men. The Materials are ​certainly very good, but they understand not the Rules of Architecture so well, as to form them into just and masterly Proportions any more: And yet how beautiful would they stand in another Model upon another Plan!
For, my Lord, we must confess the Truth: We can say nothing New, at least we can say nothing Better, than hath been said before; but we may nevertheless make what we say our Own. And this is done, when we do not trouble ourselves to remember in what Page, or what Book we have read such a Passage; but it falleth in naturally with the ​Course of our own Thoughts, and taketh its Place in our Writings with as much Ease, and looketh with as good a Grace, as it appeared in Two Thousand Years ago.
This, my Lord, is the best Way of remembring the Antient Authors, when You relish their Way of Writing, enter into their Thoughts, and imbibe their Sense. There is no need of tying ourselves up to an Imitation of any of them; much less to copy, or transcribe them. For there is Room for vast Variety of Thought and Style, as Nature is various in her Works, and is Nature still. Good Authors, like the ​celebrated Masters in the several Schools of Painting, are Originals in their Way, and different in their Manner. And when we can make the same Use of the Romans as they did of the Grecians, and habituate ourselves to their Way of Thinking, and Writing, we may be equal in Rank, tho' different from them all, and be esteemed Originals as well as they.
And this is what I would have Your Lordship do: Mix and incorporate with those ancient Streams; and tho' Your own Wit will be improved, and heightened by such a strong Infusion, yet the Spirit, the Thought, the Fancy, the ​Expression which shall ﬂow from Your Pen, will be entirely Your Own.
The next Direction I would give Your Lordship is, that You would decline the Critical Part of Learning as much as possible, for that will lead You insensibly from good Sense, and good Language, and 'tis below a Person of Your Lordship's Parts and Quality to take Notice of it: I am not ignorant of its admirable Use in the World of Learning, nor would I betray Your Lordship into any Contempt of an Art, where a Man must be a great Man indeed to excel, as some amongst us most eminently do. ​But, my Lord, I would warn Your Lordship against the Infection of the less, and lower Critics, who are capable of nothing but collating Manuscripts, and are not able to ascertain the Text, or bring You nearer to the Original; this is the Case of Your common Editors, but 'tis one Comfort, that we need not be too sollicitous about the Words of an Author, to have a right Taste of him: Your Lordship will always use the best and most correct Editions, and various Readings will be only troublesome, where the Sense and Language are complete without them.
​My Lord, I am always an Advocate for young Gentlemen in the Business of their Studies: It is certainly a great Mistake to make it difficult and laborious, to vex and torture the Minds of Youth with dry, insipid, grave, and perplexing Triﬂes. Study will be recommended to young Heads with better Success from the Easiness, and Pleasure of the Practice, than from the Usefulness and Importance of the Subject, and all Ways should be invented to make the learning Part delightful and engaging.
Learning is dressed to a great Disadvantage, by Critics and Grammarians; like a beautiful ​Lady ill-painted, she maketh a frightful Figure: And then she is cloistered up, my Lord, like a Fairy Princess in an enchanted Castle, encompassed with Motes and Walls, and guarded by Paynim Knights, monstrous Giants, and burning Dragons. Bur my Lord, if a Man hath but Wit and Courage enough not to be daunted at these grim Appearances, the Charm is dissolved, the Bugbears vanish, and the Way is open.
It hath been a long Complaint this polite, and excellent Age of Learning, that we lose our Time in Words, that the Memory of Youth is charged, and overloaded ​without Improvement, and all they learn is meer Cant and Jargon for three or four Years together. Now, my Lord, the Complaint is in some Measure true, but not easily remedied, and perhaps, after all the Exclamation, of so much Time lost in meer Words and Terms, the hopeful Youths whose Loss of Time is so much lamented, were capable of learning nothing but Words at those Years: I do not mind what some Quacks in the Art of Teaching say; they pretend to work Wonders, and to make young Gentlemen Masters of the Languages, before they can be Masters of Common Sense; but this to me, my ​Lord, is a Demonstration, that we are capable of little else than Words, till we come into our Teens, if Your Lordship will observe, that a Lad shall be able to repeat his Grammar over two or three Years before his Understanding opens enough to let him into the Reason, and clear Apprehension of the Rules, and when this is done sooner or later, it ceaseth to be Cant and Jargon; so that all this Clamour is wrong founded, and the Cause of Complaint lies rather against the Backwardness of our Judgment, than the Method of our Schools: And therefore I am for the old ​Way in Schools still, and Children will be furnished there with a Stock of Words at least, when they come to know how to use them.
But, my Lord, Persons of Your Lordship's Condition may be permitted to go out of the common Road, and try to learn Things and Words together: I am of Opinion, that Language may be attained by the Reverse of the Method that is generally taken, and a Youth taught to know Grammar by Books, instead of Books by Grammar. This was Mr. Cowley's Case, and in some Measure l may say it was my own at the same School, but it is ​by no means generally practicable. However, there is no Necessity, where we are not tied up by the Course and Discipline, which must, if possible, be maintained in Schools, if we be not obliged by those Methods, there is no Necessity of burthening the Memory with an exact Repetition of the Rules: 'Tis enough from the Authors which are read, to learn the Use, and Application of them: And if, after this, a clear Explication of the Meaning were joined to the bare Grammatical Construction, young Scholars would be able to understand what they read, and be pleased to ​ﬁnd that their Authors are made up of something besides the Eight Parts of Speech. Such a Method would indeed require more Pains in the Teacher, but those would be well rewarded by the Progress and Satisfaction of the Scholar.
Your Lordship is beyond these Rules, and will judge of the Reasonableness of them with respect to others, who are just entring on the Stage of Learning. I only give Your Lordship my Thoughts: I do not pretend to dictate.
Your Lordship will therefore give me Leave to consider another Complaint against the ​present Method of Learning, taken from the Multitude of Notes and Comments, which crowd the Authors, and perplex the Reader. I must own, I have not that Respect for the Company of Annotators, which they generally meet with in the World. Some indeed must be excepted; but Youths are not capable of using the Best, and the Worst are not worth regarding: For which Reason the Celebrated Dr. BUSBY strictly forbad the Use of Notes, and for our Greek and Latin Authors we had nothing but the plain Text in a correct and chaste Edition. Under such a Master they could do no Good, ​there was no Need of the Best; and the others might do a great deal of Hurt, by infecting the Children at once with their own Blunders and Dulness.
Excepting those of some very learned Men, Comments are generally an Art of making Authors difficult, under a Pretence of explaining them. And it hath been the hard Fortune of the best Writers to be perplexed with Notes, and obscured by Illustrations. The Abilities of the Teacher will best supply the Defects of the Commentator, and it will be a Pleasure to young Gentlemen, as he leads them along, to see from him the Geography, ​antiquities, Customs and History of the Ancients. The Poetical Story is generally known, because diverting to be read; especially those that are acquainted with the Metamorphoses and Apollodorus, can be no Strangers to it; and all these together are the Foundation and Reason of all those Heaps of Comments, which are piled so high upon Authors, that it is difﬁcult sometimes to clear the Text from the Rubbish, and draw it out of the Ruins.
If there is any Thing else Commentators concern themselves about, it is Propriety of Expression, or rather some Verbal Niceties, and Grammatical ​Scruples; for they have seldom Parts enough to discover the true Graces of their Authors; and those words, which in their Natural Situation shine like Jewels enchased in Gold, look, when transposed into their Notes, as if they were set in Lead, and adorned with that resplendent Metal.
Setting these grave Gentlemen aside, I have often wished, my Lord, that some of the finest Wits would undertake the finest Writers in the World, and give us a Comment upon them to display the Life and Beauty of their Authors: It requireth a Genius, like that wherewith they writ, to write upon them: ​Every Man that understandeth Latin doth not understand either Greatness or Delicacy of Thought, Strength, or Beauty of Expression; and some critical Heads, such absolute Masters are they of their Passions, can bear the Raptures and Flights of Poets with a wonderful Command of Temper, and be no more affected with the most moving Strains, than if they were reading the heaviest Piece of their own Composing. They have no Notion of Life and Fire in Fancy and in Words, and any Thing that is just in Grammar and in Measure, provided always the Words be placed ​according to Art, is as good Oratory, and Poetry to them, as the best. 'Tis no Wonder, then, their Comments make the most sprightly Authors Phlegmatic and Dull, and that to read them with their bright Observations is like reading Homer in a Prose Translation.
"The great Art of Teaching, my Lord, is to give the Learners a true Taste of their Authors; to open the Beauties of their Thoughts and Style; to show them the bright Parts, the peculiar Excellencies, the Force and Spirit, the Ease and Gentleness of their Writings: How All is Uncommon, and All ​is Natural, and every Thing so thought and said, that upon the Occasion it is impossible to deliver better Thoughts in better Words."
But this, my Lord, is not the Talent of Critics and Grammarians: They can give indeed the Rules of Syntax and of Rhetoric, and make a shift to exemplify them in a wretched Composition by bringing in every odd Exception in Grammar, every Figure and Scheme of Speech, Head and Shoulders, by main Force, in spite of Nature and their Subject. For be the Subject what it will, the Style and the Decorations are the same; so that their Discourse ​having no Coherence, but the coupling Particles, looketh like a perfect Skeleton tacked together with Wires, staring hollow, stiff and horrid, stripped of Sense, without Nerves and Sinews, Life and Motion.
I will trouble Your Lordship no longer upon this Subject, and if I have said any Thing to secure You against the Impressions of this poor Sort of Learning, I only intended a necessary Caution, and if ever these Sheets become more Publick, I hope no truly learned Man will be offended; I am sure, I am very far from having any mean Thoughts of those great Men who preside in our ​chiefest and most Celebrated Schools; it is my Happiness to be known to the most Eminent of them in a particular Manner, and they will acquit me of any Disrespect, where they know l have the greatest Veneration; for with them the Genius of Classic Learning dwelleth, and from them it is derived. And I think myself honoured in the Acquaintance of some Masters in the Country, who are not less Polite, than they are Learned, and to the exact Knowledge of the Greek and Roman Tongues have joined a true Taste, and delicate Relish of the Classic Authors. But should Your ​Lordship ever light into some formal Hands, though Your Sense is too ﬁne to relish those Pedantries I have been remonstrating against, when You come to understand them, yet for the present they may impose upon You with a grave Appearance; and, as Learning is commonly managed by such Persons, You may think them very Learned, because they are very Dull. And if You should receive the Tincture, while you are young, it may sink too deep for all the Waters of Helicon to take out. You may be sensible of it as we are of ill Habits, which we regret, but cannot break, and so it ​may mix with Your Studies for ever, and give bad Colours to every Thing You design, whether in Speech or Writing.
For, my Lord, these meaner Critics dress up their Entertainments so very Ill, that they will spoil Your Palate, and bring You to a vicious Taste. With them, as with distempered Stomachs, the ﬁnest Food and noblest juices turn to nothing but Crudities and lndigestion. You will have no Notion of Delicacies, if You table with them; they are all for rank and foul Feeding, and spoil the best Provisions in the Cooking: You must be content to be taught ​Parsimony in Sense, and for Your most inoffensive Food to live upon dry Meat and insipid Stuff without any Poignancy or Relish.
So then, my Lord, these Gentlemen will never be able to form Your Taste or Your Style, and those who cannot give You a true Relish of the best Writers in the World, can never instruct You to write like them.
Give me Leave, my Lord, to touch this Subject, and draw out for Your Lordship's Use, some of the chief Strokes, some of the principal Lineaments, and fairest Features of a just and beautiful Style. There is ​no Necessity of being methodical, and I will not entertain Your Lordship with a dry System upon the Matter, but with what Your Lordship will read with more Pleasure, and I hope, with equal Proﬁt, some desultory Thoughts in their Native Order, as they rise in my Mind without being reduced to Rules, and marshalled according to Art.
