That the preceding account of the general affections of the mind with respect to pleasure, and the various degrees and gradations of it, are applicable to those which we receive from the polite arts, cannot but be obvious to all persons of reading, ftudy, and reflection. No mind can long bear a very rapid fucceffion of those scenes which, fingly, give it the most exquifite pleasure. A judicious compofer, therefore, is fenfible that the moft exquifite beauties in compofition may be thrown away and loft, as it were, when they are placed too near together:

Besides, in a very quick fucceffion of objects, the mind hath not leisure to perceive and attend to all their powers and relations, They lose therefore, of course, a great part of their full effect. Perhaps the finest circumstances belonging to fome of the thoughts and expreffions in a work of genius, may not be those which present themselves to view at the first hearing or reading. If, therefore, the mind be immediately, and without any refpite, hurried to other objects equally striking, it can only be affected with the groffer fenfations they convey. There could have been no leifure or opportunity for its perceiving thofe more delicate beauties, which conftitute the chief merit of works of taste and imagination. In like manner, the grand and exquifite ftrokes of expreffion in music are always preceded by fuch ftrains as only prepare the mind for them, and are alfo followed

by

by fuch as do not wholly take off the attention from them.

Moreover, all compofitions which are intended to. engage our attention a confiderable time, fhould correfpond pretty nearly to the general and natural courfe of our own ideas and fenfations. A writer may be as witty, or as fublime, as he can, and he may crowd thefe graces of compofition as close as he pleases; his readers cannot follow him but at a certain pace.

beyond which no perfon can

There is a degree accelerate the fuc

ceffion of his ideas. If, therefore, a writer wish to take his reader along with him, he muft, of neceffity,, as we may say, flacken his pace.

On these accounts, the more exquifite ftrokes of genius fhould either be confined to fhort compofitions, be fparingly introduced into works of length, or be crowded in places where the mind may take an attentive furvey of them, without drawing off its attention from objects of more importance. An epigram may contain as much wit as the writer can crowd into it, and the ode may be as full of the fublime as his imagination is capable of making it, and without any inconvenience; because the whole compofition having very moderate bounds, and the attention not being folicited farther, we may attend to any part of it as long as we pleafe, and enjoy it at our leifure: but a great number of what are called the graces and masterly ftrokes of compofition are loft

in a history, in a heroic poem, or an interefting fcene in a tragedy.

If these works be compofed in a good tafte, the attention of the reader is fixed upon the incidents; he is haftening to the catastrophe, and will not ftop to examine all the beauties of the composition: that were an object quite foreign to the views of a person whose mind was properly engroffed by the Subject of the work. It is abfolutely impoffible to be properly impreffed with, and to keep in view, the greater fentiments with which the mind is infpired by fuch works as the Iliad, the Odyffee, and the Æneid, and at the fame time give any attention to fuch minute criticisms as fome commentators have descended to, and taken the pains to make upon them. It is a fundamental rule in all kinds of compofition, that they ought to be more or lefs. elaborate, according as they are longer or fhorter; or, rather, according to the opportunity they give the mind to attend to all the beauties of them.

In these cafes, however, regard must be had, if poffible, to the perfons for whose use any kind of compofition is made, and even to the temper of mind in which it is moft likely to be perufed. For it is certain that the fucceffion of ideas, to which the tenor of a compofition fhould correspond, is very different in different perfons, and in different fituations of mind. A ftyle adapted to the vulgar, whofe minds are wholly uncultivated,

whofe

whose apprehenfions are consequently flow, and whose feelings are strong, would by no means fuit perfons whofe apprehenfious have been quickened, and whose sensations have been refined, by education and reflection: nor would that ftyle, which was proper to be perufed by perfons in a tranquil and compofed ftate of mind, fuit the fame perfon as well when the fucceffion of his ideas was accelerated by paffion, or a ftate of anxious fufpense.

An harangue to a multitude should confift of exceedingly ftrong and bold images, expreffed with great plainnefs and perfpicuity, and with confiderable intervals of intermediate ideas; whereas the ftrokes fhould be both more delicate and more frequently repeated, which are intended to make an impreffion upon an audience of cultivated understandings and improved tafte. And it requires a ftyle extremely animated and concise to suit a perfon whose mind is in a kind of ferment, when the apprehension is more than ufually quick, and the fucceffion of ideas accelerated greatly beyond their ufual course.

An attention to this fame object, viz. the exereife of our faculties, will direct us to the proper medium between the concife and diffuse in ftyle. By the concife or diffuse in ftyle, I do not mean one that confifts of fhort or long periods; but by concife I mean that which leaves more, and by diffuse that which leaves lefs to be supplied by the

reader,

reader, whetlier the fentences be long or fhort. These two kinds of ftyle have each their proper place where they may be used with propriety and advantage.

We cannot go on with a work of length, if every sentence require a confiderable exercise of our own faculties. It is too fatiguing, at least to the generality of readers. But all compofitions, and particularly those of small length, are infupportably insipid, if the writer have been so unseasonably officious, as to have left nothing to the exercise of the active faculties of his readers, and the whole excite nothing but a train of passive perceptions.

For this reason, the ftyle of Livy will be thought, by the generality of readers of hiftory, preferable to that of Tacitus; whereas the concise style of Marcus Antoninus, and even of Seneca, feems to be happily adapted to philofophical meditations, which are supposed to be read with great deliberation, and with frequent pauses for reflection.

It is no paradox to say, that the same style will fuit a perfon when he is in a fituation which renders his apprehenfion uncommonly quick, and the fucceffion of his ideas rapid, and one which gives him leisure for reflection; though his mind be quite cool in the one cafe, and violently agitated in the other, because, in both fituations, the mind will eafily fupply what the writer omits. Neither doth this encomium upon the ftyle of Antoninus imply any cenfure on the very different ftyle of Cicero:

for