on to pursue more refined enjoyments. e climate also must be equally indult; for, in too warm a region, the mind elaxed into languor, and by the opposite pess is chilled into torpid inactivity. These are the principal advantages which d to the improvement of learning; and these were united in the states of Greece d Rome.

We must now examine what hastens, or events, its decline.

Those who behold the phenomena of ture, and content themselves with the w, without inquiring into their causes, perhaps wiser than is generally imaed. In this manner our rude ancestors re acquainted with facts; and poetry, ich helped the imagination and the mory, was thought the most proper bicle for conveying their knowledge to sterity. It was the poet who harmoted the ungrateful accents of his native lect, who lifted it above common consation, and shaped its rude combinans into order. From him the orator med a style; and, though poetry first e out of prose, in turn it gave birth to ery prosaic excellence. Musical period, ncise expression, and delicacy of sentient, were all excellencies derived from poet; in short, he not only preceded, formed the orator, philosopher, and storian.

When the observations of past ages re collected, philosophy next began to amine their causes. She had numbers facts from which to draw proper inrences, and poetry had taught her the ongest expression to enforce them. hus, the Greek philosophers, for instance, erted all their happy talents in the instigation of truth and the production f beauty. They saw that there was ore excellence in captivating the judgjent, than in raising a momentary asmishment. In their arts, they imitated ply such parts of nature as might please the representation in the sciences; hey cultivated such parts of knowledge it was every man's duty to know. Thus learning was encouraged, procted, honoured, and, in its turn, it domed, strengthened, and harmonized e community.

But, as the mind is vigorous and active, and experiment is dilatory and painful, the spirit of philosophy being excited, the reasoner, when destitute of experiment, had recourse to theory, and gave up what was useful for refinement.

Critics, sophists, grammarians, rhetoricians, and commentators, now began to figure in the literary commonwealth. In the dawn of science such are generally modest, and not entirely useless. Their performances serve to mark the progress of learning, though they seldom contribute to its improvement. But as nothing but speculation was required in making proficients in their respective departments, so neither the satire nor the contempt of the wise, though Socrates was of the number, nor the laws levelled at them by the state, though Cato was in the legislature, could prevent their approaches. Possessed of all the advantages of unfeeling dulness, laborious, insensible, and persevering, they still proceeded mending and mending every work of genius, or, to speak without irony, undermining all that was polite and useful. Libraries were loaded, but not enriched, with their labours, while the fatigues of reading their explanatory comments was tenfold that which might suffice for understanding the original; and their works effectually increased our application, by professing to remove it.

Against so obstinate and irrefragable an enemy what could avail the unsup ported sallies of genius, or the opposition of transitory resentment? In short, they conquered by persevering, claimed the right of dictating upon every work of taste, sentiment, or genius, and, at last, when destitute of other employment, like the supernumerary domestics of the great, made work for each other.

They now took upon them to teach poetry to those who wanted genius, and the power of disputing to those who knew nothing of the subject in debate. It was observed how some of the most admired poets had copied nature. From these they collected dry rules, dignified with long names, and such were obtruded upon the public for their improvement. Common sense would be apt to suggest, that

quaintnesses, which gave the public writings of those times a very illiberal air. L'Estrange, who was by no means so bad a writer as some have represented him, was sunk in party faction; and having generally the worst side of the argument, often had recourse to scolding, pertness, and, consequently, a vulgarity that discovers itself even in his more liberal compositions. He was the first writer who regularly enlisted himself under the banners of a party for pay, and fought for it, through right and wrong, for upwards of forty literary campaigns. This intrepidity gained him the esteem of Cromwell himself; and the papers he wrote even just before the Revolution, almost with the rope about his neck, have his usual characters of impudence and perseverance. That he was a standard writer cannot be disowned, because a great many very eminent authors formed their style by his. But his standard was far from being a just one; though, when party considerations are set aside, he certainly was possessed of elegance, ease, and perspicuity.

Dryden, though a great and undisputed genius, had the same cast as L'Estrange. Even his plays discover him to be a party man, and the same principle infects his style in subjects of the lightest nature; but the English tongue, as it stands at present, is greatly his debtor. He first gave it regular harmony, and discovered its latent | powers. It was his pen that formed the Congreves, the Priors, and the Addisons, who succeeded him; and had it not been for Dryden, we never should have known a Pope, at least in the meridian lustre he now displays. But Dryden's excellences as a writer were not confined to poetry alone. There is in his prose writings an ease and elegance that have never yet been so well united in works of taste or criticism.

