To persons of literary taste and discrimination it is a pursuit of no unpleasing or uninstructive nature to examine the various methods, by which many of our best writers have distinguished themselves in the annals of learning, and raised themselves to eminence and renown; to observe the numerous instances of improvement either in idea or expression; and to discover the frequent traces of deep thought, and the obvious marks of diligence, which they have displayed in the final polish and correction of their works. Researches of this description cannot but be productive of infinite pleasure and advantage. They tend to form and enlarge the understanding, and to throw a new light on subjects connected with the various branches of learning and philosophy. They lead the imagination to take a wider range in the walks of literature, and to follow the mind of the writer from the rudeness of its first conceptions to the elegance of its last. It is pleasant also, as Dr. Johnson well remarks in his Life of Milton, to see great works in their seminal state, pregnant with latent possibilities of excellence; nor can there be a more delightful entertainment than to trace their gradual growth and expansion; and to observe how they are sometimes suddenly advanced by accidental hints, and sometimes slowly improved by steady meditation.

In this agreeable and rational pursuit, the attentive reader will find ample materials for employment in the works of our most celebrated divines, philosophers, and poets. He will there perceive such a wide scope for research, and such an expanded field of observation, that it must be the consequence

HORACE.

POPE.

either of indifference or negligence if the study is not attended with the most beneficial effects.

The first author of eminence, whom we may select as remarkable for industry and perseverence in his literary pursuits, is the learned Dr. Barrow. Though an appearance of negligence in his style be occasionally observable, owing probably to the warmth and profusion of his ideas, it is well known that he paid great attention to the structure of his native language. He consequently found it very difficult to please himself; insomuch that he generally transcribed his sermons. three or four times over before he was satisfied with their diction. It is to this patient assiduity that we may ascribe his freedom from that intricacy and protraction, which mark the periods of Lord Clarendon and others of his contempora ries. In Barrow the sentences are perspicuously arranged and divided; seldom, if ever, tedious by their length, and usually closing with cadence and dignity.

The style of Archbishop Tillotson, to use the language of Dr. Blair, is pure and perspicuous, but careless and remiss, and too often feeble and languid; with little beauty in the construction of his sentences, which are frequently suffered to drag inharmoniously with seldom any attempt at strength or sublimity. His manner is free and warm, and he approaches nearer than most of the English divines to the character of popular speaking. We must not indeed consider him in the light of a perfect orator. His compositions are too diffuse, and frequently too destitute of animation, to deserve that high character; but there is in many of his sermons so much, warmth and earnestness, and through

them all there runs such a vein of good sense and sincere piety, as justly entitle him to be esteemed one of the most eminent preachers that England ever produced.

Bishop Atterbury, observes the same judicious critic, ought to be particularly mentioned as a model of correct and beautiful style, besides having the merit of a warmer and more eloquent strain of writing than is commonly met with. At the same time he is more distinguished for eloquence and purity of expression than for profoundness of thought. His language, though sometimes careless, is upon the whole neat and chaste, and more beautiful than that of most writers of sermons. In his sentiments he is not only rational, but pious and devotional. *

To the style and manner of Swift we possess a most striking contrast in the writings of Lord Shaftesbury, who, more than any other author of his age, was solicitous to round and polish his periods. All is elaborate in the compositions of this nobleman; every page bearing witness to the unwearied diligence with which he modulated and constructed his diction. His sentences flow with the most studied cadence, and their clauses are balanced and distributed with the greatest accuracy and precision. He possessed a rich and ardent imagination; and, when describing the beautiful and sublime in nature, his language was nncommonly elegant and appropriate. † The work, entitled "An Enquiry concerning Virtue," is remarkable for the great difference between the first edition and the corrected one, as it now stands among his works; and is mentioned by Dr. Blair as one of the most curious and useful examples of the lima labor, the art of polishing language, breaking long sentences, and working up an imperfect sketch into a beautiful and highly finished performance.