I am ambitious, my Lord, to see You Master of a ﬁne Pen; You have so many Advantages to command it, that You may easily excell; for as You have laid the necessary Foundation, I you raise upon it the beautiful Structure of Classic Learning, it ​is impossible Your Lordship should not stand upon the highest Eminence, and hold the ﬁrst Rank with those who are distinguished for the Beauties of their Style. For beside the common Accomplishment of Classic Learning, Persons of Your Lordship's Quality have so fine a Turn, so genteel an Air from their Breeding, and courtly Conversation in every Thing they write or speak, that it giveth an inimitable Grace to their Words and Compositions; and I never knew a Nobleman equal in Learning to other Men, but he was superior to them in the Delicacy and Civility of his Style.
​Cæsar, my Lord, writ like a Man of Quality, and among innumerable Excellencies, which he holdeth in Common with other Authors, he possesseth this almost peculiar to himself, that You see the Prince and the Gentleman, as well as the Scholar and the Soldier in his Memoirs. Ovid was all over a Man of Breeding, and perhaps if I may be allowed to make a Conjecture, the Copiousness of his Expressions was owing in some Measure to the Civility of his Breeding, as well as to the Luxuriance of his Fancy; and indeed, my Lord, that is the Fault I have found in the Writings of ​Gentlemen, that sometimes they overflow with Words. This proceedeth, I believe, from their daily Complaisance, which runs them into Variety of Expressions on the same Subject; whereas Your Scholars are more close, and as if their Learning were as narrow as their Fortune, they are frugal of their Words, and not willing to let any go for Ornament, if it will not serve for Use. Some People may call this a small Piece of Criticism; all that I would prove by it, if it be not well founded, is, that Ovid was a Man of Breeding, and tho' Virgil and Horace were Courtiers too, yet they fell short of him in ​Courtliness of Expression, however they exceeded him in Majesty of Thought, in Closeness and Exactness of Style. And for Horace, my Lord, who was an humble Servant of the Ladies, as well as he, after we have acknowledged him a wonderful Genius, of a peculiar Happiness of Expression both in the sublime, and familiar Way, we must ascribe the Softness and Easiness of his Style to the Court and Love. In short, my Lord, Ovid was a Gentleman, and the others not, his good Breeding was natural to him from his Infancy; theirs was acquired in their riper Years, and would never sit so handsomely upon ​them. Terence, my Lord, who was much Elder than they, may seem an Exception; there is no Address more civil and accomplished than his throughout his Plays, and his Gentlemen appear truly such upon all Occasions, but this possibly may be accounted for more easily than some Phænomena in Philosophy, if I may have Leave to suppose, that all the Assistance he received from Scipio and Lælius was in this Part of his Characters, and while the Comedian took Care to preserve them in the Humour and Manners he had given them, his noble Friends might help him in giving them the true Turn of ​Gentlemen. We have several others who are recorded for celebrated Wits among the Nobility and Gentry of Rome, but I need not detain Your Lordship any longer there.
After the Court of Augustus, we may mention the Court of King Charles the Second, and find my Lord Rochester and Dorset, the Duke of Buckingham that was then, and the Duke of Buckingham that is now, Paramount in Wit, and as Graceful in their Writing as in their Persons: The Wit of some of them indeed was scandalously abused, but otherwise their Satyr was Courtly, and their Poetry upon all other ​Subjects in the last Perfection. My Lord Roscommon, inferior to none in Soundness of Judgment, surpasseth them in the Innocency and Usefulness of his Writings: Sir Robert Howard, Sir Charles Sidley, Sir John Denham, Mr. Waller, Mr. Walsh, and I may add Sir George Etherege, writ like themselves; their Learning and Quality adorn each other, and You read their Education as Gentlemen, as well as Scholars, in their Compositions. Mr. Dryden, Oldham, and other celebrated Wits, I forbear to name, because they want that distinguishing Character of Affability, Courtesy and ﬁne Breeding in their ​Works, or I may name them upon Comparison with the others to show the Difference, and maintain my Point. Mr. Dryden was indeed a Gentleman, but he writ more like a Scholar, and tho' the greatest Master of Poetry the Iast Age could boast, he wanted that Easiness and Familiarity, that Air of Freedom and unconstraint, that genteel and accomplished Manner of Expression, which is more sensibly to be perceived, than described.
To come to the present Times, my Lord Hallifax beareth a Title consecrated to Wit, and if he doth not reach the Saville Family in Heighth ​of Quality, he doth not fall below them in the Excellency of his Pen, and in Poetry he soareth above them. Mr. Granville is the Poetical Son of Waller: We observed with Pleasure Similitude of Wit in the Difference of Years, and in Mr. Granville do meet at once the Fire of his Father's Youth, and the Judgment of his Age. Others I forbear, because tho' a thousand Occasions testify their Abilities, their Modesty hath hitherto concealed their Works and Names; only give me Leave to add, it is the Opinion of some good Judges, that if the Duke of Marlborough would give us his own ​memoirs, we should ﬁnd he could Write, as well as Fight, like Cæsar. I am fallen from Verse to Prose, my Lord, and here I must not pass by Sir William Temple, the most perfect Pattern of good Writing and good Breeding this Nation hath produced. Perhaps Mr. Boyle's Book in Defence of Phalaris will be charged upon some Sophist too, but taking it for Genuine at present, if we own Dr. Bentley is the better Critic, we must acknowledge my Lord Orrery is much the genteelest Writer.
The Observation I have made is so universal, it were endless to pursue it in any ​farther Examples, and, my Lord, some few Instances excepted, there is as much Difference between the Writings of Men of Quality and Scholars, as there is in the Behaviour of a Dancing Master and a Gentleman.
Your Lordship standeth upon such Advantage of Ground, that, when You have ﬁnished Your Studies, You need only write, and You will excell. Your Education giveth You the most difficult Part, and that Easiness and handsome Address in Writing, which is hardest to be attained by Persons bred in a meaner Way, will be Familiar to ​Your Lordship. And if ever You do write, You will write as You speak, with all the Civility and good Breeding in the World. This, my Lord, will certainly be the happy Turn of Your Pen: Nothing can be wanting, but a Store of sound Learning to be put into so genteel a Dress; and when Your Lordship shall have furnished Yourself with that, and come to know the Correctness of Style, the Graces and Beauties of it will be Natural and Charming in all Your Compositions.
To assist Your Lordship therefore, as far as Art may be an Help to Nature, I shall proceed to say something of what is ​required in a ﬁnished Piece to make it complete in all its Parts, and Masterly in the Whole.
I would not lay down any impracticable Schemes, nor trouble Your Lordship with a dry formal Method: The Rule of Writing, like that of our Duty, is perfect in its Kind; but we must make Allowances for the Inﬁrmities of Nature, and, since none is without his Faults, the most that can be said, is, that He is the best Writer, against whom the Fewest can be alledged.
"A Composition is then perfect, my Lord, when the Matter riseth out of the ​Subject, when the Thoughts are agreeable to the Matter, and the Expressions suitable to the Thoughts, when there is no Inconsistency from the Beginning to the End; when the whole is perspicuous in the beautiful Order of its Parts, and formed in due Symmetry and Proportion."
It is the common Absurdity of raw and injudicious Writers to propose one Thing for their Subject, and run off to another: They are not Masters of what they undertake, the Compass of their Knowledge is too narrow, and their Shoulders are too weak to sustain the Work. From this ​fundamental Error ﬂow all the other Vices and Corruptions of Writing; Matter foreign to the Subject; wild, incoherent Fancies instead of Thought, and Expressions that have no other Commendation, than that they are as Childish as their Thoughts. What crude undigested Volumes of this Sort have we seen? How many tedious Sheets without Argument or Consistency? Such, my Lord, are many of the Dissenters Writings in Point of Faith, Doctrine and Practice, tho' we have but few of their Practical Pieces, and those we have, that are of any Value, were written by the best Pens among them.
​But when a Man throughly understandeth his Subject, and knoweth what is consistent, or inconsistent with it, he will write upon it with more or less Applause, according to the Scope and Compass of his Thoughts: Some are bound up in narrow Schemes of Things, while Men of Genius and freer Spirits look abroad into Nature, and discover a thousand beautiful Relations that lye concealed to those, who trade only in dry Schemes and Systems. Our Thoughts must be conformable to the Matter and Subject that lye before us, but we have full Liberty to range, provided we can command our ​Fancy, and bring it home to the Purpose. The Thought may be either too narrow, or too wide; too poor and mean to give either Life, or Light to our Writings, or too wandring and distant to bear any Relation to the Subject. I am not speaking of the Brightness and Beauty, but of the Propriety of Thought; though, if the Thoughts be bright and beautiful, as well as proper, they add, no doubt, a Grace and Splendor to the Discourse; only let the Thoughts be just, and it dependeth upon the Genius of the Writer to give them more Force and Fire. Horace hath drawn the Picture of those ​absurd Painters and Poets, that join a Woman's Head to a Fish's Tail, and crowd Contradictions in the same Piece together. He hath exposed and ridiculed those trifling Poetasters, that spend themselves in glaring Descriptions, and would compensate for their Dulness and Incapacity, by sewing here and there some Cloth of Gold on their Sackcloth. All inconsiderate Writers, or Writers not furnished for Consideration, are the same. Their Imagination either rambles, or is low and dull, either it cannot rise to the Subject, or wandereth from it. 'Tis nothing but a Vapour and false Fire, and if in reading ​those wretched Scriblers we look for any Meaning, we only follow an Ignis fatuus till we are tired.
Some Peoples Heads are either so empty, or so disconcerted, that nothing is more removed from the Matter they have laid out to treat on, than their Thoughts; and if it sometimes happeneth that they do not wander quite away from their Purpose, the Misfortune is, that on the gravest, noblest Subjects, their Thoughts are light and foolish, poor and mean, and on the most inconsiderable, trifling Matters, they are all Noise and Bombast, Affecting Splendor and ​Magnificence in Things that will endure neither Light nor Ornament, ever rising where they should sink, and falling where they should rise.
There is a Chain of Relations in Nature, which must not be broken, nor twisted with any other String: The whole World of Being, the Qualities, Properties, Accidents and Affections of Things are distributed into proper Classes, as they are compatible or inconsistent with one another. Propriety of Thought therefore must arise from a competent Knowledge of the Nature and Decency of Things; in being acquainted with what is capable of being said, and ​what is ﬁt to be spoken upon any Subject. And Thought is then in the last Perfection, when it is so bright, so lively, so just, so full, that on the same Subject You cannot invent any, Finer, or more Proper in the whole Compass of Nature and Imagination.
There is a close Connection between the Thoughts and Words, and when a Man hath throughly digested the one, the other will follow not only with Ease, but Propriety, when he is a perfect Master of the Language he writeth in. It must be a great Fault of the Judgment, if where the Thoughts are proper, the ​Expressions are not so too: A Disagreement between these seldom happens, but among Men of more recondite Studies, and what they call deep Learning, especially among Your Antiquaries and Schoolmen.
In every sprightly Genius, the Expression will ever be lively as the Thoughts. All the Danger is, that a Wit too fruitful should run out into unnecessary Branches; but when it is matured by Age, and corrected by Judgment, the Writer will prune the luxuriant Boughs, and cut off the superﬂuous Shoots of Fancy, thereby giving both Strength and Beauty to his Work.
