than grandeur doth; and in raifing the mind to elevated objects, there is a fenfible pleasure : the courfe of nature, however, hath still a greater influence than elevation; and therefore, the pleasure of falling with rain, and defcending gradually with a river, prevails over that of mounting upward. But where the course of nature is joined with elevation, the effect must be delightful and hence the fingular beauty of smoke \ ascending in a calm morning.

I am extremely fenfible of the disgust men generally have to abstract speculation; and I would avoid it altogether, if it could be done in a work that profeffes to draw the rules of criticifm from human nature, their true fource. We have but a fingle choice, which is, to continue a little longer in the fame train, or to abandon the undertaking altogether. Candour obliges me to notify this to my readers, that fuch of them as have an invincible averfion to abftract fpeculation, may stop short here; for till principles be unfolded, I can promife no entertainment to thofe who fhun thinking. But I flatter myself with a different bent in the generality of readers: fome few, I imagine, will relifh the abstract part for its own fake; and many for the useful purposes to which it may be applied. For encouraging the latter to proceed with alacrity, I affure them beforehand, that the foregoing fpeculation leads to many important rules of criticifm, which fhall

be

be unfolded in the courfe of this work. In the mean time, for inftant fatisfaction in part, they will be pleased to accept the following specimen.

ance.

Every work of art that is conformable to the natural courfe of our ideas, is fo far agreeable; and every work of art that reverses that course, is fo far difagreeable. Hence it is required in every fuch work, that, like an organic fyftem, its parts be orderly arranged and mutually connected, bearing each of them a relation to the whole, fome more intimate, fome lefs, according to their destination: when due regard is had to these particulars, we have a fenfe of just compofition, and fo far are pleased with the perform Homer is defective in order and connection; and Pindar more remarkably. rity, order, and connection, are painful restraints on a bold and fertile imagination; and are not patiently fubmitted to, but after much culture and difcipline. In Horace there is no fault more eminent than want of connection: inftances are without number. In the first fourteen lines of ode 7. lib. 1. he mentions feveral towns and dif tricts, more to the taste of fome than of others: in the remainder of the ode, Plancus is exhorted to drown his cares in wine. Having narrowly escaped death by the fall of a tree, this poet takes occafion to obferve juftly, that while we

Lib. z. ode 13.

Regula

guard

guard against fome dangers, we are exposed to others we cannot foresee: he ends with displaying the power of mufic. The parts of ode 16. lib. 2. are so loosely connected as to disfigure a poem otherwise extremely beautiful. The ft, 2d, 3d, 4th, 11th, 24th, 27th odes of the 3d book, lie open all of them to the fame cenfure. The first fatire, book 1. is fo deformed by want of connection, as upon the whole to be scarce agreeable it commences with an important queftion, How it happens that people, though much fatisfied with themselves, are feldom fo with their rank or condition. After illuftrating the obfervation in a sprightly manner by feveral examples, the author, forgetting his fubject, enters upon a declamation against avarice, which he pursues till the line 108. there he makes an apology for wandering, and promises to return to his fubject; but avarice having got poffeffion of his mind, he follows out that theme to the end, and never returns to the question proposed in the beginning.

*

Of Virgil's Georgics, tho' efteemed the moft complete work of that author, the parts are ill connected, and the tranfitions far from being fweet and easy. In the first book he deviates from his fubject to give a defcription of the five zones the want of connection here, as well as in the defcription of the prodigies that accompa

* Lin. 231.

- nied

nied the death of Cæfar, are scarce pardonable. A digreffion on the praises of Italy in the fecond book*, is not more happily introduced and in the midst of a declamation upon the pleasures of husbandry, which makes part of the fame book t the author introduces himself into the poem without the slightest connection. In the Lutrin, the Goddess of Difcord is introduced without any connection: fhe is of no confequence in the poem; and acts no part except that of lavishing praise upon Lewis the Fourteenth. The two prefaces of Salluft look as if by fome blunder they had been prefixed to his two hiftories; they will fuit any other history as well, or any fubject as well as hiftory. Even the members of these prefaces are but loosely connected: they look more like a number of maxims or obfervations than a connected difcourfe.

1

An episode in a narrative poem, being in effect an acceffory, demands not that strict union with the principal fubject, which is requifite between a whole and its conftituent parts: it demands, however, a degree of union, fuch as ought to fubfift between a principal and acceffory; and therefore will not be graceful if it be loosely connected with the principal fubject. I give for an example the descent of Æneas into hell, which, employs the fixth book of the Eneid: the reader is not prepared for that important event: no

* Lin. 136..

+ Lin 475.

caufe

cause is affigned that can make it appear neceffary, or even natural, to fufpend for fo long a time the principal action in its most interesting period: the poet can find no pretext for an adventure fo extraordinary, but the hero's longing to visit the ghost of his father recently dead: in the mean time the story is interrupted, and the reader lofes his ardour. Pity it is that an epifode fo extremely beautiful, were not more happily introduced. I muft obferve at the fame. time, that full justice is done to this incident, by confidering it to be an epifode; for if it be a constituent part of the principal action, the connection ought to be ftill more intimate. The fame objection lies against that elaborate defcription of Fame in the Æneid any other book of that heroic poem, or of any heroic poem, has as good a title to that defcription as the book where it is placed.

In a natural landscape we every day perceive a multitude of objects connected by contiguity folely; which is not unpleafant, because objects of fight make an impreffion fo lively, as that a relation even of the flightest kind is relished. This however ought not to be imitated in defcription words are fo far fhort of the eye in liveliness of impreffion, that in a defcription connection ought to be carefully studied; for new objects introduced in defcription are made more * Lib. 4. lin. 173.

or