that it
entertains as much as the picture of the most magnanimous hero or
softest lover.

The case is the same with orators, philosophers, critics, or any author
who speaks in his own person without introducing other speakers or
actors. If his language be not elegant, his observations uncommon, his
sense strong and masculine, he will in vain boast his nature and
simplicity. He may be correct, but he never will be agreeable. 'Tis the
unhappiness of such authors that they are never blamed nor censured. The
good fortune of a book and that of a man are not the same. The secret
deceiving path of life, which Horace talks of--_fallentis semita
vitae_--may be the happiest, lot of the one, but is the greatest
misfortune that the other can possibly fall into.

On the other hand, productions which are merely surprising, without
being natural, can never give any lasting entertainment to the mind. To
draw chimaeras is not, properly speaking, to copy or imitate. The
justness of the representation is lost, and the mind is displeased to
find a picture which bears no resemblance to any original. Nor are such
excessive refinements more agreeable in the epistolary or philosophic
style, than in the epic or tragic. Too much ornament is a fault in every
kind of production. Uncommon expressions, strong flashes of wit, pointed
similes, and epigrammatic turns, especially when laid too thick, are a
disfigurement rather than any embellishment of discourse. As the eye, in
surveying a Gothic building, is distracted by the multiplicity of
ornaments, and loses the whole by its minute attention to the parts; so
the mind, in perusing a work overstocked with wit, is fatigued and
disgusted with the constant endeavour to shine and surprise. This is the
case where a writer over-abounds in wit, even though that wit should be
just and agreeable. But it commonly happens to such writers, that they
seek for their favourite ornaments even where the subject affords them
not; and by that means have twenty insipid conceits for one thought that
is really beautiful.

There is no subject in critical learning more copious than this of the
just mixture of simplicity and refinement in writing; and, therefore,
not to wander in too large a field, I shall confine myself to a few
general observations on that head.

First, I observe, "That though excesses of both kinds are to be avoided,
and though a proper medium ought to be studied in all productions; yet
this medium