delicacy of painting, to exprefs and to blend with confiftency all the feveral properties which are afcribed to him. That of Richard is marked by more careless ftrokes, but they are, notwithstanding, perfectly just. Much bad compofition may indeed be found in the part; it is a fault from which the best of Shakespeare's plays are not exempt, and with which this play particular abounds; and the taste of the age in which he wrote, though it may afford fome excufe, yet cannot entirely vindicate the exceptionable paffages. After every reasonable allowance, they muft ftill remain blemishes ever to be lamented; but happily, for the most part, they only obfcure, they do not disfigure his draughts from nature. Through whole fpeeches and fcenes, character is often wanting; but in the worst inftances of this kind, Shakefpeare is but infipid; he is not inconfiftent, and in his peculiar excellence of drawing characters, though he often neglects to exert his talents, he is very rarely guilty of perverting them." Of LOGIC, or the ART of REASONING. [From SYLVA, or the Wood; being a Collection of Anecdotes, Differtations, &c.] OGIC, or (as it may truly "L be called) the art of dif puting fophiftically, makes a confiderable part of our academical education : yet Gaffendus, who was a very great reafoner, has at tempted to prove, that it is, in truth, neither neceffary nor ufeful. He thinks, that reafon, or innate force and energy of understanding, is fufficient of itfelf; that its own natural movements, without any difcipline from art, are equal to the investigation and fettling of truth; that it no more wants the affiftance of Logic to conduct to this, than the eye wants a lanthorn to enable it to fee the fun: and, however he might admit as curious, he would doubtlefs have rejected as ufelefs, all fuch productions, as Quillet's Callipedia, Thevenot on the Art of Swimming, or Borelli de Motu Animalium; upon the firmest perfuafion that the innate force and energy of nature, when 2 inftinct honeftly does her beft, is fure to attain thofe feveral objects, without any didactic rules or precepts. "If Logic therefore be not neceffary, it is probably of no great ufe: and indeed it has been deemed not only an impertinent but a pernicious fcience. "Logic," fays Lord Bacon, "is ufually taught too early in life. That minds, raw and unfurnished with matter, fhould begin their cultivation from fuch a science, is just like learning to weigh or meafure the wind. Hence, what in young men fhould be manly reafoning, often degenerates into ridiculous affectations and childifh fophiftry." Certainly, where materials are wanting, the difpute must turn altogether upon. words; and the whole will be conducted with the fleight and le gerdemain of fophiftry. "Many appearances may tempt one to fufpect, that the understanding, ftanding, difciplined with Logic, is not fo competent for the inveftigation of truth, as if left to its natural operations. "A man of wit," fays Bayle, "who applies himfelf long and clofely to logic, feldom fails of becoming a caviller; and by his fophiftical fubtleties perplexes and embroils the very thefes he hath defended. He chufes to deftroy his own works rather than forbear difputing; and he starts fuch objections against his own opinions, that his whole art cannot folve them. Such is the fate of those who apply themselves too much to the fubtleties of dialectics." This is the opinion of Bayle, who probably knew from feeling and experience the truth of what he said for he was as very great logician, as well as a very great fceptic. ; "Our memorable Chillingworth is another inftance to prove, that logic, inftead of affilting, may poffibly obftruct and hurt the understanding. Chillingworth, fays Lord Clarendon, who knew him well, was a man of great fubtlety of understanding, and had fpent all his younger time in difputation; of which he arrived to fo great a mastery, as not to be inferior to any man, in those fkirmifhes: but he had, with his notable perfection in this exercise, contracted fuch an irrefolution and habit of doubting, that by degrees he grew confident in nothing, and a fceptic at least in the greatest myfteries of faith. All his doubts grew out of himfelf, when he affifted his fcruples with the strength of his own reafon, and was then too hard for himself." [82] ADVANTAGES ATTENDING QUOTATIONS. any thing elfe; of citing Ovid and Tibullus at the bar, Horace and Lucretius in the pulpit: where, fays, he, “Latin and fometimes Creek are the languages chofen to entertain the women and church wardens with." And doubtlefs, nothing can be more abfurd and ridiculous than this; by this an author's fen'e, if peradventure he had any, is almoft fuppreffed and fmothered under his learning; and, as Ovid faid of a girl overloaded with drefs and ornament, he is fo garnifhed out with foreign materials, as to be, in truth, the leaft part of himfelf. Mean while, as Bayle obferves upon Bruyere, "it is to be feared, that the very oppofite custom of not citing at all, into which we are fallen, will make learning too much defpifed, as a piece of furniture entirely ufelefs." And he has elfewhere mentioned, as one principal cause of neglect, in the ftudy of the Pelles Lettres, that a great many wits, real or pretended, have, with an air of difdain, run down the custom of citing Greek authors, and making learned remarks, as fo much pedantry, and fit only for a college. "It is however certain, that many pleating as well as ufeful purposes may be ferved by quota tions, judicioufly made and aptly applied. It is pleafing to know, while contemplating any fubject, what other writers, men of name and abilities, have thought and faid upon it: and then the variety, which the frequent introduction of new perfonages (as I may call them) creates, wil greatly contribute to enliven attention, and thereby keep off wearinefs and difguit. With the Greek and Latin authors the claffical reader is always entertained: "Mr. Clarke's book of coins is much above my my pitch," faid the learned Mark- "But quotation is ufeful, as "Again, the practice of quoting from other writers, and especially from the Greek and Roman authors of antiquity, is ufeful, in as much (as above hinted) it must give fome countenance and fanction even to letters themfelves: letters! neglected, declining letters! and with them declining all that is wife, and excellent, and beautiful, and polifhed. How would an aftoniflied macaroni fiare, to be affured, that the civilization