and a superfluity of unnecessary words, no less than of circumstances, a great nuisance. A judicious selection of the striking circumstances clothed in a nervous style, is delightful. In this style, Tacitus excels all writers, ancient and modern. Instances are numberless: take the following specimen.

Crebra hinc prælia, et sæpius in modum latrocinii: per saltus, per paludes; ut cuique fors aut virtus: temere, proviso, ob iram, ob prædam, jussa, et aliquando ignaris ducibus. Annal. lib. XII. § 39.

Hence arose, frequent battles, and depredations without number, in the forests, in the marshes, according to one's courage or luck-rashly-cautiously-on account of anger-for plunder, and sometimes by the orders of ignorant leaders.

After Tacitus, Ossian in that respect justly merits the place of distinction. One cannot go wrong for examples in any part of the book; and at the first opening the following instance meets the eye:

Nathos clothed his limbs in shining steel. The stride of the chief is lovely: the joy of his eye terrible. The wind rustles in his hair. Darthula is silent at his side: her look is fixed on the chief. Striving to hide the rising sigh, two tears swell in her eyes.

I add one other instance, which, beside the property under consideration, raises delicately our most tender sympathy.

Son of Fingal! dost thou not behold the darkness of Crothar's hall of shells? My soul was not dark at the feast, when my people lived. I rejoiced in the presence of strangers, when my son shone in the hall. But, Ossian, he is a beam that is departed, and left no streak of light behind. He is fallen, son of Fingal, in the battles of his father.- -Rothmar, the chief of grassy Tromlo, heard that my eyes had failed; he heard that my arms were fixed in the hall, and the pride of his soul arose. He came towards Croma: my people fell before him. I took my arms in the hall, but what could sightless Crothar do? My steps were unequal; my grief was great. I wished for the days that were past: days! wherein I fought, and won in the field of blood. My son returned from the chace; the fair-haired Fovar-gormo. He had not lifted his sword in battle, for his arm was young. But the soul of the youth was great; the fire of valor burnt in his eye. He saw the disordered steps of his father, and his sigh arose. King of Croma, he said, is it because thou hast no son? is it for the weakness of Fovargormo's arm that thy sighs arise: I begin, my father, to feel the strength of my arm; I have drawn the sword of my youth, and I have bent the bow. Let me meet this Rothmar, with the youths of Croma: let me meet him, O my father, for I feel my burning soul.

And thou shalt meet him, I said, son of the sightless Crothar! But let others advance before thee, that I may hear the tread of thy feet at thy return; for my eyes behold thee not, fair-haired Fovar-gormo!-He went; he met the foe; he fell. The foe advances towards Croma. He who slew my son is near, with all his pointed spears.

If a concise or nervous style be a beauty, tautology must be a blemish;, and yet writers, fettered by verse, are not sufficiently careful to avoid this slovenly practice: they may be pitied, but they cannot be justified. Take for a specimen the following instances, from the best poet, for versification at least, that England has to

boast of

High on his helm celestial lightnings play,

His beamy shield emits a living ray,

Th' unwearied blaze incessant streams supplies,
Like the red star that fires th' autumnal skies.

Strength and omnipotence invest thy throne.

Iliad, V. 5. Iliad, VIII. 576.

The humid sweat from ev'ry pore descends. Iliad, XXIII. 829.

Redundant epithets, such as humid in the last citation, are by Quintilian disallowed to orators, but indulged to poets,* because his favorite poets, in a few instances, are reduced to such epithets for the sake of versification; for instance, Prata canis albicant pruinis of Horace, and liquidos fontes of Virgil.

As an apology for such careless expressions, it may well suffice, that Pope, in submitting to be a translator, acts below his genius. In a translation, it is hard to require the same spirit or accuracy, that is cheerfully bestowed on an original work. And to support the reputation of that author, I shall give some instances from Virgil and Horace, more faulty by redundancy than any of those above mentioned:

Sæpe etiam immensum cœlo venit agmen aquarum,

Et fædam glomerant tempestatem imbribus atris
Collectæ ex alto nubes: ruit arduus ether,
Et pluviâ ingenti sata læta, boumque labores
Diluit.

