ferent manner. They are led, ftep by ftep, from the eafier parts of the opera tion, to what are more difficult; and are not permitted to make a new motion, till they be perfected in those which regularly precede it. The fcience of criticifm appears then to be an intermediate link, finely qualified for connecting the different parts of education into a regular chain. This fcience furnitheth an inviting opportunity to exercife the judgment; we delight to reafon upon fubjects that are equally pleafant and familiar; we proceed gradually from the fimpler to the more involved cafes: and in a due courfe of difcipline, cuftom, which improves all our faculties, beftows acutenefs upon thofe of reafon, fufficient to unravel all the intricacies of philofophy.

Nor ought it to be overlooked, that the reasonings employed upon the fine arts are of the fame kind with thofe which regulate our condut. Mathematical and metaphyfical reasonings have no tendency to improve focial intercourfe; nor are they applicable to the common affairs of life. But a juft tafte in the fine arts, derived from rational principles, is a fine preparation for acting in the focial state with dignity and propriety.

The fcience of criticilin tends to improve the heart not lefs than the understanding. I observe, in the first place, that it hath a fine effect in moderating the felfish affections. A juft taste in the fine arts, by fweetening and harmonizing the temper, is a strong antidote to the turbulence of paflion and violence of purfuit. Elegance of taste procures to a man fo much enjoyment at home, or eafily within reach, that in order to be occupied, he is, in youth, under no temptation to precipitate into hunting, gaming, drinking; nor, in middle age, to deliver himself over to ambition; nor, in old age, to avarice. Pride, a difguftful felfifh paflion, exerts itself without control, when accompanied with a bad taste. A man of this ftamp, upon whom the most striking beauty makes but a faint impreflion, feeis no joy but in gratifying his ruling paffion by the difcovery of errors and blemishes. Pride, on the other hand, finds in the conftitution no enemy more formidable than a delicate and difcerning tale. The man upon whom nature and culture have beflowed this bletting, feels great delight in the virtuous difpolitions and actions of others. He loves to cherish them, and to publish them to the world. Faults and

failings, it is true, are to him not lefs obvious: but these he avoids, or removes out of fight, because they give him pain. In a word, there may be other paffions, which, for a season, disturb the peace of fociety more chan pride: but no other pallion is fo unwearied an antagonist to the fweets of focial intercourfe. Pride, tending affiduously to its gratification, puts a man perpetually in oppofition to others; and difpofes him more to relifh bad than good qualities, even in a bofomfriend. How different that difpofition of mind, where every virtue in a companion or neighbour, is, by refinement of taste, fet in its strongest light; and defects or blemishes, natural to all, are fuppreffed, or kept out of view?

In the next place, delicacy of taste tends not less to invigorate the focial affections, than to moderate those that are felfifh. To be convinced of this tendency, we need only reflect, that delicacy of tafte neceffarily heightens our fenfibility of pain and pleafure, and of course our fympathy, which is the capital branch of every focial paffion. Sympathy in particular invites a communication of joys and forrows, hopes and fears. Such exercife, foothing and fatisfactory in itself, is productive neceffarily of mutual good-will and affection.

One other advantage of criticism is referved to the laft place, being of all the most important, that it is a great fupport to morality. I infift on it with entire fatisfaction, that no occupation attaches a man more to his duty than that of culti vating a tafte in the fine arts. A just relifh of what is beautiful, proper, elegant, and ornamental, in writing or paint ting, in architecture or gardening, is a fine preparation for difcerning what is beautiful, juft, elegant, or magnanimous, in character and behaviour. To the man who has acquired a tafte fo acute and accomplished, every action wrong or improper, muit be highly difgustful. If, in any inftance, the overbearing power of pallion fway him from his duty, he returns to it upon the firit reflection, with redoubled refolution never to be fwayed a fecond time. He has now an additional motive to virtue, a conviction derived from experience, that happinets depends on regularity and order, and that a dif regard to justice or propriety never fails to be punished with thame and remorie *. Rude

* Genius is allied to a warm and inflammable

con.