​Perhaps, my Lord, this Piece of Discipline is to young Writers the greatest Self-Denial in the World. To confine the Fancy, to stifle the Birth, much more to throw away the beautiful Offspring of the Brain, is a Trial, that none but the most delicate and lively Wits can be put to. It is their Praise, that they are obliged to retrench more Wit, than others have to lavish: The Chippings and Filings of these Jewels, could they be preserved, are of more Value, than the whole Mass of ordinary Authors; and it is a Maxim with me, that He hath not Wit enough, who hath not a great deal to spare.
​My Lord, it is by no means necessary for me to run out into the several Sorts of Writing: We have general Rules to judge of all without being Particular upon any, tho' the Style of an Orator be different from that of an Historian, and a Poet's from both.
The Design of Expression is to convey our Thoughts truly and clearly to the World, in such a manner, as is most probable to attain the End we propose, in communicating what we have conceived to the Publick; and therefore Men have not thought it enough to write plainly unless they wrote agreeably, so as to engage the ​Attention, and work upon the Affections, as well as inform the Understanding of their Readers; for which Reason all Arts have been invented to make their Writings pleasing, as well as proﬁtable; and those Arts are very commendable and honest: They are no Trick, no Delusion, or Imposition on the Senses and Understanding of Mankind, for they are founded in Nature, and formed upon observing her Operations in all the various Passions, and Workings of our Minds.
To this we owe all the Beauties and Embellishments of Style: All Figures and Schemes of Speech, and those several ​Decorations that are used in Writings to enliven and adorn the Work. The Flourishes of Fancy resemble the Flourishes of the Pen in Mechanick Writers, and the Illuminators of Manuscripts, and of the Press, borrowed their Title perhaps from the Illumination, which a bright Genius every where giveth to his Work, and disperseth through his Composition.
The Commendation of this Art of Enlightening and Adorning a Subject, lyeth in a right Distribution of the Shades and Light. It is in Writing, as in Picture, in which the Art is to observe where the ​Lights will fall, to produce the most beautiful Parts to the Day, and cast in Shades what we cannot hope will shine to Advantage.
It were endless to pursue this Subject through all the Ornaments and Illustrations of Speech, and yet I would not dismiss it without pointing at the general Rules, and necessary Qualifications required in those, who would attempt to shine in the Productions of their Pen. And therefore Your Lordship must pardon me if I seem to go back, for we cannot raise any regular and durable Pile of Building without laying a firm Foundation.
​The ﬁrst Thing requisite, my Lord, to a just Style is a perfect Mastery in the Language we write in; this is not so easily attained, as is commonly imagined, and dependeth upon a competent Knowledge of the Force and Propriety of Words, a good natural Taste of Strength and Delicacy, and all the Beauties of Expression. It is my own Opinion, that all the Rules and critical Observations in the World will never bring a Man to a just Style, who hath not of himself a natural easy Way of Writing; but they will improve a good Genius, where Nature leadeth the Way, provided he is not ​too scrupulous, and doth not make himself a Slave to his Rules, for that will introduce a Stiffness and Affectation, which are utterly abhorrent from all good Writing.
By a perfect Mastery in any Language, I understand not only a ready Command of Words, upon every Occasion, not only the Force, and Propriety of Words, as to their Sense, and Signification, but more especially the Purity, and Idiom of the Language; for in this a perfect Mastery doth consist. 'Tis to know what is English, and what is Latin, what is French, Spanish, or Italian, to be able ​to mark the Bounds of each Language we write in, to point out the distinguishing Characters, and the peculiar Phrases of each Tongue. What Expressions, or Manner of Expressing is common to any Language besides our own, and what is properly and peculiarly our Phrase, and Way of Speaking. For this is to speak or write English in Purity and Perfection, to let the Streams run clear and unmix'd, without taking in other Languages in the Course: In English therefore, I would have all Gallicisms (for Instance) avoided, that our Tongue may be sincere, that we may keep ​to our own Language, and not follow the French Mode in our Speech, as we do in our Cloaths. It is convenient and proﬁtable sometimes to import a Foreign Word, and naturalize the Phrase of another Nation; but this is very sparingly to be allowed, and every Syllable of Foreign Growth ought immediately to be discarded, if its Use and Ornament to our Language be not very evident.
While the Romans studied, and used the Greek Tongue, only to improve and adorn their own, the Latin flourished, and grew every Year more Copious, more Elegant, and Expressive; but in a few ​Years, after the Ladies and Beaux of Rome affected to speak Greek, and regarded nothing but the Softness and Effeminacy of that noble Language, they weakned and corrupted their own: And the monstrous Affectation of our travelled Ladies and Gentlemen to speak in the French Air, French Tone, French Terms, to dress, to cook, to write, to court in French, corrupted at once our Language and our Manners, and introduced an abominable Gallimaufry of French and English mixed together, that made the Innovators ridiculous to all Men of Sense. The French Tongue hath undoubtedly its ​Graces and Beauties, and I am not against any real Improvement of our own Language from that or any other; but we are always so foolish, or unfortunate, as never to make any Advantage of our Neighbours. We affect Nothing of theirs, but what is silly and ridiculous; and by neglecting the substantial Use of their Language, we only enervate, and spoil our own.
Languages, like our Bodies, are in a perpetual Flux, and stand in need of Recruits to supply the Place of those Words that are continually falling off thro' Disuse; and since it is so, my Lord, I think 'tis better to ​raise them at Home, than Abroad. We had better rely on our own Troops than foreign Forces, and I believe we have sufﬁcient Strength and Numbers within ourselves: There is a vast Treasure, an inexhaustible Fund in the old English, from whence Authors may draw constant Supplies, as our Ofﬁcers make their surest Recruits from the Coal-Works and the Mines. The Weight, the Strength, and Significancy of many antiquated Words, should recommend them to Use again. 'Tis only wiping off the Rust they have contracted, and separating them from the Dross they lie mingled with, and ​both in Value and Beauty they will rise above the Standard, rather than fall below it.
Perhaps our Tongue is not so musical to the Ear, nor so abundant in Multiplicity of Words; but its Strength is real, and its Words are therefore the more expressive: The peculiar Character of our Language is, that it is close, compact, and full; and our Writings (if your Lordship will excuse two Latin Words) come nearest to what Tully means by his Pressa Oratio. They are all Weight, and Substance, good Measure pressed together, and running over in a Redundancy of Sense, and not of Words. And therefore ​the Purity of our Language consisteth in preserving this Character, in writing with the English Strength and Spirit: Let us not envy others, that they are more soft, diffused, and rarified; be it our Commendation to write as we pay in true Sterling; if we want Supplies, we had better revive old Words, than create new Ones. I look upon our Language as good Bullion, if we do not debase it with too much Allay; and let me leave this Censure with Your Lordship, That he who corrupteth the Purity of the English Tongue with the most specious foreign Words and Phrases, is just as wise as those ​Modish Ladies that change their Plate for China: For which, my Lord, I think the laudable Traffick of old Cloaths is much the fairest Barter.
After this Regard to the Purity of our Language, the next Quality of a just Style is its Plainness, and Perspicuity. My Lord, this is the greatest Commendation we can give an Author, and the best Argument that he is Master of the Language he writeth in, and the Subject he writeth upon, when we understand him, and see into the Scope and Tendency of his Thoughts, as we read him. All Obscurity of Expression, and Darkness of Sense, do ​arise from the Confusion of the Writer's Thoughts, and his Want of proper Words. If a Man hath not a clear Perception of the Matters he undertaketh to treat of, be his Style never so plain as to the Words he useth, it never can be clear; and if his Thoughts upon his Subject be never so just, and distinct; unless he hath a ready Command of Words, and a Faculty of easy Writing in plain obvious Expressions, the Words will perplex the Sense, and cloud the Clearness of his Thoughts.
It is the Unhappiness of some, that they are not able to express themselves clearly: ​Their Heads are crowded with a Multiplicity of undigested Knowledge, which lieth confused in the Brain, without any Order or Distinction. It is the Vice of others, to affect Obscurity in their Thoughts and Language, to write in a difficult crabbed Style, and perplex the Reader with an intricate Meaning in more intricate Words.
The common Way of offending against Plainness and Perspicuity of Style is, an Affectation of hard unusual Words, and of close contrasted Periods: The Fault of Pedants and sententious Writers! that are vainly ostentatious of their Learning, or their Wisdom. Hard ​Words and quaint Expressions are abominable: Wherever Your Lordship meeteth such a Writer, throw him aside for a Coxcomb. Some Authors of Reputation have used a short and concise Way of Expression, I must own; and if they are not so clear as others, the Fault is to be laid on the Brevity they labour after: For while we study to be concise, we can hardly avoid being obscure. We crowd our Thoughts into too small a Compass, and are so sparing of our Words, that we will not afford enow to express our Meaning.
There is another Extreme in obscure Writers, my Lord, ​not much taken notice of, which some empty conceited Heads are apt to run into, out of a Prodigality of Words, and a Want of Sense. This is the Extravagance of your copious Writers, who lose their Meaning in the Multitude of Words, and bury their Sense under Heaps of Phrases. Their Understanding is rather rariﬁed, than condensed: Their Meaning, we cannot say, is dark and thick; it is too light and subtle to be; discerned; it is spread so thin, and diffused so wide, that it is hard to be collected. Two Lines would express all they say in two Pages: 'Tis nothing but whipt ​Syllabub and Froth, a little Varnish, and Gilding, without any Solidity, or Substance.
My Lord, the deepest Rivers have the plainest Surface, and the purest Waters are always clearest. Crystal is not the less solid for being transparent; the Value of a Style riseth like the Value of precious Stones. If it be dark and cloudy, it is in vain to polish it: It beareth its Worth in its Native Looks, and the same Art which enhanceth its Price, when it is clear, only debaseth it, if it be dull.
Your Lordship seeth I have borrowed some Metaphors to explain my Thoughts, and it is, I believe, impossible to describe ​the Plainness and Clearness of Style, without some Expressions clearer than the Terms I am otherwise bound up to use.
Your Lordship must give me Leave to go on with You to the Decorations and Ornaments of Style: There is no Inconsistency between the Plainness and Perspicuity, and the Ornament of Writing. A Style, my Lord, resembleth Beauty, where the Face is clear and plain as to Symmetry and Proportion, but is capable of wonderful Improvements, as to Features and Complexion. If I may transgress in too frequent Allusions, because I would make every Thing plain to ​Your Lordship, I would pass on from Painters to Statuarys, whose Excellence it is, at first to form true and just Proportions, and afterwards to give them that Softness, that Expression, that Strength, and Delicacy, which make them almost breathe, and live.
My Lord, the Decorations of Style are formed out of those several Schemes and Figures, which are contrived to express the Passions and Motions of our Minds in our Speech; to give Life and Ornament, Grace and Beauty, to our Expressions. I shall not undertake the Rhetoricians Province, in giving Your Lordship an Account of ​all the Figures they have invented, and those several Ornaments of Writing, whose Grace and Commendation lie in being used with judgment and Propriety. It were endless to pursue this Subject thro' all the Schemes and Illustrations of Speech: But there are some common Forms, which every Writer upon every Subject may use, to enliven and adorn his Work.
These, my Lord, are Metaphor, and Similitude, and those Images and Representations, that are drawn in the strongest, and most lively Colours, to imprint what the Writer would have his Readers ​conceive more deeply on their Minds. In the Choice, and in the Use of these, your ordinary Writers are most apt to offend. Images are very sparingly to be introduced; their proper Place is in Poems and Orations, and their Use is to move Pity or Terror, Admiration, Compassion, Anger and Resentment, by representing something very affectionate, or very dreadful, very astonishing, very miserable, or very provoking to our Thoughts. They give a wonderful Force and Beauty to the Subject, where they are painted by a Masterly Hand; but if they are either weakly drawn, or unskilfully placed, they raise ​no Passion but Indignation in the Reader.
