166. PLATO, ARISTOTLE, THEOPHRAS TUS, and other GREEK Authors of Philosophical Criticism.

Much of this kind may be found in dif. ferent parts of Plato. But Aristotle, his disciple, who may be called the systematizer of his master's doctrines, has, in his two treatises of poetry and rhetoric, with

sophical Criticism.

In this contemplation of authors, the first critics not only attended to the powers and different species of words; the force of numerous composition, whether in prose or verse; the aptitude of its various kinds to different subjects; but they farther considered that, which is the basis of all, that is to say, in other words, the meaning of the sense. This led them at once into the most curious of subjects; the nature of man in general, the different characters of men, as they differ in rank or age; their reason and their passions; how the one was to be persuaded, the others to be raised or calmed; the places or repositories to which we may recur, when we want proper matter for any of these purposes. Be sides all this, they studied sentiments and manners; what constitutes a work; what,

ry part of the subject, that he may be justly called the Father of Criticism, both from the age when he lived, and from his truly transcendant genius. The criticism which this capital writer taught, has so intimate a correspondence and alliance with philosophy, that we can call it by no other name, than that of Philosophical Cri ticism.

To Aristotle succeeded his disciple Theophrastus, who followed his master's example in the study of criticism, as may be seen in the catalogue of his writings, preserved by Diogenes Laertius. But all the critical works of Theophrastus, as well as of many others, are now lost, The principal authors of the kind now remaining in Greek, are Demetrius of Phalera, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Dionysius Longinus, together with Hermogenes, Aphthonius, and a few others,

Of these the most masterly seems to be Demetrius, who was the earliest, and who appears to follow the precepts, and even the text of Aristotle, with far greater attention than any of the rest. His examples, it must be confessed, are sometimes obscure, but this we rather impute to the destructive hand of time, which has prevented us from seeing many of the ori ginal authors.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the next in order, may be said to have written with judgment upon the force of numerous composition, not to mention other tracts on the subject of oratory, and those also critical as well as historical. Longinus, who was in time far later than these, seems principally to have had in view the passions and the imagination, in the treating of which he has acquired a just applause, and expressed himself with a dignity suitable to the subject. The rest of the Greek critics, though they have said many useful

U

things, have yet so minutely multiplied the rules of art, and so much confined themselves to the oratory of the tribunal, that they appear of no great service, as to good writing in general. Harris.

§ 167. On some Passages in ARISTOTLE'S Rhetoric: with miscellaneous Remarks on his Style, Genius, and Works. Aristotle established an intellectual empire, more glorious and universal than the conquests of his pupil on this terrestrial globe. But he is a remarkable instance of the caprice of human judgment, and the revolutions of taste. After having been idolized with a veneration almost blasphemous, he is now most undeservedly neglected. And yet his works, though unentertaining and obscure to the reader who peruses them with the same attention which he gives to a novel and a newspaper, abound with matter which cannot fail to enrich the mind, and to delight a philosophical taste by its beautiful truth and accuracy. In his three books on the rhetorical art, are many passages, which describe human nature in the most curious manner, and with the greatest fidelity of delineation. He characterizes the peculiarities of different ages in the life of man, no less scientifically than a Hunter would describe an anatomical subject, or a Linnæus a plant. The fine pictures of the manners of young and old men in the second book, are such as Horace has imitated but not equalled; such as might have richly fertilized the imagination of a Shakspeare. The celebrated speech of Jaques, is not equal to the accurate and complete descriptions of the different characters which mark the progressive stages of human existence as portrayed by the neglected Aristotle.

The close, yet comprehensive language of Aristotle, will scarcely admit of a literal translation. I shall not then attempt to deliver his sentiments in English, since I should not satisfy myself; but I will refer the young student to the admirable original, where, in the fourteenth, and a few subsequent chapters of the second book of Rhetoric, he will be able to acquire a very accurate knowledge of human nature. I have pointed out these passages as a specimen of Aristotle, with an intention to obviate the prepossessions of those who imagine that every part of his works is abstruse and difficult of comprehension. A good translation would be the best

commentary that could be given on them: but few men are equal to the task of translating Aristotle. We certainly have no translations of him in our language, but such as add to his obscurity, misrepresent him greatly, and bring his name into disgrace.

