The works of Richard Hurd, volume 8 (of 8)

by Richard Hurd

AN ADDRESS TO THE REV. DR. JORTIN.

Rev. Sir,

As great an admirer as I must profess myself of your writings, I little expected that any of them would give me the pleasure that I have just now received from the last of your Six Dissertations on different Subjects.

The other FIVE have doubtless their distinct merits. But in this, methinks, I see an assemblage, a very constellation, as it were, of all your virtues, all that can recommend the scholar or endear the friend. This last, give me leave to say, is so unusual a part of a learned mind’s character, and appears with so peculiar a lustre in this discourse, that the public will not be displeased to have it set before them in full view, and recommended to general imitation, with a frankness, which though it may somewhat disgust your own delicacy, seems but very necessary on such an occasion and in such times.

I leave it to others therefore to celebrate the happiness of your invention, the urbanity of your wit, the regularity of your plan, the address with which you conceal the point you aim at in this Dissertation, and yet the pains you take in seeming obliquely to make your way to it. These and many other beauties which your long study of the ancients hath enabled you to bring into modern composition, have been generally taken notice of in your other writings, and will find encomiasts enough among the common herd of your readers. The honour I propose to do you by this address is of another kind; and as it lies a little remote from vulgar apprehension, I shall have some merit with you for displaying it as it deserves.

To come to a point then, next to the total want of FRIENDSHIP which one has too much reason to observe and lament in the great scholars of every age, nothing hath at any time disgusted me so much as the gross indelicacy with which they are usually seen to conduct themselves in their expression of this virtue.

I have by me a large collection of the civil things which these lettered friends have been pleased to say of one another, and it would amaze you to see with what an energy and force of language they are delivered. One thing I thought very remarkable, that the greater the parts and the more unquestioned the learning and abilities of the encomiast, just so much the stronger, that is to say, according to the usual acceptation, just so much the more friendly are his encomiums.

I have a great example in my eye. A man, for instance, hath a bosom FRIEND, whom he takes for a person of the purest and most benevolent virtue, presently he sets him down for such, and publisheth him to all the world.—Or he hath an intimacy with an eminent Poet: and no regard to decency restrains him from calling him a great genius, as Horace, you know, did his friend Virgil, almost to his face.—Or, he is loved and honoured by a great Lawyer or two; and then be sure all the fine things that have been said of your Ciceros, your Scævolas on your Hydes, are squandered away upon them.—Or, he hath perchance the honour of being well with a great Churchman, much famed for his political and religious services; down he goes at once for a lover of his country, and the scourge of infidels and freethinkers, with as little reserve as if he had a Jerom or a father Paul to celebrate.—Or, once or twice in his life it hath been his fortune to be distinguished by great Ministers. Such occasions are rare. And therefore a little gratitude, we will say, is allowable. But can any thing be said for abominable formal dedications?—Or, lastly, he thinks he sees some sparks of virtue even in his ordinary acquaintance, and these, as fast as he observes them he gathers up, and sticks, on the first occasion, in some or other of his immortal volumes.

O Doctor Jortin! if you did but see half the extravagancies I have collected of this sort in the single instance of one man, you would stand aghast at this degree of corruption in the learned world, and would begin to apprehend something of your great merit in this seasonable endeavour to put a stop to its progress.

And what above all grieves me is that this is no novel invention; for then it might well have ranked with the other arguments of degeneracy so justly chargeable on the present times; but the all-accomplished ancients themselves have, to own the truth, set the example.

I took notice just now of the Ingenium ingens of Horace. The other poets of that time abound in these fulsome encomiums. But I am even shocked to think that such men as Cicero and Pliny, men so perfect, as they were, in the commerce of the world, and from their rank and station, so practised in all the decencies of conversation, were far gone in the folly. And yet there are, in truth, more instances of this weakness in their writings than in those of any modern I can readily call to mind.

Something I know hath been said in excuse of this illiberal manner, from the VIEWS and CHARACTERS and NECESSITIES of those that use it. And my unfeigned regard for the professors of learning makes me willing that any thing they have to offer for themselves should be fairly heard.

They say then, and with some appearance of truth, that as all the benefit they propose to themselves by their labours is for the most part nothing more than a little fame (which whether good or bad, as the poet observes,

——begins and ends
In the small circle of our foes or friends.)

they think it hard to be denied this slender recompence, which each expects in his turn, and should therefore be not unwilling to pay to others.

They, further, alledge, that as they are generally plain men, much given to speak their mind, and quite unpractised in the arts of that chaste reserve and delicate self-denial, to which some few of their order have happily habituated themselves, they hope to be forgiven so natural an infirmity, to which the circumstances of their situation and character fatally expose them.

But, lastly, they say, this practice is in a manner forced upon them by the malignity of the times. Let a learned man deserve ever so well of the public, none but those who are known to be of his acquaintance think themselves at all concerned to take notice of his services. Especially this is observed to be the constant humour of our countrymen, who rarely speak well of any but their friends, as our polite neighbours rarely speak ill of any but their enemies. Now this malevolent disposition of the learned makes it necessary, they pretend, that such of them as are connected by any bond of friendship should be indulged the greater liberty of commending one another. Unless you will utterly exclude all intercourse of praise and panegyric from human society, which they humbly conceive may be attended with some few inconveniencies. To strengthen this last observation they even add, that the public is usually more shy in bestowing its praises on writers of eminent and superior merit than on others. As well knowing, I suppose, that posterity will make them ample amends for any mortification they may meet with at present; and that in the mean time they are more than sufficiently honoured by the constant railings and invectives of the dunces. Lastly, they observe, that in the more frivolous and easy kinds of learning, such for instance as are conversant about the collation of MSS, the rectification of POINTS, and the correction of LETTERS, the general and approved custom is for all professors of this class, whether friends or enemies, to cry up each other as much as they please, and that it is even reckoned a piece of incivility not to preface a citation from ever so insignificant a dealer in verbal criticism with some superlative appellation. And why, say they, should these nibblers of old books, “These word-catchers that live on syllables,” be indulged in this amplitude of expression to one another, when they who furnish the materials on which the spawn of these vermin are to feed in after-ages, are denied the little satisfaction of a more sizeable, as well as a more deserved praise?

I have not been afraid, you see, to set the arguments of these unhappy advocates for themselves in as strong a light as they will well bear, because I can easily trust your sagacity to find out a full and decisive answer to them.

In the first place, you will refer these idolaters of FAME, for their better information, to that curious discourse on this subject, which makes the fourth in the present collection. Next you will tell them that you by no means intend to deprive them of their just praise, but that they must not set up for judges in their own case, and presume to think how much of it they have reason to look for from their friends. You will further signify to them that the truest office of friendship is to be sparing of commendation, lest it awaken the envy of a malicious world; that there is a kind of fascination in praise which wise men have been justly suspicious of in all ages; and that a grain or two from those who are not used to be prodigal of this incense, is an offering of no small value. But chiefly and lastly, you will give them to understand that true honour is seated not in the mouths but in hearts of men; and that, for any thing they know, one may be forced to entertain the highest possible esteem of their virtues, though, for their sakes, and for other wise reasons, one has that virtuous command of one’s tongue and pen as not to acquaint them with it.

Then, as to the plainness and openness of mind which is said to make a part in the composition of a man of letters, you will tell them that this is the very foible you most lament, and most wish them to correct: that it exposes them to much censure and many other inconveniencies; that this frankness of disposition makes them bestow their praises on those whom the world has no such esteem for, or whom it would rather see left in obscurity and oblivion; that they often disgust their betters by this proceeding, who have their reasons for desiring that a cloud may remain on the characters of certain obnoxious and dangerous writers; that by such warm and unmanaged commendations they become partners, as it were, of their ill deserts; that they even make themselves answerable for their future conduct; which is a matter of so very nice a consideration, that the great master of life, though he had not the virtue always to act up to his own maxim, delivers it for a precept of special use in the commerce of the world,

Qualem commendes etiam atque etiam adspice.

For it signifies nothing in the case before us, whether the recommendation be to a patron or the public.

For all these reasons you will assure them that this ill habit of speaking their mind on all occasions, just as nature and blind friendship dictate, is that which more than any thing else exposes them to the contempt of knowing and considerate men.

Lastly, with regard to that other frivolous plea taken from the malignity of mankind and even those of their own family and profession, you will convince them that this is totally a mistake, that the world is ready enough to take notice of superior eminence in letters, that it is even apt to grow extravagant in its admiration, and that this humour of the public is itself a reason for that reserve with which their friends, if they truly merit that name, ought to conduct themselves towards them: that this splendour of reputation, which is so generally the consequence of distinguished learning, requires to be allayed and softened by the discrete management of those who wish them well, lest it not only grow offensive to weak eyes, but dazzle their own with too fond an imagination of their own importance, and so relax the ardour of their pursuits, or betray them into some unseemly ostentation of their just merits. You will farther suggest, that great atchievements in letters are sufficiently recompenced by the silent complacency of self-esteem and of a good conscience; while lesser services demand to be brought out and magnified to public eye, for the due encouragement and consolation of those who would otherwise have but small reason to be satisfied with themselves. You might even observe, that silence itself is often a full acknowledgment of superior desert, especially when personal obligations, as well as other reasons, might provoke them to break through it. In such cases it is to be understood, that, if a friend be sparing of his good word, it is in violence to his inclination, and that nothing but the tender apprehension of pushing an acknowledged merit too far, withholds him from giving a public testimony to it. But, in conclusion, you will not omit to set them right with regard to one material mistake in this matter; that whereas they complain of the superior estimation in which the professors of verbal criticism are held amongst us, whom with a strange malignity they affect to represent as the very lowest retainers to science, you, and all true scholars, on the other hand, maintain that the study of words is the most useful and creditable of all others; and that this genuine class of learned men have reason to pride themselves in their objected, but truly glorious character of VERBAL CRITICS.

And now, Sir, having seen how little can be said in justification of that offensive custom which the learned have somehow taken up, of directly applauding one another, I come to the more immediate purpose of this address, which was to shew how singularly happy you have been in avoiding this great vice, and to take occasion from the example you have now set us to recommend the contrary virtue to the imitation of others.

I am sensible there are some difficulties to be encountered at setting out. A generous mind will probably feel some reluctance, at first, to the scheme of suppressing his natural feelings, and of withholding from his friend that just tribute of praise which many others perhaps are but too willing should be withheld from him. But all scruples of this sort will be got over when the full merit of your example hath been considered; I mean, when the inducements you had to give into the common weakness on this occasion come to be fairly drawn out; by which it will be clearly seen that you have the glory of setting a precedent of the most heroic magnanimity and self-denial, and that nothing can possibly be urged in the case of any other, which you have not triumphantly gotten the better of in your own.

I observe it to your honour, Sir, you have ventured on the same ground in this famous Dissertation, which hath been trodden by the most noted, at least, of our present writers. But this is not enough. It will be of moment to consider a little more particularly the character of the person whom you chuse to follow, or rather nobly emulate, in this route. And lest you should think I have any design to lessen the merit of your conduct towards him by giving it in my cool way, take it from one of those warm friends who never balk their humour in this sort of commendations. Upon asking him what he thought of the learned person’s character, and telling him the use I might perhaps make of his opinion in this address to you, he began in a very solemn way.

“The author of the D. L.” says he, “is a writer whose genius and learning have so far subdued envy itself (though it never rose fiercer against any man, or in more various and grotesque shapes), that every man of sense now esteems him the ornament, and every good man the blessing, of these times.”

Hold, said I, my good friend, I did not mean to put your eloquence to the stretch for this panegyric on his intellectual endowments, which I am very ready to take upon trust, and, to say the truth, have never heard violently run down by any but very prejudiced or very dull men. His moral qualities are those I am most concerned for.

“His moral,” resumed he hastily, “shine forth as strongly from all his writings as the other, and are those which I have ever reverenced most. Of these, his love of letters and of virtue, his veneration of great and good men, his delicacy of honour in not assuming to himself, or depressing, the merit of others, his readiness to give their due to all men of real desert whose principles he opposes, even to the fastidious, scoffing Lord Shaftesbury and the licentious Bayle, but above all, his zeal for religion and for truth, these are qualities which, as often as I look into his volumes, attract my admiration and esteem. Nor is this enumeration, though it be far from complete, made at random. I could illustrate each of these virtues by various instances, taken from his works, were it not that the person you mean to address is more conversant in them, and more ready, I may presume, to do him justice on any fitting occasion than myself. The liberty indeed he takes of dissenting from many great names is considerable, as well as of speaking his free thoughts of the writers for whom he hath no esteem. But the one he doth with that respect and deference, and the other with that reason and justice, and both with that ingenuous openness and candour, the characteristics of a truly great mind, that they, whom he opposes, cannot be angry, and they whom he censures are not misused. I mention this the rather on account of the clamour which has so frequently been raised against the freedom and severity of his pen. But there is no mystery in the case. No dead writer is so bad but he has some advocates, and no living one so contemptible but he has some friends. And the misfortune is, that, while the present generation is too much prejudiced to do him right, posterity, to whom the appeal of course lies, are not likely to have it in their power to re-judge the cause: the names and writings, he most undervalues, being such as are hastening, it seems, to that oblivion which is prepared for such things.

“These,” continued he, “are some of the obvious qualities of the WRITER; and for the personal virtues of the MAN—But here I may well refer you to Dr. Jortin himself, who will take a pleasure to assure you, that his private character is not less respectable than his public; or, rather, if the one demands our veneration, that the other must secure our love. And, yet, why rest the credit of ONE, when ALL of his acquaintance agree in this, that he is the easiest in his conversation, the frankest and most communicative, the readiest to do all good offices, in short the friendliest and most generous of men.”

Thus far our zealous friend. And, though I know how much you agree with him in your sentiments, I dare say you cannot but smile at so egregious a specimen of the high complimentary manner. But, though one is not to expect an encomiast of this class will be very sensible of any defects in the person he celebrates, yet it cannot be disowned that this magnified man hath his foibles as well as another. I will be so fair as to enumerate some of them.

