The paffage is very short from elegance to luxury. Ionick and Corinthian columns are foon fucceeded by gilt cornices, inlaid floors, and petty ornaments, which fhew rather the wealth than the taste of the poffeffor.

Language proceeds, like every thing else, through improvement to degeneracy. The rovers who first take poffeffion of a country, having not many ideas, and those not nicely modified or difcriminated, were contented if by general terms and abrupt fentences they could make their thoughts known to one another; as life begins to be more regulated, and property to become limited, difputes must be decided, and claims adjusted; the differences of things are noted, and distinctness and propriety of expreffion become neceffary. In time, happiness and plenty give rise to curiofity, and the sciences are cultivated for ease and pleasure; to the arts which are now to be taught, emulation foon adds the art of teaching; and the ftudious and ambitious contend not only who shall think best, but who shall tell their thoughts in the most pleasing manner.

Then begin the arts of rhetorick and poetry, the regulation of figures, the selection of words, the modulation of periods, the graces of transition, the complication of claufes, and all the delicacies of style and fubtilties of compofition, useful while they advance perfpicuity, and laudable while they increase pleasure, but easy to be refined by needless fcrupulofity till they fhall more embarrass the writer than affift the reader or delight him.

The firft ftate is commonly antecedent to the practice of writing; the ignorant effays of imperfect

perfect diction pafs away with the favage generation that uttered them. No nation can trace their language beyond the fecond period, and even of that it does not often happen that many monuments remain.

The fate of the English tongue is like that of others. We know nothing of the fcanty jargon of our barbarous ancestors, but we have fpecimens of our language when it began to be adapted to civil and religious purpofes, and find it fuch as might naturally be expected, artlefs and fimple, unconnected and concife. The writers feem to have defired little more than to be understood, and perhaps feldom afpired to the praife of pleafing. Their verfes were confidered chiefly as memorial, and therefore did not differ from profe but by the meafure or the rhyme.

In this state, varied a little according to the different purposes or abilities of writers, our language may be faid to have continued to the time of Gower, whom Chaucer calls his master, and who, however obfcured by his fcholar's popularity, feems justly to claim the honour which has been hitherto denied him, of fhewing his countrymen that fomething more was to be defired, and that English verfe might be exalted into poetry.

From the time of Gower and Chaucer, the English writers have ftudied elegance, and advanced their language, by fucceffive improvements, to as much harmony as it can eafily receive, and as much copioufnefs as human knowledge has hitherto required. Thefe advances have not been made at all times with the fame diligence or the fame fuc

cefs.

cefs. Negligence has fufpended the course of inprovement, or affectation turned it afide; time has elapsed with little change, or change has been made without amendment. But elegance has been long kept in view with attention as near to conftancy as life permits, till every man now endeavours to excel others in accuracy, or outfhine them in fplendour of ftyle, and the danger is, left care fhould too foon pafs to affectation.

NUMB. 64. SATURDAY, July 7, 1759.

SLR,

As

To the IDLER.

S nature has made every man defirous of happiness, I flatter myfelf, that you and your readers cannot but feel fome curiofity to know the fequel of my ftory; for though by trying the different schemes of pleasure, I have yet found nothing in which I could finally acquiefce; yet the narrative of my attempts will not be wholly without ufe, fince we always approach nearer to truth as we detect more and more varieties of error.

When I had fold my racers, and put the orders of architecture out of my head, my next refolution was to be a fine gentleman. I frequented the polite coffee-houses, grew acquainted with all the men of humour, and gained the right of bowing familiarly

to

to half the nobility. In this new fcene of life my great labour was to learn to laugh. I had been ufed to confider laughter as the effect of merriment, but I foon learned that it is one of the arts of adulation, and, from laughing only to fhew that I was pleafed, I now began to laugh when I wished to please. This was at firft very difficult. I fometimes heard the ftory with dull indifference, and, not exalting myself to merriment by due gradations, burst out fuddenly into an awkward noise, which was not always favourably interpreted. Sometimes I was behind the reft of the company, and loft the grace of laughing by delay, and fometimes when I began at the right time was deficient in loudness or in length. But by diligent imitation of the beft models, I attained at laft fuch flexibility of mufcles, that I was always a welcome auditor of a ftory, and got the reputation of a good-natured fellow.

This was fomething; but much more was to be done, that I might be univerfally allowed to be a fine gentleman. I appeared at court on all publick days; betted at gaming tables, and played at all the routs of eminence. I went every night to the opera, took a fidler of difputed merit under my protection, became the head of a mufical faction, and had fometimes concerts at my own houfe. I once thought to have attained the highest rank of elegance, by taking a foreign finger into keeping. But my favourite fidler contrived to be arrested on the night of a concert, for a finer fuit of clothes than I had ever prefumed to wear, and I loft all the fame of patronage by refufing to bail him.

My

My next ambition was to fit for my picture. I Ipent a whole winter in going from painter to painter, to bespeak a whole length of one, and a half length of another; I talked of nothing but attitudes, draperies, and proper lights; took my friends to fee the pictures after every fitting; heard every day of a wonderful performer in crayons and miniature, and fent my pictures to be copied; was told by the judges that they were not like, and was recommended to other artifts. At length, being not able to please my friends, I grew lefs pleased myfelf, and at laft refolved to think no more about it.

I

It was impoffible to live in total idleness: and wandering about in fearch of fomething to do, I was invited to a weekly meeting of virtuofos, and felt myself inftantaneously feized with an unextinguishable ardour for all natural curiofities. ran from auction to auction, became a critick in fhells and foffils, bought a Hortus ficcus of inestimable value, and purchased a fecret art of preferving infects, which made my collection the envy of the other philofophers. I found this pleasure mingled with much vexation. All the faults of my life were for nine months circulated through the town with the most active malignity, because I happened to catch a moth of peculiar variegation; and because I once out-bid all the lovers of shells and carried off a nautilus, it was hinted that the validity of my uncle's will ought to be difputed. I will not deny that I was very proud both of the moth and of the fhell, and gratified myself VOL. VIII.

S

with