Georg. lib. I. 322.

And oft whole sheets descend of sluicy rain
Sucked by the spongy clouds from off the main.
The lofty skies at once come pouring down,
The promised crop and golden labors drown.

Postquam altum tenuere rates, nec jam amplius ullæ
Apparent terræ; cœlum undique et undique pontus:
Tum mihi coeruleus supra caput astitit imber,
Noctem hyememque ferens: et inhorruit unda tenebris.

Eneid, lib. III. 192.

Now from the sight of land our galleys move,
With only seas around, and skies above,
When o'er our heads descends a burst of rain,
And night with sable clouds involves the main.
The ruffling winds the foamy billows rave-
Hinc tibi copia

Manabit ad plenum benigno

Ruris honorum opulenta cornu.

Horat. Carm. lib. I. ode 17.

Here you shall fully taste-a welcome guest

The horn of rural heaped for thee, and prest.

Videre fessos vomerem inversum boves

Collo trahentes languido.

* L. VIII. cap. 6. sect. 2.

Horat. epod. II. 63.

The inverted plough to see,

Which oxen o'er the lea,

With languid neck at leisure pull.

Here I can luckily apply Horace's rule against himself:

Est brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se
Impediat verbis lassas onerantibus aures.

But that the period may run free,
Nor with vain words the ear be tired,
There is a brevity required.

Satir. lib. I. sat. X. 9.

I close this chapter with a curious inquiry. An object, however ugly to the sight, is far from being so when represented by colors or by words. What is the cause of this difference? With respect to painting, the cause is obvious: a good picture, whatever the subject be, is agreeable by the pleasure we take in imitation; and this pleasure overbalancing the disagreeableness of the subject, makes the picture upon the whole agreeable. With respect to the description of an ugly object, the cause follows. To connect individuals in the social state, no particular contributes more than language, by the power it possesses of an expeditious communication of thought, and a lively representation of transactions. But nature has not been satisfied to recommend language by its utility merely independent of utility, it is made susceptible of many beauties, which are directly felt, without any intervening reflection.* And this unfolds the mystery; for the pleasure of language is so great, as in a lively description to overbalance the disagreeableness of the image raised by it. This, however, is no encouragement to choose a disagreeable subject; for the pleasure is incomparably greater where the subject and the description are both of them agreeable.

The following description is upon the whole agreeable, though the subject described is in itself dismal:

Nine times the space that measures day and night
To mortal men, he with his horrid crew

Lay vanquish'd rolling in the fiery gulf,
Confounded though immortal! but his doom
Reserv'd him to more wrath; for now the thought
Both of lost happiness and lasting pain

Torments him; round he throws his baleful eyes
That witness'd huge affliction and dismay,
Mix'd with obdurate pride and steadfast hate:

At once as far as angels ken he views
The dismal situation waste and wild:

A dungeon horrible, on all sides round

As one great furnace flam'd; yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible

Serv'd only to discover sights of wo,

Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace

And rest can never dwell, hope never comes

That comes to all; but torture without end
Still urges, and fiery deluge, fed

With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed!
Such place eternal justice had prepar'd
For those rebellious.

* See Chap. 18.

Paradise Lost, book I. 1. 50.

+ See Chap. 2. part 4.

An unmanly depression of spirits in time of danger is not an agree able sight; and yet a fine description or representation of it will be relished:

K. Richard. What must the king do now? must he submit?
The king shall do it: must he be depos'd?

The king shall be contented: must he lose
The name of King? i' God's name, let it go:
I'll give my jewels for a set of beads;
My gorgeous palace for a hermitage;
My gay apparel, for an almsman's gown;
My figur'd goblets, for a dish of wood;
My sceptre, for a palmer's walking-staff;
My subjects, for a pair of carved saints;
And my large kingdom for a little grave;
A little, little grave; an obscure grave.
Or, I'll be bury'd in the king's highway;
Some way of common tread, where subjects' feet
May hourly trample on their sovereign's head;
For on my heart they tread now, whilst I live;
And bury'd once, why not upon my head?