As he is conscious of intending well, and even greatly, in his learned labours, he is rather disposed to think himself injured by malicious slanders and gross misrepresentations. And then, as he hath abundantly too much wit, especially for a great divine, he is apt to say such things as, though dull men do not well comprehend, they see reason enough to take offence at. Besides, he doth not sufficiently consult his ease or his interest by the observance of those forms and practices which are in use amongst the prudent part of his own order. This, no doubt, begets a reasonable disgust. And even his friends, I observe, can hardly restrain their censure of so great a singularity. “He is so much in his study, they say, that he hardly allows himself time to make his appearance at a levee. Not considering that illud unum ad laudem cum labore directum iter qui probaverunt prope jam soli in SCHOLIS sunt relicti.” These infirmities, it must be owned, are very notorious in him; to which it might be added, that he is very indiscreet, sometimes, in the topics and turn of his conversation. His zeal for his FRIEND is so immoderate, that he takes fire even at the most distant reflection he hears cast upon him. And I doubt no consideration could withhold him from contradicting any man, let his quality and station be what it would, that should hazard a joke or an argument, in his company, against Religion.

I thought it but just to take notice of these weaknesses; and there may, perhaps, be some others, which I do not now recollect. Yet, on the whole, I will not deny that he may fairly pass for an able, a friendly, and even amiable man.

This person then, such as he is, such, at least, as the zealots represent and you esteem him, you have the pleasure to call your FRIEND. Report says, too, that he has more than a common right to this title: that he has won it by many real services done to yourself. How doth the consciousness of all this fire you! and what pains do I see you take to restrain that impatient gratitude, which would relieve itself by breaking forth in the praises of such a friend!

And yet—in spite of all these incitements from esteem, from friendship, and from gratitude, which might prompt you to some extravagance of commendation, such is the command you have of yourself, and so nicely do you understand what belongs to this intercourse of learned friends, that, in the instance before us, you do not, I think, appear to have exceeded the modest proportion even of a temperate and chaste praise.

I assure you, Sir, I am so charmed with the beauty of this conduct, that, though it may give your modesty some pain, I cannot help uniting the several parts of it, and presenting the entire image to you in one piece.

I meddle not with the argument of your elaborate dissertation. It is enough that your readers know it to be the same with that of another famous one in the D. L. They will know, then, that, among the various parts of that work, none was so likely as this to extort your applause. For it is universally, I suppose, agreed that, for a point in classical criticism, there is not the man living who hath a keener relish for it than yourself. And the general opinion is, that your honoured friend hath a sort of talent for this kind of writing. Some persons, I know, have talked at a strange rate. One or two I once met with were for setting him much above the modern, and on a level, at least, with the best of the old, critics. But this was going too far, as may appear to any that hath but attentively read and understood what the judicious Mr. Upton and the learned Mr. Edwards have, in their various books and pamphlets, well and solidly, and with great delight to many discerning persons, written on this subject. Yet still I must needs think him considerably above Minellius and Farnaby, and almost equal to old Servius himself, except that, perhaps, one doth not find in him the singular ingenuity[118] you admire in the last of these critics.

But be this as it will, it seems pretty well agreed, that the learned person, though so great a divine, is a very competent judge, and no mean proficient in classical criticism. There are many specimens of his talents in this way dispersed through the large and miscellaneous work of the D. L. But the greatest effort of his genius, they say, is seen in the explanation of the Sixth Book of the Ænëis. And, with all its defects, I can easily perceive you were so struck with it, that it was with the utmost reluctance you found yourself obliged, by the regard which every honest critic owes to truth, and by the superior delicacy of your purpose, to censure and expose it.

Another man, I can easily imagine, would have said to himself before he had entered on this task, “This fine commentary, which sets the most finished part of the Ænëis, and indeed the whole poem, in so new and so advantageous a light, though not an essential in it, is yet a considerable ornament of a justly admired work. The author, too, is my particular friend; a man, the farthest of all others from any disposition to lessen the reputation of those he loves. The subject hath been well nigh exhausted by him; and the remarks I have to offer on his scheme are not, in truth, of that consequence as to make it a point of duty for me to lay aside the usual regards of friendship on their account: and, though HE hath greatness of mind enough not to resent this liberty, his impatient and ill-judging friends will be likely to take offence at it. The public itself, as little biassed as it seems to be in his favour, may be even scandalized at an attempt of this nature, to which no important interest of religion or learning seem to oblige me.”

After this manner, I say, would a common man have been apt to reason with himself. But you, Sir, understand the rights of literary freedom, and the offices of sacred friendship, at another rate. The one authorize us to deliver our sentiments on any point of literature without reserve. And the other will not suffer you to dishonour the man you love, or require you to sully the purity of your own virtue, by a vicious and vulgar complaisance.

Or, to give the account of the whole matter in your own memorable words:

The Sixth Book of the Ænëis, you observe, though the most finished part of the twelve, is certainly obscure. “Here then is a field open for criticism, and all of us, who attempt to explain and illustrate Virgil, have reason to HOPE that we may make some discoveries, and to FEAR that we may fall into some mistakes; and this should induce us to conjecture with freedom, to propose with diffidence, and to dissent with civility. Ἀγαθὴ δ’ ἔρις ἥδε βροτοῖσι, quoth old Hesiod[119].”

Which shall I most admire, the dignity, the candour, or the prudence, that shine forth in this curious paragraph, which stands as a sort of preface to the refutation, as no doubt you designed it, of your friend’s work? “You have reason to hope that, after the unsuccessful efforts of the author of the D. L., you may make some discoveries.” In this declaration some may esteem you too sanguine. But I see nothing in it but a confidence very becoming a man of your talent at a discovery, and of your importance in the literary world. You add, indeed, as it were to temper this boldness, that “you have reason to fear too that you may fall into some mistakes.” This was rather too modest; only it would serve, at the same time, to intimate to your friend what he had to expect from the following detection of his errors. But you lead us to the consequence of these principles. “They should induce us, you say ”TO CONJECTURE WITH FREEDOM.” Doubtless. And the dignity of your character is seen in taking it. For, shall the authority or friendship of any man stand in the way of my conjectures?

——scilicet, ut non
Sit mihi prima fides; et verè quod placet, ut non
Acriter elatrem!

—“To propose with diffidence.” Certainly very prudent, especially for one sort of free-conjecturers; and, by the way, no bad hint to the person you glance at, whose vice it is thought to be, above that of most other writers, never to trouble himself with composing a book on any question, of whose truth he is not previously and firmly convinced——“And to dissent with civility.” A candid insinuation, which amounts to this, “That, when a writer hath done his best to shew his learning or his wit, the man at whose expence it is, especially if he be a friend, is, in consideration of such services, not to take it amiss.”

I have been the freer to open the meaning of this introductory paragraph, because it lets us into the spirit with which you mean to carry yourself in this learned contention. For a contention it is to be, and to good purpose too, if old Hesiod be any authority. Ἀγαθὴ δ’ ἔρις ἥδε βροτοῖσι, quoth old Hesiod. Though to make the application quite pat the maxim should have run thus, Ἀγαθὴ δ’ ἔρις ἥδε φιλοῖσι, which I do not find in old Hesiod.

However the reason of the thing extends to both. And as friends after all are but men, and sometimes none of the best neither, what need for standing on this distinction?

Yet still the question returns, “Why so cool in the entrance of this friendly debate? Where had been the hurt of a little amicable parlying before daggers-drawing? If a man, in the true spirit of ancient chivalry, will needs break a lance with his friend, he might give him good words at least and shake hands with him before the onset. Something of this sort might have been expected, were it only to save the reputation of dissenting with civility.”

Now in answer to this question, which comes indeed to the point, and which I hear asked in all companies, I reply with much confidence, first, that the very foundation of it is laid in certain high fantastic notions about the duties of friendship, and in that vicious habit of civility that hath so long been prevalent among learned friends; both which props and pillars of the cause I may presume with great modesty to have entirely overturned.

But secondly and chiefly I say that the whole is an arrant misrepresentation; for that you have indeed proceeded in this affair, with all that civility and even friendliness that could in reason be expected from you: I mean so far as the sobriety and Retenuë, as the French term it (it is plain the virtue hath not been very common amongst us from our having no name to call it by) of a true critical friendship will allow.

Now there are several ways by which a writer’s civility to his friend may appear without giving into the formal way of address: just as there are several ways of expressing his devotion to his patron, without observing the ordinary forms of dedication; of which, to note it by the way, the latest and best instances I have met with, are, “A certain thing prefatory to a learned work, entitled, The Elements of Civil Law,” and “Those curious two little paragraphs prefixed to The Six Dissertations on different Subjects.”

You see the delicacy of the learned is improving in our days in more respects than one. And take my word for it, you have contributed your share to this good work. For as you began, so you conclude your volume with a master stroke of address, which will deserve the acknowledgment and imitation of all your brethren, as I now proceed distinctly and with great exactness of method to unfold.

The first way of distinguishing a learned friend, without incurring the guilt of downright compliment, is by writing on the same subject with him. This is an obvious method of paying one’s court to a great writer. For it is in effect telling him that the public attention is raised to the argument he hath been debating; and that his credit hath even brought it into such vogue that any prate on the same subject is sure of a favourable reception. This I can readily suppose to have been your first motive for engaging in this controversy. And the practice is very frequent. So when a certain edition of Shakespear appeared, though it had been but the amusement of the learned editor, every body went to work, in good earnest, on the great poet, and the public was presently over-run with editions and criticisms and illustrations of him. Thus too it fared with the several subjects treated in the D. L. Few were competent judges of the main argument, or disposed to give it a candid interpretation. But every smatterer had something to say to this or that occasional disquisition. Thus Sykes, and Stebbing grew immortal, and, as the poet says truly, in their own despite. And what but some faint glimmering of this bright reversion, which we will charitably hope may be still kept in reserve for them, could put it into the heads of such men as Worthington, H. G. C.[120] and Peters, to turn critics and commentators on the book of Job?

Secondly, Though I acknowledge the full merit of this way of treating a learned friend, I am rather more taken with another, which is that of writing against him. For this demonstrates the esteem one hath of the author’s work, not only as it may seem to imply a little generous rivalry or indeed envy, from which infirmity a truly learned spirit is seldom quite free, but as it shews the answerer thought it worth writing against; which, let me assure you, is no vulgar compliment; as many living writers can testify, who to this hour are sadly lamenting that their ill fortune hath never permitted them to rise to this distinction. Now, in this view of the matter, I must take leave to think that you have done a very substantial honour to the author of the famous Discourse on the VIth book of Virgil, in levelling so long and so elaborate a disputation against him. And HE, of all other men, ought to be of my mind, who to my certain knowledge hath never done thus much for one in a hundred of those learned persons whose principal end in commencing writers against him was to provoke him to this civility.

But then, THIRDLY, this compliment of writing against a great author may be conveyed with that address, that he shall not appear, I mean to any but the more sagacious and discerning, to be written against at all. This curious feat of leger-de-main is performed by glancing at his arguments without so much as naming the person or referring to him. This I account the most delicate and flattering of all the arts of literary address, as it expresseth all the respect, I have taken notice of under the preceding article, heightened with a certain awe and fear of offence, which to a liberal mind, I should think, must be perfectly irresistible. It is with much pleasure I observe many examples of this kind in your truly candid dissertation, where without the least reference, or under the slight cover of—some friends of Virgil say[121]—some commentators have thought[122]—Virgil’s friends suppose[123]—and the like, you have dexterously and happily slid in a censure of some of your friend’s principal reasonings. But, to be impartial, though you manage this matter with admirable grace, the secret is in many hands. And whatever be the cause, hath been more frequently employed in the case of the author of the D. L. than any other. I could mention, at least, a dozen famous writers, who, like the flatterers of Augustus, don’t chuse to look him full in the face, but artfully intimate their reverence of him by indirect glances. If I single out one of these from all the rest it is only to gratify the admirers of a certain eminent PROFESSOR[124] who, as an Oxford friend writes me word, hath many delightful instances of this sort in his very edifying discourses on the Hebrew poetry.

Fourthly, Another contrivance of near affinity to this, is, when you oppose his principles indeed, but let his arguments quite alone. Of this management a wary reader will discover many traces in your obliging discourse. And can any thing be more generous than to ease a man of the shame of seeing his own reasonings confuted, or even produced when the writer’s purpose requires him to pay no regard to them? Such tenderness, I think, though it is pretended to by others, can, of right, belong only to the true friend. But your kindness knows no bounds. For,

Fifthly, Though you find yourself sometimes obliged to produce and confute his reasonings, you take care to furnish him with better of your own. The delicacy of this conduct lies in the good opinion, which is insinuated of the writer’s conclusion, and in the readiness which you shew to support it even in spite of himself. There is a choice instance in that part of your discourse, where agreeing with your friend that the punishments of Tartarus are properly eternal, you reject his reason for that conclusion, but supply him with many others in its stead.

“This alone will not prove the eternity of punishments for, &c.—But if to this you add the Platonic doctrine, that very wicked spirits were never released from Tartarus, AND the silence of Virgil as to any dismission from that jail, AND the censure of the Epicureans, who objected to religious systems the eternity of punishments,

Æternas quoniam pœnas in morte timendum;

AND the general doctrine of the mythologists, AND the opinion of Servius, that Virgil was to be taken in this sense, we may conclude that the punishments in his Tartarus were probably eternal[125].”

Never let men talk after this of the niggardliness of your friendship, when, though you take from him with one hand, you restore him five-fold with the other.

After such an overflow of goodness, nothing I can now advance will seem incredible. I take upon me to affirm therefore,

Sixthly, That it is a mere calumny to say that you have contented yourself, though you very well might, with mere negative encomiums. You can venture on occasion to quote from your friend in form, and, as it should seem, with some apparent approbation. An instance is now before me. You cite what the author of the D. L. says of “the transformation of the ships into sea deities, by which, says he, Virgil would insinuate, I suppose, the great advantage of cultivating a naval power, such as extended commerce and the dominion of the ocean: which in poetical language is becoming deities of the sea.”

