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was guided whether to receive or reject it. And if that great person thought such a caution necessary in treatises offered to the learned world, it will be sure at least as proper in sermons, where the meanest hearer is supposed to be concerned, and where very often a lady's chambermaid may be allowed to equal (be on a par with) half the congregation, both as to quality and understanding. But I know not how it comes to pass that professors in most arts and sciences are generally the worst qualified to explain their meanings to those who are not of their tribe; a common farmer shall make you understand in three words, that his foot is out of joint, or his collar-bone broken; wherein (whereas) a surgeon after a hundred terms of art, if you are not a scholar, shall leave you to seek. It is frequently the same case in law, physic, and even many of the meaner

arts.

And upon this account it is, that among hard words, I number likewise those which are peculiar to divinity, as it is a science, because I have observed several clergymen, otherwise little fond of obscure terms, yet in their sermons very liberal of those which they find in ecclesiastical writers, as if it were our duty to understand them: which I am sure it is not. And I defy the greatest divine to produce any law either of God or man, which obliges me to comprehend the meaning of omniscience, omnipresence, ubiquity, attribute, beatific vision, with a thousand others so frequent in pulpits, any more than that of eccentric, idiosyncracy, entity, and the like.

I am the more earnest in this matter because it is a general complaint, and the justest in the world. For a divine has nothing to say to the wisest congregation of any parish in this kingdom, which he may not express in a manner to be understood by the meanest among them. However, not to contend whether a logician might possibly put a case that would serve for an exception, I will appeal to any man of letters, whether at least nineteen in twenty of those perplexing words might not be changed into easy ones, such as naturally first occur to ordinary men, and probably did so at first to those very gentlemen who are so fond of the former.

We are often reproved by divines from the pulpits, on account of our ignorance in things sacred, and perhaps with justice enough: however, it is not very reasonable for them to expect that common men should understand expressions which are never made use of in common life. No gentleman thinks it safe or prudent to send a servant with a message without repeating it more than once, and endeavouring to put it into

terms brought down to the capacity of the bearer: yet after all this care, it is frequent for servants to mistake and sometimes occasion misunderstandings among friends, although the common domestics in some gentlemen's families have more opportunities of improving their minds than the ordinary sort of tradesmen.

It would be endless to run over the several defects of style among us. I shall therefore say nothing of the mean and paltry (which are usually attended by the fustian1), much less of the slovenly or indecent. Two things I will just warn you against: the first is, the frequency (frequent use) of flat unnecessary epithets; and the other is, the folly of using old threadbare phrases, which will often make you go out of your way to find and apply them, are nauseous to rational hearers, and will seldom express your meaning as well as your own natural words.

Although, as I have already observed, our English tongue is too little cultivated in this kingdom, yet the faults are, nine in ten, owing to affectation, and not to the want of understanding. When a man's thoughts are clear, the properest words will generally offer themselves first, and his own judgment will direct him in what order to place them, so as they may be best understood; where men err against this method, it is usually on purpose, and to show their knowledge of the world. In short, that simplicity, without which no human performance can arrive to (at) any great perfection, is nowhere more eminently useful than in this.

(1) Fustian, used like bombast, both being originally names of certain fabrics used to stuff out parts of the dress; hence inflated, big, pretentious.

(2) Flat unnecessary epithets, i.e., pointless and meaningless epithets, which tend neither to define nor to adorn the sense. An epithet and an adjective are both, etymologically, additions, but "the latter is a technical term of the grammarian, the former of the rhetorician." "The one is used for definition, the other for deco

ration."-1aylor.

Redundancy of epithets, like over-ornamentation of any kind, is a mark of feeble

ness.

(3) Simplicity. This canon is well worthy of being treasured up as a maxim. Simplicity is the "bright consummate flower" of all artistic performance; that virtue which is the highest result of the harmonious combination of all the rest.

ALEXANDER POPE.'

1. POPE IN OXFORD.2

(FROM "LETTERS," WRITTEN IN 1714.)

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NOTHING Could have more of that melancholy which once used to please me, than my last day's journey; for after having passed through my favourite woods in the forest, with a thousand reveries of past pleasures, I rid (rode) over hanging hills, whose tops were edged with groves, and whose feet [were] watered with winding rivers, listening to the falls of cataracts below, and the murmuring of the winds above; the gloomy verdure of Stonor succeeded to these, and then the shades of the evening overtook me. The moon rose in the clearest sky I ever saw, by whose solemn light I paced on slowly, without company or any interruption to the range (excursions) of my thoughts. About a mile before I reached Oxford, all the bells tolled in different notes; the clocks of every college answered one another, and sounded forth (some in a deeper, some in a softer tone) that it was eleven at night. All this was no ill preparation to the life I have led since, among those old walls, venerable galleries, stone porticos, studious walks, and solitary scenes of the University. I wanted nothing but

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(1) Pope's style as a prose writer is especially seen in his letters, which he wrote with great care, and in most cases-as was proved by his keeping copies of them -with a view to ultimate publication. They are distinguished by the graceful manner in which the topics and most eminent personages of the day are handled. Thackeray says of the volumes which contained them, that-with the exception of a few letters which ought never to have been written, and if written, certainly ought not to have been published-he knows of nothing in the range of our literature more delightful. See "English Humourists," p. 185.

