It refers,

when critically considered, is not altogether proper. as we discover by the sense, to whatever is new or uncommon. But as it is not good language to say, whatever is new bestows charms on a monster, one cannot avoid thinking that our Author had done better to have begun the first of these three sentences with saying, It is novelty which bestows charms on a monster, &c.

Groves, fields, and meadows, are at any season of the year pleasant to look upon, but never so much as in the opening of the Spring, when they are all new and fresh, with their first gloss upon them, and not yet too much accustomed and familiar to the

eye.

In this expression, never so much as in the opening of the Spring, there appears to be a small error in grammar; for when the construction is filled up, it must be read, never so much pleasant. Had he, to avoid this, said never so much so, the grammatical error would have been prevented, but the language would have been awkward. Better to have said, but never so agreeable as in the opening of the Spring. We readily say, the eye is accustomed to objects; but to say, as our Author has done at the close of the sentence, that objects are accustomed to the scarcely be allowed in a prose composition.

eye, can

For this reason there is nothing that more enlivens a prospect than rivers, jetteaus, or falls of water, where the scene is perpetually shifting, and entertaining the sight every moment with something that is new. We are quickly tired with looking at hills and valleys, where every thing continues fixed and settled in the same place and posture, but find our thoughts a little agitated and relieved at the sight of such objects as are ever in motion, and sliding away from beneath the eye of the beholder.

The first of these sentences is connected in too loose a manner with that which immediately preceded it. When he says, For this reason there is nothing that more enlivens, &c. we are entitled to look for the reason in what he had just before said. But there we find no reason for what he is now going to assert, except that groves and meadows are most pleasant in the Spring. We know that he has been speaking of the pleasure produced by Novelty and Variety, and our minds naturally recur to this, as the reason here alluded to; but his language does not properly express it. It is indeed one of the defects of this amiable writer, that his sentences are often too negligently connected with one another. His meaning, upon the whole, we gather with ease from the tenour of his discourse. Yet this negligence prevents his sense from striking us with that force and evidence which a more accurate juncture of parts would have produced. Bating this inaccuracy, these two sentences, especially the latter, are remarkably elegant and beautiful. The close, in particular, is uncommonly fine, and carries as much expressive harmony as the language can admit. It seems to paint what he is describing at once to the eye and the ear.-Such objects as are ever in motion,

and sliding away from beneath the eye of the beholder.-Indeed, notwithstanding those small errors, which the strictness of critical examination obliges me to point out, it may be safely pronounced, that the two paragraphs which we have now considered in this paper, the one concerning greatness and the other concerning novelty, are extremely worthy of Mr. Addison, and exhibit a Style, which they who successfully imitate, may esteem themselves happy.

But there is nothing that makes its way more directly to the soul than Beauty, which immediately diffuses a secret satisfaction and complacency through the imagination, and gives a finishing to any thing that is great or uncommon. The very first discovery of it strikes the mind with an inward joy, and spreads a cheerfulness and delight through all its faculties.

Some degree of verbosity may be here discovered, as phrases are repeated which seem little more than the echo of one another; such as diffusing satisfaction and complacency through the imagination—striking the mind with inward joy-spreading cheerfulness and delight through all its faculties. At the same time, I readily admit that this full and flowing Style, even though it carry some redundancy, is not unsuitable to the gaiety of the subject on which the Author is entering, and is more allowable here than it would have been on some other occasions.

There is not, perhaps, any real beauty or deformity more in one piece of matter than another; because we might have been so made, that whatever now appears loathsome to us, might have shown itself agreeable; but we find by experience, that there are several modifications of matter which the mind, without any previous consideration, pronounces at first sight beautiful or deformed.

In this sentence there is nothing remarkable, in any view, to draw our attention. We may observe only, that the word more, towards the beginning, is not in its proper place, and that the preposition in is wanting before another. The phrase ought to have stood thus-Beauty or deformity in one piece of matter more

than in another.

Thus we see that every different species of sensible creatures has its different notions of Beauty, and that each of them is most affected with the beauties of its own kind. This is no where more

remarkable than in birds of the same shape and proportion, when we often see the male determined in his courtship by the single grain or tincture of a feather, and never discovering any charms but in the colour of its species.

Neither is there here any particular elegance or felicity of language.-Different sense of Beauty would have been a more proper expression to have been applied to irrational creatures, than as it stands, different notions of Beauty. In the close of the second sentence, when the Author says, colour of its species, he is guilty of a considerable inaccuracy in changing the gender, as he had said in the same sentence that the male was determined in his courtship.

There is a second kind of Beauty, that we find in the several products of art and nature, which does not work in the imagination with that warmth and violence, as the beanty that appears in our proper species, but is apt, however, to raise in us a secret delight, and a kind of fondness for the places or objects in which we discover it.

Still, I am sorry to say, we find little to praise. As in his enunciation of the subject, when beginning the former paragraph, he appeared to have been treating of Beauty in general, in distinction from greatness or novelty; this second kind of Beauty, of which he here speaks, comes upon us in a sort of surprise, and it is only by degrees we learn that formerly he had no more in view than the beauty which the different species of sensible creatures find in one another. This second kind of Beauty, he says, we find in the several products of art and nature. He undoubtedly means, not in all, but in several of the products of art and nature; and ought so to have expressed himself; and in the place of products to have used also the more proper word productions. When he adds, that this kind of Beauty does not work in the imagination with that warmth and violence, as the beauty that appears in our proper species; the language would certainly have been more pure and elegant if he had said, that it does not work upon the imagination with such warmth and violence, as the beauty that appears in our own species.