To which you add, “In favour of this opinion it may be further observed, that Augustus owed his empire in a great measure to his naval victories[126].”

Now can any thing be civiler than this, or more expressive of that amiable turn of mind, which disposes a man to help forward a lame argument of his friend, and give it the needful support of his authority? For it hath been delivered as a maxim by the nice observers of decorum, that wherever you would compliment another on his opinion, you should always endeavour to add something of your own that may insinuate at least some little defect in it. This management takes of the appearance of flattery, a vice which the Latin writers, alluding to this frequency of unqualified assent, have properly enough expressed by the word Assentatio. But catch you tripping in this way if one can. It is plain you went on this just principle in the instance before us, which otherwise, let me tell you, I should have taken for something like an attempt towards downright adulation. As here qualified, I set it down for another instance of just compliment, more direct indeed than the other five, yet still with that graceful obliquity which they who know the world, expect in this sort of commerce. And I may further observe, that you are not singular in the use of this mode of celebration. Many even of the enemies of this author have obligingly enough employed it when they wanted to confirm their own notions by his, or rather to shew their parts in first catching a hint from him, and then, as they believe, improving upon it—Still I have greater things in view. For,

Seventhly, You not only with the highest address insinuate a compliment in the way of citation, but you once or twice express it in full form, and with all the circumstance of panegyrical approbation. Having mentioned the case of the infants in Virgil’s purgatory, which hath so much perplexed his learned commentators, you rise at once into the following encomium. “It is an ingenious conjecture proposed in the D. L. that the poet might design to discountenance the cursed practice of exposing and murdering infants.”

This was very liberal, and I began to think you had forgotten yourself a little in so explicit a declaration. But the next paragraph relieved me. “It might be added, that Virgil had perhaps also in view to please Augustus, who was desirous of encouraging matrimony and the education of children, and extremely intent upon repeopling Italy which had been exhausted by the civil wars[127].” It is plain you have still in your eye that sage rule which the men of manners lay down, of qualifying your civilities. So that I let this pass without farther observation. Only I take leave to warn you against the too frequent use of this artifice, which but barely satisfies for calling your friend’s notion “an ingenious conjecture.”

Not but are there others who see this contrivance in another light, and treat it as an art of damning with faint praise; a censure which one of the zealot friends presumes to cast, with much injustice and little knowledge of the world, on the very leader and pride of our party. Whereas I deliver it for a most certain truth, that the fainter and feebler our praise of any man is, just so much the better will it be received by all companies, even by the generality of those who call themselves his best friends. And so apprehensive indeed am I of this nice humour in mankind, that I am not sure if the very slight things I am forced to say of yourself, though merely to carry on the purpose of this address, will not by certain persons, inwardly at least, be ill taken. And with this needful apology for myself I proceed to celebrate,

Eighthly, The last and highest instance of your civilities to your admired friend, which yet I hope to vindicate from any reasonable suspicion of flattery; I presumed to say in the foregoing article that you had once or twice hazarded even a direct compliment on the person whose system you oppose. I expressed myself with accuracy. There is one other place in your dissertation, where you make this sacrifice to friendship or to custom. The passage is even wrought up into a resemblance of that unqualified adulation, which I condemn so much, and from which, in general, your writings are perfectly free. I could almost wish for your credit to suppress this one obnoxious paragraph. But it runs thus,

“That the subterraneous adventures of Æneas were intended by Virgil to represent the initiation of his heroe, is an elegant conjecture, which hath been laid before the public, and set forth to the best advantage by a learned friend[128].”

I confess to you I did not know at first sight what to do with the two high-flown epithets, elegant and learned, which stand so near together in one sentence. Such accumulated praises had well-nigh overset my system. And I began with much solicitude to consider how I should be able to reconcile this escape of your pen with your general practice. But taking a little time to look about me, I presently spied a way of extricating both of us from this difficulty. For hang it, thought I, if this notion of the heroe’s adventures in the infernal regions be elegant, it is but a conjecture; and so poor a matter as this were hardly worth pursuing, as the author of the D. L. hath done, through almost a fourth part of a very sizeable volume.

And then as to the term elegant, to be sure it hath a good sound; but more than a third part of this choice volume of yours, I observed, is employed in making appear that the conjecture, whatever it be, hath not the least feature of truth in it. And elegance, altogether devoid of truth, was, I concluded, a very pitiful thing, and indeed no very intelligible encomium. Well, but let there be as little truth as you will, in this conjecture, still it hath been set forth to the best advantage, and to crown all by a learned friend. Here a swarm of fresh difficulties attacked me. Sed nil desperandum te duce. For why talk of advantage, when the conjecture after all would not bear the handling? It was but mighty little (your friendship would not let you do more) which you had brought against it. And the conjecture I saw, was shrunk to nothing, and is never likely to rise again into any shape or substance. So that when you added by a learned friend, I could not for my life, help laughing. Surely, thought I, the reverend person tends on this occasion to be pleasant.——Indeed you often are so with a very good grace, but I happened not to expect it just at this moment.—For what learning worth speaking of could there be in the support of a notion, which was so easily overturned without any?

You may be sure I mean no reflection in these words. Nobody questions your erudition. But it was not your fortune or your choice to make a shew of it in this discourse. The propriety of the epithet learned, then, did not evidently and immediately appear.

However, as I knew there was in truth no small quantity of learning in the piece referred to, and that the author of the D. L. whatever Bate, and Peters, and Jackson, may say or insinuate, is unquestionably, and to a very competent degree, learned, I began to take the matter a little more seriously. And, upon looking attentively at the words a second time, I thought a very natural account might be given of them upon other principles. For, as to the substantive friend, why might not that for once be put in for your own sake as well as his? The advantages of friendship are reciprocal. And though it be very clear to other people which is the gainer by this intercourse, who knows but Dr. Jortin, in his great modesty, might suppose the odds to lie on his own side?

And then for learned, which had embarrassed me so much, I bethought myself at last there was not much in that, this attribute having been long prostituted on every man who pretends, in any degree, to the profession of letters.

So that, on the whole, though I must still reckon this for an instance, amongst others, of that due measure of respect with which your politeness teaches you to treat your friends, yet I see no reason for charging it with any excess of civility.

And now, Sir, having been at all this pains to justify you from the two contrary censures of having done too little and too much, let us see how the account stands. Malice itself, I think, must confess that you have not been lavish of your encomiums. You have even dispensed them with a reserve, which, though I admire extremely, will almost expose you to the imputation of parsimony. And yet, on the other hand, when we compute the number and estimate the value of your applauses, we shalt see cause to correct this censure. For, from the EIGHT articles I have so carefully set down, and considered, it appears at length that you have done all due honour to your friend, and in ways the most adapted to do him honour. That is to say, You have adopted his subject—You have written against him—You have glanced at him—You have spared his arguments—You have lent him some of your own—You have quoted him—You have called his conjecture ingenious—Nay elegant—And you have called himself learned, and, what is more, your friend.

And if all this will not satisfy him, or rather his friends (for I hope, and partly believe, he himself thinks nothing of this whole matter), I know not for my part what will. I am sure (and that should be your satisfaction, as it is mine) that you have gone as far as was consistent with the delicacy of friendship (which may reasonably imply in it a little jealousy), and with the virtuous consciousness of that importance which writers of your class ought to be of to themselves. And I hope never to see the day when you shall be induced by any considerations to compliment any man breathing at the expence of these two virtues.

And here, on a view of this whole matter, let me profess the pleasure I take in observing that you (and I have remarked it in some others), who have so constantly those soft words of candour, goodness, and charity in your mouth, and whose soul, one would think, was ready to melt itself into all the weaknesses of this character, should yet have force enough not to relent at the warmest influences of friendship. Men may see by this instance that charity is not that unmanly enfeebling virtue which some would represent it, when, though ready on fit occasions to resolve and open itself to a general candour, it shuts up the heart close and compact, and impregnable to any particular and personal attachment.

I take much delight in this pleasing contemplation. Yet, as our best virtues, when pushed to a certain degree, are on the very point of becoming vices, you are not to wonder that every one hath not the discernment or the justice to do you right. And to see, in truth, the malignity of human nature, and the necessity there was for you to inculcate in your third Discourse, The duty of judging candidly and favourably of others, I will not conceal from you, at parting, what hath been suggested to me by many persons to whom I communicated the design of this address. “They said,” besides other things which I have occasionally obviated in the course of this letter, “that the excellent person whom you have allowed yourself to treat with so much indignity and disrespect (I need not take notice that I use the very terms of the objectors), in this poor and disingenuous criticism upon him, had set you an example of a very different sort, which you ought in common equity, and even decency, to have followed.” They observe that his own pen never expatiates more freely, and with more pleasure, than when it finds or takes an occasion to celebrate the virtues of some deserving friend. They own the natural warmth and benevolence of his temper is even liable to some excess on these inviting occasions. And for an instance they referred me to a paragraph in the notes on Julian, which, though I know you do not forget, I shall here set down as it stands in the last edition. He had just been touching a piece of ecclesiastical history. “But this,” says he, “I leave with Julian’s adventures to my learned friend Mr. Jortin, who, I hope, will soon oblige the public with his curious Dissertations on Ecclesiastical Antiquity, composed like his Life, not in the spirit of controversy, nor, what is worse, of party, but of truth and candour[129].”

Here, said they insultingly, is a specimen of that truly liberal spirit with which one learned friend should exert himself when he would do honour to another. Will all the volumes which the profound ecclesiastical remarker hath published, or ever will publish, do him half the credit with posterity as this single stroke, by which his name and virtues are here adorned and ushered into the acquaintance of the public? And will you still pretend to vindicate him from the scorn which every honest man must have for him, after seeing how unworthily he requites this service by his famous Sixth Dissertation in this new volume?

This, and a great deal more to the same purpose, was said by them in their tragical way. I need not hint to you, after the clear exposition I have given of my own sentiments, how little weight their rhetoric had on me, and how easily I turned aside this impotent, though invenomed, invective from falling on your fame and memory. For the compliment they affect to magnify so much, let every candid reader judge of it for himself. But, as much had been said in this debate concerning FRIENDSHIP, and the persons with whom it was most proper to contract it, I found myself something struck with the concluding observation of one of these rhetorical declaimers. As it was delivered in a language you love, and is, besides, a passage not much blown upon by the dealers in such scraps, I have thought it might, perhaps, afford you some amusement. He did not say where he found it, and you would not like it the better if he had, but, as I remember, it was delivered in these words: Ἐμοὶ πρὸς φιλοσόφους ἐστὶ φιλία· πρὸς μέν τοι ΣΟΦΙΣΤΑΣ, ἢ ΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΙΣΤΑΣ, ἢ τοιοῦτο γένος ἕτερον ΑΝΘΡΩΠΩΝ ΚΑΚΟΔΑΙΜΟΝΩΝ, ὄυτε ΝΥΝ ΕΣΤΙ ΦΙΛΙΑ ΜΗΤΕ ΥΣΤΕΡΟΝ ΠΟΤΕ ΓΕΝΟΙΤΟ.

Lincoln’s-Inn,
Nov. 25, 1755.

A
LETTER
TO
THE REV. DR. LELAND.
FIRST PRINTED IN 1764.

A
LETTER
TO THE
REV. DR. THOMAS LELAND,
FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN:
IN WHICH
HIS LATE DISSERTATION
ON THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN ELOQUENCE
IS CRITICISED;
AND
THE BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER’S
Idea of the Nature and Character of an inspired Language, as delivered in his Lordship’s Doctrine of Grace,
IS VINDICATED
From ALL the Objections of the learned Author of the Dissertation.

A LETTER TO THE REV. DR. LELAND.

REV. SIR,

I have read your Dissertation on the principles of human Eloquence, and shall very readily, I dare say, be indulged in the liberty, I am going to take, of giving you my free thoughts upon it. I shall do it, with all the regard that is due from one scholar to another; and even with all the civility which may be required ONE, who hath his reasons for addressing you, in this public manner, without a name.

You entitle your work A Dissertation on the principles of Eloquence: but the real subject of it, is an Opinion, or Paradox, as you chuse to term it, delivered by the Bishop of Gloucester in his late discourse on Grace. This opinion, indeed, concerns, or rather, in your ideas, subverts, the very principles of Eloquence, which your office, it seems, in a learned society obliged you to maintain: so that you cannot be blamed for giving some attention to the ingenious Prelate’s paradox, which so incommodiously came in your way. Only the more intelligent of your hearers might possibly think it strange that, in a set of rhetorical lectures, addressed to them, the Controversial part should so much take the lead of the Didactic: or rather, that the Didactic part should stand quite still, while the Controversial keeps pacing it, with much alacrity, from one end of your Dissertation to the other.

Yet neither, on second thoughts, can you be blamed for this conduct, which one way or other might serve to the instruction of your young auditory; if not in the principles of Rhetoric, yet in a better thing, the principles of Logic. It might, further, serve to another purpose, not unworthy the regard of a rhetoric lecturer. The subject of Eloquence has been so exhausted in the fine writings of antiquity, and, what is worse, has been so hackneyed in modern compilations from them, that your discourse wanted to be enlivened by the poignant controversial air, you have given to it, and to be made important, by bringing an illustrious character into the scene.

All this I am ready to say in your vindication, if your conduct may be thought to require any. Having, therefore, nothing to object to the general design, or mode of your dissertation, I shall confine myself entirely to the MATTER of it, after acquainting the reader, in few words, with the occasion and subject Of this debate.

The Bishop of Gloucester, in late theological treatise on the doctrine of Grace, which required him to speak fully to the subject of inspiration, found it necessary to obviate an objection to what he conceived to be the right notion of inspired scripture, which had been supported by some ingenious men, and very lately by Dr. Middleton. The objection is delivered by the learned Doctor, in these words.