The most common Ornaments, my Lord, are Metaphor and Similitude. One is an Allusion to Words, the other to Things; and both have their Beauties, if properly applied.
Similitudes ought to be drawn from the most familiar and best known Particulars in the World: If any Thing is Purpose of using them is defeated; and that which is not clear itself, can never give Light to any Thing that wants it. It is the idle Fancy of some poor Brains, to run out perpetually ​into a Course of Similitudes, confounding their Subject by the Multitude of Likenesses, and making it like so many Things, that it is like Nothing at all. This triﬂing Humour is good for nothing, but to convince us, that the Author is in the dark himself; and while he is likening his Subject to every Thing, he knoweth not what it is like.
There is another tedious Fault in some Simile Men, which is drawing their Comparisons into a great Length and Minute Particulars, where it is of no Importance, whether the Resemblance holdeth or no. But the true Art of illustrating ​any Subject by Similitude, is, ﬁrst, to pitch on such a Resemblance as all the World will agree in; and then, without being careful to have it run on all Four, to touch it only in the strongest Lines, and the nearest Likeness. And this will secure us, my Lord, from all Stiffness and Formality in Similitude; and deliver us from the nauseous Repetition of As and So, which some so so Writers, if I may beg Leave to call them so, are continually sounding in our Ears.
I have Nothing to say, my Lord, to those Gentlemen, who bring Similitudes, and forget the Resemblance. All the ​Pleasure we can take, when we meet these promising Sparks, is in the Disappointment, where we ﬁnd their Fancy is so like their Subject, that it is not like at all.
Metaphors, my Lord, require great judgment and Consideration in the Use of them. They are a shorter Similitude, where the Likeness is rather implied than expressed. The Signiﬁcation of one Word in Metaphors is transferred to another, and we talk of one Thing in the Terms and Propriety of another. But, my Lord, there must be a common Resemblance, some Original Likeness in Nature, some Correspondence and ​easy Transition, or Metaphors are shocking and confused.
The Beauty of them displays itself in their Easiness and Propriety, where they are naturally introduced; but where they are forced, and crowded, too frequent and various, and do not rise out of the Course of Thought, but are constrained and pressed into the Service, instead of making the Discourse more lively and cheerful, they make it sullen, dull and gloomy.
Your Lordship must form Your Judgment upon the best Models, and the most celebrated Pens, where you will ﬁnd the Metaphor in all its Grace ​and Strength, shedding a Lustre and Beauty on the Work. For it ought never to be used, but when it giveth greater Force to the Sentence, an Illustration to the Thought, and insinuateth a silent Argument in the Allusion. The Use of Metaphors is not only to convey the Thought in a more pleasing Manner, but to give it a stronger lmpression, and enforce it on the Mind. Where this is not regarded, they are vain, and triﬂing Trash; and in a due Observance of this, in a pure, chaste, natural Expression, consist the Justness, Beauty, and Delicacy of Style.
​I have said nothing of Epithets; their Business is to express the Nature of the Things they are applied to; and the Choice of them dependeth upon a good Judgment, to distinguish what are the most proper Titles to be given on all Occasions, and a complete Knowledge in the Accidents, Qualities, and Affections of every Thing in the World. They are of most Ornament when they are of Use; They are to determine the Character of every Person, and decide the Merits of every Cause; Conscience and justice are to be regarded, and great Skill and Exactness are required in the use of them. ​For it is of great Importance to call Things by their right Names: The Points of Satyr, and Strains of Compliment depend upon it, otherwise we may make an Ass of a Lion, commend a Man in Satyr, and lampoon him in Panegyric. Here also, my Lord, there is room for Genius: Common Justice, and judgment should direct us to say what is proper at least, but it is Parts and Fire that will prompt us to the most lively, and most forcible Epithets, that can be applied; and 'tis in their Energy and Propriety, their Beauty lieth.
Allegories I need not mention, because they are not so ​much any Ornament of Style, as an artful Way of recommending Truth to the World in a borrowed Shape, and a Dress more agreeable to the Fancy, than naked Truth herself can be. Truth is ever most beautiful and evident in her Native Dress; And the Arts, that are used to convey her to our Minds, are no Argument that she is deﬁcient, but so many Testimonies of the Corruption of our Nature, when Truth, of all Things the plainest and sincerest, is forced to gain Admittance to us in Disguise, and court us in Masquerade.
​My Lord, there is one Ingredient more required to the Perfection of Style, which I have partly mentioned already in speaking of the Suitableness of the Thoughts to the Subject, and of the Words to the Thoughts; but Your Lordship will give me Leave to consider it in another Light with regard to the Majesty and Dignity of the Subject.
It is fit, as we have said already, that the Thoughts and Expression should be suited to the Matter on all Occasions; but in nobler and greater Subjects, especially where the Theme is Sacred and Divine, it must be our Care to think and write up ​to the Dignity and Majesty of the Things we presume to treat of: Nothing little, mean, or low, no childish Thoughts, or boyish Expressions will be endured: All must be awful and grave, and great, and solemn. The noblest Sentiments must be conveyed in the weightiest Words: All Ornaments and Illustrations must be borrowed from the richest Parts of universal Nature; and in Divine Subjects, especially when we attempt to speak of God, of His Wisdom, Goodness and Power, of His Mercy and Justice, of His Dispensations and Providence, by all which He is pleased to manifest ​Himself to the Sons of Men, we must raise our Thoughts, and enlarge our Minds, and search all the Treasures of Knowledge for every Thing that is great, wonderful: and magniﬁcent: We can only express our Thoughts of the Creator in the Works of His Creation; and the brightest of these can only give us some faint Shadows of His Greatness and His Glory. The strongest Figures are too weak, the most exalted Language too low to ex-press His ineffable Excellence. No Hyperbole can be brought to heighten our Thoughts, for in so sublime a Theme nothing can be Hyperbolical. The Riches of ​Imagination are poor, and all the Rivers of Eloquence are dry in supplying Thought on an infinite Subject. How poor and mean, how base and groveling, are the Heathen Conceptions of the Deity! something Sublime and Noble must needs be said on so great an Occasion, but in this great Article the most Celebrated of the Heathen Pens seem to ﬂag and ﬁnk, they bear up in no Proportion to the Dignity of the Theme, as if they were depressed by the Weight, and dazled with the Splendor of the Subject.
We have no Instances to produce of any Writers that rise at all to the Majesty and ​Dignity of the Divine Attributes, except the Sacred Pen-Men. No less than Divine Inspiration could enable Men to write worthily of God, and none but the Spirit of God knew how to express His Greatness, and display His Glory: In Comparison of these Divine Writers, the greatest Genius's, and noblest Wits of the Heathen World are low and dull. The sublime Majesty, and royal Magniﬁcence of the Scripture Poems are above the Reach, and beyond the Power of all mortal Wit. Take the best and liveliest Poems of Antiquity, and read them, as we do the Scriptures, in a Prose Translation, and they are ﬂat ​and poor. Horace, and Virgil, and Homer, lose their Spirits and their Strength in the Translation, to that Degree, that we have hardly Patience to read them. But, my Lord, the Sacred Writings, even in our Translation, preserve their Majesty and their Glory, and very far surpass the brightest and noblest Compositions of Greece and Rome. And this is not owing to the Richness and Solemnity of the Eastern Eloquence, for it holdeth in no other Instance, but to the Divine Direction and Assistance of the Holy Writers. For, let me only make this Remark, that the most literal Translation of the ​Scriptures, in the most natural Signiﬁcation of the Words, is generally the best; and the same Punctualness, which debaseth other Writings, preserveth the Spirit and Majesty of the Sacred Text: lt can further no Improvement from human Wit, and we may observe, that those who have presumed to heighten the Expressions, by a poetical Translation or Paraphrase, have sunk in the Attempt, and all the Decorations of their Verse, whether Greek or Latin, have not been able to reach the Dignity, the Majesty, and Solemnity of our Prose: So that the Prose of Scripture cannot he improved by Verse, and even ​the Divine Poetry is most like itself in Prose. One Observation more I would leave with Your Lordship; Milton himself, as great a Genius as he was, oweth his Superiority over Homer and Virgil, in Majesty of Thought and Splendor of Expression, to the Scriptures: They are the Fountain from which he derived his Light; the Sacred Treasure that enriched his Fancy, and furnished him with all the Truth and Wonders of God and His Creation, of Angels and Men, which no mortal Brain was able either to discover or conceive; And in Him, my Lord, of all human Writers, You will meet all his ​Sentiments and Words raised and suited to the Greatness and Dignity of the Subject.
I have detained Your Lordship the longer on this Majesty of Style, being, perhaps, myself carried away with the Greatness and Pleasure of the Contemplation; what I have dwelt so much on, with respect to Divine Subjects, is more easily to be observed with reference to Human: For in all Things below Divinity, we are rather able to exceed than fall short; and in Adorning all other Subjects, our Words and Sentiments may rise in a just Proportion to them; Nothing is above the Reach of Man, but Heaven; ​and the same Wit can raise a Human Subject, that only debaseth a Divine.
After all these Excellencies of Style, in Purity, in Plainness and Perspicuity, in Ornament and Majesty, are considered, a ﬁnished Piece of what kind soever, must shine in the Order and Proportion of the Whole; For Light riseth out of Order, and Beauty from Proportion. ln Architecture and Painting, these ﬁll and relieve the Eye. A just Disposition giveth us a clear View of the Whole at once, and the due Symmetry and Proportion of every Part in itself, and of all together, leave no Vacancy in ​our Thoughts or Eyes; Nothing is wanting, every Thing is complete, and we are satisfied in Beholding.
But, my Lord, when I speak of Order and Proportion, I do not intend any stiff and formal Method, but only a proper Distribution of the Parts in general, where they follow in a natural Course, and are not confounded with one another. Laying down a Scheme, and marking out the Divisions and Subdivisions of a Discourse are only necessary in Systems, and some Pieces of Controversy and Argumentation; Your Lordship sees, however, that I have ventured to Write without any ​declared Order; and this is allowable, where the Method opens as You read, and the Order discovereth itself in the Progress of the Subject: But certainly, my Lord, of all Pieces that were ever written in a professed and stated Method, and distinguished by the Number and Succession of their Parts, our English Sermons are the completest in Order and Proportion; the Method is so easy and natural, the Parts bear so just a Proportion to one another, that among many others, this may pass for a peculiar Commendation of them: For those Divisions and Particulars which obscure and perplex other ​writings, give a clearer Light to Ours. All that I would insinuate, therefore, is only this, that it is not necessary to lay the Method we use before the Reader, only to write, and then he will read, in Order.
But it requireth, my Lord, a full Command of the Subject, a distinct View to keep it always in Sight, or else without some Method ﬁrst designed, we shall be in Danger of losing it, and wandring after it, till we have lost ourselves, and bewildered the Reader.
A prescribed Method is necessary for weaker Heads, but the Beauty of Order is its Freedom and Unconstraint: It must ​be dispersed and shine in all the Parts thro' the whole Performance, but there is no Necessity of Writing in Trammels, when we can move more at ease without them; neither is the Proportion of Writing to be measured out like the Proportions of a Horse, where every Part must be drawn in the minutest Respect to the Size and Bigness of the rest, but it is to be taken by the Mind, and formed upon a general View and Consideration of the Whole. The Statuary that carveth Hercules in Stone, or casts him in Brass may be obliged to take his Dimensions from his Foot, but the Poet that describeth him is not ​bound up to the Geometers Rule, nor is an Author under any Obligation to write by the Scale.