Rnde ages exhibit the triumph of authority over reafon. Philofophers anciently were divided into fects: they were either Epicureans, Platonifts, Stoics, Pythagoreans, or Sceptics. Men relied no farther upon their own judgment than to chufe a leader, whom they implicitly followed. In later times, happily, reafon hath obtained the afcendant. Men now affert their native privilege of thinking for themselves, and difdain to be ranked in any fect, whatever be the fcience. I muft except criticism, which, by what fatality I know not, continues to be not lefs flavish in its principles, nor lefs fubmillive to authority, than it was originally. Boffu, a celebrated French critic, gives many rules; but can discover no better foundation for any of them, than the practice merely of Homer and Virgil, fupported by the authority of Ariftotle. Strange, that in fo long a work, the concordance or difcordance of thefe rules with human nature, fhould never once have entered his thoughts! It could not furely be his opinion, that these poets, however eminent for genius, were intitled to give laws to mankind. and that nothing now remains but blind obedience to their arbitrary will. If in writing they followed no rule, why fhould they be imitated? If they studied nature, and were obfequious to rational principles, why thould these be concealed from us?

With respect to the prefent underta king, it is not the author's intention to give a regular treatise upon each of the fine arts in particular; but only, in general, to apply to them fome remarks and obfervations drawn from human nature, the true source of criticifm. The fine arts are calculated for our entertainment, or for making agreeable impreffions; and, by that circumstance, are diftinguifhed from the useful arts. In order then to be a critic in the fine arts, it is neceffary, as above hinted, to know what objects are naturally agreeable, and what naturally disagreeable. A complete treatife on that fubject would be a field conftitution, delicacy of tafte to calmness and fe dateness. Hence it is common to find genius in one who is a prey to every paffion; which can fcarce happen with respect to delicacy of taste. Upen a man poffeffed of this bleffing, the moral duties, as well as the fine arts, make a deep impreffion, fo as to counterbalance every irregular defire. And even fuppofing a firong temptation, it can take no faft hold of a calm and fedate temper.

25

by far too extenfive to be thoroughly cultivated by any one hand. The author pretends only to have entered upon the fubject fo far as neceffary for fupporting his critical remarks. And he affumes no merit from his performance, but that of evincing, perhaps more diftinctly than hitherto has been done, that the genuine rules of criticifm are all of them derived from the human heart. The fenfitive part of our nature is a delightful speculation. What the author hath difcovered or collected upon that subject, he chufes to impart in the gay and agreeable form of criticifim; because he imagines, that this form will be more relifhed, and perhaps be not lefs inftructive, than a regular and laboured difquifition. His plan is, to afcend gradually to principles, from facts and experiments, inftead of beginning with the former, handled abstractly, and defcending to the latter. But though criticifm be thus his only declared aim, he will not difown, that all along he had it in view, to explain the nature of man, confidered as a fenfitive being, capable of pleasure and pain. And though he flatters himself with having made fome progrefs in that important science, he is however too fenfible of its extent and difficulty, to undertake it profeffedly, or to avow it as the chief purpose of the prefent work.

To cenfure works, not men, is the juft prerogative of criticifm; and accordingly all perfonal cenfure is here avoided, unless where neceffary to illuftrate fome general propofition. No praise is claimed on that account; becaufe cenfuring with a view merely to find fault, is an entertainment that humanity never relishes. Writers, one would imagine, should, above all others, be referved upon that article, when they lie fo open to retaliation. The author of this treatise, far from being confident of meriting no cenfure, entertains not even the slightest hope of fuch perfection. Amulement was at first the fole aim of his inquiries. Proceeding from one particular to another, the fubfar advanced before the thought ftruck ject grew under his hand; and he was him, that his private meditations might be publicly ufeful. In public, however, he would not appear in a flovenly drefs; and therefore he pretends not otherwife to apologife for his errors, than by oblerving, that, in a new fubject, not les nice than extenfive, errors are in fome meafure unavoidable. Neither pretends

he

he to justify his tafte in every particular. That point must be extremely clear, which admits not variety of opinon; and in fome matters fufceptible of great refinement, time is perhaps the only infallible touchstone of tafte. To this he ap. peals, and to this he chearfully fubinits. N. B. THE ELEMENTS OF CRITICIS, meaning the whole, is a title too affuming for this work. A number of thefe elements or principles are here evolved; but as the author is far from imagining, that he has completed the lift, a more humble title is proper, fuch as may exprefs any undetermined number of parts lefs than the whole. This he thinks is fignified by the title he has chofen, viz. ELEMENTS OF CRITICISM.