“If we allow the gift [of inspired languages] to be lasting, we must conclude that some at least of the books of scripture were in this inspired Greek. But we should naturally expect to find an inspired language to be such as is worthy of God; that is, pure, clear, noble and affecting, even beyond the force of common speech; since nothing can come from God but what is perfect in its kind. In short, the purity of Plato, and the eloquence of Cicero. Now, if we try the apostolic language by this rule, we shall be so far from ascribing it to God, that we shall scarcely think it worthy of man, that is, of the liberal and polite; it being utterly rude and barbarous, and abounding with every fault that can possibly deform a language. And though some writers, prompted by a false zeal, have attempted to defend the purity of the Scripture-Greek, their labour has been idly employed[130].” Thus far the learned Doctor.

‘These triumphant observations,’ says the Bishop, ‘are founded on two propositions, both of which he takes for granted, and yet neither of them is true:

‘The one, That an inspired language must needs be a language of perfect eloquence;

‘The other, That eloquence is something congenial and essential to human speech[131].’

The Bishop then undertakes to shew the falshood of these two propositions. You, Sir, contend for the truth of the latter: and controvert the principles on which the Bishop would confute the former. That the reader may be enabled to judge for himself between you, I shall quote his Lordship’s own words, paragraph by paragraph, so far as any thing said by him is controverted by you; and shall then endeavour, with all care, to pick up the loose ends of your argument, as I find them any where come up in the several chapters of your Dissertation; intermixing, as I go along, such reflexions of my own, as the occasion may suggest.

‘With regard to the FIRST proposition (resumes the Bishop) I will be bold to affirm, that were the Style of the New Testament exactly such as his [Dr. Middleton’s] very exaggerated account of if would persuade us to believe, namely that it is utterly rude and barbarous, and abounding with every fault that can possibly deform a language, this is so far from proving such language not divinely inspired, that it is one certain mark of this original[132].’

By the manner, in which the learned Bishop introduces this affirmation, one sees that he foresaw very clearly it would be esteemed a bold one. Nay, in another place[133], he even takes to himself the shame, with which some readers, he well knew, would be forward enough to cover him, and in one word confesses his general notion of eloquence to be a Paradox: which yet, says he, like so many others, I have had the odd fortune to advance, will be seen to be only another name, for Truth. After this concession, it had been more generous in you to have omitted some invidious passages; such as that where you say, the Bishop in his reply to this objection [of Dr. Middleton] seems to have displayed that BOLD OPPOSITION TO THE GENERAL OPINIONS OF MANKIND, by which his learned labours are distinguished; Intr. p. ii. And again in p. vii. where you speak of his principles as paradoxical, and implying AN HARDY OPPOSITION TO THE GENERAL SENSE OF MANKIND.

But let the boldness of the Bishop’s principles be what it will, there is small hurt done, provided they turn out, what he seems persuaded they will, only truths. Let us attend his Lordship, then, in the proof of his FIRST Paradox.

‘I will not pretend, says he, to point out which books of the N. T. were, or were not, composed by those who had the Greek tongue thus miraculously infused into them; but this I will venture to say, that the style of a writer so inspired, who had not (as these writers had not) afterwards cultivated his knowledge of the language on the principles of Grecian eloquence, would be precisely such as we find it in the books of the New Testament.

‘For, if this only be allowed, which no one, I think, will contest with me, that a strange language acquired by illiterate men, in the ordinary way, would be full of the idioms of their native tongue, just as the Scripture-Greek is observed to be full of Syriasms, and Hebraisms; how can it be pretended, by those who reflect upon the nature of language, that a strange tongue divinely infused into illiterate men, like that at the day of Pentecost, could have any other properties and conditions[134]?’

Here, the features of this bold paradox begin to soften a little. We are something reconciled to it, 1. by being told, what the rudeness and barbarity is, which is affirmed to be one certain mark of an inspired language, namely, its being full of the idioms of the native tongue of the inspired writer: And 2. by being told, that these idioms are equally to be expected whether the new language be infused by divine inspiration, or acquired by illiterate men in the ordinary way. In the latter case, it is presumed, and surely with reason enough (because experience uniformly attests the fact), that a strange language, so learnt, would abound in the native idioms of the learner: All that remains is to shew, that the event would be the same, in the former. The Bishop then applies himself, in order, to this task.

‘Let us weigh these cases impartially. Every language consists of two distinct parts; the single terms, and the phrases and idioms. The first, as far as concerns appellatives especially, is of mere arbitrary imposition, though on artificial principles common to all men: The second arises insensibly, but constantly, from the manners, customs, and tempers of those to whom the language is vernacular; and so becomes, though much less arbitrary (as what the Grammarians call congruity is more concerned in this part than in the other), yet various and different as the several tribes and nations of mankind. The first therefore is unrelated to every thing but to the genius of language in general; the second hath an intimate connexion with the fashions, notions, and opinions of that people only, to whom the language is native.

‘Let us consider then the constant way which illiterate men take to acquire the knowledge of a foreign tongue. Do they not make it their principal, and, at first, their only study, to treasure up in their memory the signification of the terms? Hence, when they come to talk or write in the speech thus acquired, their language is found to be full of their own native idioms. And thus it will continue, till by long use of the strange tongue, and especially by long acquaintance with the owners of it, they have imbibed the particular genius of the language.

‘Suppose then this foreign tongue, instead of being thus gradually introduced into the minds of these illiterate men, was instantaneously infused into them; the operation (though not the very mode of operating) being the same, must not the effect be the same, let the cause be never so different? Without question. The divine impression must be made either by fixing the terms or single words only and their signification in the memory; as for instance, Greek terms corresponding to the Syriac or Hebrew; or else, together with that simple impression, another must be made, to inrich the mind with all the ideas which go towards the composing the phrases and idioms of the language so inspired: But this latter impression seems to require, or rather indeed implies, a previous one, of the tempers, fashions, and opinions of the people to whom the language is native, upon the minds of them to whom the language is thus imparted; because the phrase and idiom arises from, and is dependent on, those manners: and therefore the force of expression can be understood only in proportion to the knowledge of the manners: and understood they were to be; the Recipients of this spiritual gift being not organical canals, but rational Dispensers. So that this would be a waste of miracles without a sufficient cause; the Syriac or Hebrew idiom, to which the Disciples were enabled of themselves to adapt the words of the Greek, or any other language, abundantly serving every useful purpose, all which centered in giving CLEAR INTELLIGENCE. We conclude, therefore, that what was thus inspired was the Terms, together with that grammatic congruity, which is dependant thereon. In a word, to suppose such kind of inspired knowledge of strange tongues as includes all the native peculiarities, which, if you will, you may call their elegancies; (for the more a language is coloured by the character and manners of the native users, the more elegant it is esteemed) to suppose this, is, as I have said, an ignorant fancy, and repugnant to reason and experience.

‘Now, from what has been observed, it follows, that if the style of the N. T. were indeed derived from a language divinely infused as on the day of Pentecost, it must be just such, with regard to its style, as, in fact, we find it to be; that is to say, Greek words very frequently delivered in Syriac and Hebrew idiom.

‘The conclusion from the whole is this, that nominal or local barbarity of style (for that this attribute, when applied to style, is no more than nominal or local, will be clearly shewn under our next head) is so far from being an objection to its miraculous acquisition, that it is one mark of such extraordinary original[135].’

I have given this long quotation together, that the reader may comprehend at one view the drift and coherence of the Bishop’s argument: which is so clearly explained that what force it hath, can receive no addition from any comment of mine upon it.

It is true, this force appears to you no mighty matter—“We are told, you say, that, in order to convey clear intelligence to a foreigner, nothing more is necessary, than to use the words of his language adapted to the idiom of our own. But shall we always find correspondent words in his language[136]?”

Shall we always find correspondent words?—Not always, perfectly correspondent. Where does the Bishop say, we shall? Or, how was it to his purpose to say it? He does indeed speak of such a correspondency of terms, and chiefly of such an adaption of the terms of one language to the idiom of another, as shall abundantly serve to give clear intelligence. And this is all he had occasion to say.

Well, but an exact correspondency of terms is material. To what? To give clear intelligence? But if this be true, no clear intelligence can possibly be given in any translation from one language into another; for, in all translations whatever, it is necessary to render some words by others, that are not perfectly correspondent. You will scarcely deny that our English translation of the Gospels conveys, in general, clear intelligence to the English reader, though many terms are used in it, and were of necessity to be used, that do not perfectly and adequately correspond to the Greek terms, employed by the sacred writers. Without doubt it was your purpose to convey clear intelligence to your English reader in the elegant translations, they say, you have made of Demosthenes: and yet doubtless you will acknowledge that many words of the Athenian orator are not perfectly correspondent to those employed by you in your version of them.

What follows from this? Why, either that all translations must be exploded and set aside as insufficient to give clear intelligence, or that we must accept them, with all their unavoidable imperfections, as, in general, sufficiently representative of the sense of their originals, though in some particulars that sense be inadequately conveyed to us.

But how then, you will say, shall we gain a clear and perfect intelligence of such particulars? Why in the way, which common sense suggests; by inquiring, if we are able, what the precise meaning is of those terms of the original language, to which the translated terms are thus imperfectly correspondent. And if this be an inconvenience, ’tis an inconvenience necessarily attending every translation in the world, in which a writer would express the mixed modes denoted by the words of any other. For supposing the Greek tongue, infused by divine inspiration into the sacred writers, to have been that of Plato or Demosthenes himself, you will hardly pretend that it could have furnished them with Greek terms perfectly expressive of such compound ideas as certain Syriac or Hebrew terms expressed, and of which their subject obliged them to give, as far as the nature of the case would permit, clear intelligence. So that I cannot for my life comprehend the drift of that short question, Shall we always find correspondent terms in a foreign language? or, the pertinence of your learned comment on the text of Cicero’s letter to Servius.

I am sensible indeed, that, if the terms only of the new language were divinely infused, these, whether perfectly correspondent or not, would be insufficient of themselves to give clear intelligence. But the Bishop supposes more than this to be infused; for, what was inspired, he tells us, was the terms, TOGETHER with that grammatic congruity which is dependent thereon. Now this knowledge of the grammatic congruity of any tongue, superadded to a knowledge of its terms, would methinks enable a writer to express himself in it, for the most part, intelligibly.

I confess, the Bishop speaks—of fixing the terms or single words ONLY, and their signification, in the memory—But then he does not mean to exclude the grammatic congruity in the use of them, which, as we have seen, he expressly requires in the very same paragraph, but merely to expose the notion of the phrases and idioms being required, too. His Lordship speaks of the terms, or single words ONLY, in opposition to phrases and idioms: you seem to speak of terms, or single words ONLY, in opposition to systematic congruity.

I say, you seem so to speak: for, otherwise, I know not what to make of all you say concerning the insufficiency of the terms only of any language to give intelligence. And yet, in what follows, you seem to do justice to the Bishop, and to admit that, besides the terms, a grammatic congruity in the use of them was divinely inspired. For you go on to observe, “That the real purport of almost every sentence, in every language, is not to be learned from the signification of detached words, and their grammatical congruity, even where their signification may be expressed by correspondent words in another language[137].”

And here, Sir, your learning expatiates through several pages: the purpose of all which is to shew, that, if the terms of one language, though congruously used, be strictly adapted to the idiom of another, still they would give no intelligence, or at least a very obscure one; as you endeavour to prove by a decent instance taken from your countryman, Swift, in his dotages; and another, given by yourself in a literal version of a long passage of a sacred writer. It is true, in this last instance, you do not confine yourself to the strict observance of grammatic congruity. If you had done this, it would have appeared, from your own instance, that intelligence might have been given, and with tolerable clearness too, even in a literal version.

But be it allowed, that, if the terms of one language, even though a congruous construction be observed, be constantly and strictly adapted to the idioms of another, the expression will still, many times, be very dark and obscure: how is this obscurity to be prevented? Take what language you will for the conveyance instruction, it will be necessary for the reader or hearer to gain a competent knowledge of its idioms and phraseology, before he can receive the full benefit of it. So that, unless there had been a language in the world, native to all nations, and in the strictest sense of the word universal, I see not how inspiration itself could remedy this inconvenience. Suppose, as I said before, that the inspired language in which the Apostles wrote had been the purest Greek, still its idiomatic phraseology had been as strange and obscure to all such to whom that language was not native, as the Syriac or Hebrew idioms, by which the Apostolic Greek is now supposed to be so much darkened.

I conclude upon the whole, that nothing you have said overturns, or so much as affects, the learned Prelate’s notion of divine inspiration, as conveying only the terms and single words of one language, corresponding to those of another, together with that grammatic congruity in the use of them which is dependant thereon. This first and grand principle, as you call it, of the Bishop’s new theory, is such, you say, as no critic or grammarian can admit[138]. On the contrary, I must presume to think, because I have now shewn, that no critic or grammarian, who deserves the name, can reasonably object to this principle, as it allows all that is necessary to be supposed of an inspired language, its sufficiency to give clear intelligence: so clear, that, had the idioms of the new language been inspired too, it could not, in the general view of Providence, who intended this intelligence for the use of all people and languages, have been clearer.

But your unfavourable sentiment of the Bishop’s principle arises from your misconception of the circumstances, abilities, and qualifications of the Apostles, when they addressed themselves to the work of their ministry, and especially to the work of composing books for the instruction of the faithful in this originally inspired language.

When the Greek language was first infused, it would, no doubt, be full of their native phrases, or rather it would be wholly and entirely adapted to the Hebrew or Syriac idioms. This would render their expression somewhat dark and obscure to their Grecian hearers. But then it would be intelligible enough to those to whom they first and principally addressed themselves, the Hellenistic Jews, who, though they understood Greek best, were generally no strangers to the Hebrew idiom.

