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.