CONTENT S.

1. Perceptions and i-13. Wit.

deas in a train. 14. Custom and habit. 2. Emotions and paf-15. External signs of e3. Beauty. [fions. motions and paf Grandeur and tublimity.

4.

5. Motion and force. 6. Novelty, and the unexpected appearance of objects. 7. Rifible objects. 8. Refemblance and

fions.

16. Sentiments. 17. Language of paffion. 18. Beauty of language. 19. Comparisons. 20. Figures.

21. Narration and defcription. 22. Epic and dramatic compofitions.

23. The three unities. 24. Gardening and architecture. 25. Standard of taste. Appendix: Terms defined or explained.

The theory and cure of the distemper called a COLD. From A treatise of the difeafe called a cold. By John Chandler, of London, apothecary, FR. S. 2 s. 6 d. Millar. THE HE matter which perfpires from the human body is not excrementitious, but is the refult of the laft and moit perfect concoction of the animal juices: it is what remains of the alimentary fubftances received into the ftomach, after they have gone through the whole courfe of gradual tranfimutation, and are purified from all excrementitious particles; and it is defigned for the immediate nourishment and repair of the body in all its parts.

This juice therefore permeates, or paffes through, every part of the body; and fo much of it only as is redundant or fuperfluous, paties off through the pores, and sxcretory ducts.

But the pores and excretory ducts

through which the fuperfluity of this juice paffes, are not those only of the skin, but of the membranes that cover and line the stomach, bowels, and every other internal part of the body; fo that all the furfaces of the body, inward and outward, are in a perpetual ftate of perfpiration; by which they are kept moift and fupple, and prevented both from adhering, and from fuffering a painful irritation by rubbing against each other.

This juice, as well as all other juices of the body, when it is first fecreted from the capillary arteries, is heated, and therefore in a thin fluid ftate; but afterwards it grows thicker, from various caufes, particularly from remaining at rest in its feveral receptacles, and from a diffipation or abforption of its aqueous particles.

This juice may be rendered thick and tenacious, by natural and by fupernatural caufes; and one fpecies of tenacity will be falutary and neceffary, the other hurtful and dangerous. It is rendered thick and tenacious, and becomes the glandular mucus of the nose and mouth, and of all the canals where fuch a humour is neceffary to defend their internal furface against acrid and ftimulating particles, by a natural caufe, and therefore is falutary and neceflary. It is rendered thick and tenacious alfo by a preternatural chill, in its fecretory or excretory ducts, and by a corrugation or fpafmodic conftriction of the ducts themselves; it then puts a ftop to the natural fecretions and abforptions, confequently to the free circulation of the humours through the capillaries, which therefore extend and load the compound organs on which the affection falls and, in this cafe, the infpiffated peripirable matter forms the tenacious fubftance that appears upon the furface of blood which is taken from perfons who are disordered in confequence of neglected colds, and which is called fize; the fame matter thus morbidly infpiflated, alfo forms the tough membranes and adhesions of the lungs with the pleura, after peripneumonies and pleurifies, as well as all other adhefions after inflammatory disorders of different parts.

This morbid infpiffation of the perspirable matter from a chill in fome internal or external part, therefore, produces the difeafe called a cold, and when it falls on the pituitary membrane, which is moit fubject to this accident, the molt immediate and remarkable fyruptoms of the difcale are produced.