These Hints will serve to give Your Lordship some Notion of Order and Proportion, and I must not dwell too long upon them, lest I transgress the Rules I am laying down.
My Lord, I shall make no formal Recapitulation of what I have delivered. Out of all these Rules together, rises a just Style, and a perfect Composition. All the Latitude, that can be admitted, is in the Ornament of Writing; we do not require every Author to shine in Gold and Jewels: There is a ​Moderation to be used in the Pomp and Trappings of a Discourse: It is not necessary that every Part should be embellished and adorned, but the Decorations should be skilfully distributed thro' the Whole: Too full and glaring a Light is offensive, and confounds the Eyes: In Heaven itseIf there are Vacancies and Spaces between the Stars; and the Day is not less Beautiful for being interspersed with Clouds: They only moderate the Brightness of the Sun, and without diminishing from his Splendor, guild and adorn themselves with his Rays. But to descend from the Skies, my Lord, 'tis in Writing as in Dress. The ​richest Habits are not always the completest, and a Gentleman may make a better Figure in a plain Suit, than in an embroidered Coat. The Dress dependeth upon the Imagination, but must be adjusted by the Judgment, contrary to the Opinion of the Ladies, who value nothing but a good Fancy in the Choice of their Clothes. The ﬁrst Excellence is to write in Purity plainly and clearly; there is no Dispensation from these, but afterwards You have Your Choice of Colours, and may enliven, adorn, and paint Your Subject as You please.
In Writing, the Rules have a Relation and Dependence on ​one another. They are held in one social Bond, and joined, like the Moral Virtues, and Liberal Arts, in a sort of Harmony and Concord. He that cannot write pure, plain English, must never pretend to write at all; 'tis in vain for him to dress and adorn his Discourse, the finer he endeavoureth to make it, he maketh it only the more ridiculous. And on the other side, let a Man write in the exactest Purity, and Propriety of the Language, if he hath not Life and Fire to give his Work some Force and Spirit, 'tis nothing but a meer Corps, and a lumpish unwieldly Mass of Matter. But every true ​Genius, who is a perfect Master of the Language he writeth in, will let no ﬁtting Ornaments and Decorations be wanting. His Fancy ﬂoweth in the richest Vein, and giveth his Pieces such lively Colours, and so beautiful a Complexion, that You would almost say his own Blood and Spirits were transfused into the Work.
A perfect Mastery and Elegance of Style is to be learn'd from the Common Rules, but must be improved by reading the Orators and Poets, and the celebrated Masters in every Kind; this will give Your Lordship a right Taste, and a true Relish; and when You can ​distinguish the Beauties of every ﬁnished Piece, You will write Yourself with equal Commendation.
I do not assert, my Lord, that every good Writer must have a Genius for Poetry, I know Tully is an undeniable Exception; but I will venture to affirm, That a Soul that is not moved with Poetry, and hath no Taste that way, is too dull and lumpish ever to write with any Prospect of being read. It is a fatal Mistake, and simple Superstition, to discourage Youth from Poetry, and endeavour to prejudice them against it; if they are of a Poetical Genius, there is no ​restraining them: Ovid, Your Lordship knoweth, was deaf to his Father's frequent Admonitions; But if they are not quite smitten, and bewitched with Love of Verse, they should be trained to it, to make them Masters of every kind of Poetry, that by Learning to imitate the Originals, they may arrive at a right Conception, and a true Taste of their Authors; and being able to write in Verse upon Occasion, I can assure Your Lordship is no Disadvantage to Prose, for without relishing the one, a Man must never pretend to any Taste of the other.
​Taste, my Lord, is a Metaphor borrowed from the Palate, by which we approve or dislike what we eat and drink from the Agreeableness or Disagreeableness of the Relish in our Mouth. Nature directs us in the Common Use, and every body can tell Sweet from Bitter, what is Sharp, or Sour, or Vapid, or Nauseous; but it requireth Senses more reﬁned and exercised, to discover every Taste that is most perfect in its Kind; every Palate is not a Judge of that, and yet Drinking is more used than Reading; all that I pretend to know of the Matter, is, my Lord, that Wine should be like a Style, ​clear, deep, bright and strong, sincere and pure, sound and dry, (as our Advertisements do well express it) which last is a commendable Term, that contains the Juice of the richest Spirits, and only keepeth out all Cold and Dampness.
It is common to commend a Man, my Lord, for an Ear to Music, and a Taste of Painting, which are nothing but a just Discernment of what is excellent and most perfect in them: The ﬁrst dependeth entirely on the Ear; a Man can never expect to be a Master, that hath not an Ear tuned and set to Music: And You can no more sing an Ode ​without an Ear, than without a Genius You can write one. Painting, my Lord, we should think, requireth some Understanding in the Art, and exact Knowledge of the best Masters Manner to be a Judge of it; but this Faculty like the rest is founded in Nature. Knowledge in the Art, and frequent Conversation with the best Originals will certainly perfect a Man's Judgment, but if there is not a natural Sagacity and Aptness, Experience will be of no great Service. A good Taste is an Argument of a great Soul, as well as a lively Wit. It is the Inﬁrmity of poor Spirits to be taken with every Appearance, ​and dazled by every Thing that sparkles; But to pass by what the Generality of the World admires, and to be detained with nothing, but what is most perfect, and excellent in its Kind, speaks a superior Genius, and a true Discernment: A new Picture by some meaner Hand, where the Colours are fresh and lively will engage the Eye, but the Pleasure goes off with looking, and what we ran to at ﬁrst with Eagerness, we presently leave with Indifference; but the old Pieces of Raphael, Michael Angelo, Tintoret, and Titian, tho' not so inviting at ﬁrst, open to the Eye by Degrees; and the longer and oftner we look, we ​still discover new Beauties, and find new Pleasure. I am not, my Lord, a Man of so much Severity in my Temper, as to allow Your Lordship to be pleased with nothing but what is in the last Perfection: For then, possibly, so many are the Infirmities of Writing, beyond other Arts, You never could be pleased. There is a wide Difference in being Nice to judge of every Degree of Perfection, and Rigid in refusing whatever is deficient in any Point. This would only be a Squeamishness of Stomach, not any Commendation of a good Palate; a true Taste judges of Defects as well as Perfections, and ​the best judges are always the Persons of the greatest Candor. They will find none but real Faults, and wherever they commend, the Praise is justly due.
I have intimated already, that a good Taste is to be formed by reading the best Authors, and when Your Lordship shall be able to point out their Beauties, to discern the brightest Passages, the Strength and Elegance of their Language, You will always write Yourself, and read others by that Standard, and must therefore necessarily excel.
In Rome, my Lord, there were some popular Orators, who with a false Eloquence and violent Action carried away ​the Applause of the People; and with us we have some popular Men, who are followed and admired for the Loudness of their Voice, and a false Pathos both in utterance and Writing: I have been sometimes in some Confusion to hear such Persons commended by those of superior Sense, who could distinguish, one would think, between empty, pompous, specious Harangues, and those Pieces in which all the Beauties of Writing are combined. A natural Taste must therefore be improved; like ﬁne Parts, and a great Genius, it must be assisted by Art, or it will be easily vitiated and ​corrupted: False Eloquence passeth only where True is not understood, and no body will commend bad Writers, that is acquainted with Good.
These, my Lord, are only some cursory Thoughts on a Subject that will not be reduced to Rules. To treat of a true Taste in a formal Method, would be very lnsipid; It is best collected from the Beauties and Laws of Writing, and must rise from every Man's own Apprehension and Notion of what he heareth and readeth.
It may be therefore of farther Use, and most Advantage to Your Lordship, as well as a Relief and Entertainment to ​refresh Your Spirits in the End of a tedious Discourse, if I lay before You some of the correctest Writers of this Age and the last, in several Faculties upon different Subjects. History, Poetry, and Divinity have been the distinguishing Parts of our Writings, and I will be bold to give this general Character of our Writers in them, that they only fall short of the Graces and Beauties of the Ancients.
Divinity, my Lord, is the just Boast and Glory of England. I need not say, that our Writers have excelled in Soundness of Doctrine, Exactness of Method, and Clearness of Reasoning, but they have excelled ​also in the Simplicity and Elegance of their Style, in Brightness of Thought, and Beauty of Expression.
The Famous Tillotson is all over Natural and Easy in the most unconstrained, and freest Elegancy of Thoughts and Words: His Course, both in his Reasoning and his Style, like a gentle and an even Current, is clear and deep, and calm and strong. His Language is so pure, no Water can be more; It floweth with so free, uninterrupted a Stream, that it never stoppeth the Reader, or itself. Every Word possesseth its proper Place; we meet no hard, unusual, mean, or ​far-fetched Expression: His Diction is not in the naked Terms of the Things he speaks of, but rather metaphorical, yet so easily are his Metaphors transferred, that You would not say they intrude into anothers Place, but that they step into their own.
The Bishop of Rochester is the correctest Writer of the Age, and comes nearest to the great Originals of Greece and Rome, by a studious Imitation of the Ancients: His Plainness and Accuracy, his Sublime and Oratory are equally laboured: His Life of Cowley, and his excellent Discourse to his Clergy, are admirable for the Modesty and Plainness, and inimitable ​Simplicity of their Dress. His Answer to Sorbiere is so handsome a Way of exposing an empty, triﬂing, pretending Pedant, the Wit so lively, the Satyr so courtly, and so severe, and his Address in maintaining the Honour of our Country so masterly and accomplished, that he maketh his Adversary a ridiculous Thing too lnconsiderable for our Anger, at once the Subject of our Diversion and Contempt: His Letters to my Lord Dorset are the best Patterns of Apology, and a true Epistolary Style on a publick Subject: His Sermons are truly ﬁne, so very beautiful, and so extremely studied in every ​bright Thought, and delicate Expression, and all the Charms of Language, that Religion looketh lovely like herself, as well as venerable in our Eyes.
I have been induced by the Pleasure that remaineth on my Mind from Reading, to forget that I was mentioning him only as a Divine, but every Thing from his Pen is in such Perfection, that 'tis of Advantage to Your Lordship, wherever I introduce him.
Dr. Atterbury writeth with the fewest Faults, and greatest Excellencies of any, who have studied to mix Art and Nature in their Compositions: His ​Style is beautiful and unforced, delicate and strong: Your Lordship will discern in him the true Spirit of the Classic Authors, which joined to his own Vivacity of Thought, and Brightness of Fancy, and heightened by an inward Sense of the Sacred Doctrine, every where informs and animates his Writings.
Your Lordship must not take the Value of the Writers from the Order I name them in. It is not my Office to fix their Precedency; Dr. Moss is one of the best Preachers of the Age, and an admirable Instance of the Use that is to be made of Classics, without pretending ​to Critics and Commentators, by Mastering the genuine Spirit, and native Beauty of his Authors. He maketh them subservient to Religion, and consecrateth them to the Service of God.
In Dr. Smalridge are reconciled all the Beauties of Language to the Severity of Arguments: His Method and Reasoning are absolute upon the Points he treats of; His Style is clear and elegant, just and manly; He ennobleth his Classic Learning, and raises his Eloquence by the Majesty and Beauty of the Scripture-Language.
Friendship, my Lord, if the World did not agree with me, ​might render me suspected of Partiality, when I mention Dr. Snape, who shineth in all the Ornaments of Style, in a numerous, lively, forcible Expression, and is happy above others in the Beauty, Signiﬁcancy, and Propriety of his Epithets: 'Tis a noble Pleasure to see Knowledge cloathed in such beauteous Robes, and every divine Subject he undertaketh to adorn, dressed in so rich Attire.
