with the poet

Such labour'd nothings in fo ftrange a stile, Amaze th' unlearn'd, and make the learned fmile. POPE.

No mode of expreffion throws fuch an impenetrable milt over a work, as an unneceffary profufion of technical terms. This will appear very plainly to those who will turn over a few pages of any modern collection of voyages. Defcriptions of a ftorm make fome of the finest and most striking paffages in the best poets; and it is for these in particular that Longinus admires the Odyffey. The real circumstances of a ftorm are in themselves, without the aid of poetical ornaments, very affecting; yet whoever reads an account of them in any of our writers of voyages, will be fo puzzled and perplexed with Starboard Larboard, the Main-maft and Mizenmaft, and a multitude of fea- terms, that he will not be the least moved at the diftrefs of the fhip's crew. The abfur

dity of this did not escape Swift, who has ridiculed it by a mock defcription of the fame kind in his Gulliver. Those who treat military fubjects, are equally ridiculous: they overwhelm you with Counterfcarps, Palisades, Baftions, &c. and fo fortify their no-meaning with hard words, that it is abfolutely impoffible to beat them out of their intrenchments. Such writers, who abound in technical terms, always put me in mind of Ignoramus in the play, who courts his miftrefs out of the law-dictionary, runs over a long catalogue of the meffuages, lands, tenements, barns, outhouses, &c. of which he will put her in poffeffion, if the will join issue with him; and manifefts his paffion in the fame manner that he would draw up a leafe.

This affectation is never more offenfive than when it gets into the pulpit. The greater part of almost every audience that fits under our preachers, are ignorant and illiterate, and should therefore have every thing delivered to them in as plain, fimple, and intelligible a manner, as poffible. Hard words, if they have any meaning, can only ferve to make them stare; and they can never be edified by what they do not underftand. Young clergymen, just come from the university, are proud of fhewing the world that they have been read

ing on the moft abitrufe points of divinity. But they would employ their time more to their own credit, as well as the improvement of their hearers, if they would rather endeavour to explain and enforce the precepts of the Apostles and Evangelifts, than retail the confused hypotheles of crabbed metaphysicians.

As to Effays, and all other pieces that

come under the denomination of fami liar writings, one would imagine that they must neceffarily be written in the eafy language of nature and common fenfe. No writer can flatter himfelf, that his productions will be an agreeable part of the equipage of the tea-table, who writes aimoft too abftrufely for the ftudy, and involves his thoughts in hard words and affected latinifms. Yet this has been reckoned by many the standard tile for thefe loofe detached pieces. Addifon was proud that he could boast of having drawn learning out of schools and colleges into clubs and coffee-honfes, as Socrates was faid to draw morality from the clouds to dwell among men: but these people (as Lord Bolingbroke pretends to fay of the fame Socrates) mount the clouds themfelves. This new-fangled manner of delivering our fentiments is called writing found fenfe: and if I find this mode feems likely to prevail, I fhall certainly think it expedient to give into it, and very fuddenly oblige the world with a Connoiffeur fo fenfible, that it will be impoffible

to understand it.

But hard words and uncouth ways of expreffing ourselves never appear with so ill a grace as in our common converfation. In writing we expect fome degree of exactness and precision; but if even the e they seem harth and disagreeable, when they obftruct the freedom of our familiar chat, they either make us laugh, or put us out of patience. It was imagined by the ancients, that things were called by one name among mortals, and by another among the gods: in like manner fome gentlemen, who would be accounted fine-fpoken perfons, difdain to mention the most trivial matters in the fame terms with the rest of the world; and fcarce enquire how you do, or bid you good-morrow, in any phrase that is intelligible. It always put me in pain to find a lady give into this practice: if the makes no blunder, it fets very ungracefully upon her; but it is ten to one, that

.the

the rough uncouth fyllables, that form these words, are too harth and big for the pretty creature's mouth; and then the maims thein and breaks them to her ufe fo whimfically, that one can fcarce tell whether he is talking French or Englith. I fhall make no more reflections on this fubject at prefent, but conclude my paper with a short story.

A merry fellow, who was formerly of the univerfity, going through Cambridge on a journey, took it into his head to call on his old tutor. As it is no great wonder that pedantry should be found in a college, the tutor ufed to lard his converfation with numberlefs hard words and forced derivations from the Latin. His pupil, who had a mind to banter the old gentleman on his darling foible, when he vifited him, enter

ed his chambers with an huge dictionary under his arm. The first compliments were scarce over, before the tutor boited out a word big enough for the mouth of Garagantua. Here the pupil begged that he would ftop a little; and after turning over his dictionary, defired him to proceed. The learned gentleman went on, and the pupil feemed to liften with great attention, till another word came out as hard as the former, at which he again interrupted him, and again had recourfe to his dictionary. This appears to me the only way of converfing with perfons of fo pompous an elocution; unlefs we convert the orators themselves into lexicons to interpret their own phrafes, by troubling them to reduce the meaning of their fine fpeeches into plain English.

VIRG.