The

The pituitary membrane is fo called, because it secretes the pituita or mucus of the nose and mouth. Part of it is alfo the immediate organ of fmelling. It is of great extent, and lines not only the noftrils, but all the adjacent cavities call ed finufles. It it full of blood-veffels and nerves; and the hinder part of it contains a great number of glands, each of which receives into its cavity, the thin lymph secreted or perspired from the minute capillaries, which by cooling, and by the reforption of its aqueous parts, becomes the mucus already mentioned. The capillary arteries that cover other parts of this membrane, alfo ooze out their lymph, which is thickened by the action of the air, and by its being intangled in the glandular mucus.

When the pituitary membrane is affected by a cold, the capillary veffels, and ducts of the glands, are obftructed; which produces an undue fullness and diftenfion of the veffels, with a conftriction of the membrane, a ftimulation of the nerves, and, at laft, an immoderate distillation and eflux of humour; in other words, the head is stuffed, the party fneezes, and the nole runs. All this is frequently occafioned by breathing cold air; and forms a diforder which was formerly called a catarrh, and erroneously supposed to be derived from the brain.

As the blood-veffels which are spread over this membrane, communicate with each other, and are derived from different trunks, the obstruction fometimes fhifts from one part to another; the difcharge from the nostrils will ceafe, and a hoarfenefs or cough come on; and vice safe.

That part of the body on which cold is taken, or on which the perfpirable matter is morbidly thickened by a chill, will first fuffer, and thew the first figns of the diforder, which originally is local.

It is common for perfons coming out of a very warm room into the open air, with the whole body heated infide and out, and the perspiration every where increa fed, to wrap themselves up, fo as to prevent a chill on the furface of the body; but it is alfo common to take no precaution for the defence of the paffages by which we breathe; fuch perfons therefore breathe a cold damp air, which is repeatedly drawn up the noftrils. Thus they take cold, which immediately affects the pituitary membrane; in about twelve Bours the head is stuffed, with difficulty

27

of breathing through the nofe, lofs of fmell, frequent fneezing, a distillation of a thin humour from the nofe, and a heavinefs or pain in the forehead. If proper care be taken, the humour will flow more readily and plentifully; in five or fix days it will begin to thicken, and at laft be come concocted mucus; the fneezing, and pain in the forehead, go off, the discharge of thick mucus gradually diminishes, and health is perfectly restored. This fpecies of cold is called a coryza, and is a mere local affection of that part of the pituitary membrane which is spread over the noftrils and frontal finuses.

The coryza, however, is fometimes produced by a more general check of the perfpiration, from wet linen, or damp beds: for this check will caufe a fuperabundance of the perfpirable matter, by repelling what thould have been thrown off, and nature will eafe herself of the fuperfluity, where the readieft outlet is to be found, which, from fome predifpofing caufes, may happen to be this emunctory.

To facilitate the cure of the coryza, it is often neceffary to take away blood, and to empty the bowels by gentle aperitives, in order to ease the pituitary membrane of that load and tenfion, which would otherwise be too great for the elasticity of the veffels to overcome; and which, therefore, might multiply the obstructions, break the veffels, inflame the membrane, and produce a fever.

If cold damp air received into the mouth, affects that part of the pituitary membrane which lines the mouth and throat, the palate, the uvula, or the tonfils. thefe parts will then become the feat of the cold, the tonfils and uvula will fwell, a difficulty of fwallowing and discharging the vifcid phlegm, with which the parts are loaded, will come on; and the diforder is then diftinguished by the name of a fore throat.

The fore throat is fometimes cured like the coryza, by resolution, relaxation, or a difcharge of mucus; and fometimes by fuppuration, and purulent discharges. It fometimes also happens, but never without ill treatment, that the tonfils remain enlarged and indurated, which may produce bad confequences; and if the chill happens between the tonfils, and affects the protuberant mouth of either of the Euftachian tubes, it will occafion an acute pain ftretching into the ear, especially in the act of fwallowing; a circumstance which ought always to be attended to,

left

left the obstruction fhould extend inward, and inflame the tympanum.