Dr. Stanhope is Excellent in the Whole: His Thoughts and Reasoning bright and solid: His Style is just, both for Purity of Language, Strength, and Beauty of Expression, but the Periods are formed in so peculiar ​an Order of the Words, that I believe no body can pronounce them with the same Grace and Advantage as himself.
Dr. Adams writeth in an abundant, free, and flourishing Style, equally rich in Thought, and happy in Expression.
The Bishop of Chester is a perfect Orator in his Elocution, and those sacred Strains, which carry their own Reason and Conviction with them, are irresistible in the Charms and Power of his Delivery.
Bishop Fleetwood's Softness, and Bishop Blackall's Plainness are their Characters.
I may justly add the Arch-Bishop of York, who is truly ​Excellent in all the Perfections of good Writing. Goodness, Fervour, Strength, and a true Spirit of Piety run thro' his various Compositions in a plain, unaffected Majesty of Style.
With the Bishop of Exeter and the good Arch-Bishop, I must join the late learned and venerable Bishop of S. Asaph, Dr. Beveridge; who hath delivered himself with those Ornaments alone, which his Subject suggested to him, and hath written in that Plainness and Solemnity of Style, that Gravity and Simplicity, which give Authority to the Sacred Truths he delivereth, and ​unanswerable Evidence to the Doctrines he defendeth. There is something so Great, Primitive, and Apostolical in his Writings, that it creates an Awe and Veneration in our Mind: The Importance of his Subjects are above the Decorations of Words, and what is Great and Majestic in itself, looketh most like itself, the less it is adorned. The true Sublime in the great Articles of our Faith is lodged in the plainest Words. The Divine Revelations are best expressed in the Language they were revealed in, and as I observed before of the Scriptures, they will suffer no Ornament or Amendment.
​But then, Your Lordship will observe, that the Practice of Virtue, and all moral Duties admit of all the Powers of humane Wit and Eloquence; where we are to persuade, as well as teach, where we are to engage the Will, as well as inform the Understanding; 'tis our Business to try all the Beauties and Charms of Words, and with all the Force of Oratory to prevail with Men to practise what they own to be their Duty. For Conviction of the Truth, we find by Experience is not enough, unless the Will and Affections be won over to its Side.
​I have troubled Your Lordship with these great Men, not that I think You will ever write Sermons, but that You may judge of the Writers; and as far as their Style may be proper on other Subjects, they are able to give You a true Taste, and a right Turn of solid, and ﬁne Writing.
Your Lordship, however, may on many Occasions write as a Christian, tho' not as a Divine; and whether Your Pen shall delight in Poetry or Prose, the Subjects You may choose, and the Thoughts which are natural to every Sacred Theme, are so far exalted above the Heathen Poetry or Philosophy, ​that the meanest Christian, however he may fail in Diction, is able to surpass the noblest Wits of Antiquity in the Truth, and Greatness of his Sentiments.
Let me only propose a Christian Orator, and compare him with the Orators of Greece and Rome, to shew Your Lordship the Advantages we are possessed of, and how greatly we may excell. If Your Lordship reads the Topics of Aristotle and Tully, and will observe how all their Arguments are formed upon the Circumstances of Things, and drawn and enforced from Virtues and Vices, the Passions and Inclinations of Mankind, ​You will see the whole Compass their Thoughts could be extended to, and observe, that they have neglected no Advantage to raise, and beautify, and enforce their Arguments. But what a poor, barren Field is this, compared with the glorious Harvest every Christian gathers in the Scriptures? The Treasures of Revelation are Immense: Every Article of Faith: All that God hath done for us, and declared unto us are so many Arguments of Persuasion; they are the only Principles of a Christian's Practice, and the Reason of his Duty: All the Passions and Affections of our Souls are ​moved by the most powerful Application. A Christian's Topics are the Attributes of God, the Manifestations of His inﬁnite Love to Mankind. Our Creation, our Fall, our Redemption in the wonderful Method the Scriptures declare it in: The Rewards proposed, the Punishments denounced: Heaven and Hell, Happiness and Misery eternal: The Resurrection of our Bodies: The Righteousness and Awfulness of the last Judgment: The Majesty of the Judge: The Solemnity of the Proceedings: The Comfort and the Terrors of His ﬁnal Sentence: Fear and Love, Desire of Happiness, ​Dread of Misery, Gratitude to move more generous Minds, Interest to prevail with lower Spirits, all enforced from eternal, inﬁnite Considerations, are the inexhaustible Stores of a Christian Orator. And now, my Lord, with me the Wonder is, that our Divines do not exceed the greatest Orators of Greece and Rome, as far as our Topics of Argument and Persuasion are nobler, and inﬁnitely more forcible than theirs: To argue for Virtue by displaying her Beauties, and showing the Reasonableness and Convenience of the Practice, with no other Encouragement than the secret Satisfaction of having done ​worthily and well, (so for want of other, making Virtue her own Reward) was all the Heathens could advance with any Certainty in the Cause; whereas, the Christian is supplied with all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge, which God hath abundantly poured forth upon the World.
The only Account, my Lord, that I can give, why Tully for Example could talk so well in the Cause of Virtue under all the Disadvantage of Argument, and why we under a clearer Light, and furnished with a richer Vein of Eloquence, do yet in Arguments of a moral Nature fall below him, is this, ​that since we do not write by Inspiration, we may fail in the Faculty and Power of Writing so much, that the Advantages of our Subject cannot set us upon the Level: 'Tis for this Reason I recommend Classic Learning, and a just Style in Divinity. We see the Effects in those, that are Masters of them: And should an Orator ever rise of Demosthenes's Spirit, and Tully's Genius, and apply himself as an Orator to Divinity, work and labour his Subject by all the great Topics of Reasoning and Persuasion, what wonderful Productions should we behold? And if the pathetic, persuasive Way of Writing ​were more practised and enforced, I believe it would produce wonderful Effects among those who are not wanting in the Knowledge of their Duty, nor yet in the Conviction of its Truth, but are backward in their Practice of it, and forward to transgress it.
I cannot leave this Argument without one Observation more, that if we will write of Morality only upon the Heathen Plan, and enforce it only from their Topics, we shall find all our Essays too weak, and demonstrate to the World, that a meer moral Christian is as much below a Pagan, as a Divine or Believing Christian is above him.
​I am under an Engagement to Your Lordship to say something of History towards forming Your Style; I intended indeed to have spoken of it at large, but since it is enough for me at present to mention only our most celebrated Historians, I will deferr what I designed to say of the Laws of History, and the Rules to be observed in Reading it, till Your Lordship shall give me Permission to trouble You farther in this way.
All that seemeth necessary to the Business now before us, is to give Your Lordship some Observations upon the historical Style, because, of all others, ​I take it to be the most difficult to attain in Perfection: In all other Subjects there is a greater Latitude and Compass for the Writer's Thoughts, a larger Field of Fancy and Imagination before him, but in History he is conﬁned to the Facts and Occurrences he relateth. And these, as they are not alike Entertaining, and Ornamental in themselves, require great Force and Judgment in the Narration to make them all agreeable. The worst Province an Historian can fall upon, is a Series of barren Times, in which nothing remarkable happeneth, to awake our Attention, or engage our Notice. Here ​the Writer is becalmed, and goes on a dull, smooth, sleepy Pace, unless he hath Spirit of his own to breathe into his Subject, and make it move with Life, as well as Truth; which never be forsaken: The richest Fields of History are Scenes of Action and Commotion, where Nations are agitated by Wars abroad, or Factions at Home; The most delicate Part of an Historian, which requireth the deepest Penetration, and soundest Judgment are the Councils of States and Princes; the Springs of Action, the Principal Wheels, and Cardinal Hinges: The Characters of Men, the ​Juncture of Times, the lnterest of Parties, their different Views, and the several Schemes they pursue; I do not intend to say what Talents are required in an Historian, it will run me off too much from the Style l am to speak of, if I should enlarge upon them.
Every body knoweth the general Design of History, and among those who are in all Points qualiﬁed to undertake it, they will excell, who have the brightest Genius, and the most lively Wit. Perhaps, Your Lordship will wonder, I am sure many People will condemn me for this Assertion, but I cannot help it, my Lord, ​for I have always thought that the more we are bound up to an exact Narration, we want more Life, and Fire to animate and inform the Story, otherwise the Success of an Historian would depend on the Times he writeth of, more than on his Abilities. This most auspicious Reign of our most Gracious Queen, hath opened the brightest, and most glorious Scene that History can display. The Triumphs of Her Arms, and the Happiness of Her Councils, illustrate and adorn each other in a perfect Harmony and Co-operation. These Annals will shine in any Hand, the Subject is so Great ​and Glorious, it carrieth with it its own Light and Ornament; but nevertheless, that Genius, which can beautify and enliven the stiller Times of Peace, will celebrate the Triumphs of uninterrupted Conquest in a Style most equal to the Fortune, and Glory of our Arms.
History, my Lord, will not admit those Decorations other Subjects are capable of; the Passions and Affections are not to be moved with any Thing, but the Truth of the Narration. All the Force and Beauty must lie in the Order and Expression. To relate every Event with Clearness and Perspicuity, in such Words as best express ​the Nature of the Subject, is the chief Commendation of an Historian's Style. History giveth us a Draught of Facts and Transactions in the World. The Colours these are painted in, the Strength and Significancy of the several Faces: the regular Confusion of a Battel: the Distractions of a Tumult sensibly depicted: every Object, and every Occurrence so presented to Your View, that while You read, You seem indeed to see them; this is the Art and Perfection of an historical Style. And Your Lordship will observe, that those who have excelled in History, have excelled in this especially, and what ​hath made them the Standards of that Style is the Clearness, the Life and Vigor of their Expression, everywhere properly varied, according to the Variety of the Subjects they wrote on: For History and Narration are nothing but just and lively Descriptions of the remarkable Events and Accidents in the World.
For this Reason we praise Herodotus and Thucydides among the Greeks, for I will mention no more of them, and upon this Account we commend Salust and Livy among the Romans. For tho' they all differ in their Style, yet they all agree in these common Excellencies. ​Herodotus displays a natural Oratory in the Beauty and Clearness of a numerous and solemn Diction; he floweth with a sedate and majestic Pace, with an easy Current, and a pleasant Stream. Thucydides doth sometimes write in a Style so close, that almost every Word is a Sentence, and every Sentence almost acquaints us with something New, so that from the Multitude of Clauses, and Variety of Matter crowded together, we should suspect him to be obscure; but yet so happy, so admirable a Master is he in the Art of Expression, so proper, and so full, that we cannot say whether his Diction ​doth more illustrate the Things he speaks of, or whether his Words themselves are not illustrated by his Matter. So mutual a Light do his Expression and Subject reflect on each other. His Diction, tho' it be pressed and close, is nevertheless great and magnificent, equal to the Dignity and Importance of his Subject. He first, after Herodotus, ventured to adorn the Historians style , to make the narration more pleasing, by leaving the Flatness and Nakedness of former Ages: This is most observable in his Battles, where he does not only relate the meer Fight, but writeth with a martial ​Spirit, as if he stood in the hottest of the Engagement; and what is most excellent, as weIl as remarkable in so close a Style, is, that it is numerous and harmonious, that his Words are not laboured nor forced, but fall into their Places in a natural Order, as into their most proper Situation.