OM Dare Devil, who was fo

TOM Tmuch fuperior to the reft of our Bucks that he gained the appellation of Stag, finifhed a cou.fe of continual debaucheries, and was carried off laft week by a phrenetic fever. I happened to be prefent at his last moments; and the remembrance of him fill dwells fo ftrongly on my mind, that I fee him, I hear him, in all the agonies of defpair, ftarting, trembling, and uttering the moft horrid execrations. His confcience at the approach of death had conjured up before him ten thousand devils with their red-hot fpits,' who affumed the fhopes of all thofe whom he had injured, and came hiffing on him,' to retaliate their wrongs. Save me, fave me,' he would cry, from that bleeding form!-He was my friend, but I run him through the heart in a quarrel about whore.-Take away that old fellow He would have carried us to the • round houß-I knocked him down

a

• with his own itaff-but I did not think

the poor dog would have died by it.' When the nuife offered him a draught

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to take Why,' faid he, will you ply me with Champagne?- 'tis a damnable liquor, and I'll drink no more of it. In one of his lucid intervals he grafped my hand vehemently, and burtting into tears- Would to God,' faid he, I had died twenty years ago! At length his unwilling foul parted from the body; and the laft words we heard from him were a faint ejaculation to his Maker, whom he had Elafphemed all his life. His fhocking exit made me reflect on that fine paffage in the Scriptures- Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my latter end be like his.'

The behaviour of this unhappy wretch afforded a dreadful inftance of the truth of that maxim, There is no bell like a troubled confcience. There needs, indeed,

no ghoft to tell us this.-But it were to be wished, that the confcience of every living reprobate could work on his ima gination in the fame manner, and raise up fuch horrid apparitions to torment him. Where is the wretch fo hardened, who would not be difinayed at thele terrors?

Or

Or who could perfevere in a courfe of wickedness, when every fresh offence would create a new fury to haunt him for his crimes?

Let us, for instance, take a view of the most glaring circumstances in the life of that arch-infidel Tom Daredevil: and let us at the fame time conceive (if poffible) what pangs he must have felt, had every flagitious act been attended with the fame phantoms that distracted him on his death-bed. First, then, let us contemplate him as a parricide; for fo he may be called, who by repeated difobedience broke the heart of a mot affectionate father. Could filial ingratitude receive a fharper punishment, than in the midft of his debaucheries to have this father continually before his eyes, expoftulating with him on his unnatural behaviour? O my fon,' might he have heard him say, ' was it for this that thy mother, who died in giving thee life, begged me with her haft 'breath to be kind to the boy? Was ' it for this that the country rung with joy for my being bleffed with an heir?

O my child, who can I now call my heir? That estate, which I was fo fo licitous to improve for thy fake, is diffipated among jockeys, gamblers, pimps, and prostitutes.-If you fhould I ever have a fon, may his ingratitude ' never make you think of me!'

Tom, indeed, took care never to have any vexation from his children: he had too great a fpirit to bear the hackles of matrimony, and lived in a ftate of celibacy among bagnios. Sometimes he made inroads on private life, and difturbed the peace of families by debauching the wives and daughters of his acquaintance. Among other gallant exploits, he decoyed up to town the daughter of a country gentleman, where he ruined her, and then left her to linger under an infamous disease. At length the fruits of his amour appeared in a child, which foon perifhed with it's unhappy parent in a public hofpital. By the fame magic of the fancy let us raile up this poor girl with the infant in her arms, while he is wantoning among his doxies, and lording it like a bashaw over the vaffals of his luft. What remorfe muft this villain have felt, could he have imagined her to have addressed him in the following terms! Behold in the loathfome car cafe of this babe the image of thyself; foul, rotten, and

'corrupt.-How could I fuffer fo contemptible a creature to draw me from the comfortable protection of my parents? It was juft, indeed, that I fhould fall a victim to my folly: but was this difeafed infant quickened only to proclaim my dihonour and thy infamy? Why hadit thou the power left to propagate mifery even to the in'nocent?'

Tom had often fignalized himself as a duellift: his confcience, as we have already mentioned, upbraided him at his dying moments with the murder of a particular friend. He had once ill luck at cards; and being irritated with his loffes, and fufpecting foul play on the part of his antagonist, he took him by the nofe, which confequently produced a challenge. He is haftening to the field of battle-but he fancies himself followed by the Manes of his friend, whom on the fame unhallowed ground he had lately facrificed to that idol Honour. He hears him call- Turn,

madman, turn, and look on me.You may remember with what relu&ance I met you-You forced me to the combat and I was even pleafed, that the victory was your's. You deprived me of life in an idle quarrel about a creature, whom, at your return from the murder of your friend, you detected in the arms of another.-It was Honour, that induced you to wound the bofom of one vou loved.The fame Honour now calls you to give a fellow, whom you defpife, an op'portunity to retaliate the injury done to me. What folly is it to put your life into the hands of a fcoundrel, who you fufpect has already robbed you of your fortune? But go on, and let your death rid the world of a monster, who is defperate enough to put his own life on the hazard, and wicked enough to attempt that of another.' It happened, however, that Tom had no occafion for fuch a monitor, as the perfon whom he went to meet proved as great a coward as he was a cheat; and our hero, after waiting a full hour in his pumps, and parrying with the air, had no other revenge for the lofs of his money, than the fatisfaction of pofting him for a fcoundrel.