If the chill attacks the epiglottis, and upper part of the larynx, a hoarfeness or lols of voice follows; if it penetrates deeper into the glottis, a difficulty of breathing will be added; if the muscles of the larynx are chilled and stiffened, this difficulty will increafe; and if the circulation of the blood there fhould be obftructed to a great degree, through neglect or ill treatment, a tumour and inflammation will arife, and a true inflammatory quincy will be produced, one of the moit immediately dangerous of all diseases.

When the chill happens on the afpera arteria, it produces an effort to pump up and throw off the vifcid obftructing mucus, which effort is called a cough. A cough is cured like other fpecies of cold, by a refolution of the obftructions in the capillaries, by an eafy expectoration, and by a recovery of itrength in the folid parts that are affected; but great care must be taken not to use provocative expectorants, for they always do harm, and are fome

times fatal.

Either of thefe fpecies of a cold, the coyza, the fore throat, and the cough, may happen feparately, and all conjunctly, without affecting the trunk, limbs, vifcera, or general habit of the body; but when they are not foon relieved by nature or art, they lay the first foundation of dangerous local inflammations, particularly in the head and lungs, and of fevers of the whole habit.

A cold stream of air received on any part of the integuments about the eyes, produces that fpecies of a cold called a blight. This generally goes off eafily with proper care, but if neglected, fometimes degenerates into an eryfipelas. A cold wind driving upon the intide of the eye. lid, or the tunica adnata of the eye itielf, will fometimes caufe an acute pain, like that occafioned by fand, or grit, getting into the eye. This generally goes off in a fhort time, by keeping the eye fhut, and frequently applying the warm hand to it; but fometimes will caufe a fuffufion of red over the whole white of the eye, with great heat and pain. This diforder fhould be immediately and carefully attended to: confinement, repole, exclufion of light and air, abitinence, proper evacuations, and lenient applications, are neceflary to prevent the most terrible mischiefs; and all cold flyptic collyriums must be avoided, as pernicious in the highest degree.

If the chill falls upon the lower parts of the face, the integuments will be inflated from ear to ear, and the lips and noftrils become fwelled and hard. This diforder is called a fwelled face; and, if neglect. ed, the fwelling fometimes fuppurates, and breaks either inwardly or outwardly, with very difagreeable circumftances.

When the chill falls on the neck, the glands fwell and harden; and then gain the denomination of kernels. Sometimes, by ftiffening the mufcles of the neck, it produces what is called a crick. Sometimes it renders the muscles, both of the head and arms, rigid; and this rigidity, if it meets with any idiofyncrafy of the habit, fometimes degenerates into a fpecies of the tetanus, or irrefoluble rigidity, followed by convulfions and death.

If the chilling ftroke is received on the ear, the wax is rendered too thick, and then, by obstructing the paffage, it dulls the hearing. If the blood in the vessels of this organ be chilled, a painful tumor will follow; which, if neglected, or ill managed, by hot, acrid, ftimulated applications, will probably terminate in inflammations, impofthumations, wakefulnefs, delirium, convulfions, fwoonings, and death. The structure of the ear is lo extremely delicate, its parts so numerous, its vetiels fo minute, its investing membranes fo exquifitely thin, and its connections fo important, that no rash empirical practices thould ever be tried upon it.

If the chill trikes the whole trunk and limbs of the body, as is frequently the cafe, by going warm on the river, fitting in damp rooms, going too thinly clad, or continuing up late at night without a fire, the whole body will be thrown into a spaimodic fhivering, the first and most ufual fign of this fpecies of a cold, which, if not immediately taken care of, is a certain prelude to a fever, if it be not a fever already begun.

It fometimes happens, that when a cold is taken, a gentle fever fupervenes, at tended with no other complaint than a flight pain stretching in a straight line upon the head, in the direction of the longi tudinal finus; the fleep is interrupted fud denly by unusual, though not by confufed or frightful dreams; and in this ftate the diforder will continue for feveral days, without alarming the patient by any vio lent fymptom. Let it, however, be re membered, that, in this fituation, he i in the most imminent danger; and that i he is not relieved by the most skilful afik,

ance