Further still, though this Hebrew-Greek language was all that was originally infused into the Apostles, nothing hinders but that they might, in the ordinary way, improve themselves in the Greek tongue, and superadd to their inspired knowledge whatever they could acquire, besides, by their conversation with the native Greeks, and the study of their language. For, though it can hardly be imagined, as the Bishop says, that the inspired writers had cultivated their knowledge of the language on the principles of the Grecian eloquence[139], that is, had formed and perfected their style by an anxious and critical attention to the rules and practice of the Greek rhetors, yet we need not conclude that they wholly neglected to improve themselves in the knowledge and use of this new language. So that, by the time they turned themselves to the Gentiles, and still more by the time they applied themselves to pen the books of the N. T. they might be tolerable masters even of the peculiar phraseology of the Greek tongue, and might be able to adapt it, in good measure, to the Greek idioms.

All this, I say, is very supposeable; because their turning to the Gentiles was not till near TEN years after the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles and the date of their earliest writings, penned for the edification of the Church, was not till near TWENTY years after that period: In all which time, they had full leisure and opportunity to acquire a competent knowledge of the native idiomatic Greek, abundantly sufficient to answer all ends of clearness and instruction.

But I go further, and say, It is not only very supposeable, and perfectly consistent with all the Bishop has advanced on the subject of inspiration, that the sacred writers might thus improve themselves, but it is, likewise, very clear and certain that they DID. How else are we to account for that difference of style observable in the sacred writers, whose expression is more or less coloured by their native Hebrew idioms, according as their acquaintance with the Greek tongue was more or less perfect? There were still, no doubt, very many of their own native idioms interspersed in their most improved Greek: As must ever be the case of writers who compose in a foreign tongue, whether acquired in the ordinary way, or supernaturally infused into them: But these barbarisms, as they are called, I mean these Syriasms or Hebraisms, are not so constant and perpetual as to prevent their writings from giving clear intelligence. In short, the style of the inspired writers is JUST that which we should naturally expect it to be, on this supposition of its being somewhat improved by use and exercise, and which the learned Bishop accurately (and in perfect consistency with his main principle, of the terms only being inspired, with the congruous use of them) defines it to be, “Greek words VERY FREQUENTLY delivered in Syriac and Hebrew idiom[140].”

Thus, in every view, the Bishop’s grand principle may be safely admitted. All that we need suppose, and therefore all that is reasonable to be supposed, is, That the terms of the Greek language, and a grammatical congruity in the use of them, was miraculously infused: The rest would be competently and sufficiently obtained by the application of ordinary means, without a miracle.

After saying so little, or rather after saying indeed nothing, that affects the Bishop’s principle, I cannot but think it is with an ill grace you turn yourself to cavil at the following incidental observation of his Lordship, which yet will be found as true and as just as any other he has made on this subject.

To those who might expect that, besides the simple impression of the Greek terms only, and their signification on the minds of the inspired linguists, another should have been made to inrich the mind with all the ideas which go towards the composing the phrases and idioms of the language so inspired (all which had been necessary, if the inspired language had been intended for a perfect model of Grecian eloquence), the Bishop replies—‘This latter impression seems to require, or rather indeed implies, a previous one of the tempers, fashions, and opinions, of the people to whom the language is native, upon the minds of them to whom the language is thus imparted; because the phrase and idiom arises from, and is dependent on those manners[141].’ But such an impression as this, he goes on to shew, was not to be expected.

It is clear from this passage, that the Bishop is speaking of an impression necessary to be made on the minds of the Apostles, if the inspired language had been so complete as to extend to all its native phrases and idioms. If the Apostles were instantly to possess the inspired Greek in this perfection, it is necessary to suppose that this last impression must, as well as that of the terms, be made upon them. Can any thing, be more certain and undeniable than this affirmation? Yet, in p. 86. of your book, you have this strange passage.

After having shewn, as you suppose, that the Bishop’s grand principle, of the inspiration of the TERMS only, stands on a very insecure foundation, “Perhaps,” you say, “it is no less HAZARDOUS to affirm, that a knowledge of the idiom or phraseology of any language, always implies a previous knowledge of the customs and manners of those to whom it is vernacular.”

You intended, no doubt, in your censure of this hazardous position, to oppose something which the Bishop had affirmed. Be pleased now to cast your eye on the passage you criticize, and tell me where the Bishop asserts, that a KNOWLEDGE of the idiom or phraseology of any language ALWAYS implies a previous knowledge of the customs and manners of those to whom it is vernacular. What the Bishop asserts is, That an IMPRESSION of the phrases and idioms of an inspired language implies a previous IMPRESSION of the tempers, fashions, and opinions of the people to whom the language is native, upon the minds of them to who the language is THUS imparted: that is, if a knowledge of the idioms had been impressed, a knowledge of the customs and manners from which those idioms arise, and without a knowledge of which they could not be understood (as they were to be, by the recipients of this spiritual gift), must have been impressed likewise. No, you say: a knowledge of the idiom of a language does not always imply a previous knowledge of the manners. Who says, it does? We may come to know the idioms of languages, without a divine impression: and without such impression, for any thing appears to the contrary, the Bishop might suppose the sacred writers came by their knowledge, so far as they possessed it, of the Greek idioms. But the impression of such idioms could only come from another and previous impression of the customs and manners: because in this case, without a previous impression of the customs and manners, the idioms themselves, when impressed, could not have been understood, nor consequently put to use, by the persons on whom this impression was made. They had no time to recur to Lexicons, Grammars, and Commentaries to know the meaning of the impressed idioms. How then were they, on the instant, to know their meaning at all, but by a previous impression of the manners, from which they arose, and which would put them into a capacity of understanding these impressed idioms?

In a word, the Bishop is speaking of SUPERNATURAL IMPRESSION: you, of NATURAL KNOWLEDGE. No wonder, then, your reasoning and your learning, in the concluding pages of this chapter, should look entirely beside the matter in hand, or, at best, should look so askew on the Bishop’s hazardous position. It is certain, you are far enough out of all danger of encountering it, when you entrench yourself, at length, behind this distant and secure conclusion—“that the knowledge of idiom is so far from requiring, or implying a previous one of tempers, manners, &c. that the very CONVERSE of this seems to be the safer principle; and that tempers and manners are not to be learned, without some degree of previous acquaintance with the peculiarities of a language[142]:” a proposition, which though exceptionable enough, as you put it, and even suggesting some pleasant ideas, I am in no humour, at present, to contest with you.

This, Sir, is the whole of what I find advanced by you, that hath any shew or appearance of being intended as a Confutation of the argument by which the Bishop supports his first Paradox; in opposition to Dr. Middleton’s opinion, That an inspired language must needs be a language of perfect eloquence. The Bishop has told us in very accurate terms what he conceives the character of an inspired language must needs be: and I have at least shewn, that the character he gives of it may be a just one, notwithstanding any thing you have objected to it in your learned Dissertation.

I now proceed to the Bishop’s second Paradox; which opposes Dr. Middleton’s second Proposition, That eloquence is something congenial and essential to human speech, and inherent in the constitution of things.

‘This supposes, says the Bishop, ‘that there is some certain Archetype in nature, to which that quality refers, and on which it is formed and modelled. And, indeed, admitting this to be the case, one should be apt enough to conclude, that when the Author of nature condescended to inspire one of these plastic performances of human art, he would make it by the exactest pattern of the Archetype.

‘But the proposition is fanciful and false. Eloquence is not congenial or essential to human speech, nor is there any Archetype in nature to which that quality refers. It is accidental and arbitrary, and depends on custom and fashion: it is a mode of human communication which changes with the changing climates of the Earth; and is as various and unstable as the genius, temper, and manners of its diversified inhabitants. For what is Purity but the use of such terms, with their multiplied combinations, as the interest, the complexion, or the caprice of a writer or speaker of authority hath preferred to its equals? What is Elegance but such a turn of idiom as a fashionable fancy hath brought into repute? And what is Sublimity but the application of such images, as arbitrary or casual connexions, rather than their own native grandeur, have dignified and ennobled? Now Eloquence is a compound of these three qualities of speech, and consequently must be as nominal and unsubstantial as its constituent parts. So that, that mode of composition, which is a model of perfect eloquence to one nation or people, must appear extravagant or mean to another. And thus in fact it was. Indian and Asiatic eloquence were esteemed hyperbolic, unnatural, abrupt and puerile to the more phlegmatic inhabitants of Rome and Athens. And the Western eloquence, in its turn, appeared nerveless and effeminate, frigid or insipid, to the hardy and inflamed imaginations of the East. Nay, what is more, each species, even of the most approved genus, changed its nature with the change of clime and language; and the same expression, which, in one place, had the utmost simplicity, had, in another, the utmost sublime[143].’

The Bishop then proceeds to illustrate this last observation by a famous instance, taken from the first chapter of Genesis, and then recapitulates and enforces his general argument in the following manner.

‘Apply all this to the books of the N. T. an authorized collection, professedly designed for the rule and direction of mankind. Now such a rule demanded that it should be inspired of God. But inspired writing, the objectors say, implies the most perfect eloquence. What human model then was the Holy Ghost to follow? And a human model, of arbitrary construction, it must needs be, because there was no other: Or, if there were another, it would never suit the purpose, which was to make an impression on the minds and affections; and this impression, such an eloquence only as that which had gained the popular ear, could effect. Should therefore the Eastern eloquence be employed? But this would be too inflated and gigantic for the West. Should it be the Western? But this would be too cold and torpid for the East. Or, suppose the generic eloquence of the more polished nations was to be preferred, which species of it was to be employed? The rich exuberance of the Asiatic Greeks, or the dry conciseness of the Spartans? The pure and poignant ease and flowing sweetness of the Attic modulation, or the strength and grave severity of the Roman tone? Or should all give way to that African torrent, which arose from the fermented mixture of the dregs of Greece and Italy, and soon after overflowed the Church with theological conceits in a sparkling luxuriancy of thought, and a sombrous rankness of expression? Thus various were the species’s! all as much decried by a different genus, and each as much disliked by a different species, as the eloquence of the remotest East and West, by one another[144].’

Thus far the learned Bishop, with the spirit and energy, as you well observe, of an ancient orator[145]; and, let me add, with a justness and force of reasoning, which would have done honour to the best ancient Philosopher. But here we separate again. You maintain, with Dr. Middleton, that eloquence is something congenial and essential to human speech: While I, convinced by the Bishop’s reasoning in these paragraphs, maintain that it assuredly is not.

The subject, indeed, affords great scope to your rhetorical faculties; and the cause, you maintain, being that, as you conceive, of the antient orators, and even of eloquence itself, you suffer your enthusiasm to bear you away, without controul; and, as is the natural effect of enthusiasm, with so little method and precision of argument, that a cool examiner of your work hardly knows how to follow you, or where to take aim at you, in your aery and uncertain flight. However, I shall do my best to reduce your Rhetoric to Reason; I mean, to represent the substance of what you seem to intend by way of argument against the Bishop’s principle, leaving your eloquence to make what impression on the gentle reader it may.

And, FIRST, in opposition, as you suppose, to the Bishop’s tenet, “That eloquence is NOT something congenial and essential to human speech,” you apply yourself to shew, through several chapters, that tropes, metaphors, allegories, and universally what are called by Rhetoricians figures of speech, are natural and necessary expressions of the passions, and have their birth in the very reason and constitution of things. To make out this important point is the sole drift of your I, II, III, and IVᵗʰ Chapters; in which you seem to me to be contending for that which nobody denies, and to be disputing without an opponent. At least, you can hardly believe that the Bishop of Gloucester is to be told, that metaphors, allegories, and similitudes are the offspring of nature and necessity, He, who has, with the utmost justness and elegance of reasoning, as you well observe[146], explained this very point, himself, in the Divine Legation.

What then are we to conclude from these elaborate chapters? Why, that by some unlucky mistake or other, let us call it only by the softer name, of inattention, you have entirely misrepresented the scope and purpose of all the Bishop has said on the subject of eloquence. And that this is no hasty or groundless charge, but the very truth of the case, will clearly be seen from a brief examination of the Bishop’s theory, compared with your reasonings upon it.

The position, that eloquence is something congenial and essential to human speech, supposes, says the Bishop, that there is some certain Archetype in nature, to which that quality refers, and on which it is to be formed and modelled.

The Bishop, you see, requires an Archetype to be pointed out to him of that consummate eloquence, which is said to be congenial and essential to human speech. The demand is surely reasonable; and not difficult to be complied with, if such an Archetype do, in fact, subsist. But do you know of any such? Do you refer him to any such? Do you specify that composition? or do you so much as delineate that sort of composition, which will pass upon all men under the idea of an Archetype? Nothing of all this. Permit us then to attend to the Bishop’s reasoning, by which he undertakes to prove that no such Archetype does or can exist.

‘The proposition [that asserts, there is such an Archetype] is fanciful and false. Eloquence is not congenial or essential to human speech, nor is there any Archetype in nature to which that quality refers. It is accidental and arbitrary, and depends on custom and fashion: It is a mode of human communication which changes with the changing climates of the earth; and is as various and unstable as the genius, temper, and manners of its diversified inhabitants[147].’

The Bishop asserts there is no Archetype, because eloquence is a variable thing, depending on custom and fashion; is nothing absolute in itself; but relative to the fancies and prejudices of men, and changeable, as the different climes they inhabit. This general reason seems convincing: it appeals to fact, to experience, to the evidence of sense. But the learned Prelate goes further. He analyzes the complex idea of eloquence: he examines the qualities of speech, of which it is made up; and he shews that they are nominal and unsubstantial. Hence it follows, again, That there is no Archetype in nature of perfect eloquence; its very constituent parts, as they are deemed, having no substance or reality in them.

But why should the Bishop condescend to this analysis, when his general argument seemed decisive of the question? For a good reason. When the Bishop asked for an Archetype, though you are shy of producing any, he well knew that the masters of Eloquence, those I mean who are accounted such in these parts of the world, had pretended to give one. He knew the authority of these masters of human speech with the sort of men, he had to deal with: he therefore takes the Archetype, they have given, and shews, upon their own ideas of eloquence, it is a mere phantom.