I cannot help remarking, that though this is an age in which many ingenious authors delight in metaphysical researches, yet few attend to the writings of Aristotle. Indeed many of the modern philosophers, who have done all they can to obscure the light of nature, common sense, and revelation, by the clouds of metaphysics, have not been sufficiently acquainted with Greek, or with ancient learning, to be able to improve themselves by the fine philosophy of the polished ages of Greece and Rome. Like spiders in a dark and dirty corner, they have drawn flimsy cobwebs from themselves, with which they cruelly endeavour to ensnare the giddy and unwary.

It is indeed my misfortune, if it be a misfortune, to have no great idea of the utility of metaphysical disquisition. And though Aristotle's logic and metaphysics. principally contributed, in the middle ages, to render him the idol of the world, I cannot help considering them as the least useful parts of his various lucubrations. They are indeed valuable curiosities, and illustrious monuments of human ingenuity; but at the same time, when compared to his rhetorical, ethical, and political books, they are as the husk and the shell to the pulp and the kernel. It was these, however, together with his erroneous physics, which induced the bigoted theologists to number Aristotle among the saints in the calendar, and to publish a history of his life and death; which concluded with asserting that Aristotle was the forerunner of Christ in philosophy, as John the Baptist had been in grace. Images of him and of the Founder of Christianity were beheld at one time with equal veneration. It is said, that some sects taught their diseiples the categories instead of the catechism, and read in the church a section of the ethics instead of a chapter in the Gospel.

If the exclamation which he is related to have made at his death be true, he appears to have possessed very rational ideas on the subject of religion.

A Christian might have said, as it is reported he said just before his dissolu

tion, "In sin and shame was I born, in sorrow have I lived, in trouble I depart; O! thou Cause of causes, have mercy upon me!"-I found this anecdote of Aristotle in the Centuries of Camerarius, but I am not certain of its authenticity.

The style of Aristotle has been censured as harsh and inelegant; but it must be remembered, that few works, of which so much remains, are supposed to have suffered more from the carelessness or presumption of transcribers, and the injuries of long duration, than the works of the great legislator of taste and philosophy. We may fairly attribute any chasms and roughnesses in the style to some rude hand, or to accident. Strabo, indeed, relates, that the copies of Aristotle's works were greatly injured by damps, as they were buried in the earth a long time after the death of their writer. When they were brought to Rome, and transcribed, they were again injured by the hand of ignorance. It is not credible that so accurate a writer should have neglected those graces of style which the nature of his subjects admitted. The style of his best works is truly pure and Attic; and Quinctilian, whose judgment ought to decide, expresses a doubt whether he should pronounce him more illustrious for his knowledge, his copiousness, his acumen, his variety, or the sweetness of his style.

Knox's Essays.

168. Philosophical Critics among the ROMANS.

Among the Romans, the first critic of note was Cicero; who, though far below Aristotle in depth of philosophy, may be said, like him, to have exceeded all his countrymen. As his celebrated treatise concerning the Orator is written in dialogue, where the speakers introduced are the greatest men of his nation, we have incidentally an elegant sample of those manners, and that politeness, which were peculiar to the leading characters during the Roman commonwealth. There we may see the behaviour of free and accomplished men, before a baser address had set that standard, which has been too often taken for good breeding ever since.

Next to Cicero came Horace; who often, in other parts of his writings, acts the critic and scholar, but whose Art of Poetry is a standard of its kind, and too well known to need any encomium. After Horace arose Quinctilian, Cicero's admirer

169. Concerning the Progress of Criticism in its second Species, the Historical— GREEK and ROMAN Critics, by whom this species of Criticism was cultivated. As to the Criticism already treated, we find it not confined to any one particular author, but containing general rules of art, either for judging or writing, confirmed by the example not of one author, but of many. But we know from experience, that, in process of time, languages, customs, manners, laws, governments, and religions, insensibly change. The Macedonian tyranny, after the fatal battle of Charonea, wrought much of this kind in Greece; and the Roman tyranny, after the fatal battles of Pharsalia and Philippi, carried it throughout the known world. Hence, therefore, of things obsolete the names became obsolete also; and authors, who in their own age were intelligible and easy, in after days grew difficult and obscure. Here then we behold the rise of a second race of critics, the tribe of scholiasts, commentators, and explainers.

