cydides. This fault the Halicarnaffian has noted in him, but I think has himself avoided altogether; for, unlefs where his text is corrupted, I think he is a very clear author, fo clear that, in many places, a good Greek scholar can, at the first reading, correct the error of the manuscript. Hudfon's edition from the Oxford prefs is. an excellent one; only I think he should have taken into the text all the corrections from MSS. which he mentions at the bottom of his page, particularly from the Vattican MS. And there are fome emendations fuggested by fuch critics as Sylbrugius and Harry Stephen, which are so evident, that I think he ought to have admitted them into the text, and degraded the common reading to the bottom of the page: And I should be very glad if the learned in Oxford would take the trouble to publish an edition of him in that form, and without a tranflation, fo that it might be carried about in two or three pocket volumes. For it is a book that a fcholar ought

Nocturna verfare manu, verfare diurna.

CHAP. VI.

In judging of what is proper in writing, the fubject only to be confidered-Stile, divided according to the fubject, is of fix kinds,-1. Epiftolary ftile,-should be concife, and without any thing like compofition in periods.-The ancients excelled in that kind of writing as well as in every other.-2. Dialogue writing,―That nothing else but converfation written.Of the file of converfation,-few excel in it.—Bodily qualities necessary for that excellence.-Some fo deficient in thefe, that it is impoffible they can converfe agreeably.-Speaking and moving diftinguish a gentleman and lady more than any thing elfe.-Both ftudied more in France than in Britain.-Defects of pronunciation in private converfation may be corrected.Of the fault of too faft Speaking.--Of the conVOL. IV.

trary extreme.-Of Speaking too flow and with an affected gravity.-Of too ftrong emphafis in fpeaking.-Too much study to Speak well must not be shown in private converfation.-Provincial and profeffional dialects to be avoided.-Verfes well repeated, an ornament of converfation.-Of politeness in converfation;-four things required in order to be polite.

W

HAT is decent, proper, and becoming is principal in all the arts, being that, without which no performance in any art can please; yet it is not nor cannot be comprehended in any art, as Cicero informs us*: Nor can it be otherwise perceived, but by a natural sense of the pulchrum and decorum, which is the foundation of excellence in all the arts, but which no art or teaching can beftow, if nature has denied it.

* (Cicero De Oratore, lib. i. cap. 29.) And for this he quotes a great artist in his time, I mean Rofcius, fo great, that a man, who excelled in any art, was faid to be a Rofcius in that art.”

What is fit, decent, or proper in the practice of the writing art, depends upon three things: The nature of the subject; the character of the writer; and, lastly, the character and disposition of the persons to whom he writes. The two laft confiderations belong to public speaking or oratory, rather than to writing; for the author may be altogether unknown, or, if known, his character has commonly nothing to do with his work; and as to thofe to whom it is addreffed, it is the world in general for whom most authors write. It is therefore the subject of the writing which I fhall only confider, as that which muft determine what is fit, proper, and becoming in the stile and manner of treating it.

According to this way of confidering ftile, there will be fix different kinds of ftile to be examined: The epiftolary ftile; The dialogue ftile; The narrative or hiftorical; The didactic; The rhetorical; And, laftly, the poetical. I will begin with the epiftolary.

As the fubject of a letter is commonly the ordinary affairs of life, such as are

talked of in converfation, the ftile of it, as well as of converfation, fhould be plain and fimple, confifting of words of common ufe, and without periods or any thing that can be called compofition. It should be lefs diffuse than the ftile of conversation, but it must have nothing of the affected and obfcure brevity of Tacitus. It may be compared with the philofophical stile in this refpect, that it ought to be both accurate and concife, and without any afcititious ornaments: And therefore it is not to be wondered that Aristotle, whose philofophical ftile is fo admirable, fhould excell fo much in letter writing, as we are told he did *. There are no letters of his preserved; but there are many of other antients, more than fufficient to fhew their excellence in that kind of writing, as well every other t

as in

*Vol. iii. of this work, p. 353.

In p. 206. of the fame Volume, I have given the words of a letter of Lentulus, preferved to us by Salluft. I will give here the words of a letter of Julius Caefar, to his friends Appius and Cornelius, which Cicero has preferved to us, lib. ix. epift. ad Atticum epist. 16.