the leading traits of fimilitude may be obferved while minute likeneffes are difregarded-like those flashes of electric fire which often illumine a fummer's night, they fhed a vivid, though a tranfient luftre, over the fcene, and please rather by the brightness with which they gild the profpect than the accuracy with which they fhew its beauties. -- Should it be doubted, whether the improvement of ftyle, which took place in the time of Addifon-that variation which fubftituted uniform and correct neatness in compofition, for what was loofe, inaccurate and capricious, be justly attributed to him the doubt will vanish when it is remembered that in no work prior to his time is an equal degree of accuracy or neatnefs to be found, and even among thofe periodical papers to which the most eminent of his contemporary writers contributed, the Clio of Addifon ftands eminently confpicuous. It was, indeed, from the productions of that claffic and copious mind that the public feems to have caught the tafte for fine writing which has operated from that time to the prefent, and which has given to our language perhaps the greateft degree of elegance and accuracy of which it is fufceptible; for if any thing is yet to be added to the improvement of the English ftyle, it inuft be more nerve and mufcle, not a nicer modification of form or fea ture. - fectantem levia, nervi Deficiunt animique : While Addison was communicating to English profe a degree of correctnefs with which it had been, till his time, unacquainted, Swift was exemplifying its precifion and giving a standard for its purity. Swift was the first writer who attempted to exprefs his meaning without subfidiary words and corroborating phrafes. He nearly laid afide the ufe of fynonimes in which even Addifon had a little indulged, and without being very folicitous about the ftructure or harmony of his periods, feemed to devote all his attention to illuftrate the force of individual words. Swift hewed the ftones, and fitted the materials for thofe who built after him; Addifon left the neatest and most finished models of ornamental architecture. Of the character which is here given of these two writers it is un-neceffaty to give proof by quoting paffages from their works, for two reafons; the one is, that their works are in the hands of every body; the other, that the qualities which we attribute to their ftyle are fo obvious that it were fuperfluous to illustrate them. Befides thofe first reformers of the ftyle of 1688, there were others, contemporary with them, who contributed to promote the work which they did not begin. Bolingbroke and Shaftfoury, like Addifon, were elegant and correct, and feem from him to have derived their correctnefs and elegance. Of this, fo far as it concerns Shaftsbury, there is a most remarkable proof. His tract, entitled "An Enquiry concerning Virtue," was in the hands of the public in 1699, in a state very different indeed from that in which his 'lordship published it, in the year 1726. It partook of all the faults which were prevalent in the style of that J day, but particularly in the length of its periods, and the inartificial connection of them. In the edition of 1726 those errors, were in a great meafure corrected; the fentences are broken down, and molded with much elegance into others lefs prolix; and fharing in fome degree all the beauties of Addifon's ftyle, except those which perhaps his lordfhip could not copy, its eafe and fimplicity. Indeed Shafifbury, in the form in which we now have him, appears to be more attentive than Addison to the harmony of his cadence, and the regular conftruction of his fentences; and certainly if he has lefs fimplicity has more trength. Bolingbroke, too, participating in correctness with Addifon, has fome topics of peculiar praife; he has more force than Addison, and, what may appear frange, when we confider how much more vehement and copious he is, has more precifion. The nature of the fubjects on which Bolingbroke and Shaftsbury wrote naturally tended to make them more attentive to precifion than Addison. These fubjects were principally abstract morality and metaphyfics--fubjects of which no knowledge can be attained but by clofe and fteady thinking, or communicated but by words of definite and conftant meaning. The language of Addifon, however elegant in itself, or however admirably adapted by its eafy flow to thofe familiar topics which are generally the fubject of diurnal effays, was too weak for the weight of.abstract moral difquifition, and too vague for the niceties of metaphyfical diftinc tion. It was fitted for him whofe bbject was to catch what floated on the furface of life; but it could not ferve him who was to enter into the depths of the human mind, to watch the progrefs of intellectual operation, and embody to the vulgar eye thofe ever fleeting forms under which the paffions vary. Propriety in Females. From Mrs. Mores Strictures on Female Education. PROPRIETY is to a woman what the great Roman critic fays action is to an orator: it is the firit, the fecond, and the third, requifite, A woman may be knowing, active, witty, and amufing; but without propriety fhe cannot be amiable. Propriety is the centre in which all the lines of duty and of agreeableness meet. It is to cha racter what proportion is to figure, and grace to attitude. It does not depend on any one perfection; but it is the refult of general excellence, It shows itfelf by a regular, orderly, undeviating courfe; and never starts from its fober orbit into any fplendid eccentricities; for it would be afhamed of fuch praife as it might extort by any aberrations from its proper path. It renounces all commendation but what is characteriftic; and I would make it the criterion of true tafte, right principle, and genuine feeling, in a woman, whether he would be lefs touched with all the flattery of romantic and exaggerated panegyric, than with that beautiful picture of correct and elegant propriety, which Milton draws of our first mother, when he delineates tageous point of view; to call the attention of the inattentive to the observation of one, who, though of much worth, is perhaps of little note: these are requifites for converfation, lefs brilliant, but far more valuable, than the power of exciting burfts of laughter by the brightest wit, or of extorting admiration by the most poignant fallies. For wit is of all the qualities of the female mind that which requires the fevereft caftigation; yet the temperate exercife of this fafcinating quality throws an additional luftre round the character of an amiable woman; for to manage with difcreet modefty a dangerous talent, confers a higher praife than can be claimed by thofe in whom the absence of the talent takes away the temptation to mifemploy it. But to women, wit is a peculiarly perilous poffeffion, which nothing thort of the fobermindedness of Chriftianity can keep in order. Internperate wit craves admiration as its natural aliment; it