BOOK IL rapture and enthusiasm, which gives its tincture to all the thoughts and expressions of the man who possesses it, and prompts to impassioned eloquence whenever its objects are the matter of his discourse or writings *. Now the reader of the Elements of Criticism cannot fail to remark, that this criterion of feeling is wanting in that most ingenious work. It may, no doubt, be plausibly argued, that, as the author's undertaking demanded a spirit of cool and sober thought, and an exercise of the judgment, purged, if possible, from all allay of passion or enthusiasim, he made it a law to himself to avoid all rapturous expressions, and even to suppress the emotions that prompt them: but besides that it may reasonably be questioned whether such violence to the feelings were truly necessary, and, on the con

The composition of Longinus, contrasted with that of Aristotle, affords an apposite illustration. The impassioned diction of the former leaves no room to doubt that he posses-" sed strong native feelings; while the cool and sober strain of investigation employed by the latter, who is never for a moment warmed by his subject, gives equal conviction of the absence of that genuine sensibility.

trary, were not in many places rather felt as a palpable defect than as an excellence, I am inclined to believe, that such a rigorous discipline of the feelings, supposing them to have much native strength, is utterly impracticable. They must at times have manifested themselves, in spite of every effort to repress them; Naturam expellas furcâ licèt, usque recurret. But when, to these presumptions, is added the positive proof arising from erroneous judgment in matters of taste, which we sometimes find in the Elements of Criticism; as, for example, the censure bestowed on the Gothic architecture, without the least notice of its striking beauties; and the equally unqualified panegyric of the Mourning Bride of Congreve, as the most perfect specimen of the English drama, without any reproof of its unnatural sentiments and bombast; this evidence seems to be decisive of the question, and to leave no room for doubt, that the general correctness of the author's taste was more the result of study and attention, than of any extraordinary sensibility in the structure of his mind to the emotions excited by the productions of the fine arts,

CHAP.

IV.

BOOK 11.

The science of philosophical criticism has

Works pro- been, with propriety, termed a New Coun

ceeding

from the

school of Lord

Kames.

Philosophy

try; and as it must be admitted that the

author of Elements of Criticism was the first Campbell's discoverer, so it may be observed to his hoof Rhetoric. nour, that he has made farther advances into the interior of that country than any traveller who has pursued the same track. This praise has been assigned him by one of the most able of his followers, I mean Dr CAMPBELL, the author of the Philosophy of Rhetoric *, who, in that useful work, has

In describing the progress of the critical art, Dr Camp bell observes," By the first step, (the examination of the "works of genius), the critic is supplied with materials. By "the second, these materials are distributed and classed:

the forms of argument, the tropes and figures of speech are "explained. By the third, the rules of composition are dis"covered, or the method of combining and disposing the se"veral materials. By the fourth, we arrive at that know"ledge of human nature, which, besides its other advantages, "adds both weight and evidence to all precedent discoveries " and rules.—This last step may be said to bring us into a

new country of which, though there have been some suc"cessful incursions occasionally made upon its frontiers, we "are not yet in full possession. The performance, which, " of all those I happen to be acquainted with, seems to have "advanced farthest in this way, is, The Elements of Criti« cism.”—Introduction to Philosophy of Rhetoric, p. 18.— 20.

IV.

successfully applied to the science which he CHAP. treats, the same method of investigation which Lord Kames has prescribed and exemplified in tracing out the principles of a right judgment in all the works of genius and imagination. The Philosophy of Rhetoric, is a work modelled upon the plan of Aristotle's Treatise on that subject, in so far as it professes to delineate the human mind, as well in its active principles, as in its passions or moral feelings; and it involves, in addition to this plan, the application of these principles to the art of rhetoric, in all its branches; in the manner in which Lord Kames has applied them to the more comprehensive science of criticism in all the fine arts *. Both authors illustrate their theo

"

Dr Campbell, in his preface, observes, " It is his pur#6 pose in this work, on the one hand, to exhibit, he does not 66 say a correct map, but a tolerable sketch of the human mind; and aided by the lights which the poet and the "orator so amply furnish, to disclose its secret movements, tracing its principal channels of perception and action, as ་ near as possible to their source: And, on the other hand, " from the science of human nature, to ascertain with greater precision, the radical principles of that art, whose object it "is, by the use of language, to operate on the soul of the "hearer, in the way of informing, pleasing, moving, or per "suading."-Philosophy of Rhetoric, Pref. p. 7.

BOOK IL retical principles by the most copious ex

Mr Alison's
Essay on
Taste.

amples drawn from the works of genius; and in the fitness and beauty of those illustrations, lies perhaps the most certain, as well as the most general utility, of their several labours." No criticism," (says David Hume), “ can be instructive which descends

not to particulars, and is not full of ex"amples and illustrations * ;" and it may be added, that none can be devoid of instruction which is so illustrated.

I have formerly alluded, in a note, to a work which bears a high character among those which treat of philosophical criticism; I mean Mr ALISON'S Essay on the Nature and Principles of Taste. In this truly classical performance, the author has the merit of devising a new theory of the origin of our feelings of the sublime and beautiful. It is his opinion, that the emotions of sublimity and beauty depend altogether on the association of material with mental qualities : that no material objects are truly in them

* HUME's Essays, vol. i. Essay 20. On Simplicity and Refinement.