The English language owes very little to Otway, though, next to Shakespeare, the greatest genius England ever produced in tragedy. His excellences lay in painting directly from nature, in catching every emotion just as it rises from the soul, and in all the powers of the moving and pathetic. He appears to have had no learning, no critical knowledge, and to

have lived in great distress. When he died (which he did in an obscure house near the Minories) he had about him the copy of a tragedy, which, it seems, he had sold for a trifle to Bentley the bookseller I have seen an advertisement at the end of one of L'Estrange's political papers offering a reward to any one who should bring it to his shop. What an invaluable treasure was there irretrievably lost by the ignorance and neglect of the age he lived in.

Lee had a great command of language and vast force of expression, both which the best of our succeeding dramatic poets thought proper to take for their models. Rowe, in particular, seems to have caught that manner, though in all other respects inferior. The other poets of that reign contributed but little towards improving the English tongue, and it is not certain whether they did not injure rather than improve it. Immorality has its cant as well as party, and many shocking expressions now crept into the language, and became the transient fashion of the day. The upper galleries, by the prevalence of party spirit, were courted with great assiduity, and a horse-laugh following ribaldry was the highest instance of applause, the chastity as well as energy of diction being overlooked or neglected.

Virtuous sentiment was recovered, but energy of style never was. This, though disregarded in plays and party writings, still prevailed amongst men of character and business. The despatches of Sir Richard Fanshaw, Sir William Godolphin, Lord Arlington, and many other ministers of state, are all of them, with respect to diction, manly, bold, and nervous. Sir William Temple, though a man of no learning, had great knowledge and experience. He wrote always like a man of sense and a gentleman; and his style is the model by which the best prose writers in the reign of Queen Anne formed theirs. The beauties of Mr. Locke's style, though not so much celebrated, are as striking as that of his understanding. He never says more nor less than he ought, and never makes use of a word that he could have changed for a better. The same observation holds good of Dr. Samuel Clarke.

Mr. Locke was a philosopher; his antagonist, Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, was a man of learning; and therefore the contest between them was unequal. The clearness of Mr. Locke's head renders his language perspicuous, the learning of Stillingfleet's clouds his. This is an instance of the superiority of good sense over learning, towards the improvement of every language.

There is nothing peculiar to the language of Archbishop Tillotson, but his manner of writing is inimitable; for one who reads him wonders why he himself ad not think and speak it in that very manner. The turn of his periods is greeable though artless, and everything he says seems to flow spontaneously from award conviction. Barrow, though greatly is superior in learning, falls short of him nother respects.

The time seems to be at hand when stice will be done to Mr. Cowley's prose as well as poetical writings; and though his friend Dr. Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, E his diction falls far short of the abilities for which he has been celebrated, yet there is sometimes a happy flow in his periods, something that looks like eloquence. The yle of his successor, Atterbury, has been Each commended by his friends, which ways happens when a man distinguishes imself in party; but there is in it nothing xtraordinary. Even the speech which he ade for himself at the bar of the House 4 Lords, before he was sent into exile, is void of eloquence, though it has been Zed up by his friends to such a degree at his enemies have suffered it to pass acensured.

The philosophic manner of Lord Shafsbury's writing is nearer to that of Cicero han any English author has yet arrived at; at perhaps had Cicero written in Engsh, his composition would have greatly aceeded hat of our countryman. The action of he latter is beautiful, but such eauty as upon nearer inspection carries with it evident symptoms of affectation. This has been attended with very disgreeable consequences. Nothing is so asy to copy as affectation, and his Lordip's rank and fame have procured him Fore imitators in Britain than any other

writer I know; all faithfully preserving his blemishes, but unhappily not one of his beauties.

Mr. Trenchard and Dr. Davenant were political writers of great abilities in diction, and their pamphlets are now standards in that way of writing. They were followed by Dean Swift, who, though in other respects far their superior, never could arise to that manliness and clearness of diction in political writing for which they were so justly famous.