It is not to be supposed that the Bishop, in touching incidentally the question of Eloquence in a theological treatise, should follow the Greek and Latin rhetors through all the niceties and distinctions of their Art, or should amuse himself or us with a minute detail of all the particulars which go to the making up of this mighty compound, their Archetypal idea of human eloquence. If he had been so pleased, and had had no better business on his hands, it is likely he could have told us news, as you have done, out of Aristotle, Longinus, and Cicero. But his manner is to say no more on a subject, than the occasion makes necessary; which, in the present case, was no more than to acquaint his reader, in very general terms, with the constituent parts of eloquence; which he resolves into these three, Purity, Elegance, and Sublimity.

But this you call a most illogical division of Eloquence; for that the Bishop hath not only enumerated the constituent parts imperfectly; but, of the three qualities which he hath exhibited, the first is included in the second, and the third is not necessarily and universally a part of eloquence[148].

The enumeration, you say, is imperfect. Yet Purity, I think, denotes whatever comes under the idea of PROPRIETY, that is, of approved custom, as well as grammatical use, in any language: Elegance, expresses all those embellishments of composition, which are the effect of Art: and I know no fitter term than Sublimity, to stand for those qualities of eloquence, which are derived from the efforts of Genius, or natural Parts. Now what else can be required to complete the idea of Eloquence, and what defect of logic can there be in comprehending the various properties of human speech under these three generic names? The division is surely so natural and so intelligible, that few readers, I believe, will be disposed to object with you, that the first of the three qualities is included in the second, and that the third is not necessarily and universally a part of eloquence.

But let the Bishop’s enumeration be ever so logical, you further quarrel with his idea of these three constituent parts of eloquence, and his reasoning upon them.

‘What; says his Lordship, is Purity but the use of such terms with their multiplied combinations, as the interest, the complexion, or the caprice of a writer or speaker of authority hath preferred to its equals?’

This idea of purity in language you think strange; and yet in the very chapter in which you set yourself to contemplate and to reprobate this strange idea, you cannot help resolving purity, into usage and custom, that is, with Quintilian, into consensum (eruditorum); which surely is but saying in other words with the Bishop, that it consists in the use of such terms, with their multiplied combinations, as the interest, the complexion, or the caprice of a writer or speaker of Authority hath preferred to its equals—for equals they undoubtedly were, till that usage or custom took place. When this consent of the learned is once established, every writer or speaker, who pretends to purity of expression, must doubtless conform to it: but previously to such consent, purity is a thing arbitrary enough to justify the Bishop’s conclusion, that this quality is not congenial and essential to human speech.

Next, the Bishop asks, ‘What is Elegance but such a turn of idiom as a fashionable fancy hath brought into repute?’

Here, again, you grow very nice in your inquiries into the idea of fancy, the idea of fashion, and I know not what of that sort. In a word, you go on defining, and distinguishing to the end of the chapter, in a way that without doubt would be very edifying to your young scholars in Trinity College, but, as levelled against the Bishop, is certainly unseasonable and out of place. For define elegance that you will, it finally resolves into something that is not of the essence of human speech, but factitious and arbitrary; as depending much on the taste, the fancy, the caprice (call it what you please) of such writers or speakers, as have obtained the popular vogue for this species of eloquence, and so had the fortune to bring the turn of idiom and expression, which they preferred and cultivated, into general repute.

‘Lastly,’ the Bishop asks, ‘What is Sublimity but the application of such images, as arbitrary or casual connexions, rather than their own native grandeur, have dignified and ennobled?’

To this question you reply by asking another, Whether sublimity doth necessarily consist in the application of images? But, first, if what is called Sublimity, generally consists in the application of images, it is abundantly sufficient to the Bishop’s purpose: Next, I presume to say, that the sublime of eloquence, or the impression which a genius makes upon us by his expression, consists necessarily and universally in the application of images, that is, of bright and vivid ideas, which is the true, that is, the received sense of the word, images, (however rhetoricians may have distinguished different kinds of them, and expressed them by different names) in all rhetorical and critical works. Lastly, I maintain that these bright and vivid ideas are rendered interesting to the reader or hearer from the influence of Association, rather than of their own native dignity and grandeur: of which I could give so many instances, that, for this reason, I will only give your own, which you lay so much stress upon, of the famous oath, by the souls of those who fought at Marathon and Platæa[149]: where the peculiar ideas of interest, glory, and veneration, associated to the image or idea of the battle of Marathon and Platæa, gave a sublime and energy to this oath of Demosthenes, by the souls of those that fought there, in the conceptions of his countrymen, which no other people could have felt from it, and of which you, Sir, with all your admiration of it, have certainly a very faint conception at this time.

I should here have dispatched this article of Sublimity, but that you will expect me to take some notice of your objection to what the Bishop observes, ‘That this species of eloquence changed its nature, with the change of clime and language; and that the same expression, which in one place had the utmost simplicity, had, in another, the utmost sublime[150]:’ An observation, which he illustrates and confirms by the various fortune of the famous passage in Genesis, God said, Let there be light, and there was light; so sublime, in the apprehension of Longinus and Boileau, and so simple, in that of Huetius and Le Clerc.

To this pertinent illustration, most ingeniously explained and enforced by the learned Prelate, you reply with much ease, “That this might well be, and even in the same place,” and then proceed to inform him of I know not what union between simplicity and sublimity; though you civilly add, “That it is a point known to every SMATTERER in criticism, that these two qualities are so far from being inconsistent with each other, that they are frequently united by a natural and inseparable union[151].”

“Simplicity and sublimity may be found together.” I think the proposition false, in your sense of it, at least. But be it true, that these qualities in expression may be found together. What then? The question is of a passage, where these qualities, in the apprehension of great critics, are found separately; the one side maintaining that it is merely simple, the other, that it is merely sublime. Simplicity is, here, plainly opposed to sublimity, and implies the absence of it: Boileau, after Longinus, affirming that the expression is, and his adversaries affirming that it is not, sublime. Can any thing shew more clearly, that the sublime of eloquent expression depends on casual associations, and not on the nature of things?

But the Bishop goes further and tells us, what the associations were that occasioned these different judgments of the passage in question. The ideas suggested in it were familiar, to the sacred writer: they were new and admirable, to the Pagan Critic. Hence the expression would be of the greatest simplicity in Moses, though it would be naturally esteemed by Longinus, infinitely sublime.

Here you cavil a little about the Effect of familiarity: but, as conscious of the weakness of this part of your answer, Not to insist, you say, upon this, How comes it then that Boileau and many other Christian readers, to whom the ideas of creation were as familiar as to Moses himself, were yet affected by the sublime of this passage? You ask, How this comes to pass? How? Why in the way, in which so many other strange things come to pass, by the influence of authority. Longinus had said, the expression of this passage was sublime. And when he had said this, the wonder is to find two men, such as Huetius and Le Clerc, who durst, after that, honestly declare their own feelings, and profess that, to them, the expression was not sublime.

But more on this head of Authority presently.

You see, Sir, I pass over these chapters on the qualities of Eloquence, though they make so large a part of your Dissertation, very rapidly: and I do it, not to escape from any force I apprehend there to be in your argument or observations, but because I am persuaded that every man, who knows what language is, and how it is formed, is so convinced that those qualities of it by which it comes to be denominated pure, and elegant, and interesting, are the effects of custom, fashion, and association, that he would not thank me for employing many words on so plain a point. Only, as you conclude this part of your work with an appeal, which you think sufficiently warranted, against the most positive decisions of fashion, custom, or prejudice, to certain general and established principles of rational criticism, subversive, as you think, of the Bishop’s whole theory, I shall be bold to tell you, as I just now promised, what my opinion is, of these established rules of RATIONAL CRITICISM: by which you will understand how little I conceive the Bishop’s system to be affected by this confident appeal to such principles.

I hold then, that what you solemnly call the established principles of rational criticism are only such principles as criticism hath seen good to establish on the practice of the Greek and Roman speakers and writers; the European eloquence being ultimately the mere product and result of such practice; and European criticism being no further rational than as it accords to it. This is the way, in which ancient and modern critics have gone to work in forming their systems: and their systems deserve to be called rational, because they deliver such rules as experience has found most conducive to attain the ends of eloquence in these parts of the world. Had you attended to this obvious consideration, it is impossible you should have alarmed yourself so much, as you seem to have done, at the Bishop’s bold Paradox, as if it threatened the downfall of Eloquence itself: which, you now see, stands exactly as it did, and is just as secure in all its established rights and privileges on the Bishop’s system of there being no Archetype of Eloquence in nature, as upon your’s, that there is one. The rules of criticism are just the same on either supposition, and will continue the same so long as we take the Greek and Roman writers for our masters and models; nay, so long as the influence of their authority, now confirmed and strengthened by the practice of ages, and struck deep into the European notions and manners, shall subsist.

You need, therefore, be in no pain for the interests of Eloquence, which are so dear to you; nor for the dignity of your Rhetorical office in the University of Dublin; which is surely of importance enough, if you teach your young hearers how to become eloquent in that scene where their employment of it is likely to fall; without pretending to engage them in certain chimerical projects how they may attain an essential universal eloquence, or such as will pass for eloquence in all ages and countries of the world.

You see, Sir, if this opinion of mine be a truth, that it overturns at once the whole structure of your book. We, no doubt, who have been lectured in Greek and Roman eloquence, think it preferable to any other; and we think so, because it conforms to certain rules which our criticism has established, without considering that those rules are only established on the successful practice of European writers and speakers, and are therefore no rules at all in such times and places where a different, perhaps a contrary, practice is followed with the same success. Let a Spartan, an Asiatic, an African, a Chinese system of rhetoric be given: Each of these shall differ from other, yet each shall be best and most rational, as relative to the people for whom it is formed. Nay, to see how groundless all your fancies of a rational essential eloquence are, do but reflect that even the European eloquence, though founded on the same general principles, is yet different in different places in many respects. I could tell you of a country, and that at no great distance, where that which is thought supremely elegant passes in another country, not less conversant in the established principles of rational criticism, for FINICAL; while what, in this country, is accepted under the idea of sublimity, is derided, in that other, as no better than BOMBAST.

What follows, now, from this appeal to experience, against your appeal to the established rules of criticism? Plainly this: That all the rhetors of antiquity put together are no authority against what the Bishop of Gloucester asserts concerning the nature of eloquence; since THEY only tell us (and we will take their word for it) what will please or affect under certain circumstances, while the Bishop only questions whether the same rules, under ALL circumstances, will enable a writer or speaker to please and affect. Strange! that you should not see the inconsequence of your own reasoning. The Bishop says, The rules of eloquence are for the most part, local and arbitrary: No, you say, The rules are not local and arbitrary, FOR they were held reasonable ones at Athens and Rome. Your very answer shews that they were local and arbitrary. You see, then, why I make so slight on this occasion of all your multiplied citations from the ancient writers, which, how respectable soever, are no decisive authority, indeed no authority at all, in the present case.

Hitherto, the Bishop had been considering eloquence ONLY SO FAR as it is founded in arbitrary principles and local prejudices. For, though his expression had been general, he knew very well that his thesis admitted some limitation; having directly affirmed of the various modes of eloquence, not that they were altogether and in all respects, but MOSTLY, fantastical (p. 67), which, though you are pleased to charge it upon him as an inconsistency[152], the reader sees is only a necessary qualification of his general thesis, such as might be expected in so exact a writer as the learned Bishop. He now then attends to this limitation, and considers what effect it would have on his main theory.

‘It will be said, Are there not some more substantial principles of eloquence, common to all the various species that have obtained in the world?—Without doubt, there are.—Why then should not these have been employed, to do credit to the Apostolic inspiration? For good reasons: respecting both the speaker and the hearers. For, what is eloquence but a persuasive turn given to the elocution to supply that inward, that conscious persuasion of the speaker, so necessary to gain a fair hearing? But the first preachers of the Gospel did not need a succedaneum to that inward conscious persuasion. And what is the end of eloquence, even when it extends no further than to those more general principles, but to stifle reason and inflame the passions? But the propagation of Christian truths indispensably requires the aid of reason, and requires no other human aid[153].’

Here, again, you are quite scandalized at the Bishop’s paradoxical assertions concerning the nature and end of eloquence; and you differ as widely from him now he argues on the supposition of there being some more substantial principles of eloquence, as you did before, when he contended that most of those we call principles were arbitrary and capricious things. You even go so far as to insult him with a string of questions, addressed ad hominem: for, having quoted some passages from his book, truly eloquent and rhetorical, you think you have him at advantage, and can now confute him out of his own mouth.

“Can any thing,” you ask, “be more brilliant, more enlivened, more truly rhetorical, than these passages? What then are we to think of the writer and his intentions? Is he really sincere in his reasoning? or are these eloquent forms of speech so many marks of falshood? Were they assumed as a succedaneum to conscious persuasion? And is the end and design of them to stifle reason and inflame the passions[154]?”

To blunt the edge of these sharp and pressing interrogatories, give me leave to observe that the main question agitated by the Bishop is, whether divine inspiration can be reasonably expected to extend so far as to infuse a perfect model of eloquence, and to over-rule the inspired Apostles in such sort, as that all they write or speak should be according to the rules of the most consummate rhetoric. He resolves this question in the negative: first, by shewing that there is no such thing as what would be deemed a perfect model of eloquence subsisting in nature; a great part of what is called eloquence in all nations being arbitrary and chimerical; and, secondly, by shewing that even those principles, which may be justly thought more substantial, were, for certain reasons, not deserving the solicitous and over-ruling care of a divine inspirer. His reasons are these: First, that eloquence, when most genuine, is but a persuasive turn given to the elocution to supply that inward, that conscious persuasion of the speaker, so necessary to gain a fair hearing, and which the first preachers of the Gospel had already, by the influence and impression of the holy Spirit upon their minds: And, next, that the end of eloquence, even when it extends no further than to those more general principles, is but to stifle reason and inflame the passions; an end of a suspicious sort, and which the propagation of Christian truths, the proper business of the sacred writers or speakers, did not require.