This consists either in the gaiety or variety of colours, in the symmetry and proportion of parts, in the arrangement and disposition of bodies, or in a just mixture and concurrence of all together. Among these several kinds of Beauty, the eye takes most delight in colours.

To the language here I see no objection that can be made.

We no where meet with a more glorious or pleasing show in nature than what appears in the heavens at the rising and setting of the sun, which is wholly made up of those different stains of light that show themselves in clouds of a different situation.

The chief ground of criticism on this sentence, is the disjointed situation of the relative which. Grammatically, it refers to the rising and setting of the sun. But the author meant, that it should refer to the show which appears in the heavens at that time. It is too common among authors, when they are writing without much care, to make such particles as this, and which, refer not to any particular antecedent word, but to the tenour of some phrase, or perhaps the scope of some whole sentence, which has gone before. This practice saves them trouble in marshalling their words, and arranging a period: but though it may leave their meaning intelligible, yet it renders that meaning much less perspicuous, determined, and precise than it might otherwise have been. The error I have pointed out, might have been avoided by a small alteration in the construction of the sentence, after some such manner as this: We no where meet with a more

glorious and pleasing show in nature than what is formed in the heavens at the rising and setting of the sun, by the different stains of light which show themselves in clouds of different situations. Our author writes, in clouds of a different situation, by which he means, clouds that differ in situation from each other. But as this is neither the obvious nor grammatical meaning of his words, it was necessary to change the expression, as I have done, into the plural number.

For this reason we find the poets, who are always addressing themselves to the imagination, borrowing more of their epithets from colours than from any other topic.

On this sentence nothing occurs, except a remark similar to what was made before, of loose connexion with the sentence which precedes. For, though he begins with saying, For this reason, the foregoing sentence, which was employed about the clouds and the sun, gives no reason for the general proposition he now lays down. The reason to which he refers was given two sentences before, when he observed that the eye takes more delight in colours than in any other beauty; and it was with that sentence that the present one should have stood immediately connected.

As the fancy delights in every thing that is great, strange, or beautiful, and is still more pleased, the more it finds of these perfections in the same object, so it is capable of receiving a new satisfaction by the assistance of another sense.

Another sense here, means grammatically, another sense than fancy. For there is no other thing in the period to which this expression, another sense, can at all be opposed. He had not for some time made mention of any sense whatever. He forgot to add, what was undoubtedly in his thoughts, another sense than that of sight.

Thus any continued sound, as the music of birds, or a fall of water, awakens every moment the mind of the beholder, and makes him more attentive to the several beauties of the place which lie before him. Thus, if there arises a fragrancy of smells or perfumes, they heighten the pleasures of the imagination, and make even the colours and verdure of the landscape appear more agreeable: for the ideas of both senses recommend each other, and are pleasanter together than when they enter the mind separately; as the different colours of a picture, when they are well disposed, set off one another, and receive additional beauty from the advantage of their

situation.

Whether Mr. Addison's theory here be just or not may be questioned. A continued sound, such as that of a fall of water, is so far from awakening every moment the mind of the beholder, that nothing is more likely to lull him asleep. It may, indeed, please the imagination, and heighten the beauties of the scene; but it produces this effect, by a soothing, not by an awakening influence. With regard to the Style, nothing appears exception

able. The flow, both of language and of ideas, is very agreeable. The author continues to the end the same pleasing train of thought which had run through the rest of the Paper; and leaves us agreeably employed in comparing together different degrees of Beauty.

LECTURE XXII.

CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF THE STYLE IN NO. 413, OF THE

SPECTATOR.

Though in yesterday's Paper we considered how every thing that is great, new, or beautiful, is apt to affect the imagination with pleasure, we must own, that it is impossible for us to assign the necessary cause of this pleasure, because we know neither the nature of an idea, nor the substance of a human soul, which might help us to discover the conformity or disagreeableness of the one to the other; and therefore, for want of such a light, all that we can do in speculations of this kind, is, to reflect on those operations of the soul that are most agreeable, and to range under their proper heads what is pleasing or displeasing to the mind, without being able to trace out the several necessary and efficient causes from whence the pleasure or displeasure arises.

This sentence, considered as an introductory one, must be acknowledged to be very faulty. An introductory sentence should never contain any thing that can in any degree fatigue or puzzle the reader. When an author is entering on a new branch of his subject, informing us of what he has done, and what he purposes farther to do, we naturally expect that he should express himself in the simplest and most perspicuous manner possible. But the sentence now before us is crowded and indistinct; containing three separate propositions, which, as I shall afterwards show, required separate sentences to unfold them. Mr. Addison's chief excellency as a writer lay in describing and painting. There he is great; but in methodizing and reasoning he is not so eminent. As, besides the general fault of prolixity and indistinctness, this sentence contains several inaccuracies, I shall be obliged to enter into a minute discussion of its structure and parts; a discussion which to many readers will appear tedious, and which therefore they will naturally pass over; but which to those who are studying composition, I hope may prove of some benefit.

Though in yesterday's Paper we considered.-The import of though is notwithstanding that. When it appears in the beginning of a sentence, its relative generally is yet; and it is employed to