The style of Lord Bolingbroke, on the contrary, is that of one de claiming with heat, rather than writ

He abounds

ing with deliberation. in rhetorical figures, and pours himself forth with great vigour and impetuosity. He is copious even to a fault, places the same thought be fore us in many different views, but generally with life and ardour. He is bold rather than correct; a tor-· rent that flows strong, but often muddy. His sentences are varied as to length and shortness; inclining, however, most to long periods, sometimes including parentheses, and frequently crowding and keep ing a multitude of things upon.one another, as naturally happens in the warmth of speaking.

Sir William Temple is a remark able writer in the style of simplicity. All is easy and flowing in him; he is exceedingly harmonious; smoothness and what may be called amenity are the distinguishing cha.. racteristics of his manner; but he was apt to relax into a prolix and remiss style, which a little attention and a close and careful revision of his subject would easily have conrected.

That in the early part of his life Milton wrote with more than ordi nary care is evident from the ma nuscript of his works preserved in the University of Cambridge, in which many of his smaller poems are found as they were written with the subsequent corrections. Such reliques, says his biographer, shew how excellence is acquired. What we hope ever to do with ease, we must first learn to do with diligence.

It is related by Richardson, that, when Milton was composing his Pas radise lost, he would sometimes lie awake whole nights without being able to make a single verse; but now and then his poetical faculty would rush upon him with a sudden and irresistible inspiration. other times he would dictate more than forty lines in a breath, and then reduce them to half the number.

At

Fenton, in his entertaining observations on Waller, mentions a

Drake's Biographical Essays.

‡ Blair's Lecturës, Sect. XIX.

curious anecdote concerning the great industry and correctness with which Waller polished even his smallest productions. "When the Court was at Windsor, a few verses (not more than ten in number) were written in the Tasso of her Royal Highness the Duchess of York, at Mr. Waller's request, by Sheffield, the late Duke of Buckingham; and 1 well remember to have heard his Grace say that the author employed the greatest part of the summer in composing and correcting them. So that however Waller is generally reputed the parent of that swarm of insect wits, who affected to be thought easy writers, it is evident that he bestowed much time and attention on his poems before he ventured them out of his hands."*

It is well known, says Dr. Warton in his learned Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope, that the works of Voiture, of Sarassin, and La Fontaine cost them infinite pains and trouble, and were gradually la boured into that facility for which they are so famous by the aid of repeated alterations and many erasures. Moliere is reported to have passed whole days in fixing upon a proper epithet or rhyme, although his verses have all the flow and freedom of conversation. It was the practice also of Boileau to make the second line of a couplet before he composed the first; and he was used to declare that it was one of the grand secrets of poetry to give, by this method, a greater energy and meaning to his verses. Of the patience and diligence of this celebrated writer we have a striking example in his "Equivoque," a poem consist ing of only three hundred and forty six lines, which employed him eleven months in writing, and three years in revising.

Considering the period in which he wrote, Addison also was peculiarly attentive, not only to gramma tical purity, but to the modulation of his sentences; which, though never exhibiting any studied cadences, seldom fail to please the

ear.

It is related of him that he was so very particular in his com

positions, that when an entire im pression of a number in the Specta tor was nearly thrown off, he would stop the press to insert a new preposition or conjunction; and ́indeed the numerous and minute errata, annexed to many of his papers in the original folio editions, strongly tend to confirm the report. How early he commenced this critical di ligence is apparent in perusing No. 117 of the Tattler; where he has with his own hand marked for correction many errors in orthography and puctuation, and substituted several words which contributed to the improvement or illustration of the text.

In reading Dr. Johnson's "Lives of the Poets," we find that most of them bestowed great labour and attention in correcting and polishing their different works. Sheffield was all his life-time improving his "Essay on Poetry," by successive revisals, so that there is scarcely any poem to be found of which the last edition differs more from the first. In his remarks on Prior's "Solomon," Dr. Johnson observes, that it was undoubtedly written with great care and labour; that its author bad infused into it much knowledge and much thought, had often polished it to elegance, often dignified it with splendour, and sometimes heightened it even to sublimity.

