102 HISTORY of the SOCIETY. 
a kind with refpect to beauty, may naturally be fuppofed to have 
availed himfelf of every opportunity which a foreign country 
afforded him of illuftrating his former theories. 
Some of his peculiar notions, too, with refpect to the 
imitative arts, feem to have been much confirmed by his ob- 
fervations while abroad. In accounting for the pleafure we 
receive from thefe arts, it had early occurred to him as a fun- 
damental principle, that a very great part of it arifes from the 
difficulty of the imitation; a principle which was probably 
fuggefted to him by that of the difficulté furmontée, by which 
fome French critics had attempted to explain the effect of ver- 
fification and of rhyme*. ‘This principle Mr Smiru pufhed 
to the greateft poffible length, and referred to it, with fin- 
gular ingenuity, a great variety of phenomena in all the dif- 
ferent fine arts. It led him, however, to fome conclufions, 
which appear, at firft view at leaft, not a little paradoxical ; 
and I cannot help thinking, that it warped his judgment in 
many of the opinions which he was accuftomed to give on the 
fubject of poetry. 
THE principles of dramatic compofition had more particu- 
larly attracted his attention; and the hiftory of the theatre, 
both in ancient and modern times, had furnifhed him with 
fome of the moft remarkable fa&ts on which his theory of the 
imitative arts was founded. From this theory it feemed to fol- 
low as a confequence, that the fame circumftances which, in 
tragedy, give to blank verfe an advantage over profe, fhould 
give to rhyme an advantage over blank verfe ; and Mr Smit 
had always inclined to thatopinion. Nay, he had gone fo far as. 
to extend the fame doctrine to comedy ; and to regret, that thofe 
excellent pictures of life and manners which the Englith ftage af- 
fords, had not been executed after the model of the French: 
fchool. The admiration with which he regarded the great dra- 
matic authors of France tended to confirm. him in thefe opi- 
nions ; 
* See the Preface to VoLTaiRe’s Oedipe, Edit. of 1729. 