Salust and Livy Your Lordship will read, I hope with so much Pleasure, as to make a thorough and intimate Acquaintance with them. I have said a great many Pages back, that Thucydides and Salust are generally compared, as Livy is with Herodotus; and since I am fallen upon their ​Characters, I cannot help touching the Comparisons. Salust is represented as a concise, a strong and nervous Writer, and so far he agreeth with Thucydides's Manner, but he is also charged with being obscure, as concise Writers very often are, without any Reason. For, if I may Judge by my own Apprehensions, as I read him, no Writer can be more clear, more obvious and intelligible. He hath not indeed, as far as I can observe, one redundant Expression; but his Words are all weighed and chosen, so expressive and signiﬁcant, that l will challenge any Critic to take a Sentence of his, and express it ​clearer or better; his Contraction seemeth wrought and laboured. To me he appears as a Man, that considered and studied Perspicuity and Brevity to that Degree, that he would not retrench a Word, which might help him to express his Meaning, nor suffer one to stand, if his Sense was clear without it. Being more diffused, would have weakened his Language, and have made it obscurer rather, than clearer. For Multitude of Words only serve to cloud, or dissipate the Sense; and tho' a copious Style in a Master's Hand is clear and beautiful, yet where Conciseness and Perspicuity are once ​reconciled, any Attempt to enlarge the Expressions, if doth not darken, does certainly make the Light much feebler. Salust is all Life and Spirit, yet grave and majestic in his diction: His Use of old Words is perfectly Right; there is no Affectation, but more Weight and Significancy in them; the Boldness of his Metaphors are among his greatest Beauties, they are chosen with great judgment, and show the Force of his Genius: The Colouring is strong, and the Strokes are bold, and in my Opinion he chose them for the sake of that Brevity he loved, to express more clearly and more ​forcibly, what otherwise he must have written in looser Characters with less Strength and Beauty. And no Fault can be objected to the justest and exactest of the Roman Writers.
Livy, my Lord, is the most Considerable of the Roman Historians, if to the Perfection of his Style we join the Compass of his Subject. In which he hath the Advantage over all that wrote before him, especially Thucydides, whose History, however drawn out into Length, is conﬁned to the shortest Period of any, except what remaineth of Salust. No Historian could be happier in ​the Greatness and Dignity of his Subject, and none was better qualiﬁed to adorn it; for his Genius was equal to the Majesty of the Roman Empire, and every Way capable of the mighty Undertaking; he is not so copious in Words, as abundant in Matter, rich in his Expression, grave, majestic, and lively, and if I may have Liberty to enlarge on the old Commendation, I would say his Style ﬂoweth with Milk and Honey, in such Abundance, such Pleasure and Sweetness, that when once Your Lordship is Proﬁcient enough to read him readily, You will go on with unwearied Delight, and ​never lay him out of Your Hands without Impatience to resume him. We may resemble him to Herodotus, in the Manner of his Diction; but he is more like Thucydides, in the Grandeur and Majesty of Expression; and if we observe the Multitude of Clauses in the Length of his Periods, perhaps Thucydides himself is not more crowded; only the Length of the Periods is apt to deceive us; and great Men among the Ancients, as well as Moderns, have been induced to think this Writer was copious, because his Sentences were long. Copious he is indeed, and forcible in his Descriptions; not lavish in the ​Number, but exuberant in the Richness and Significancy of his Words. Your Lordship will observe, for I speak upon my own Observation, that Livy is not so easy and obvious to be understood as Salust; the Experiment is made every where in reading five or six Pages of each Author together. The Shortness of Salust's Sentences, as long as they are clear, shows his Sense and Meaning all the Way in an Instant: The Progress is quick and plain, and every three Lines gives us a new and compleat Idea; we are carried from one Thing to another with so swift a Pace, that we run as we read, and ​yet cannot, if we read distinctly, run faster than we understand him. This, I think, is the brightest Testimony that can be given of a clear and obvious Style. In Livy, my Lord, we cannot pass on so readily; we are forced to wait for his Meaning till we come to the End of the Sentence, and have so many Clauses to sort, and refer to their proper Places in the Way, that I must own I cannot read him so readily at Sight, as I can Salust; though with Attention and Consideration I understand him as well. He is not so easy, nor so well adapted to young Proficients, as the other; and is ever ​plainest, when his Sentences are shortest; which I think is a Demonstration. Some, perhaps, will be apt to conclude, that in this I differ from Quintilian, but I do not conceive so myself. For Quintilian recommends Livy before Salust, rather for his Candor, and the larger Compass of his History; for he owneth a good Proﬁciency is required to understand him; and I can only referr to the Experience of young Proficients which of them is more Open to their Apprehension. Distinction of Sentences, in few Words, provided the Words be plain and expressive, ever giveth Light to the ​Author, and carries his Meaning uppermost; but long Periods, and a Multiplicity of Clauses, however they abound with the most obvious and signiﬁcant Words, do necessarily make the Meaning more retired, less forward and obvious to the View: And in this, my Lord, Livy may seem as crowded as Thucydides, if not in the Number of Periods, certainly in the Multitude of Clauses, which so disposed, do rather obscure, than illuminate his Writings. But in so rich, so majestic, so ﬂowing a Writer, we may wait with Patience to the End of the Sentence, for the Pleasure still increaseth as we read. The ​Elegance and Purity, the Greatness and Nobleness of his Diction, his Happiness in Narration, and his wonderful Eloquence, are above all Commendation; and his Style, if we were to decide, is certainly the Standard of Roman History. For Salust, I must own, is too impetuous in his Course; he hurries his Reader on too fast, and hardly ever alloweth him the Pleasure of Expectation, which in reading History, where it is justly raised upon important Events, is the greatest of all others.
Your Lordship will observe, by reading some ordinary Historians, and comparing them ​with these, that History is the most difficult Province of all others; and if there were not something in Novelty grateful to the Curiosity of Mankind, something in the Histories of our own Times and Nation, that engages us as Parties, and gives us an Interest in the Events, Nothing would be read, but what was so beautifully expressed, as by the Charms of Language, and Force of a lively Representation, to attract our Eyes. Every great Historian would make a greater Orator, and perhaps, the greatest Orator, even Tully himself, would fall below the Historian, should he attempt to ​rival him. For the Orator hath the Advantage of all Arts and Topics of Persuasion, but the Historian can only use the Abilities of an Orator to express and relate, and according to Truth, adorn the Subject of his History.
Having thus prepared Your Lordship for Reading them, so as to form some judgment of their Style, from these ancient Standards I descend at last to our own Historians, who are no less various, than excellent in their Style and Method, and do not come altogether short of the Greek and Roman Writers, but emulate both the Height and Spirit of the Classic Diction: ​The great Disadvantage our most celebrated Historians seem to labour under, is too long, and too tedious an Interruption, by the Insertion of Laws and Statutes, and Records in the Body of their Narration; at least, in making too particular and copious a Recital of them, whereas they had better be mentioned only in general, and thrown aside by themselves, as they commonly are, into an Appendix.
I will pass over the Historians of elder Date, as Daniel, Lord Verulam, Lord Herbert, and others, as too remote from the present Standard; my Lord Herbert comes the nearest; but ​what is a Wonder to me, Sir Francis Bacon, who hath given us many Strokes of a masterly Pen, and was certainly the greatest and most universal Genius the World, perhaps, hath produced, hath failed most in his Style, where we should expect he would have most excelled. For in Philosophy, Perspicuity and a plain Elegance are only required, but in History all the Beauty, Strength, Majesty, and Compass of Expression are demanded. In these his Henry VII. is extremely wanting, and if we examine into it, we shall find, that nothing but the Reputation of the Author ​supporteth the Reputation of the History.
Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World is a Work of so vast a Compass, such endless Variety, that no Genius, but one Adventurous as his own, durst have undertaken that great Design. I do not apprehend any great Difficulty in Collecting, and Common-placing an universal History from the whole Body of Historians; that is nothing but mechanic Labour. But to digest the several Authors in his Mind, to take in all their Majesty, Strength, and Beauty, to raise the Spirit of meaner Historians, and to equal all the Excellencies of the best, is ​Sir Walter's peculiar Praise. His Style is the most perfect, the happiest, and most beautiful of the Age he wrote in; majestic, clear, and manly, and he appears every where so superior, rather than unequal to his Subject, that the Spirit of Rome and Athens seems to be breathed into his Work. In the sacred History alone, his Strength and his Spirit fail him: For nothing can preserve that sublime Simplicity, that awful Solemnity, and divine Majesty of the inspired Historians, but their own Words, as they are most plainly and properly rendred into any Language; this is an accidental Confirmation of a former ​Remark, and I must ﬁnish Sir Walter's Character with declaring my Opinion, that his admirable Performance in such a prodigious Undertaking, sheweth, that if he had attempted the History of his own Country, or his own Times, he would have excelled even Livy and Thucydides; and the Annals of Queen Elizabeth by his Pen, without diminishing from the serious, judicious Cambden, had been the brightest Glory of her Reign, and would have transmitted his History as the Standard of our Language even to the present Age: For certainly the Writers in that glorious Reign, and the beginning ​of the next, are far preferable in their Style to any, till you come to King Charles the Second. In the long Interval of half an Age, You will hardly meet with one besides the Royal Martyr, whose Style is comparable to Sir Philip Sidney, Bilson, Hooker, or Raleigh. So that we must descend almost from the Reformation, at least to the Restoration, for a Standard.
The Bishop of Salisbury writeth with perfect Mastery in a Language not Native to him; and whatever his Principles may be, his Style I may venture to say, is entirely English; except, as was objected to Livy, it may ​seem sometimes to bewray his Country.
The History of the Royal Society shows how well Philosophy becometh a Narration, and that the Progress of Knowledge is as entertaining, as that of Arms: Her Conquests more extended, and her Victories more glorious. The Diction is every where suited to the Subject: The whole Work speaketh the Author in a studied Easiness, and correct Accuracy of Expression, and a Style as much improved, as the Philosophy he treateth of.
I dare not attempt my Lord Clarendon's Commendation: To give his just Character, requireth ​a Happiness of Expression, a Clearness of Judgment, and Majesty of Style, equal to his own: Or to say all in a Word, that peculiar Felicity in designing Characters, in which he hath succeeded beyond Example. Your Lordship will want no Sollicitations to read the noblest, and most impartial Historian this Nation hath produced. The Compassion and Resentments of his Thoughts, the noble Openness and Freedom of his Reflexions, the glorious Debt he pays to Friendship, and the Veil he kindly draweth over the Sorrows and Reproach of his Country, are so admirably expressed in such ​lively Colours, that we are struck with Sympathy, and do feel by Reading, that he wrote from his Heart under the deepest Sense, and the most present Impression of the Evils he bewaileth. I have met with none that may compare with him in the Weight and Solemnity of his Style, in the Strength and Clearness of Direction, in the Beauty and Majesty of Expression, and that noble Negligence of Phrase, which maketh his Words wait every where upon his Subject, with a Readiness and Propriety, that Art and Study are almost Strangers to.
​Reading these celebrated Authors will give Your Lordship a true Taste of good Writing, and form You to a just and correct Style upon every Occasion that shall demand Your Pen. I would not recommend any of them to a strict Imitation: That is servile and mean, and You cannot propose an exact Copy of a Pattern without falling short of the Original; but if Your Lordship once readeth them with a true Relish and Discernment of their Beauties, You may lay them aside, and be secure of Writing with all the Graces of them all, without owing Your Perfection to any. Your Style ​and Manner will be Your own, and even Your Letters upon the most ordinary Subjects will have a native Beauty and Elegance in the Composition, which will equal them with the best Originals, and set them far above the common Standard.
Upon this Occasion, my Lord, I cannot pass by Your Favourite Author, the grave and facetious Squire Bickerstaff, who hath drawn Mankind in every Dress, and every Disguise of Nature, in a Style ever varying with the Humours, Fancies, and Follies, he describes. He hath showed himself a Master in every Turn of his Pen, whether his Subject ​be light, or serious, and hath laid down the Rules of common Life with so much judgment, in such agreeable, such lively, and elegant Language, that from him Your Lordship at once may form Your Manners and Your Style.