You see these reasons, in whatever defective, are both of them founded in one common principle, which the Bishop every where goes upon, and the best philosophy warrants, That, when the Deity interposes in human affairs, he interposes no further than is necessary to the end in view, and leaves every thing else to the intervention and operation of second causes. The Apostles wanted NO succedaneum to an inward conscious persuasion, which the observance of the general principles of eloquence supplies; they were not, therefore, supernaturally instructed in them. They wanted NO assistance from a power that tends to stifle reason and inflame the passions: it was not, therefore, miraculously imparted to them. Every thing here is rational, and closely argued. What was not necessary was not done. Not a word about the inconvenience and inutility, in all cases, of recurring to the rules and practice of a chaste eloquence: not a word to shew that, where eloquence is employed, there is nothing but fraud and falshood, no inward persuasion, no consciousness of truth: not a word to insinuate that either you or the Bishop should be restrained from being as eloquent on occasion as you might have it in your power to be, or might think fit: nay, not a word against the Apostles themselves having recourse to the aids of human eloquence, if they had access to them, and found them expedient; only these aids were not REQUIRED, that is, were not to be claimed or expected from divine inspiration.

Thus stands the Bishop’s reasoning, perfectly clear and just. The only room for debate is, whether his ideas of the nature and end of eloquence be just, too. Eloquence, he says, is but a persuasive turn given to the elocution, to supply that inward, that conscious persuasion of the speaker, so necessary to gain a fair hearing. The general affirmation you do not, indeed cannot, reject or controvert; for, the great master of eloquence himself confirms it in express words—Tum optimè dicit orator, cum VIDETUR vera dicere. Quinctil. l. iv. c. 2. And, again, Semper ita dicat, TANQUAM de causâ optimè sentiat. l. v. c. 13; that is, an inward conscious persuasion is to be supplied by the speaker’s art. The Bishop’s idea then of the nature of eloquence is, as far as I can see, the very same idea which Quinctilian had of it. Both agree, that eloquence is such a turn of the elocution as supplies that inward conscious persuasion so necessary to the speaker’s success. The Bishop adds, that this supply the inspired writers did not want. But you will say, perhaps, that merely human writers may have this inward conscious persuasion, as well as the inspired. What then? if human writers can do without this succedaneum, which human eloquence supplies to inward persuasion, who obliges them to have recourse to it? Yes, but they cannot do so well without it. Who then forbids them to have recourse to it? For, neither are the inspired writers barred of this privilege: only, as being simply UNNECESSARY, it was not præternaturally supplied. Your perplexity on this subject arises from not distinguishing between what is absolutely necessary, and what is sometimes expedient: Divine inspiration provides only for the first; the latter consideration belongs to human prudence.

But it would be, further, a mistake to say, that merely human writers have their inward conscious persuasion as well as the divine. They may have it, indeed, from the conclusions of their own reason, but have they it in the same degree of strength and vivacity, have they the same full assurance of faith, as those who have truth immediately impressed upon them by the hand of God? I suppose, not.

But the Bishop’s idea of the END of eloquence revolts you as much as his idea of its nature. What, says he, is the END of eloquence, even when it extends no further than to those more general principles, but to stifle reason and inflame the passions? And what other end, I pray you, can it have? You will say, To adorn, recommend, and enforce truth. It may be so, sometimes: this, we will say, is its more legitimate end. But even this end is not accomplished but by stifling reason and inflaming the passions: that is, eloquence prevents reason from adverting simply to the truth of things, and to the force of evidence; and it does this by agitating and disturbing the natural and calm state of the mind with rhetorical diminutions or amplifications. Vis oratoris OMNIS, says Quinctilian, in AUGENDO MINUENDOQUE consistit. [l. viii. c. 3. sub fin.] Now what is this but stifling reason? But it goes further: it inflames the passions, the ultimate end it has in view from stifling reason, or putting it of its guard. And for this, again, we have the authority of Quinctilian, affectibus perturbandus et ab intentione auferendus orator. Non enim solum oratoris est docere, sed plus eloquentia CIRCA MOVENDUM valet. l. iv. c. 5. Or, would you see a passage from the great master of rhetoric, where his idea of this double end of eloquence is given, at once; it follows in these words—Ubi ANIMIS judicum VIS afferenda est, et AB IPSA VERI CONTEMPLATIONE abducenda mens, IBI PROPRIUM ORATORIS OPUS EST. l. vi. c. 2. That is, where the passions are to be inflamed, and reason stifled, there is the proper use and employment of the rhetorical art. So exactly has the Bishop traced the footsteps of the great master, when he gave us his idea of the END of eloquence!

Well, but this end, you say, is IMMORAL. So much the worse for your system; for such is the undoubted end of eloquence, even by the confession of its greatest patrons and advocates themselves. But what? Is this end immoral in all cases? And have you never then heared, that the passions, as wicked things as they are, may be set on the side of truth? In short, Eloquence, like Ridicule, which is, indeed, no mean part of it, may be either well or ill employed; and though it cannot be truly said that the end of either is simply immoral, yet it cannot be denied that what these modes of address propose to themselves in ALL cases is, to stifle reason and inflame the passions.

The Bishop’s idea, then, of the end of eloquence, I presume, is fairly and fully justified. But your complaint now is, that the Bishop does not himself abide by this idea. For you find a contradiction between what his Lordship says here—that the END of eloquence, even when it extends no further than to those more general principles, is but to style reason and inflame the passions, and what he says elsewhere—that the PRINCIPAL end of eloquence, AS IT IS EMPLOYED IN HUMAN AFFAIRS, is to mislead reason and to cajole the fancy and affections[155]. But these propositions are perfectly consistent; nor was the latter introduced so much as for the purpose of qualifying and palliating any thing that might be deemed offensive in the former. For though eloquence, chastely employed, goes no further than to stifle reason and inflame the passions (and the chastest eloquence, if it deserves the name, goes thus far), yet the principal end of eloquence, as it is employed in human affairs, is to mislead reason, which is something more than stifling it; and to cajole, which is much worse than to inflame, the passions. Reason may be STIFLED, and the passions INFLAMED, when the speaker’s purpose is to inculcate right and truth: Reason is only in danger of being MISLED, and the fancy and affections of being CAJOLED, when wrong and error are enforced by him. So very inaccurate was your conception of the Bishop’s expression! which I should not have explained so minutely, but to shew you that, when you undertook to expose such a writer, as the Bishop, you should have studied his expression with more care, and should have understood the force of words at another rate, than you seem to have done in this instance.

Still you will ask, if the end be so legitimate, why should not the inspired writers be trusted with this powerful engine of human eloquence? The Bishop gives several reasons: It is a suspicious instrument, p. 57. It was an improper instrument for heaven-directed men, whose strength was not to be derived from the wisdom of men, but from the power of God, p. 59. But the direct and immediate answer is contained, as I observed, in these words—The propagation of Christian truths indispensably requires the aid of reason, and requires no other aid. 1. Christianity, which is a reasonable service, was of necessity to be propagated by force of reason; in the Bishop’s better expression, IT INDISPENSABLY REQUIRED THE AID OF REASON; but Reason, he tells us in the next words, can never be fairly and vigorously exerted but in that favourable interval which precedes the appeal to the passions. 2. The Propagation of Christianity, which indispensably required the aid of reason, REQUIRED NO OTHER HUMAN AID: that is, no other human means were simply REQUISITE or NECESSARY. God, therefore, was pleased to leave his inspired servants to the prudential use and exercise of their own natural or acquired talents; but would not supernaturally endow them with this unnecessary power of eloquent words. The inspired writers, even the most learned and, by nature, the most eloquent of them, made a very sparing use of such talents, proudly sacrificing them, as the Bishop nobly and eloquently says, to the glory of the everlasting Gospel. But as the end was not, so neither was the use of eloquence, simply immoral or evil in itself. They were considerations of propriety, prudence, and piety, which restrained the Apostles generally, but not always, in the use of eloquence; which was less decent in their case, and which they could very well do without. When the same considerations prompt other men, under other circumstances, to affect the way of eloquence, it may safely, and even commendably, for any thing the Bishop has said on this subject as it concerns divine inspiration, be employed.

Admitting then the Bishop’s ideas both of the nature and end of eloquence, the want of this character in the sacred writings is only vindicated, not the thing itself interdicted or disgraced.

The conclusion from the whole of what the Bishop has advanced on this argument, follows in these words:

‘What, therefore, do our ideas of fit and right tell us is required in the style of an universal law? Certainly no more than this—To employ those aids which are common to all language as such; and to reject what is peculiar to each, as they are casually circumstanced. And what are these aids but CLEARNESS and PRECISION? By these, the mind and sentiments of the Composer are intelligibly conveyed to the reader. These qualities are essential to language, as it is distinguished from jargon: they are eternally the same, and independent on custom or fashion. To give a language clearness was the office of Philosophy; to give it precision was the office of Grammar. Definition performs the first service by a resolution of the ideas which make up the terms: Syntaxis performs the second by a combination of the several parts of speech into a systematic congruity: these are the very things in language which are least positive, as being conducted on the principles of metaphysics and logic. Whereas, all besides, from the very power of the elements, and signification of the terms, to the tropes and figures of composition, are arbitrary; and, what is more, as these are a deviation from those principles of metaphysics and logic, they are frequently vicious. This, the great master quoted above [Quinctilian] freely confesseth, where speaking of that ornamented speech, which he calls σχήματα λέξεως, he makes the following confession and apology—esset enim omne schema VITIUM, si non peteretur, sed accideret. Verum auctoritate, vetustate, consuetudine, plerumque defenditur, sæpe etiam RATIONE QUADAM. Ideoque cum sit a simplici rectoque loquendi genere deflexa, virtus est, si habet PROBABILE ALIQUID quod sequatur[156].’

There is no part of your book in which you exult more than in the confutation of this obnoxious paragraph. It is to be hoped, you do it on good grounds—but let us see what those grounds are.

The Bishop, in the paragraph you criticize in your vᵗʰ Chapter, had said that tropes and figures of composition, under certain circumstances, there expressed, are frequently vicious. You make a difficulty of understanding this term, and doubt whether his Lordship means vice in a critical, or moral sense. I take upon me to answer roundly for the Bishop, that he meant vice in the critical sense: for he pronounces such tropes and figures vicious, ONLY as they are a deviation from the principles of METAPHYSICS AND LOGIC; and therefore I presume he could not mean vice in the other sense, which is a deviation from the principles of ETHICS. All you say on this subject, then, might have been well spared.

This incidental question, or doubt of your’s, being cleared up, let us now attend to the more substantial grounds you go upon, in your censure of the learned Bishop.

He had been speaking of clearness and precision, as the things in language, which are least positive. Whereas, all besides, from the very power of the elements and signification of the terms, to the tropes and figures of composition, are arbitrary; and, what is more, as these are a deviation from the principles of metaphysics and logic, are frequently vicious.

In the first place, you say, it were to be wished that his Lordship had pleased to express himself with a little more precision—Want of precision is not, I think, a fault with which the Bishop’s writings are commonly charged; and I wish it may not appear in this instance, as it did lately in another, that your misapprehension of his argument arises from the very precision of his expression. But in what does this supposed want of precision consist? Why, in not qualifying this sentence, passed on the tropes and figures of Composition, which, from the general terms, in which it is delivered, falls indiscriminately upon ALL writers and speakers; for that “ALL men, who have ever written and spoken, have frequently used this mode of elocution, which is said to be frequently vicious[157].” Well, but from the word, frequently, which you make yourself so pleasant with, it appears that the Bishop had qualified this bold and dangerous position.—Yes, but this makes the position still more bold. Indeed! The Bishop is then singularly unhappy, to have his position, first, declared bold for want of being qualified, and, then, bolder still, for being so. But your reason follows.

“What makes this position still more hardy is, that, however the conclusion seems confined and restrained by the addition of that qualifying word [frequently], yet the premises are general and unlimited. It is asserted without any restriction, that figurative composition is a deviation from the principles of metaphysics and logic. If then it be vicious as it is, i. e. because [quatenus] it is such a deviation, it must be not only frequently but always vicious; a very severe censure denounced against almost every speaker, and every writer, both sacred and prophane, that ever appeared in the world[158].”

Here your criticism grows very logical; and, notwithstanding the confidence I owned myself to have in the precision of the Bishop’s style, I begin to be in pain how I shall disengage him from so exact and philosophical an objector. Yet, as the occasion calls upon me, I shall try what may be done. As these [tropes and figures of composition] are a deviation from the principles of metaphysics and logic, they are frequently VICIOUS. Since the Attribute of this proposition is so peculiarly offensive to you, your first care, methinks, should have been to gain precise and exact ideas of the subject; without which it is not possible to judge, whether what is affirmed of it be exceptionable, or no.

By tropes and figures of composition, you seem to understand metaphors, allegories, similitudes, and whatever else is vulgarly known under the name of figures of speech. For in p. 27, you speak of Allegories, Metaphors and OTHER tropes and figures, which, you say, are no more than comparisons and similitudes expressed in another form: And your concern, throughout this whole chapter, is for the vindication of such tropes and figures from the supposed charge of their being a deviation from the principles of metaphysics and logic. But now, on the other hand, I dare be confident that the Bishop meant these terms, not in this specific, but in their generic sense, as expressing any kind of change, deflexion, or deviation from the plain and common forms of language. I say, I am confident of this, 1. because the precise sense of the words is such as I represent it to be; and I have observed, though, it seems, you have not, that the Bishop is of all others the most precise in his expression. 2. Because Quinctilian authorizes this use of those terms, who tells us that—per tropos verti formas non verborum modo, sed et sensuum, et compositionis, l. viii. c. 6. And as to figuram, he defines it to be (as the word itself, he says, imports) conformatio quædam orationis, remota à communi et primum se offerente ratione, l. ix. c. 1. words, large enough to take in every possible change and alteration of common language. So that all manners and forms of language, different from the common ones, may, according to Quinctilian, be fitly denominated tropes and figures of composition. 3. I conclude this to be the Bishop’s meaning, because the specific sense of these words was not sufficient to his purpose, which was to speak of ALL kinds of tropical and figured speech. Now though allegories, metaphors and other tropes and figures, which are no more than comparisons and similitudes, expressed in another form, belong indeed to the genus of figured language, they are by no means the whole of it, as so great a master of rhetoric, as yourself, very well knows. 4. I conclude this, from the peculiar mode of his expression: if the Bishop had said simply tropes and figures of speech, I might perhaps (if nothing else had hindered) have taken him to mean, as you seem to have done, only metaphors, allegories, and other tropes and figures, expressing, in another form, comparisons and similitudes, which, in vulgar use, come under the name of tropes and figures of speech: But when he departs from that common form of expression, and puts it, tropes and figures of COMPOSITION, I infer that so exact a writer, as the Bishop, had his reasons for this change, and that he intended by it to express more than tropes and figures of speech usually convey, indeed ALL that can any way relate to the tropical and figurative use of words in literary composition.