Richard II. Act III. Sc. 3.

Objects that strike terror in a spectator, have in poetry and painting a fine effect. The picture by raising a slight emotion of terror, agitates the mind; and in that condition every beauty makes a deep impression. May not contrast heighten the pleasure, by opposing our present security to the danger of encountering the object represented?

The other shape,

If shape it might be call'd, that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb;

Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd,
For each seem'd either; black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,

And shook a dreadful dart. Paradise Lost, book II. 1. 666.
Now storming fury rose,

And clamor such as heard in heaven till now
Was never: arms on armor clashing bray'd
Horrible discord, and the madding wheels
Of brazen chariots rag'd; dire was the noise
Of conflict: overhead the dismal hiss
Of fiery darts in flaming vollies flew,
And flying vaulted either host with fire.
So under fiery cope together rush'd
Both battles main, with ruinous assault
And inextinguishable rage: all heaven
Resounded; and had earth been then, all earth
Had to her centre shook.

Ghost.

Paradise Lost, book VI. 1. 207.

But that I am forbid

To tell the secrets of my prison-house,

I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word

Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,

Thy knotty and combined locks to part,

And each particular hair to stand on end,

Like quills upon the fretful porcupine:
But this eternal blazon must not be

To ears of flesh and blood.

Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 5.

Gratiano. Poor Desdemona! I'm glad thy father's dead:
Thy match was mortal to him; and pure grief

Shore his old thread in twain. Did he live now,
This sight would make him do a desperate turn:
Yea, curse his better angel from his side,
And fall to reprobation.

Othello, Act V. Sc. 2.

Objects of horror must be excepted from the foregoing theory; for no description, however lively, is sufficient to overbalance the disgust raised even by the idea of such objects. Every thing horrible ought therefore to be avoided in a description. Nor is this a severe law: the poet will avoid such scenes for his own sake, as well as for that of his reader; and to vary his descriptions, nature affords plenty of objects that disgust us, in some degree, without raising horror. I am obliged, therefore, to condemn the picture of Sin, in the second book of Paradise Lost, though a masterly performance: the original would be a horrid spectacle; and the horror is not much softened in the copy:

· Pensive here I sat
Alone; but long I sat not, till my womb,
Pregnant by thee, and now excessive grown,
Prodigious motion felt and rueful throes.
At last this odious offspring whom thou seest,
Thine own begotten, breaking violent way,
Tore through my entrails, that with fear and pain
Distorted, all my nether shape thus grew
Transform'd; but he my inbred enemy
Forth issu'd, brandishing his fatal dart,
Made to destroy: I fled, and cry'd out Death;
Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sigh'd
From all her caves, and back resounded Death.
I fled; but he pursu'd, (though more, it seems,
Inflam'd with lust than rage,) and swifter far,
Me overtook, his mother all dismay'd,
And in embraces forcible and foul
Ingend'ring with me, of that rape begot
These yelling monsters that with ceaseless cry
Surround me, as thou saw'st, hourly conceiv'd
And hourly born, with sorrow infinite
To me; for when they list, into the womb
That bred them they return, and howl and gnaw
My bowels, their repast; then bursting forth,
Afresh with conscious terrors vex me round,
That rest or intermission none I find.
Before mine eyes in opposition sits

Grim Death, my son and foe, who sets them on,
And me his parent would full soon devour
For want of other prey, but that he knows,
His end with mine involv'd; and knows that I
Should prove a bitter morsel, and his bane,
Whenever that shall be.

Book II. 1. 777.

Iago's character in the tragedy of Othello, is insufferably monstrous and satanical not even Shakspeare's masterly hand can make the picture agreeable.

Though the objects introduced in the following scenes are not altogether so horrible as Sin is in Milton's description; yet with every person of delicacy, disgust will be the prevailing emotion:

Strophades Graio stant nomine dicta
Insulæ Ionio in magno: quas dira Celano,
Harpyiæque colunt aliæ: Phineia postquam