Sect. I.] English Language. 597 



periods, he attended particularly to the foix;e of 

 individual words. Less iigurative and adorned 

 than Addison, he learned more successfully than 

 him to avoid the diffuse and feeble manner which 

 had so generally characterised English composition. 

 Mr. Hiiriic supposes that the first elegant prose iu 

 our language was written by Swift. 



To Mr. Pope, also, English style is much in- 

 debted*. '' He cultivated the beauties of lan- 

 guage with so much diligence and art that he has 

 left, in his Homer, a treasure of poetical elegances 

 to posttrity. His version may be said to have 

 tuned his native tongue ; for since its appearance 

 no writer, however deficient in other powers, has 

 wanted melody '\.'' The style of English vcrsilica- 

 tion attained in his hands that sweetness of har- 

 mony, that grace of embellishment, that ciinosa 

 felicitas, which have never since been surpassed. 

 There is scarcely a happy combination of words, 

 or a phrase musical and captivating, which is not 

 to be found in his writings. 



The improvements introduced by these benefac- 

 tors to English literature were pursued and ex- 

 tended by several contemporary and succeeding 

 wTiters. Among the first of these Shaftesbury 

 and Bolingbroke hold an honourable place J. The 



* Alexander Pope was born in London in the year 1688. His 

 first great work was his Essay on Cntidsw, published in 1704. In 

 ]713 he published proposals for a translation of Homer's Iliad, 

 which was, in 1 720, completely given to the world. From this 

 period till his death, in 17-14, his history is marked by few cvetiU 

 but those which relate to his successive publications. 



■f Johnsons Life of Pope. 



* It will readily occur to the reader that nothing is meant to be 

 spden of here but the .t,lc of thc.e writers. Ihe teudcncy of 



