
622 
many excellencies are confpicuous, it will 
be ufeful to point out his blemifhes. But, 
_admitting all-that has been faid on the 
choice and arrangement of words, the 
ftructure of fentences and periods, the 
ornaments of language, and the like; yet, 
as all men have not exaétly the fame tafte, 
fo.neither are they all affe€ted exactly alike 
by the fame way of turning a period. 
There is ftill room left for the exercife of 
fome variety of judgment: and this is 
even allowed by Dionyfius of Halicar- 
_ naffus, who has written fo admirably on 
the firuéture of language. 
But writers alfo take a colour, as it 
were, from their own tempers and charac- 
ters, and {till more from the f{ubjeéts which 
they difcufs. Criticifm, in determining 
the merits of authors, fhould confult thefe 
- circumftances, as well as the rules by 
which they are accuftomed to meafure 
words and fyllables. Ariftotle has writ- 
ten a treatife on the Art of Poetry: the 
fiyle is clofe, cautious, and fometimes ob- 
feure: unlefs we confult the nature of the 
fubjeét and the character of Ariftotle, we 
might pronounce the author to be tame 
and fpiritlefs. But Ariftotle was a philo- 
fophical critic. Plutarch adopts a different 
- fyle: and we difcover the temper of ,the 
man in the charaéter of his writings. He 
had travelled much ; was a great collector 
of anecdotes 3 conftantly catried with him 
his common-place book, and was for 
_ fome time a fchoolmafter at Rome. His 
MORAL TREATISES therefore, among 
which are two or three on poetry, ‘avour- 
ing ftrongly of his charaéter and profef- 
fion, éxcite refleCtion, and convey much 
information ; but, at the fame time, they 
glitter with fimilies, are overcharged with 
ftories, and redundant with quotations ; and 
though a moft amufing writer, Plutarch is 
lefs pure and chafte in his ftyle than many 
other Greek writers. As to Plato, when 
_ a boy, he ftudied poetry, and always pof- 
fefled a lively imagination ; and though he 
was afterwards for banifhing the poet from 
republics, he was, after all, as mucha poet 
ds a philofopher himfelf. 
Let the writings of Hume be examined 
with the fame allowances. Hume has ob- 
tained many admirers in England, and 
will, probably, continue to be adinired 
by men of tafte and learning: But the 
temper, the chara¢ter, the purfuits, and 
even the country of Hume fhould be con- 
fidered. He was a clofe metaphyfical 
thinker, as well as a writer; an inquirer 
itto principles; a fceptie as well as an 
hiftorian. And if it is ufual, when-efti- 
mating the charatter of Livy,. the Roman 
hiftorian, to take. into the accomnt hus 
Hame—Robinfon’s Claude. 
[Sept. 
Patavinity, it will be but reafonable, in. 
examining Hume as a writer, to recolle&, 
he was born and ftudied on the other fide 
of the Tweed. — 
Laiffons a l’Italie 
De tous ces faux brillants l’eclatante folie, 
fays Boileau; and he elfewhere fays, 
the gold of Virgil was preferable to all 
the tinfel of Taflo: Addifon too adopted 
this fentiment. Something fimilar to this 
Mr. Wakefield fays of Hume, when com- 
pared with Milton. Voltaire did not ad- 
mire the tinfel of Taflo; but he knew that 
Taffo had alfo gold; and there#re, not- 
withftanding his faults, and the criticifms 
of Boileau, he {crupled not to give him a 
place*near Homer and Virgil. Hume like- 
wife, I apprehend, though faulty in feve- 
ral refpeéts, will ftill continue to hold in _ 
this country a very refpectable place, 
both as a moralift and a writer. 
Writers of the moft acknowledged ex 
cellence afford examples of feveral in- 
accuracies. 'Addifon, who firft pointed 
out the beauties of Paradife La&, fcrupled 
not to notice its many blemifhes :—and 
fhould Milton’s profe works be rigidly 
criticifed, they would be found far, very 
far, from faultlefs. , 
The next inftance in which a writer kept 
not the proper bounds of criticifm was, 
when he attacked the reputation of another 
writer from motives of intereft. 
* Claude, the celebrated French proteft- 
ant, wrote an Effay on the Compofition of 
a Sermon, which was tranflated into Ene- - 
lith by the late very ingenious Mr. Ro- 
bert Robinfon. The tranflation is ac- 
companied with notesy which have been 
much admired for thew originality, va- 
riety, and learning, and not more by dif- 
fentersthan churchmen. To each volume 
(the work confifts of two volumes) is pre- 
fixed a very interefting preface ; the for- 
mer contains the Jife of Monfieur Claude ; 
the Jatter a brief differtation on Public 
Preaching. Whether Robinfon was a 
Churchman. or a Diffenter, an Arminiar 
or a Calvinift, an Unitarian or Trinitarian, 
matters not; the work poflefies great. 
merit; and, independently of the inftru€tién © 
which a young divinemay receive, abounds. 
with hurhourous and learned notes, perti- 
nent refleGtions, and, it muft be acknow- 
ledged, bold fatire: for Robimfon ufes 
great freedom of language, and appears 
with all the zeal of a reformer. 
But, behold! a maker of SKELETONS * 
makes his appearance. He takes Ro- 
binfon’s tranflation, preferves a few of the 
notes, leaves out Robinfon’s two prefaces, 
** Skeletons-are the leading parts of a ier- 
mon, the divifions, and fub-divifions, &c. 
prefixes 

