ause they scarcely ever occurred to them. An easy,
unforced strain of sentiment runs through their compositions; though at
the same time we may observe, that, amidst the most elegant simplicity
of thought and expression, one is sometimes surprised to meet with a
poor conceit, which had presented itself unsought for, and which the
author had not acquired critical observation enough to condemn.[*]

* The name of Polynices, one of OEdipus's sons, means in the
original "much quarrelling." In the altercations between the
two brothers, in AEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, this
conceit is employed; and it is remarkable, that so poor a
conundrum could not be rejected by any of these three poets,
so justly celebrated for their taste and simplicity. What
could Shakspeare have done worse? Terence has his "inceptio
est amentium, non amanthim." Many similar instances will
occur to the learned. It is well known that Aristotle treats
very seriously of puns, divides them into several classes,
and recommends the use of them to orators.

A bad taste seizes with avidity these frivolous beauties, and even
perhaps a good taste, ere surfeited by them: they multiply every day
more and more in the fashionable compositions: nature and good sense are
neglected: labored ornaments studied and admired: and a total degeneracy
of style and language prepares the way for barbarism and ignorance.
Hence the Asiatic manner was found to depart so much from the simple
purity of Athens: hence that tinsel eloquence which is observable in
many of the Roman writers, from which Cicero himself is not wholly
exempted, and which so much prevails in Ovid, Seneca, Lucan, Martial,
and the Plinys.

On the revival of letters, when the judgment of the public is yet raw
and unformed, this false glitter catches the eye, and leaves no room,
either in eloquence or poetry, for the durable beauties of solid sense
and lively passion. The reigning genius is then diametrically opposite
to that which prevails on the first origin of arts. The Italian writers,
it is evident, even the most celebrated, have not reached the proper
simplicity of thought and composition; and in Petrarch, Tasso, Guarini,
frivolous witticisms and forced conceits are but too predominant. The
period during which letters were cultivated in Italy was so short, as
scarcely to allow leisure for correcting this adulterated relish.

The more early Frenc