lives on flattery as its daily bread. The profeffet wit is a hungry beggar that fubfifts on the extorted alms of perpetual panegyric; and, like the vulture in the Grecian fable, its appetite increafes by indulgence. Simple truth and fober approbation become taftelefs and infipid to the palate, daily vitiated by the delicious poignancies of exaggerated commendation. But if it be true that fome wo men are too apt to affect brilliancy and difplay in their own difcourfe, and to undervalue the more humble pretenfions of lefs fhowy characters; it must be confeffed alfo, that fome of more ordinary abilities are now the understanding they really poffefs. They exhibit no fmall fatiffaction in ridiculing women of high intellectual endowments, while they exclaim with much affected humility, and much real envy, that they are thankful they are not geniufes." Now, though one is glad to hear gratitude expreffed on any occafion, yet the want of fenfe is really no fuch great mercy to be thankful for; and it would indicate a better spirit, were they to pray to be enabled to make a right ufe of the moderate understanding they poffefs, than to expofe with a too visible pleasure the imaginary or real defects of their more fhining acquaintance. Women of the brightest faculties should not only "bear thofe faculties meekly," but confider it as no derogation, cheerfully to fulfil thofe humbler duties which make up the bufinefs of common life, always taking into the account the higher refponfibility attached to higher gifts. While women of lower attainments fhould exert to the utmoft fuch abilities as providence has affigned them; and while they fhould, not deride excellencies which are above their reach, they fhould not defpond at an inferiority which did not depend on themfelves; nor, becaufe God has denied them ten talents, fhould they forget that they are equally refponfible for the one he has allotted threm, but fet about devoting that one with humble diligence to the glory of the giver. Female Senfibility. From the fame. and then guilty of the oppofite the fine theories in profe and NOTWITHSTANDING [OTWITHSTANDING all error, and foolishly affect to value themfelves on not making ufe of verfe to which this topic has given Ff3 birth, 1 Y Women of this caft of mind are lefs careful to avoid the charge of unbounded extremes, than to efcape at all events the imputation of infenfibility. They are little alarmed at the danger of exceeding, though terrified at the fufpicion of coming fhort of what they take to be the extreme point of feeling. They will even refolve to prove the warmth of their fenfibility, though at the expense of their judgement, and fometimes alfo of their juftice. Even when they earneftly defire to be and to do right, they are apt to employ the wrong inftrument to accomplish the right end. They employ the paffions to do the work of the judgement; forgetting, or not knowing, that the paffions were not given us to be ufed in the fearch and discovery of truth, which is the office of a cooler and more difcriminating faculty; but that they were given to animate us to warmer zeal in the purfuit and practice of truth, when the judgement shall have pointed out what is truth. Through this natural warmth, which they have been juftly told is so pleasing, but which, perhaps, they have not been told will be continually expofing them to peril and to fuffering, their joys and forrows are exceffive. Of this extreme irritability, as was before remarked, the ill-educated learn to boat as if it were an indication of fuperiori ty of foul inftead of labouring to reftrain it as the excess of a temper which ceafes to be interesting® when it is no longer under the control of the governing faculty. It is misfortune enough to be born more liable to fuffer and to fin, from this conformation of mind; it is too much to allow its unreftrained indulgence; it is still worse to be proud of fo misleading a quality. Flippancy, impetuofity, refentment, and violence of fpirit, grow out of this difpofition, which will be rather promoted than corrected, by the fyftem of education on which we have been animadverting ; in which fyftem, emotions are too early and too much excited, and taftes and feelings are confidered as too exclufively making up the whole of the female character; in which the judgement is little exercised, the reafoning powers are feldom brought into action, and felf-knowledge and felf-denial scarcely inclu ded. The propenfity of the mind which we are confidering, if unchecked, lays its poffeffors open to unjust prepoffeffions, and expofes them to all the danger of unfounded attachments. In early youth, not only love, but friendship, at firft fight, grows out of an ill-directed fenfibility; and in afterlife, women under the powerful influence of this temper, confcious that they have much to be borne with are too readily inclined to felect for their confidential connections, flexible and flattering companions, who will in dulge and perhaps admire their faults, rather than firm and honeft friends, who will reprove and would affift in curing them. We may adopt it as a general maxim, that an an obliging, weak, yielding, complaifant friend, full of fmall attentions, with little religion, little judgement, and much natural acquiefcence and civility, is a moft dangerous, though generally a too much defired confidant: fhe fooths the indolence, and gratifies the vanity of her friend, by reconciling her own faults, while the neither keeps the underftanding nor the virtues of that friend in exercife. Thefe obfequious qualities are the foft green" on which the foul loves to repose itself. But it is not a refreshing or a wholefome repofe: we fhould not felect, for the fake of prefent eafe, a foothing flatterer, who will lull us into a pleafing oblivion of our failings, Hope is the link that unites all our pleasures. The interval is too fhort between the time of our being too young and but a too old. friend, who valuing our foul's health above our immediate comfort, will roufe us from torpid indulgence to animation, vigilance, and virtue. It demands a great deal of ftudy to acquire moderate knowledge. Of those who make companions of their fervants, I have only to fay, that vice is its own punishment. Men of talents govern fools; and fome fool or other often governs a man of talent. When I reflect on our discoveries in natural philosophy, I think we have gone very far for human beings. Idlenefs ought to have been ranked among the punishments of hell; and moft people place it among the joys of heaven. On friends that are tyrannical though useful to us, my observation is that love has compenfations which friendship has not. Ordinary graces lofe part of their beauty by being fet in competition with each other: graces of the highest rank acquire a brighter lutire when oppofed to each other. Moft virtues are relative to individuals, or to parts of the whole: fuch are friendship, love of one's Ff 4 country, |