to please, but only fuch an enumeration as may give a lively and interesting idea. It is not memory, or the knowledge of rules, that can qualify a poet for this fort of defcription; but a peculiar liveli nefs of fancy and fenfibility of heart, the nature whereof we may explain by its effects, but we cannot lay down rules for the attainment of it.

When our mind is occupied by any emotion, we naturally use words, and meditate on things, that are fuitable to it, and tend to encourage it. If a man were to write a letter when he is very angry, there would probably be fome thing of vehemence or bitterness in the ftyle, even though the perfon to whom he wrote were not the object of his anger. The fame thing holds true of every other ftrong paffion or emotion:- while it predominates in the mind, it gives a peculiarity to our thoughts, as well as to our voice, gefture, and countenance; and hence we expect, that every perfonage introduced in poetry fhould fee things through the medium of his ruling paffion, and that his thoughts and language thould be tinctured accordingly. A melancholy man walking in a grove, attends to thofe things that fuit and encourage his melancholy; the fighing of the wind in the trees, the murmuring of waters, the darkness and folitude of the fhades: a chearful man in the fame place, finds many fubjects of chearful meditation, in the finging of birds, the brisk motions of the babbling ftream, and the liveliness and variety of the ver. dure. Perfons of different characters, contemplating the fame thing, a Roman triumph, for instance, feel different emotions, and turn their view to different objects. One is filled with wonder at fuch a display of wealth and power; another exults in the idea of conqueft, and pants for military renown; a third, ftunned with clamour, and baraffed with confufion, wishes for filence, fecurity, and folitude; one melts with pity to the vanquished, and makes many a fad reflection upon the infignificance of worldly grandeur, and the uncertainty of human things; while the buffoon, and perhaps the philofopher, confiders the whole as a vain piece of pageantry, which, by its folemn procedure, and by the admiration of fo many people, is only rendered the more ridiculous:- and each of these perfons would defcribe it in a way fuitable to his own feelings, and

tending to raise the fame in others. We fee in Milton's Allegro and Penferofo, how a different caft of mind produces variety in the manner of conceiving and contemplating the fame rural scenery In the former of thefe excellent poems the author perfonates a chearful man and takes notice of thofe things in exter nal nature that are fuitable to cheartu thoughts, and tend to encourage them in the latter, every object described i ferious and folemn, and productive o calm reflection and tender melancholy and I fhould not be easily perfuaded, the Milton wrote the first under the influenc of forrow, or the fecond under that gladnefs.- We often fee an author's cha racter in his works; and if every authe were in earnest when he writes, we shoul oftener fee it. Thomfon was a man‹ piety and benevolence, and a warm ac mirer of the beauties of nature; an every defeription in his delightful poe on the Seafons tends to raise the fam laudable affections in his reader. Th parts of nature that attract his notice a thofe which an impious or hard-hearte man would neither attend to nor be a fected with, at leaft in the fame manne In Swift we fee a turn of mind very di ferent from that of the amiable Thomfon little relifh for the fublime or beautiful and a perpetual fucceffion of violent e motions. All his pictures of human li feem to fhow, that deformity and meat nefs were the favourite objects of h attention, and that his foul was a com ftant prey to indignation, difguft, an other gloomy paffions arifing from fuch view of things. And it is the tendenc of almoft all his writings (though it w. not always the author's defign) to com municate the fame paffions to his reade infomuch that, notwithstanding his eru dition, and knowledge of the world, hi abilities as a popular orator and man bufinefs, the energy of his ftyle, the legance of fome of his verfes, and b extraordinary talents in wit and humour there is reason to doubt, whether by ftu dying his works any perfon was eve much improved in piety or benevolence

And thus we fee how the compofition of an ingenious author may operate up

For part of this remark, we have hi ry explicitly in the Latin Epitaph which h own authority, often in his letters, and ve composed for himself: "ubi fæva indigna tio ulterius cor lacerare nequit." See his la will and teftament.

on the heart, whatever be the fubject. The affections that prevail in the author himfelf direct his attention to objects congenial, and give a peculiar bias to his inventive powers, and a peculiar colour to his language. Hence his work, as well as face, if Nature is permitted to exert herself freely in it, will exhibit a picture of his mind, and awaken correfpondent fympathies in the reader. When thefe are favourable to virtue, which they always ought to be, the work will have that fweet pathos which Horace alludes to in the paffage above mentioned; and which we fo highly admire, and fo warmly approve, even in thofe parts of the Georgic that defcribe inanimate na ture."

All this appears to us not only ingenious, but ftrictly philofophical and juft. Dr Beattie goes on to obferve, that the true poet must not only ftudy nature, and know the reality of things, but muft allo poffefs fancy, to invent additional decorations; judgement, to direct him in the choice of fuch as accord with ve riimilitude; and fenfibility, to enter with ardent emotions into every part of his fubject, fo as to transfufe into his work a pathos and energy fufficient to raile correfponding emotions in the readet-Poetical reprefentations must be fra med after a pattern of the highest probable perfection that the genius of the work will admit;-external nature muft be more picturefque than in reality; action more animated; fentiments more expreffive of the feelings and character, and more fuitable to the circumftances of the fpeaker; perfonages better accomplished in thofe qualities that raife admiration, pity, terror, and other ardent emotions; and events, more compact, more clearly connected with caufes and confequences, and unfolded in an order more flattering to the fancy, and more interefting to the paffions. If it be afked, Where is this pattern of perfection to be found? our author answers, Not in real nature; otherwife hiftory, which delineates real nature, would alfo delineate this pattern of perfection. It is to be found only in the mind of the poet; and it is imagination, regulated by knowledge, that enables him to form it.

The fourth chapter treats of Poetical Characters; and contains many ingenious and pertinent remarks upon the characters in Homer, Virgil, Milton, &c.