These naturally attached themselves to particular authors. Aristarchus, Didymus, Eustathius, and many others, bestowed their labours upon Homer; Proclus and Tzetzes upon Hesiod; the same Proclus and Olympiodorus upon Plato; Simplicius, Ammonius, and Philoponus, upon Aristotle; Ulpian upon Demosthene; Ma crobius and Asconius upon Cicero, Calliergus upon Donatus Theocritus; Terence; Servius upon Virgil; Acro and Porphyrio upon Horace; and so with respect to others, as well philosophers as poets and orators. To these scholiasts

upon

may be added the several composers of Lexicons; such as Hesychius, Philoxenus, Suidas, &c. also the writers upon Grammar, such as Apollonius, Priscian, Sosipater, Charisius, &c. Now all these painstaking men, considered together, may be said to have completed another species of criticism, a species which, in distinction to the former, we call Criticism Historical. And thus things continued, though in a declining way, till, after many a severe and unsuccessful plunge, the Roman empire sunk through the west of Europe. Latin then soon lost its purity; Greek they hardly knew; Classics, and their Scholiasts, were no longer studied; and an age succeeded of legends and crusades.

Harris.

§ 170. Moderns eminent in the two Species of Criticism before mentioned, the Philosophical and the Historical-the last sort of Critics more numerous— s—those, mentioned in this Section, confined to the GREEK and LATIN Languages.

At length, after a long and barbarous period, when the shades of monkery began to retire, and the light of humanity once again to dawn, the arts also of criticism insensibly revived. "Tis true, indeed, the authors of the philosophical sort (I mean that which respects the causes and principles of good writing in general) were not many in number. However, of this rank, among the Italians, were Vida, and the elder Scaliger; among the French were Rapin, Bouhours, Boileau, together with Bossu, the most methodic and accurate of them all. In our own country, our nobility may be said to have distinguished themselves; Lord Roscommon, in his Essay upon Translated Verse; the Duke of Buckingham, in his Essay on Poetry; and Lord Shaftsbury, in his treatise called Advice to an Author: to whom may be added, our late admired genius, Pope, in his truly elegant Poem, the Essay upon Criticism.

The Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds upon painting have, after a philosophical manner, investigated the principles of an art, which no one in practice has better verified than himself.

We have mentioned these discourses, not only from their merit, but as they in cidentally teach us that to write well upon a liberal art, we must write philosophically -that all the liberal arts in their princi

ples are congenial-and that these principles, when traced to their common source, are found all to terminate in the first philosophy.

But to pursue our subject-However small among moderns may be the number of these Philosophical Critics, the writers of historical or explanatory criticism have been in a manner innumerable. To name, out of many, only a few-of Italy were Beroaldus, Ficinus, Victorius, and Robertellus; of the Higher and Lower Germany were Erasmus, Sylburgius, Le Clerc, and Fabricius; of France were Lambin, Duvall, Harduin, Capperonerius; of England were Stanley (editor of Eschylus), Gataker, Davies, Clark (editor of Homer), together with multitudes more from every region and quarter,

Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks

In Vallombrosa.

But I fear I have given a strange catalogue, where we seek in vain for such illustrious personages as Sesostris, Cyrus, Alexander, Cæsar, Attila, Tortila, Tamerlane, &c. The heroes of this work (if I may be pardoned for calling them so) have only aimed in retirement to present us with knowledge. Knowledge only was their object, not havoc, nor destruction. Ibid.

§ 171. Compilers of Lexicons and Dictionaries, and Authors upon Grammar.

After Commentators and Editors, we must not forget the compilers of Lexicons and Dictionaries, such as Charles and Henry Stevens, Favorinus, Constantine, Budæus, Cooper, Faber, Vossius, and others. To these also we may add the authors upon Grammar; in which subject the learned Greeks, when they quitted the East, led the way, Maschopulus, Chrysoloras, Lascaris, Theodore Gaza; then in Italy, Laurentius Valla; in England, Grocin and Linacer; in Spain, Sanctius; in the Low Countries, Vossius; in France, Cæsar Scaliger by his residence, though by birth an Italian, together with those able writers Mess. de Port Royal. Nor ought we to omit the writers of Philological Epistles, such as Emanuel Martin; nor the writers of Literary Catalogues (in French called Catalogues Raisonnées,) such as the account of the manuscripts in the imperial library at Vienna by Lambecius; or of the Arabic manuscripts in the Escurial library by Michael Casiri.

Ibid.