of kingdoms is founded upon letters; and that, in proportion as thefe are cultivated, fo is nearly the progrefs of mankind from their mot rude and favage flate, up to that perfection of ele gance 1 gance and refinement, which beameth forth from his all-finished and refulgent perion! I fpeak according to the gentleman's own idea of himfelf. "Laftly, were the practice of quoting once received and established, this great advantage would farther accrue to letters, viz. That it would reduce the bulk of fcribblers, with which they are difgraced. Nothing is more common in these days, than for men to begin to write, and affect to be authors, not only before they understand Greek and Latin, but before they have any real or accurate knowledge of English. it is enough for them, if they can fpell with tolerable exactnefs for this accomplishment joined with fuch materials as Magazines, Reviews and other public prints fupply, is ufually the ftock in trade with which authors now, as well as critics, fet up. In fhort, writing is become a mere manual operation; and books are made every day by men without genius, without letters, who are but barely fufficient to tranfcribe, at the most to compile. Upon which account it might well be wifhed, that every one who prefumes to write, efpecially upon matters of religion and government (for in romance and moral painting it is not neceffary), hould be obliged to fupport his meaning, once at least with some Greek, and once with fome Latin, citation; and fhould produce at the fame time a true and well authenticated teftimonial, that these citations were not furnished by another, but bona fide his own act and deed. A teft of this fort would give a mighty check to fcribbling; and fave reams of paper, whish are every moment going to perishperituræ parcere charta. "Upon the whole, therefore, let us not condemn, and affectedly avoid, the citation of authors; falfely delicate, falfely faftidious. Let us recollect, that the greatest and most respectable wiiters have done this: that Cicero, Plutarch, Seneca, Bacon, Montaigne, and Montefjuieu, left nothing unborrowed from others, which might ferve to embellifh their own writings; and that the things thus borrowed may, if fkilfully applied, have not only all the energy of their old fituation, but all the graces of invention in their new one. And why fhould they not? there being no less w`t in juftly applying the thought of another, than in being the firft author of that thought. At least, fo fays Mr. Bayle; whom I have quoted the more freely upon this topic, becaufe he was a very great wit, as well as a very great scholar." Of the ECCENTRICITIES of IMAGINATION. [From the fame Work.] “A Certain writer, apologizing for the irregularities of great genii, delivers himself thus: The gifts of imagination bring the heaviest tafk upon the vigilance of reafon; and to bear thofe faculties with unerring rectitude or invariable propriety, requires a degree of firmnets and of cool attention, which doth not always attend the higher gifts of the mind. Yet, difficult as nature herself feems to have reduced the task of regu larity to genius, it is the fupreme F 1 con. confolation of dulnefs to feize upon thofe exceffes, which are the overflowings of faculties they never enjoyed. Are not the gifts of imagination here mistaken for the ftrength of paffions? Doubtlefs, where ftrong paffions accompany great parts, as perhaps they often do, there imagination may increase their force and activity: but where paffions are calm and gentle, imagination of itself fhould feem to have no conflict but fpeculatively with reafon. There indeed it wages an eternal war; and, if not controuled and ftrictly regulated, will carry the patient into endless extravagancies. I ufe with propriety the term patient; because men, under the influence of ima gination, are most truly distempered. The degree of this distemper will be in proportion to the prevalence of imagination over reason, and, according to this proportion, amount to more or lefs of the whimfical; but when reafon fhall become as it were extinct, and imagination govern alone, then the diflemper will be madnefs under the wildest and most fantastic modes. Thus one of thefe invalids, perhaps, fhall be all forrow for having been most unjustly deprived of the crown; though his vocation, poor man! be that of a fchoolAnother is all joy, like Horace's madman; and it may feem even cruelty to cure him. A third all fear; and dares not make water, left he should cause a deluge. might moft fuccefsfully be oppofed to the delufions of imagination, as being proof to the fenfes, and carrying conviction unavoidably to the understanding: but I fufpect, that the underflanding, or reafoning faculty, hath little to do in all these cafes: at least so it should seem from the two following, which are very remarkable, and well attested. 66 Fienus, in his curious little book De Viribus Imaginationis, records from Donatus the cafe of a man, who fancied his body increased to fuch a fize, that he durft not attempt to pass through the door of his chamber. The phyfician, believing that nothing could more effectually cure this error of imagi nation than to fhew that the thing could actually be done, caufed the patient to be thrust forcibly through it: who, ftruck with horror, and falling fuddenly into agonies, complained of being crushed to pieces, and expired foon after.-Reason, certainly, was not concerned here. "The other cafe, as related by Van Swieten, in his Commentaries upon Boerhaave, is that of a learned man, who had ftudied till he fancied his legs to be of glafs; in confequence of which he durft not attempt to ftir, but was conftantly under anxiety about them. His maid, bringing fome wood to the fire, threw it carelessly down; and was feverely reprimanded by her mafter, who was terrified not a little for his legs of glafs. The furly wench, out of all patience with his megrims, as he called them, "The operations and caprices gave him a blow with a log upon of imagination are various and end- the parts affected: which fo enraglefs; and, as they cannot be reduced him, that he inftantly rose up, ed to regularity or fyftem, fo it is highly improbable that any certain method of cure fhould ever be found out for them. It hath generally been thought, that matter of fact and from that moment recovered the ufe of his legs.-Was reason concerned any more here? or, was it not rather one blind impulfe acting against another?" ESTIMATE |