conversation; the dialect peculiar to certain trades; the jargon of beggars, thieves, gamblers, and fops; foreign and provincial barbarisms, and the like. These, if intelligible, may be introduced in burlesque writing with good effect, as in Hudibras and the History of John Bull; but ought never to find a place in serious writing; nor even in the mock heroick, except perhaps in a short characteristical speech, like that of sir Plume in the Rape of the Lock;* nor indeed in any literary work where elegance is expected. This cant style, as it is sometimes called, was very prevalent in England in the latter part of the last century; having been brought in by the courtiers of Charles the second, who, to show their contempt for the solemn character that had distinguished the preceding period, ran into the opposite extreme, and affected profligacy of manners, profaneness of talk, and a loose ungrammatical vulgarity of expression. L'Estrange is full of it, not only in his fables, where burlesque may be pardonable, but even in his translations of Josephus and Tacitus.† Echard, by a similar in

See canto 4. vers. 127.

He makes the grave and sublime Tacitus speak of some gentlemen, "who had feathered their nests in the * civil war between Cesar and Pompey;” and tells us, that the emperor Vitellius was lugged out of his hole by those who came to kill him.

discretion, has transformed the elegant Terence into a writer of farce and buffoonery. Nay, Dryden himself, in one or two instances, and perhaps in more, has burlesqued both Homer and Virgil, by interlarding his translations with this beggarly dialect.* And some imprudent divines

* So heavy a charge against so great an author ought not to be advanced without proof. In Dryden's version of the first book of the Iliad, Jupiter addresses Juno in these words:

My household curse, my lawful plague, the spy

Of Jove's designs, his other squinting eye.

Homer, in the same book, says, "The gods were trou"bled in the palace of Jove, when Vulcan the renown"ed artificer began to address them in these words, "with a view to sooth his beloved mother, the white"armed Juno:" which Dryden thus versifies:

The limping smith observed the sadden'd feast, And hopping here and there, himself a jest, Put in his word, that neither might offend, To Jove obsequious, yet his mother's friend. Homer has been blamed, not without reason, for degrading his gods into mortals; but Dryden has degraded them into blackguards. He concludes the book in a strain of buffoonery as gross as any thing in Hudibras:

Drunken at last, and drowsy, they depart
Each to his house, adorned with labour'd art

have employed it, where it is most pernicious, and absolutely intolerable, even in religion itself.

Rutherford's Letters, well known in North Britain, are notorious in this way; not so much

Of the lame architect. The thundering god,
Even he withdrew to rest, and had his load;
His sweeming head to needful sleep apply'd,
And Juno lay unheeded by his side.

The passage literally rendered is no more than this. "Now, when the shining light of the sun was gone "down, the other gods being inclined to slumber, dc"parted to their several homes, to where Vulcan, the "lame deity, renowned for ingenious contrivance, had "built for each a palace. And Olympian Jove, the thun"derer, went to the bed where, when sleep came up

on him, he was accustomed to repose. Thither ascend"ing, he resigned himself to rest; and near him Juno "distinguished by the golden throne." It is said, that Dryden once intended to translate the whole Iliad. Taking this first book for a specimen, I am glad, both on Homer's account and on his own, that he did not. It is tainted throughout with a dash of burlesque, (owing not only to his choice of words, but also to his paraphrases and additions), and with so much of the profane cant of his age, that if we were to judge of the poet by the translator, we should imagine the Iliad to have been partly designed for a satire upon the clergy.

Virgil, in his ninth eclogue, puts these words in the mouth of an unfortunate shepherd.

O Lycida, vivi pervenimus, advena nostri,
Quod nunquam veriti sumus, ut possessor agelli

for the rudeness of the style in general, for that might be pardoned in a Scotch writer who lived one hundred and twenty years ago, as for the allusions and figures, which are inexcusably gross and groveling. A reader who is unacquainted with the character of Rutherford might imagine, that those letters must have been written with a view to ridicule every thing that is sacred. And though there is reason to believe the author had no bad meaning, one cannot without horrour see religion profaned by a phraseology which one would sooner expect from a profligate clown in an alehouse, than from a clergyman. Such performances are very detrimental to true piety; they pervert the ignorant, and encourage the

Diceret, Hæc mea sunt, veteres migrate coloni.
Nunc victi, tristes, quoniam fors omnia versat,

Hos illi (quod nec bene vertat!) mittimus hædos.

It is strange that Dryden did not perceive the beautiful simplicity of these lines. If he had, he would not have written the following ridiculous translation.

O Lycydas, at last

The time is come I never thought to see,
(Strange revolution for my farm and me),
When the grim captain in a surly tone
Cries out, Pack up, ye rascals, and begone.
Kick'd out, we set the best face on't we could,

And these two kids, t'appease his angry mood,
I bear; of which the furies give him good.

}

say,

profaneness of the scoffer. Nor let it be said, that they make religious truths intelligible to the vulgar: rather that they tend to make it appear contemptible. Indeed a preacher, who affects a display of metaphysical learning, or interlards his composition with terms of art or science, or with uncommon words derived from the Greek and Latin, must be little understood by unlettered hearers: but that is a fault which every preacher who has the instruction of his people at heart and is master of his language and subject, will carefully and easily avoid. For between plainness and meanness of expression there is a very wide difference. Plain words are universally understood, and may be used in every argument, and are especially requisite in all writings addressed to the people. Mean language has no standard, is different in different places, and is applicable to burlesque arguments only. Gulliver's Travels, or the Draper's Letters, are intelligible in every part of England; but the dialects. of Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Somersetshire, are hardly understood beyond the limits of these provinces. A sermon in broad Scotch would now seem ridiculous to a Scotch peasant, and withal be less intelligible than one of Swift or Atterbury's.

Few things in language have a more debasing