They were all of them exceeded by the late Lord Bolingbroke, whose strength lay in that province; for as a philosopher and a critic he was ill qualified, being destitute of virtue for the one, and of learning for the other. His writings against Sir Robert Walpole are incomparably the best part of his works. The personal and perpetual antipathy he had for that family, to whose places he thought his own abilities had a right, gave a glow to his style, and an edge to his manner, that never yet have been equalled in political writing. His misfortunes and disappointments gave his mind a turn which his friends mistook for philosophy, and at one time of his life he had the art to impose the same belief upon some of his enemies. His idea of a patriot king, which I reckon (as indeed it was) amongst his writings against Sir Robert Walpole, is a masterpiece of diction. Even in his other works his style is excellent; but where a man either does not or will not understand the subject he writes on, there must always be a deficiency. In politics, he was generally master of what he undertook; in morals,

never.

Mr. Addison, for a happy and natural style, will be always an honour to British literature. His diction, indeed, wants strength; but it is equal to all the subjects he undertakes to handle, as he never (at least in his finished works) attempts any. thing either in the argumentative or demonstrative way.

Though Sir Richard Steele's reputation as a public writer was owing to his connexions with Mr. Addison, yet after their intimacy was formed, Steele sank in his merit as an author. This was not owing so much to the evident superiority on the

an, and he enrols himself in the lists of alness and of avarice for life.

Yet there are still among us men of the reatest abilities, and who, in some parts f learning, have surpassed their predeessors. Justice and friendship might ere impel me to speak of names which vill shine out to all posterity, but prudence estrains me from what I should otherwise agerly embrace. Envy might rise against wvery honoured name I should mention, nce scarcely one of them has not those who are his enemies, or those who despise him, &c.

OF THE OPERA IN ENGLAND. HE rise and fall of our amusements retty much resemble that of empire. hey this day flourish without any visible use for such vigour; the next they decay ithout any reason that can be assigned their downfall. Some years ago the talian opera was the only fashionable musement among our nobility. The nagers of the play-houses dreaded it as mortal enemy, and our very poets listed emselves in the opposition: at present ehouse seems deserted; the castrati sing > empty benches; even Prince Vologese mself, a youth of great expectations, ngs himself out of breath, and rattles his cain to no purpose.

To say the truth, the opera, as it is conacted among us, is but a very humdrum usement: in other countries the decotions are entirely magnificent, the singers excellent, and the burlettas, or interdes, quite entertaining; the best poets mpose the words, and the best masters e music; but with us it is otherwise: te decorations are but trifling and cheap; e singers, Mattei only excepted, but in:fferent. Instead of interlude, we have lose sorts of skipping dances which are alculated for the galleries of the theatre. Every performer sings his favourite song, ad the music is only a medley of old Italian ars or some meagre modern capricio.

When such is the case, it is not much to wondered if the opera is pretty much glected. The lower orders of people ave neither taste nor fortune to relish ach an entertainment; they would find ore satisfaction in the "Roast Beef of

Old England" than in the finest closes of an eunuch; they sleep amidst all the agony of recitative. On the other hand, people of fortune or taste can hardly be pleased where there is a visible poverty in the decorations, and an entire want of taste in the composition.

Would it not surprise one, that when Metastasio is so well known in England, and so universally admired, the manager or the composer should have recourse to any other operas than those written by him? I might venture to say, that "written by Metastasio," put up in the bills of the day, would alone be sufficient to fill a house, since thus the admirers of sense as well as sound might find entertainment.

The performers also should be entreated to sing only their parts, without clapping in any of their own favourite airs. I must own, that such songs are generally to me the most disagreeable in the world. Every singer generally chooses a favourite air, not from the excellency of the music, but from difficulty; such songs are generally chosen as surprise rather than please, where the performer may show his compass, his breath, and his volubility.

Hence proceed those unnatural startings, those unmusical closings, and shakes lengthened out to a painful continuance: such, indeed, may show a voice, but it must give a truly delicate ear the utmost uneasiness. Such tricks are not music; neither Corelli nor Pergolesi ever permitted them, and they begin even to be discontinued in Italy, where they first had their rise.

And now I am upon the subject; our composers also should affect greater simplicity: let their bass clef have all the variety they can give it, let the body of the music (if I may so express it) be as various as they please; but let them avoid ornamenting a barren groundwork; let them not attempt by flourishing to cheat us of solid harmony.

The works of Mr. Rameau are never heard without a surprising effect. I can attribute it only to the simplicity he everywhere observes, insomuch that some of his finest harmonies are often only octave and unison. This simple manner has