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more than enough. The moft heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ranfacked for illuftrations, comparifons, and allufions; their learning inftructs, and their fubtilty furprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought, and though he fometimes admires is feldom pleased.

From this account of their compofitions it will be readily inferred, that they were not fuccefsful in reprefenting or moving the affections. As they were wholly employed on fomething unexpected and furprifing, they had no regard to that uniformity of fentiment which enables us to conceive and to excite the pains and the pleasure of

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other minds they never enquired what, on any occafion, they fhould have faid or done; but wrote rather as beholders than partakers of human nature; as Beings looking upon good and evil, impaffive and at leifure; as Epicurean deities making remarks on the actions of men, and the viciffitudes of life, without intereft and without emotion. Their courtship was void of fondness, and their lamentation of forrow. Their wish was only to fay what they hoped had been never faid before.

Nor was the fublime more within their reach than the pathetick; for they never attempted that comprehenfion and expanse of thought which at once fills the whole mind, and of which

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the first effect is fudden aftonifhment, and the fecond rational admiration. Sublimity is produced by aggregation, and littleness by difperfion. Great thoughts are always general, and confift in pofitions not limited by exceptions, and in defcriptions not defcending to minuteness. It is with great propriety that Subtlety, which in its original im port means exility of particles, is taken in its metaphorical meaning for nicety of diftinction. Those writers who lay on the watch for novelty could have little hope of greatnefs; for great things cannot have escaped former obfervation. Their attempts were always analytick; they broke every image into fragments; and could no more repre

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fent, by their flender conceits and laboured particularities, the profpects of nature, or the scenes of life, than he, who diffects a fun-beam with a prifm, can exhibit the wide effulgence of a fummer noon.

What they wanted however of the fublime, they endeavoured to fupply by hyperbole; their amplification had no limits; they left not only reason but fancy behind them; and produced combinations of confufed magnificence, that not only could not be credited, but could not be imagined.

Yet great labour, directed by great abilities, is never wholly loft: if they frequently threw away their wit upon falfe conceits, they likewife fometimes

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ftruck out unexpected truth: if their conceits were far-fetched, they were

often worth the carriage. To write on their plan, it was at leaft neceffary to read and think. No man could be born a metaphyfical poet, nor affume the dignity of a writer, by defcriptions copied from defcriptions, by imitations borrowed from imitations, by traditional imagery, and hereditary fimilies, by readiness of rhyme, and volubility of fyllables.

In perufing the works of this race of authours, the mind is exercifed either by recollection or inquiry; either fomething already learned is to be retrieved, or fomething new is to be examined. If their greatness feldom elevates, their

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