(2) Written to his friends, the Miss Blounts.

(3) Woods in the forest seems to mean, clumps of timber. Of these synonymous terms, to which may be added "grove," it may be observed that the "forest" is the widest and the wildest in meaning; the "wood" is of less extent, and is filled with thickly-set trees; and a "grove" is an arrangement of trees which-whether so designed or not-looks orderly and premeditated.

(4) Watered with winding rivers, &c., by whose solemn light, &c. These are both instances of "apt alliteration's artful aid:" the predominance of the liquid letters is very noticeable.

(5) Scenes. This appears to be an instance of what is called anti-climax, or sinking in style. There is something so vague in "solitary scenes," which can hardly

a black_gown and a salary, to be as mean a bookworm as any there I conformed myself to the college hours, was rolled up in books, wrapt in meditations, lay in one of the most ancient, dusky parts of the University, and was as dead to the world as any hermit of the desert. If anything was alive or awake in me, it was a little vanity, such as even those good men used to entertain (feel) when the monks of their own order extolled their piety and abstractedness (indifference to the world). For I found myself received with a sort of respect which this idle1 part of mankind, the learned, pay to their own species; who are as considerable (important) here as the busy, the gay, and the ambitious are in your (i.e. the fashionable) world.

2. DESCRIPTION OF AN ANCIENT COUNTRY SEAT.2

(FROM "LETTERS TO LADY MARY W. MONTAGU," WRITTEN IN 1718.) DEAR MADAM,-I am fourscore miles from London; a short journey compared to that I so often thought at least of undertaking, rather than die without seeing you again. Though the place I am in is such as I would not quit for the town, if I did not value you more than any, nay, everybody else there; and you'll be convinced how little the town has engaged my affections in your absence from it, when you know what a place this is which I prefer to it; I shall therefore describe it to you at large, as the true picture of a genuine ancient country seat.

You must expect nothing regular in my description of a house that seems to be built before rules were in fashion; the whole is so disjointed, and the parts so detached from each other, and

be distinguished from "studious walks," that the mind is baulked, as it were, of an expected pleasure on reaching these words.

(1) Idle, i.e. as unconnected with the stirring business of the world. An "idle' person may, however, be very active in his own way, may take great pains in accomplishing his ends; but his way may not be your way, nor his ends yours; hence, he may be absolutely active, and relatively idle. This is just the application of the word above. A "lazy" person is "one who is disposed to be idle" (Miss Whately), and who, if he can have his own way, does nothing. His laziness may, however, be but temporary, whereas an "indolent" man is naturally and constitutionally lazy. So we may speak of "idle employment," "lazy mood," and "indolent disposition."

(2) "This description, which is said to be almost wholly fanciful,' is, as Mr. Carruthers remarks, written with great care, and studied picturesque effect, and altogether is a fine specimen of local painting."-Life of Pope, p. 182.

yet so joining again one can't tell how, that (in a poetical fit) you'd imagine it had been a village in Amphion's' time, where twenty cottages had taken a dance together, were all out (ie. thrown out of the dance), and stood still in amazement ever since. A stranger would be grievously disappointed who should ever think to get into this house the right way: one would expect, after entering through the porch, to be let into the hall;—alas! nothing less; you find yourself in a brew-house. From the parlour you think to step into the drawing-room; but upon opening the iron-nailed door, you are convinced by a flight of birds about your ears, and a cloud of dust in your eyes, that 'tis the pigeon-house.

On each side our porch are two chimneys that wear their greens on the outside, which would do as well within, for whenever we make a fire, we let the smoke out of the windows. Over the parlour window hangs a sloping balcony, which time has turned to a very convenient penthouse. The top is crowned with a very venerable tower, so like that of the church just by, that the jackdaws build in it as if it were the true steeple.

The great hall is high and spacious, flanked with long tables, images of ancient hospitality; ornamented with monstrous horns, about twenty broken pikes, and a match-lock musket or two, which, they say, were used in the Civil Wars. Here is one vast arched window, beautifully darkened with divers scutcheons of painted glass. There seems to be great propriety in this old manner of blazoning upon glass, ancient families being like ancient windows, in the course of generations, seldom free from cracks. One shining pane bears date 1286. The youthful face of Dame Elinor owes more to this single piece, than to all the glasses she ever consulted in her life. Who can say after this that glass is frail, when it is not half so perishable as human beauty or glory? for in another pane you see the memory of a knight preserved, whose marble nose is mouldered from his monument in the church adjoining. And yet, must one sigh to reflect, that the most authentic2 record of so ancient a family should lie at the mercy of every boy that throws a stone! In this hall, in former days, have dined

(1) Amphion, by the power of his lyre, is said to have moved stones to take their places in building the walls of Thebes.

(2) Authentic, genuine. An authentic record is true in point of fact, not forged; a genuine book is one written by the person whose name it bears. The first word refers to the internal, the latter to the external, pretensions of the document. "Gulliver's Travels" is strictly neither one nor the other. It is not a true story, and it pretends to be written by Captain Gulliver.

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