on all hands, that beauty, as
well as virtue, lies always in a medium; but where this medium is placed
is the great question, and can never be sufficiently explained by
general reasonings.

I shall deliver it as a third observation on this subject, "That we
ought to be more on our guard against the excess of refinement than that
of simplicity; and that because the former excess is both less beautiful
and more dangerous than the latter."

It is a certain rule that wit and passion are entirely inconsistent.
When the affections are moved, there is no place for the imagination.
The mind of man being naturally limited, it is impossible all his
faculties can operate at once; and the more any one predominates, the
less room is there for the others to exert their vigour. For this reason
a greater degree of simplicity is required in all compositions, where
men and actions and passions are painted, than in such as consist of
reflections and observations. And as the former species of writing is
the more engaging and beautiful, one may safely, upon this account, give
the preference to the extreme of simplicity above that of refinement.

We may also observe, that those compositions which we read the oftenest,
and which every man of taste has got by heart, have the recommendation
of simplicity, and have nothing surprising in the thought when divested
of that elegance of expression and harmony of numbers with which it is
cloathed. If the merit of the composition lies in a point of wit, it may
strike at first; but the mind anticipates the thought in the second
perusal, and is no longer affected by it. When I read an epigram of
Martial, the first line recalls the whole; and I have no pleasure in
repeating to myself what I know already. But each line, each word in
Catullus has its merit; and I am never tired with the perusal of him. It
is sufficient to rim over Cowley once; but Parnel, after the fiftieth
reading, is fresh as at the first. Besides, it is with books as with
women, where a certain plainness of manner and of dress is more engaging
than that glare of paint and airs and apparel which may dazzle the eye
but reaches not the affections. Terence is a modest and bashful beauty,
to whom we grant every thing, because he assumes nothing, and whose
purity and nature make a durable though not a violent impression upon
us.

But refinement, as it is the less beautiful, so it is the more dangerous
extreme, and what we are the aptest t