The fubject of the fifth is, Poetical Ar

rangement; and here the author illu ftrates, in a very agreeable and entertaining manner, what he had before remarked, viz. that the events of poetry muft be more compact, more clearly connected with caufes and confequences, and unfolded in an order more flattering to the imagination, and more interefting to the pallions, than the events of history commonly are."

The fixth chapter contains remarks on Mufic;-and is divided into three fections;-the firft of which is introduced with fome general obfervations on our natural propensity to imitation,-on the feveral caufes which feem to co-operate in producing the pleasure which we take in witnefling tragical imitations of human action, even while they move us to pity and forrow; -on imitation's being a plentiful fource of pleasure, &c.

Imitative mufic extends, Dr Beattie fays, to thofe natural founds and motions only, which are agreeable in themselves, confiftent with melody and harmony, and affociated with agreeable affections and fentiments. Its merit is fo inconfiderable, he thinks, that mufic purely inftrumental is rather hurt than improved by it; and vocal mufic employs it only as an help to the expreffion, except in fome rare cafes, where the imitation is itself expreffive as well as agreeable, and at the fame time within the power of the human voice. It is proper to obferve, that by imitative mufic, our author must always be underftood to mean that which imitates natural founds and motions.

Mufic, according to Dr Beattie, is pleafing, not becaufe it is imitative, but because certain melodies and harmonies have an aptitude to raife certain paflions, affections, and fentiments, in the foul; and, confequently, the pleasures we derive from melody and harmony are feldom or never refolvable into that delight which the human mind receives from the imitation of nature.

In the fecond fection he inquires a little into the nature of this aptitude; and endeavours, from acknowledged principles of the human conftitution, to explain the caufe of that pleasure which mankind derive from mufic. He does not attempt a complete inveftigation of the fubject, nor indeed any thing more than a few curfory remarks; and having no theory to fupport, and the topic, though amufing, not being of any great

utility,

utility, he is neither pofitive in his affertions, nor abftrufe in his reasonings.

The third fection contains conjectures on fome peculiaries of national mufic; but for what the author advances on this fubject, we must refer to the work itself. He appears, through the whole of what he fays upon mufic, to have a hearty zeal for the honour of an art, which he thinks capable of being improved into an inftrument of virtue as well as of plea. fure. Whether his fentiments in regard to mufic, confidered as an imitative art, be juft or not, we shall not take upon us to determine; we will venture to affirm, however, that he supports and illuftrates them in a very ingenious and entertaining manner.

As a great part of the pleasure we derive from poetry depends on our fympathetic feelings, the philofophy of sympa thy, our author fays, ought always to form a part of the fcience of criticifm; accordingly, in his feventh chapter, he makes a few brief remarks upon the fubject.

Sympathy, as the means of conveying certain feelings from one breaft to another, might be made a powerful inftrument, he fays, of moral difcipline, if the poets, and other writers of fable, were careful to call forth our fenfibility towards those emotions only that favour virtue, and invigorate the human mind. Fictions, that breathe the fpirit of patriotifm or valour; that make us fympathife with the parental, conjugal, or filial charities; that recommend misfortune to our pity, or expofe crimes to our abhorrence, may certainly be useful in a moral view, by cherishing paffions, that, while they improve the heart, can hardly be indulged to excefs. But thofe dreadful tales, he obferves, that only give anguish to the reader, can never do any good: they fatigue, enervate, and overwhelm the foul; and when the calamities they defcribe fall upon the innocent, our moral principles are in fome danger of temporary depravation from the perufal, whatever refemblance the fable may be fuppofed to bear to the events of real life. Some late authors of fiction feem to have thought it incumbent on them not only to touch the heart, but to tear it in pieces. They heap misfortune on miffortune, grief on grief, without end, and without mercy which difcompofes the reader too much to give him either pleafure or improvement; and is contrary to

the practice of the wifer ancients, whofe moft pathetic fcenes were generally short.

We now proceed to the fecond part; wherein the author confiders the INSTRUMENT which poetry employs in its imitations, or, in other words, explains the general nature of POETIC LANGUAGE; language being the poet's inftrument of imitation, as found is the mufician's, and colour the painter's. Now, words in poetry are chofen, first, for their fenfe; and, fecondly, for their found: accordingly, he confiders poetical language, firft, as SIGNIFICANT; and, fecondly, as SUSCEPTIBLE OF HARMONY.

Having endeavoured to prove, in the firft part of his effay, that poetical fictions are imitative of real events, poetical images of real appearances in the vi fible creation, and poetical perfonages of real human characters, it would seem to follow, our author fays, that the language of poetry must be an imitation of the lau guage of nature. Accordingly, his first inquiry is, What is meant by natural lenguage?

Language is then according to nature, we are told, when it is fuitable to the fuppofed condition of the speaker, mean. ing by the word condition, not only the outward circumstances of fortune, rank, employment, fex, age, and nation, but alfo the internal temperature of the underftanding and paffions, as well as the peculiar nature of the thoughts that may happen to occupy the mind.

His next inquiry is, What are those improvements that peculiarly belong to the language of poetry? And here he fhews, that natural language is improved in poetry by the use of poetical words, and by means of tropes and figures.It would give us pleasure to infert fome of his obfervations upon this fubject, and upon that of poetical harmony, but the bounds affigned to this article will not admit of it. [To be continued.] An address to the people of Scotland, upon the alarms that have been raised in regard to Popery. By George Campbell, D.D. Principal of Marifchal college, Aberdeen, pp. 61. 8 d. or on coarse paper 4 d. Creech, Edinburgh; Cadell, London, &c.

His addrefs is divided into three chap

ters 1. The doctrine of the gospel in regard to perfecution, particularly of perfecutors; 2. The conclufions to which

found