usually observable in their periods, which are either eminently enervated and loose, or pedantic, implicated, and obscure. Nothing can be more incompact and nerveless than the style of Sidney, nothing more harsh and quaint, from an affectation of foreign and technical terms, than the diction of Browne. If we allow to Hooker and Milton occasional majesty and strength, and sometimes a peculiar felicity of expression, it must yet be admitted, that though using pure English words, the elaboration and inversion of their periods are such as to create, in the mere English reader, no small difficulty in the comprehension of their meaning; a fault, surely of the most serious nature, and ever productive of aversion and fatigue. To Raleigh, Bacon, and Burton, we are indebted for a style which, though never rivalling the sublime energy and force occasionally discoverable in the prose of Milton, makes a nearer approach to the just idiom of our tongue than any other which their age afforded. It is to the Restoration, however, that we must look for that period when our language, with few exceptions, assumed a facility and clearness, a fluency and grace, hitherto strangers to its structure. The study of French literature, which had attained considerable elegance and precision, was at this era brought into fashion by the Stuarts, who, during their exile on the continent, having imbibed a strong taste for the beauties of the language, gave, on their return to England, every encouragement to its cultivation. At a time when composition in this island was singularly pompous, stiff, and harsh, the introduction of the lighter graces and more perspicuous arrangement of French periods could not fail of proving eminently serviceable. t It may be deemed remarkable, that the first writer who has given us a specimen of elegance and unaffected ease in prose, should be the witty and metaphysical COWLEY. This once celebrated poet had resided much upon the continent, and was intimately acquainted with French literature, and a great favourite with the exiled family. On the accession of Charles the Second, he revisited his native country, and during a rural retirement of seven years occasionally employed his pen in the composition of Essays on various subjects. These, which were published after his death, form a complete opposition to the usual style of his poetry. The elaboration, stiffness, and cold conceit, which characterize the latter, are no where apparent in these pleasing productions, which display a simplicity of language and sentiment of a very fascinating kind, and a modulation and arrangement of period by many degrees more equable, easy, and flowing, than can be found in any preceding writer of English prose. Delighted with the country, and with the important and salutary employments of its cultivators, he has thus, in his Essay on Agriculture, expressed his opinion of its pleasures and utility: "The first wish of Virgil was, to be a good philosopher; the second, a good husbandman ; and God (whom he seemed to understand better than most of the most learned heathens) dealt with him just as he did with Solomon; because he prayed for wisdom in the first place, he added all things else which were subordinately to be desired. He made him one of the best philosophers and best husbandmen; and to adorn both those faculties, the best poet: he made him besides all this a rich man, and a man who desired to be no richer. O fortunatus nimium, et bona qui sua novit. To be a husbandman is but a retreat from the city; to be a philosopher, from the world; or rather, a retreat from the world, as it is man's, into the world, as it is God's. But since nature denies to most men the capacity or appetite, and fortune allows but to a very few the opportunities or possibility of applying themselves wholly to philosophy, the best mixture of human affairs that we can make are the employments of a country life.— "We are here among the vast and noble scenes of nature; we are there (alluding to courts and cities) among the pitiful shifts of policy: we walk here in the light and open ways of the divine bounty; we grope there in the dark and confused labyrinths of human malice: our senses are here feasted with the clear and genuine taste of their objects, which are all sophisticated there, and for the most part overwhelmed with their contraries. Here pleasure looks (methinks) like a beautiful, constant, and modest wife; it is there an impudent, fickle, and painted harlot. Here is harmless and cheap plenty, there guilty and expenceful luxury. 'I shall only instance in one delight more, the most natural and best natured of all others, a perpetual companion of the husbandman; and that is, the satisfaction of looking round about him, and seeing nothing but the effects and improvements of his own art and diligence; to be always gathering of some fruits of it, and at the same time to behold others ripening, and others budding; to see all his fields and gardens covered with the beauteous creations of his own industry; and to see, like God, that all his works are good *." This passage, though very beautiful, may be * Cowley's Works, vol. ii. p. 704, 705, 707, 708. 10th edit. 1707. considered as a fair specimen of the usual diction of Cowley. Let us, however, turning over a few leaves, take the commencement of any succeeding essay. He opens the sixth, on Greatness, in the following manner : "Since we cannot attain to greatness, says the Sieur de Montagn, let us have our revenge by railing at it this he spoke but in jest. I believe he desired it no more than I do, and had less reason, for he enjoyed so plentiful and honourable a fortune in a most excellent country, as allowed him all the real conveniences of it, separated and purged from the incommodities. If I were but in his condition, I should think it hard measure, without being convinced of any crime, to be sequestered from it, and made one of the principal officers of state. But the reader may think that what I now say is of small authority, because I never was, nor ever shall be put to the trial: I can therefore only make my protestation : If ever I more riches did desire Than cleanliness and quiet do require, "I know very many men will despise, and some pity me for this humour, as a poor spirited |