It is now seen what the SUBJECT of this bold proposition is: namely, tropical or figured language, in general. This figured language, as it is a deviation from the principles of metaphysics and logic, is frequently vicious; i. e. is an acknowledged vice or fault in composition, as such. We now then see the force of the Predicate.

Well; but if this figured language “be vicious as it is, i. e. because, quatenus, it is such a deviation, it must not only be frequently, but always vicious.” The premises are general and unlimited: so must, likewise, be the conclusion. What sense, then, is there in the word, frequently? or what room, for that qualification?

See, what it is to be a great proficient in logic, before one has well learnt one’s Grammar! As, i. e. because, quatenus, say you. How exactly and critically the English language may be studied in Dublin, I pretend not to say: But we in England understand the particle as, not only in the sense of because, quatenus, but also, and, I think, more frequently, in the sense of in proportion as, according as, or, if you will needs have a Latin term to explain an English term, prout, perinde ac. So that the proposition stands thus: These tropes and figures, ACCORDING AS they are a deviation from the principles of metaphysics and logic, are frequently vicious. The premises, you now see, are qualified, as well as the conclusion. Figured language, WHEN it deviates from the principles of metaphysics and logic, is—what? always vicious? But the Bishop did not say, that figured language is always a deviation from those principles. He only says, when it so deviates, it is vicious. It is implied in the expression that figured language at least sometimes deviates from those principles, and the Bishop, as appears, is of opinion that it frequently deviates: He therefore says, consistently with his premises, and with his usual accuracy, It is frequently vicious.

In short, the Bishop’s argument, about which you make so much noise, if drawn out in mood and figure, would, I suppose, stand thus—“Tropical and figured language, WHEN it deviates from the principles of metaphysics and logic, is vicious—Tropical and figured language FREQUENTLY deviates from those principles—Therefore tropical and figured language is FREQUENTLY vicious.” And where is the defect of sense or logic, I want to know, in this argumentation? But you impatiently ask, Are metaphors, allegories, and comparisons then included in this figured language, which is pronounced vicious? To this question I can only reply, That I know not whether metaphors, allegories, and comparisons, are, in the Bishop’s opinion, deviations from the principles of metaphysics and logic; for I cannot find that he says any thing, in particular, of this kind of tropes and figures. But if you, or any one for you, will shew clearly, that metaphors, allegories, and comparisons are such deviations, the Bishop, for any thing I know, might affirm, and might be justified in affirming, that they were in themselves vicious. But be not too much alarmed for your favourites, if he should: They would certainly keep their ground, though convicted of such vice; at least unless the Rhetoricians of our time should be so dull as not to be able to find out what Quinctilian calls probabile aliquid, some probable pretext to justify or excuse them.

But, instead of troubling ourselves to guess what the Bishop might say on a subject on which he has said nothing, it is to better purpose to attend to what he has said, on the subject in question. The Bishop has said, That tropical and figured language is frequently vicious. You ask when? He replies, When it deviates from the principles of metaphysics and logic. But in what particular instances does this appear? He tells you this too. He gives you instances enough, to justify his affirmation, that tropical and figured language is frequently vicious; for he exemplifies his affirmation in ONE WHOLE class of such figured speech, as deviates from the principles of metaphysics and logic, and is therefore vicious, namely, in the class of verbal figures. ‘This, [i. e. the truth of the affirmation, That figured language, according as it is found to be a deviation from the principles of metaphysics and logic, is frequently vicious] the great master, Quinctilian, freely confesseth, where, speaking of that ornamented speech, which he calls σχήματα λέξεως, he makes the following confession and apology—esset enim omne schema VITIUM, si non peteretur, sed accideret. Verum auctoritate, vetustate, consuetudine, plerumque defenditur, sæpe etiam RATIONE QUADAM. Ideoque cum sit à simplici rectoque loquendi genere deflexa, virtus est, si habet PROBABILE ALIQUID quod sequatur[159].’

The difficulty, I trust, now begins to clear up. Figured language, is frequently vicious. Of this we have an instance given in one entire species of figured or ornamented speech, namely σχήματα λέξεως, or verbal figures. Can any thing be clearer and plainer? Yet, because you had taken it into your head that by tropes and figures of composition the Bishop understood, nay could only understand, metaphors, allegories, and comparisons, you dreamt of nothing, here, but the same fine things. And though Quinctilian lay before the Bishop, when he quoted these words, though the Bishop’s own express words shew the contrary, for he speaks not of tropes and figures in general, much less of such tropes and figures as you speak of, but solely of that ornamented speech, called σχήματα λέξεως, you will needs have him quote Quinctilian in this place as speaking of Rhetorical figures. But let us attend to Quinctilian’s words. Esset omne schema vitium, si non peterentur, sed acciderent. What! Shall we think the Bishop could mean to affirm of rhetorical figures, that they would always be vicious, if they were not sought for, but occurred of themselves? For that, I think, is the translation of—si non peterentur, sed acciderent. Surely one way, and that the chief, in which rhetorical figures, metaphors, allegories, and comparisons, become vicious, is, when they ARE sought for, sollicitously hunted after, and affectedly brought in. The very contrary happens with regard to these verbal figures: they are vicious, when they are NOT sought for and purposely affected. I conclude then, that his Lordship, who surely does not want common sense, and, I think, understands Latin, did not, and could not intend to exemplify his observation in the case of rhetorical figures.

Still you are something puzzled and perplexed by the Bishop’s observation. Admitting him to mean, as his author does, verbal figures, how can these be considered as a deviation from the principles of metaphysics and logic? How? Why, has not the Bishop told us, or, if he had not, is it not certain in itself, that to give a language clearness is the office of philosophy; and that Definition, a part of Logic, performs that service by a resolution of the ideas, which make up the terms? But these verbal figures are often a deviation from, nay a willful defiance of, all logical definition. Witness the very instance you and Quinctilian give us, in Virgil’s timidi damæ. Logic defines Damæ to be the females of that species of animals called Deer. The figurative Virgil confounds this distinction by using this term for the males, as well as females. But, universally, Grammar itself, whose peculiar office is to give precision to language, is a part of logic: the Bishop says, its rules are conducted on the principles of Logic. But verbal figures, even when they do not offend against the strictness of definition, are universally violations, in some degree or other, of Grammar, i. e. of Logic. Yet these violations of Logical Grammar, Quinctilian tells us, may be allowed, si habent probabile aliquid quod sequantur; that is, for some fantastical reason or other, by which the masters of Rhetoric are pleased to recommend them to us.

And now, Sir, let me ask, what becomes of your fine comment on Quinctilian’s chapter concerning verbal figures, and, particularly, of your nice distinction between these, and rhetorical figures, which the Bishop, no doubt, wanted to be informed of? The issue of your exploits in Logic and Criticism is now seen to be this, That you have grossly misrepresented the Bishop; and needlessly, at least, explained Quinctilian. First, you make the Bishop talk of rhetorical figures ONLY, in the specific sense of these terms, when his Lordship was all the while speaking of figured language, in general. Next, you make him deliver a bold position concerning rhetorical figures, as being frequently vicious, because always deviations from the principles of metaphysics and logic; when all he maintains, is, That figured language is FREQUENTLY vicious, according as it deviates from those principles; and, in particular, that that part of figured speech, called grammatical or verbal figures, is ALWAYS vicious.

To conclude, if you had shewn any compunction, or even common respect in exposing what you took to be the Bishop’s absurdities on this subject, I should have made a conscience of laying you open on this head of Rhetorical and Grammatical figures. As it is, your unmerciful triumph over the poor Bishop makes it allowable for me to lay your dealing with him before the reader in all its nakedness; and, after what has been said, I cannot do it better than by letting him see how the Bishop’s argumentation is represented by you, as drawn out in your own words, and that in full mood and figure.

“I should by no means,” say you, “willingly misrepresent the argument of my Lord Bishop; but upon repeated examination of the passage here quoted, I must state it thus:

“Quinctilian declares, that what are called grammatical figures are really no more than faulty violations of grammatical rules, unless when purposely introduced upon some reasonable or plausible grounds.”

Therefore,

“He confesses that tropes and figures of composition, as they are a deviation from the principles of metaphysics and logic, are frequently vicious.”

You add, “If this be a fair representation, it were to be wished that the learned author had so far condescended to men of confined abilities, as to explain the connexion between these two propositions[160].”

As the learned author, I guess, may be better employed than in this unnecessary task, which you wish to impose upon him, I have taken upon me to discharge that office, with less able hands; and, yet, have explained the connexion between these two propositions in such sort, that, if I mistake not, we shall never hear more from you, of any inconsistency between them.

I have NOW, Sir, gone through the several particulars of your Dissertation, and have shewn, I think, clearly and invincibly, that all your objections to the Bishop’s paradoxical sentiments on the subject of Eloquence are mistaken and wholly groundless.

The TWO propositions his Lordship took upon him to confute, 1. That an inspired language must needs be a language of perfect eloquence; and, 2. That eloquence is something congenial and essential to human speech, and inherent in the constitution of things: These two propositions, I say, are so thoroughly confuted by the Bishop, that not one word of all you say in any degree affects his reasoning, or supports those two propositions against the force of it. I am even candid enough to believe that, on further thoughts, you will not yourself be displeased with this ill success of your attack on the learned Prelate’s principles; which are manifestly calculated for the service of religion and the honour of inspired scripture. For, though you attempt to shew us in your two last chapters, how the honour of inspired scripture may be saved on other principles, yet allow me to say that, for certain reasons, I much question the validity of those principles; at least, that the persons, most concerned in this controversy, will by no means subscribe to them. If there be an Archetype of eloquence in nature, ‘one should be apt enough, as the Bishop says, to conclude, that when the Author of nature condescended to inspire one of these plastic performances of human art, he would make it by the exactest pattern of the Archetype[161].’ Or, whatever you and I and the Bishop might conclude, assure yourself that the objectors to inspired scripture will infallibly draw that conclusion. And, when they do so, and fortify themselves, besides, with the authority of so great a master of eloquence, as yourself, it will be in vain, I doubt, to oppose to them your ingenious harangues and encomiums on the eloquent composition of the sacred scriptures. Nay, it would give you, no doubt, some pain to find that, though they should accept your authority for the truth of their favourite principle of there being an Archetype in nature of perfect eloquence, they would yet reject your harangues and encomiums with that disdain which is so natural to them. The honour of sacred scripture will then hang on a question of Taste: and unluckily the objectors are of such authority in that respect, that there is no appeal from their decisions of it.

The contemplation of these inconveniencies, together with the love of truth, determined me to hazard this address to you. I will not deny, besides, that the mere justice due to a great character, whom I found somewhat freely, not to say injuriously treated by you, was also, one motive with me. If I add still another, it is such as I need not disown, and which you, of all men, will be the last to object to, I mean a motive of Charity towards yourself.

I am much a stranger to your person, and, what it may perhaps be scarce decent for me to profess to you, even to your writings. All I know of YOURSELF, is, what your book tells me, that you are distinguished by an honourable place and office in the University of Dublin: and what I have heared of your WRITINGS, makes me think favourably of a private scholar, who, they say, employs himself in such works of learning and taste, as are proper to instill a reverence into young minds for the best models of ancient eloquence. While you are thus creditably stationed, and thus usefully employed, I could not but feel some concern for the hurt you were likely to do yourself by engaging in so warm and so unnecessary an opposition to a writer, as you characterize him, of distinguished eminence[162]. Time was, when even with us on this side the water, the novelty of this writer’s positions, and the envy, which ever attends superior merit, disposed some warm persons to open, and prosecute with many hard words, the unpopular cry against him, of his being a bold and PARADOXICAL writer. But reflexion and experience have quieted this alarm. Men of sense and judgment now consider his Paradoxes as very harmless, nay as very sober and certain truths; and even vye with each other in their zeal of building upon them, as the surest basis, on which a just and rational vindication of our common religion can be raised. This is the present state of things with us, and especially, they say, in the Universities of this kingdom.

It was, therefore, not without some surprize, and, as I said, with much real concern, that I found a gentleman of learning and education revive, at such a juncture, that stale and worn-out topic, and disgrace himself by propagating this clamour, of I know not what paradoxical boldness, now long out of date, in the much-approved writings of this great Prelate. Nor was the dishonour to yourself, the only circumstance to be lamented. You were striving, with all your might, to infuse prejudices into the minds of many ingenious and virtuous young men; whom you would surely be sorry to mislead; and who would owe you little thanks for prepossessing them with unfavourable sentiments of such a man and writer, as the Bishop of Gloucester, they will find, is generally esteemed to be.

These, then, were the considerations, which induced me to employ an hour or two of leisure in giving your book a free examination. I have done it in as few words as possible, and in a manner which no reasonable and candid man, I persuade myself, will disapprove. I know what apologies may be requisite to the learned Bishop for a stranger’s engaging in this officious task. But to you, Sir, I make none: It is enough if any benefits to yourself or others may be derived from it.

I am, with respect, &c.