i 5S 1 



he avoids fynonimes, makes a happy feledion of words, and 

 forms them into fentences of much harmony. Though it cannot 

 perhaps be truly faid that in the management of his metaphors 

 he is always happy, yet it would be difficult to find in him fo 

 many inftances of over-wrought, or ill-chofen figures, as in any 

 of his contemporaries equally voluminous. In the connection 

 of his fentences he probably is not fo blamelefs. His hiftory of 

 the Royal Society has been praifed for its compofition, and that 

 it is ftill read is a proof that it deferves the praifes which have 

 been given to it ; but I am not fure that in his lefs celebrated 

 " Account of the Plot," there do not occur pafTages which better 

 merit the charader of fine writing than any which are to be met 

 in his hiftory of the Society, or any other of his trads. 



Had not Hooker written too earlyf to rank among thofe writers 

 of whom we have been fpeaking, he would have afforded ample 

 -fubjcd: of commendation for purity of language and precifion in 

 flyle ; in other inftances, perhaps, fome for cenfure. At prefent 

 it is enough to obferve that by comparing the writings of Hooker 

 with thofe of the beft authors of 88, it will appear that in the 

 intervening century much lefs improvement had' been effeded 

 in the ftyle of Englifh profe than has taken place in the interval 

 between the Revolution and the prefent day. 



With all thefe faults in ftyle, the writers of this period are to 

 be reckoned among thofe who have raifed moft high the literary 



charader 



* Hooker died in the year 1600. 



