296 3Iodern Languages. [Chap. XV. 



ed also more judgment in the choice, and more pre- 

 cision in the use of terms. The forced metaphor, 

 the dragging clause, the harsh cadence, and the 

 abrupt close, were carefully excluded from his 

 pages. He exhibited, in an eminent degree, that 

 correctness, perspicuity, ease, and harmony, ia 

 which preceding writers had been so remarkably 

 deficient. He was the first English prose writer 

 who discovered any thing like distinguished taste 

 in the choice and management of figures. *' Pure 

 without scrupulosity, and correct without apparent 

 elaboration ; equally free from studied amplitude 

 and affected brevity ; familiar, but not coarse ; 

 and elegant, but not ostentatious*," he deserves to 

 be ranked among the most meritorious reformerar 

 of our language. 



While Addison was employed in communicating 

 to English style a new degree of ease and polish. 

 Swift t was successfully engaged in cultivating it, 

 with a particular view to its purity and precision. 

 Endowed with a mind among the most vigorous 

 of the age in which he lived, and directing parti- 

 cular attention to the subject of language, he at- 

 tained distinguished excellence as a writer. He 

 was the first who attempted to express his mean- 

 ing without '' subsidiary words and corroborating 

 phrases.'' He was still more sparing in the use of 

 synonymes than Addison ; and m ithout being very 

 solicitous about the structure or harmony of his 



* Johnson. 



t Jonathan Swift was born in 166/. He received his educa- 

 tion in Trinity college, Dublin j was appointed dean of St. 

 Patrick's in 1/13, and died in 1745.— His whole works have been 

 printed in various forms. 