Dryden was accustomed to pay very little attention either to the propriety of his subject, or to the correctness of his language. He wrote, as he himself tells us, with out much consideration; when occasion or necessity called upon him, he poured out what the present moment happened to supply; and, when once it had passed the press, banished it from his mind; for when he had no pecuniary interest, he had no further solicitude. That the noble music ode," Alexander's Feast." has not received the last touches of the poet's hand, is evident from the frequent deficiency of corresponding rhymes. His "Fables" also, particularly those of Palamon and Arcite, Cymon and Iphigenia, and Sigismonda and Guiscardo, exhibit many

proofs of carelessness in the versification, and a want of dignity both in style and expression.

Pope, on the contrary, was not content to satisfy, he desired to excel; and, therefore, always endeavoured to do his best. He did not court the candour, but dared the judgment of his reader; and expecting no indulgence from others, he shewed none to himself. He examined lines and words with minute and punctilious observation, and retouched every part with indefatigable diligence, till he had left nothing to be forgiven.-For this reason he kept his pieces very long in his hands, while he considered and re-considered them. He is said to have sent nothing to the press until it had lain two years under his inspection. By so doing, he suffered the tumult of imagination to subside, and the novelties of invention to grow familiar. only poems, which can be supposed to have been written with such regard to the times as night hasten their publication, were the two satires of Seventeen Hundred and Thirty-eight;" which, as Dodsley once informed Dr. Johnson, were brought to him by the author, that they might be fairly copied. "Almost every line, he said, then written twice over; I gave him a clean transcript, which he sent some time afterwards to me for the press, with almost every line written twice over a second time."

The

66 was

His declaration, that his care for his works ceased with their publication, is not strictly true. His parental attention never abandoned them; what he found amiss in the first edition, he silently corrected in those that followed. The " Essay on Criticism" received many improvements after its first appearance, as did also the "Essay on Man;" and it will be found, that he seldom made them without adding clearness, elegance, and vigour. He appears, also, to have revised his translation of Homer's Iliad, and to have freed it from some of its imper fections. To those who have skill to estimate the excellence and difficulty of this great work, it must be

very desirable to know how it was performed, and by what gradation it advanced to correctness. Of such an intellectual process, the knowledge has very rarely been attainable; but, happily, there remains the original copy of the Iliad, which, having been obtained by Lord Bolingbroke as a curiosity, descended from him to Mallett, and is now deposited in the British Museum.* As a proof of the unwearied diligence, with which Pope polished and corrected that excellent translation, Dr. Johnson, in his life of that poet, has preserved a specimen which well deserves the study and attention of the reader.

Of the great and uncommon powers of Dr. Johnson, in almost every department of literature, so much has been said by his numerous biogra phers, that it were needless here to enlarge on them; but whilst on the subject of correction, it may not be irrelevant to observe, that many of his Ramblers, which might well be supposed to have been laboured with the 'slow attention of literary leisure, were written in haste as the moment pressed, without ever being read over by him before they were printed. He once assured Sir Joshua Reynolds, that he wrote his Rasselas in the evenings of one week, sent it to the press in portions as it was published, and had never since read it over. The mode, in which he acquired this unusual correctness in composition, can only be accounted for, says Mr. Boswell, in this way; that by reading and meditation, and a very close inspection of life, he had accumulated a great fund of miscellaneous knowledge, which, by a peculiar promptitude of mind, was ever ready at his call, and which he constantly accustomed himself to clothe in the most apt and energetic expressions. Sir Joshua Reynolds once asked him, by what means he had attained such extraordinary accuracy and flow of language, to which he replied, that he had early laid it down as a fixed rule, to do his best on every occasion, and in every company; to impart whatever he knew in the most forcible and correct language; and that by constant practice,