selves. Sometimes, though indeed rarely, a word is used without a definitive appropriation to that to which it is annexed; as in this instance, "Omnipotence cannot be exalted, infinity cannot be " amplified, perfection cannot be improved;" where the exact relation between amplitude and infinity, and between improvement, and perfection, is not at all kept up by exaltation being applied to Onnipotence. Sometimes too words are introduced, which answer hardly any other purpose than to make the parallelism more conspicuous, by adding a new member to each clause. Thus, in the following passage, " grows too slothful for the labour of con"test, too tender for the asperity of contradiction, and too delicate ❝for the coarseness of truth;" where labour, asperity and coarseness are sufficiently implied in slothful, tender and delicate. Sometimes too the parallelism itself is unnecessarily obtruded on the reader, as "quickness of apprehension and celerity of reply," where "celerity" having precisely the same meaning as “quick"ness," could only have been introduced to make up the parallelism: "Nothing is far-sought, or hard-laboured" where the first adverb is essential to the sense, and the last only to the sound. "When two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather, "they are in haste to tell each other what each must already "know, that it is hot or cold, bright or cloudy, windy or calm." Such uninteresting enumerations, since they contribute nothing to the meaning, we can only suppose introduced, as our author observes of some of Milton's Italian names, to answer the purpo ses of harmony. It were unjust however not to declare, that many of his paralIclisms are altogether happy. For antithesis indeed he was most eminently qualified; none has exceeded him in nicety of discernment, and no author's vocabulary has ever equalled his in a copious assortment of forcible and definite expressions. Thus, in his comparison of Blackmore's attack on the dramatic writers with Collier's," Blackmore's censure," he says, "was cold and gene"ral, Collier's was personal and ardent : Blackmore taught his "readers to dislike, what Collier incited them to abhor." But it is useless to multiply instances of that which all must have perceived, since all his contrasts and comparisons possess the same high degree of accuracy and perfection. From the same cause may be inferred the excellence of his parallel sentences, where praise-worthy qualities are separated from their concomitant faults, or kindred effects are disunited: as where he calls Gold smith "a man who had the art of being minute without tedious"ness, and general without confusion; whose language was copi"ous without exuberance, exact without constraint, and easy "without weakness." But Johnson's triads occur so frequently, that I find myself always led aside to wonder, that all the effects from the same cause should be so often discovered reducible to the mystical number three: I torment myself to find a reason for that particular order in which the effects are recited, and I am involuntarily delayed to consider, whether some are not omitted which have a right to be inserted, or some enumerated which due discretion would have suppressed. Surely I must be singular in my turn of thought, or this art of attention, which thus leads away from the main subject, cannot be an happy one. His desire of harmony has led him to seek even for the minute ornament of alliteration. Thus, he says, "they toil without pros"pect of praise, and pillage without hope of profit."-Shakespeare opens a mine, which contains gold and diamonds in inexhausti"ble plenty, though clouded by incrustations, debased by impu"rities, and mingled with a mass of meaner minerals." Alliteration indeed is so often casual, and so often necessary, that it is difficult to charge it on an author's intentions. But Johnson employs it so frequently, and continues it through so many words, as in the instances given above, that when we consider too how nearly allied it is as an ornament to parallelism, we have I think sufficient grounds to determine it not involuntary. Under this head I shall beg leave to mention one peculiarity of Johnson's stile, which though it may not have arisen, at least not entirely, from his endeavours after harmony, yet discovers itself obviously to the reader by its effects upon the ear; I mean the studied recurrence of the same words in the latter part of the sentence, which had appeared in the former; the favourite ornament of his Idler, as parallelisms are of the Rambler, and used not unfrequently in the Lives of the Poets. As the use of it is attended with many advantages and many disadvantages, the author who would adopt it should watch it with a suspicious eye. If restrained within the bounds of moderation, it is on many occasions the most lively, concise, perspicuous and forcible mode of expressing the thought. Since the words too at their return naturally recall to the mind the antecedent members of the sentence, it may be considered as a valuable assistant in imprinting the thought upon the memory. It has also this additional advantage, that as unfairness in reasoning often arises from change of terms, so where the terms are not changed, we are apt to presume the reasoning to be fair. Thus, where we read in the Life of Savage the following sentence, "As he always spoke with respect of his mas"ter, it is probable the mean rank in which he then appeared did "not hinder his genius from being distinguished or his industry "from being rewarded; and if in so low a state he obtained dis"tinctions and rewards, it is not likely they were gained but by "genius and industry." In this instance the perspicuity of the reasoning seems to have been preserved through such a chain of propositions, merely by the artifice of returning the same words a second time to the reader's observation. But the unrestrained use of this art is perhaps one of the greatest