O F

CRITICISM.

VOLUME II.

The FOURTH EDITION.

With ADDITIONS and IMPROVEMENTS.

EDINBURGH:

Printed for A. MILLAR and T. CADDEL, London;

O F

CRITICISM.

CHA P. XVIII.

BEAUTY OF LANGUAGE.

Fall the fine arts, painting only and fculpture are in their nature imitative. An ornamented field is not a

copy or imitation of nature, but nature itself embellished. Architecture deals in originals, and copies not from nature. Sound and motion may in fome measure be imitated by mufic; but for the most part, music, like architecture, deals in originals. Language copies not from nature, more than mufic or architecture; unless where, like mufic, it is imitative of found or motion in the description, for example, of particular founds, language fometimes furnisheth words, which, befide their cuftomary power of exciting ideas, refemble by their softness or A 2 harfhness