298 Modern Languages. [Chap. X\^. 



style of the former, though excessively and elabo- 

 rately delicate, and displaying a continual fond- 

 ness for artificial arrangement, and affected state- 

 liness^ is still rich and musical, and contributed 

 not a little to improve the public taste. The 

 writings of the latter, exhibiting the ease and ele- 

 gance of Addison with more vigour, were also 

 useful in promoting the prevalence of correct and 

 elegant composition. Neither of them, however, 

 can be said to have introduced a fashion of writ- 

 ing wholly new, or to have formed a remarkable 

 asra in the histoi-y of the English language. The 

 same may be said of Middleton, Fielding, Sher- 

 lock, Smollet, Hawkesworth, Goldsmith, Mel- 

 moth, and several others. With various talents 

 and modes of expression, and with different de- 

 grees of literary merit, they all contributed some- 

 thing to the cultivation of style, and each display- 

 ed some new and peculiar excellence, v/ithout 

 producing, singly, any thing like a revolution in 

 manner. 



The change introduced into English style by Dr. 

 Johnson, deserves particular notice *. This great 

 philologist, while he was ambitious to convey im- 

 portant moral and literary truth, laboured also to 

 " refine the language of his country to grammati- 

 cal purity, and to clear it from colloquial barbar- 



their publications, in a moral and religious view, will be particn- 

 larly noticed in a subsequent part of this work. 



* Dr. Samuel Johnson was born at Litchfield, in Staffordshire, 

 in 1 706, and died in London in 1/84. The history, character, 

 and writings, of this *' literary colossus" are loo well known to 

 render any minute details respecting them necessary in this 

 place. 