Perhaps l shall be blamed, if I recommend any Modern Comedies to Your Reading. They are, indeed, most of them, so very prophane and obscene, that I had much rather caution Your Lordship most earnestly against them, than give them the least Countenance in judging, they may be read with Safety. But if the most Innocent were chosen, ​and the most Innocent are the best, I must needs say so much in their behalf, that l know no Writers, who are better able to give You a true Notion of familiar Wit and Writing, than the best and most correct of our Comic Authors.
And now, my Lord, You see I am entered upon Poetry, where little need be said after what I have said already. Perhaps I may touch some Characters again, but besides those l have named, I may recommend Mr. Addison, and Mr. Prior, as perfect Patterns of true poetic Writing. Mr. Addison is more laboured, like his great Master Virgil, he hath weighed every ​Word, nor is there an Expression in all his Lines, that can be changed for any juster, or more forcible than itself. Mr. Prior enjoys, the freest and easiest Muse in the World, and perhaps is the only Man, who may rival Horace in an admirable Felicity of Expression, both in the sublime and familiar Way. Like our celebrated Cowley, he hath excelled in all Kinds of Poetry: In his Works we meet an Assembly of the Muses; since the Roman Swan expired, none hath taken bolder and happier Flights, or touched the Lyre with a more masterly Hand; and since Chaucer's Days none hath told a merry or ​heroic Tale so well. In the best Collection of the Miscellanies, Your Lordship will read with Pleasure the most perfect Pieces of Composition the greatest Masters have produced, and without entring into the Characters of any, it will be enough to say, they are all admirable.
To these I may add some of more ancient Date, and tho' their Style is out of the Standard now, there are in them still some Lines so extremely beautiful, that our Modern Language cannot reach them. Chaucer is too Old, I fear, for so young Company as Your Lordship; but Spencer, tho' he be antiquated too, hath still ​Charms remaining to make Your Lordship enamoured of him. His antique Verse hath Music in it to ravish any Ears, that can be sensible of the softest, sweetest Numbers, that ever flowed from a Poet's Pen.
Shakespear is a Wonderful Genius, a single Instance of the Force of Nature, and the Strength of Wit. Nothing can be greater, and more lively, than his Thoughts; nothing nobler, and more forcible, than his Expression. The Fire of his Fancy breaketh out into his Words, and sets his Reader on a Flame: He maketh the Blood run cold or warm, and is so admirable a Master of the Passions, ​that he raises Your Courage, Your Pity, and Your Fear, at his Pleasure, but he delighteth most in Terror.
Milton, my Lord, is the Assertor of Poetic Liberty, and would have freed us from the Bondage of Rhime, but like Sinners, and like Lovers, we hug our Chain, and are pleased in being Slaves. Some indeed have made some faint Attempts to break it, but their Verse had all the Softness and Effeminacy of Rhime without the Music: And Dryden himself, who sometimes struggled to get loose, always relapsed, and was faster bound than ever; but Rhime was his Province, and he could ​make the Tinkling of his Chains harmonious. Mr. Philips hath trod the nearest in his great Master's Steps, and hath equalled him in his Verse more than he falleth below him in the Compass and Dignity of his Subject. The Shilling is truly Splendid in his Lines, and his Poems will live longer than the unfinished Castle, as long as Blenheim is remembred, or Cyder drunk in England. But I have digressed from Milton, and that I may return, and say all in a Word. His Style, his Thoughts, his Verse are as superior to the generality of other Poets, as his Subject. His Disloyalty alone throws a Cloud upon his Glory, ​and we stand amazed to think that Man could ever be a Rebel, who had seen, as it were, and described, in all the Pomp of Terror, the Rebellion and Punishment of the Apostate Angels.
Cowley I need not insist on, when his Character is so admirably drawn by so great a Master, as I have named already.
Waller for the Music of his Numbers, the Courtliness of his Verse, the Easiness and Happiness of his Thoughts on a thousand Subjects, deserves Your Lordship's Consideration more, perhaps, than any other, because his Manner and his Subjects are more common to ​Persons of Quality, and the Affairs of a Court. Mr. Granville, my Lord, hath rivall'd him in his finest Address, and is as happy, as he ever was, in raising modern Compliments upon ancient Story, and setting off the British Valour and the English Beauty, with the old Gods and Goddesses.
Sir John Denham is famed for his Cooper's-Hill, and Windsor is more honoured in being the Subject of his Prospect, than the Hill is in being the Subject of his Poem. For Windsor is only the Ornament of his Hill, but his Poem is the Ornament of Windsor.
​Several other of our Poets deserve to be remembred, and they should not be omitted, if I thought these Sheets a Record. I have already mentioned Mr. Dryden on the wrong Side of a Comparison, and it would be Injustice to pass him by, when I may mention him on the Right. For, certainly, there never rose a happier Genius, and a more absolute Master of Language, and Numbers. All his Poems were extremely studied, and he made every Thing he borrowed so much his own, that he improved the brightest Passages of the Greeks and Romans, and repaid them with abundant Interest.
Otway writes with so fine a Spirit, with so perfect a ​Command of our Passions, his Language is so very beautiful, and all his tender Strains so very moving in the most sensible Words, that, perhaps, Your Lordship will no where meet the Passions touched with a more masterly Hand, or expressed in more lively Colours.
I have made no distinct mention of Tragedy, and the most celebrated of our Writers, that have raised the English Stage, as high as the Athenian; they have most excelled, when they formed their Plays on the Grecian Plan, or built them, at least, after the ancient Models. And where the Unities are preserved by a great Genius, and a masterly Hand, I think the ​Structure of our Tragedies more beautiful than the ancient Buildings. Your Lordship, I hope, will never act a Part, where that Language is required; and I have omitted to speak of the Tragic Style, because 'tis raised above the ordinary Sentiments and Expression of Mankind. The Persons of the Drama speak, as they are dressed, in Buskins. The Mind is in too much Commotion, and agitated by those Passions, that can be only raised upon such a Crisis, as worketh up all the Actions of Life to the last and most important Event. Yet, my Lord, our Tragedies may be read with great Advantage to Style and Language, if we can bring them down to our ​calmer Thoughts, and the stiller Scenes of Life, and only use them to be better acquainted with the Nature, Violence, Degrees, and Expression of all the various Passions that exercise and distract the Mind of Man. Treatises are of no Use to inform us upon this great Subject, but when the Passions are practically displayed, all their Springs discovered, and the whole tumultuous Theory presented in lively Actions on the Stage, we see and feel the Agitation of the Actors in ourselves, we do really put on all their personated Passions, they strike upon our Souls, and Nature answers from within. We have but few great Masters in this noble Art. After ​Shakespear, whom I have named already, and Beaumont and Fletcher, who have sometimes touched the Passions with a masterly Hand, we must come down to Dryden and Otway, who stand almost alone, unless Lee may be joined unto them, but he is too much out of the Way, too much in a Passion to be named, and therefore we will put Southern in his Room. Afterwards we have none of Consideration, but Congreve, Rowe, and Mr. Granville, and two Oxford Scholars, who need not be pointed out.
I do not insist on the particular Character of these Authors, thinking it enough to my Purpose to name them, as the most distinguished of our Tragic Writers.
​Suckling, and other Bards celebrated in their Time, I forbear; and Ben Johnson I dare not meddle with, lest he, or some body surly as himself, should rise, and rebuke me for not writing of him with that Labour and Exactness he always wrote with.
My Lord, I have given You a List of Poets almost equal to the Ancients, and this is the greatest Character that can be given of Modern Works. For though I think Spencer and Shakespear as great Genius's as ever were produced in Rome or Athens, they will not bear a strict Comparison upon all the Beauties of Writing. Milton, alone, in Epic Writing hath transcended the Greek and the Latin Poet. He hath ​excelled the First in the Force and Richness of Imagination, and hath rivalled the Last in Justness of Thought, and Exactness of the Work. Spencer may, perhaps, dispute the Pastoral, even with Theocritus; for I dare prefer him to Virgil, and in him alone the Sweetness and Rusticity of the Doric Muse was to be found, till Mr. Philips of Cambridge rose, who hath assembled all the Beauties of the Arcadian Poetry, and restored their Simplicity, Language and Manners to the Swains. Here then, my Lord, we stand. I may with great Modesty and Justice own, that several Pieces of English Composure are nothing inferiour to the choicest Productions of Antiquity, but I cannot ​pronounce so, upon the Whole, upon their Writers and ours. I must beg Pardon therefore, if I fall into Sir William Temple's Party in this Article of Ancient and Modern Learning, and give the Preference to the great Originals of Greece and Rome; I am the more conﬁrmed in this Judgment, by observing that our greatest Masters in Composition have been always of the same Opinion; and it would be hard for the Patrons of Modern Learning, when they can show nothing of their Own, that may compare with the Ancients, to argue for their Opinion from the Writings of those, who disclaim it.
But, my Lord, I must not enter into this Controversy now, ​and having given You these few Directions for the forming Your Style by reading the celebrated Writers of Italy and England, I shall take my Leave of this Subject, after I have just mentioned this one Particular, that perhaps the best Way to discern the Beauties of good Writing, is, to read some of the worst. Ogilby and Dryden will show You the difference, and when You perceive the insufferable Dulness of the one, You will see more clearly the Brightness of the other. Light indeed will show itself; but a Jewel looketh brighter in a Heap of Coals, than in the Lustre of a Crown, and Beauty is more conspicuous in the Neighbourhood of Deformity, than in the Circle of the Court.
​I hope, Your Lordship will not think I have recommended any Thing to You below Your Quality: Your Fortunes place You far above the Necessity of Learning, but nothing can set You above the Ornament of it: And I am the more bold to press it upon Your Lordship, because these Accomplishments appear with greater Advantages, and do really fit more handsomely on Persons of Quality, than any other.
The late Duke of Devonshire deserves a Name in the foremost List of our English Writers, but I reserved him to the last, because he was of Your Lordship's Alliance, and I thought his Name would better recommend what I ​have offered, than any Thing else I can say. He was not only the finest Gentleman of his Time, but one of the finest Scholars in every Part of polite Learning: Whatever Parts of his Character have been disputed, this Palm hath been yielded with the greatest Justice, and Applause; and when Your Lordship thinks how great an Ornament he was to the English Court and Nation, You will find his Learning was as great an Ornament to him.
I am ashamed to present these Thoughts in so ill an Hand, but Your Lordship will consider that we Scholars are generally bad Pen-Men: We seldom regard the Mechanic Part of Writing, tho' nothing should be put into ​Your Lordship's Hands, that looketh like so rude a Draught.
Such as it is, it is humbly offered to Your Lordship with my constant Prayers for Your Prosperity, and I hope Your Lordship will accept it, as a small Testimony of the Honour I have for Your Illustrious House, From,
My Lord,
Your Lordship's
Most humble, and
Belvoir, Dec. 29. 1710.Most obedient Servant,
Henry Felton.
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Cite error: <ref> tags exist for a group named "errata", but no corresponding <references group="errata"/> tag was found
Errata
Cite error: <ref> tags exist for a group named "errata", but no corresponding <references group="errata"/> tag was found
Cite error: <ref> tags exist for a group named "errata", but no corresponding <references group="errata"/> tag was found
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
Cite error: <ref> tags exist for a group named "errata", but no corresponding <references group="errata"/> tag was found
Cite error: <ref> tags exist for a group named "errata", but no corresponding <references group="errata"/> tag was found