faults an author can adopt. A fault, which burlesques grave subjects by communicating impressions of levity, and on occasions less serious, instead of being sprightly degenerates into quaintness: which for disquisition and reasoning gives us nothing but point and epigram; by a constrained conciseness often betrays to obscurity, and where most successful, leads but to trite retorts and verbal oppositions, which the reader has already anticipated, and perhaps already rejected. Were Johnson however to be charged with negligence, it might be most fairly on the subject of harmony. There are many passages in his works where sounds almost similar are suffered to approach too near each other; and though some of these are too palpable to be passed over unnoticed by the author, yet I can never think any ear so incorrect as to adopt sameness and monotony for harmony. Either way however Johnson is culpable, and his alternative is either a faulty principle, or a negligence in his practice. Yet his pages abound with memorials of close attention to harmony; unfortunately with memorials equally deserving of censure; with heroic lines and lyric fragments. Thus, he says, *Pope foresaw the future efflorescence of imagery just budding "in his mind, and resolved to spare no art or industry of cultiva❝tion; the soft luxuriance of his fancy was already shooting, and "all the gay varieties of diction were ready at his hand to co"lour and embellish it." "I will chase the deer, I will subduc VOL. XII. 6 "the whale, resistless as the frost of darkness, and unwearied as "the summer sun." Surely this is to revive the Pindaric licentiousness, to confound the distinction between prose and poetry, to introduce numbers by study while negligence admits rhymes, and to annihilate the harmony of prose, by giving the reader an obvious opportunity to compare it with the harmony of versification. Indeed all the peculiarities of Johnson's style, pursued to their excess, tend to raise prosaic composition above itself: the, give the admirers of Gray a fit occasion of retorting "the glittering "accumulation of ungraceful ornaments, the double double toil " and trouble, the strutting dignity which is tall by walking on "tip toe," which have so harshly been objected to their favourite. Simplicity is too often given up for splendor, and the reader's mind is dazzled instead of being enlightened. I shall now conclude this enquiry into the peculiarities of Johnson's style with remarking, that if I have treated more of blemishes than beauties, I have done it, not so much to pass censure on Johnson, as to give warning to his imitators. I have indeed selected my instances from his writings: but in writings so numerous, who is there that would not sometimes have indulged his peculiarities in licentiousness? I have singled him out from the whole body of English writers, because his universally acknowledged beauties would be most apt to induce imitation; and I have treated rather on his faults than his perfections because an essay might comprize ali the observations I could make upón his faults, while volumes would not be sufficient for a treatise on his perfections. ART IV. THE AYRSHIRE LEGATEES; Or, the Correspondence of the Pringle Family. (Continued from Vol. XI. p. 427.) THERE was a great tea-drinking held in the Kirk-gate of Irvine, at the house of Miss Mally Glencairn, to which our intelligent correspondent, Mr. M'Gruel, the surgeon of Kilwinning, was invited. At that assemblage of rank, beauty, and fashion, among other delicacies of the season, several new-come-home Clyde Skippers, roaring from Greenock, and Port-Glasgow, were served up-but nothing contributed more to the entertainment of the eve ning, than a proposal, on the part of Miss Mally, that those present, who had received letters from the Pringles, should read them for the benefit of the company. This was no doubt a preconcerted scheme between her and Miss Isabella Todd, to hear what Mr. Andrew Pringle had said to his friend Mr. Snodgrass, and likewise what the doctor himself had indited to Mr. Micklewham, some rumour having spread of the wonderful escapes and adventures of the family in their journey and voyage to London. For, as Mr. M'Gruel, with that peculiar sagacity for which he is eminently distinguished, justly remarked, "had there not been some prethought of this kind, it was not possible that both the helper and session clerk of Garnock could have been there together, in a party, where it was an understood thing that not only Whist and Catch Honours were to be played, but even obstreperous Birky itself, for the diversion of such of the company as were not used to gambling games." It was in consequence of what took place at this Irvine route, that Mr. M'Gruel was led to think of collecting the letters; and those which were read that evening, in addition to what we have already published, constitute the burthen of our present article. LETTER VIII. Miss Rachel Pringle to Miss Isabella Todd. London. MY DEAR BELL,-It was my heartfelt intention to keep a regular journal of all our proceedings, from the sad day on which I bade a long adieu to my native shades--and I persevered with a constancy becoming our dear and youthful friendship, in writing down every thing that I saw, either rare or beautiful, till the hour of our departure from Leith. In that faithful register of my feelings and reflections as a traveller, I described our embarkation at Greenock, on board the steam-boat,-our sailing past Port-Glasgow, an insignificant town, with a steeple; the stupendous rock of Dumbarton Castle,-that Gibraltar of antiquity;-our landing at Glasgow, my astonishment at the magnificence of that opulent metropolis of the muslin manufacturers. My brother's remark, that the punch bowls on the roofs of the infirmary, the museum, and the other trade's hall, were emblematic of the universal estimation in which that celebrated mixture is held by all ranks and |