remarks which I am to hazard on that subject, although I shall state my own judgment with freedom, I would be understood to write with all possible diffidence.

The general strain of his composition is flowing, equal, and majestic; harmonious beyond that of most English writers, yet seldom deviating, in quest of harmony, into inversion, redundancy, or affectation. If, in some passages, it may be thought that the effect might have been heightened by somewhat more of variety in the structure and cadence of his periods, it must be recollected that this criticism involves an encomium on the beauty of his style; for it is only where the ear is habitually gratified, that the rhythm of composition becomes an object of the reader's attention.

In comparing his turn of expression with that of the Classical Writers of England, a difference may, I think, be perceived; originating in the provincial situation of the country where he received his education and spent his life: and, if I am not much mistaken, the same observation may be extended, in a greater or less degree, to most of our contemporaries who have laboured under similar disadvantages. I do not allude, at present, to what are commonly called Scotticisms; for, from these Dr Robertson's works have been allowed, by the most competent judges, to be remarkably free; but to an occasional substitution of general or of circuitous

modes of expression, instead of the simple and specific English phrase. An author who lives at a distance from the acknowledged standard of elegance, writes in a dialect different from that in which he is accustomed to speak; and is naturally led to evade, as much as possible, the hazardous. use of idiomatical phrases, by the employment of such as accord with the general analogy of the language. Hence, in all the lighter and more familiar kinds of writing, the risk of sacrificing ease and vivacity, and what Dr Johnson calls. genuine Anglicism*, in order to secure correctness and purity; and hence, the difficulties with which those of our countrymen have had to struggle, who have aimed at the freedom of the epistolary style, or who have attempted to catch the shadowy and fleeting forms of Comic Dialogue. The peculiarity in the manner of Livy, censured by Asinius Pollio, was probably of a similar description; arising less from an admixture of Paduan idioms than from the absence of such as marked the dialect of Rome. In Tito Livio," (says Quinctilian,)" miræ facundiæ viro, putat inesse Pollio Asi“nius quandam Patavinitatem. Quare, si fieri potest, et "verba omnia, et vox, hujus alumnum Urbis oleant; ut oratio Romana planè videatur, non civitate donata †.”

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"If Addison's language had been less idiomatical, it would have lost something "of its genuine Anglicism."-Lives of the Poets.

+ Quinctil. l. viii. c. 1..

If, however, in these and a few other respects, important advantages are possessed by those whose standard of propriety is always before them in their ordinary habits of conversation and of business, it must perhaps be granted, on the other hand, that an ear thus familiarized from infancy to phrases which it has been accustomed to retain, without any selection, or any reference to general principles, can scarcely fail to have some effect in blunting an author's discrimination between the established modes of classical expression and the accidental jargon of the day. Illustrations of this remark might be easily collected from writers of the highest and most deserved reputation; more particularly from some who have cultivated, with the greatest success, the appropriate graces of the English tongue.-Even the works of Dr Middleton, which have been often recommended to Scotchmen as the safest models for their imitation, abound with instances of colloquial language, sanctioned probably by the authority of the fashionable speakers of his time, but which, I should suppose, would now be considered as vulgarisms, by such of his countrymen as have formed their taste on the compositions either of an earlier or of a later period.

In guarding against these temporary modes of speech, the provincial residence of a Scotchman may sometimes have its use, by teaching him to distrust his ear as an arbiter of elegance, and to appeal on every questionable point to the

practice of those whose established reputation gives the stamp of propriety to the phraseology they have employed. If his composition be deficient in ease, it may be expected not to fall under the ordinary standard, in point of purity: nay, it is not impossible, that in his solicitude to avoid idiomatical phrases, he may be occasionally led to animate and to ennoble his diction; or, by uncommon and fortunate combinations of words, to give to familiar ideas the charm of novelty.

The species of composition to which Dr Robertson directed his studies, was peculiarly adapted to his local situation, by affording him an opportunity of displaying all the talents he possessed, without imposing on him a trial of his powers in those kinds of writing where a Scotchman is most likely to fail. In delineating the characters of Princes, Statesmen, and Warriors, or in recording events that have happened on the great theatre of public affairs, a certain elevation of language is naturally inspired by the magnitude of the subject. The engaging and pathetic details of domestic life vanish before the eye which contemplates the fortunes of nations, and the revolutions of Empire; and there is even a gravity of manner, exclusive of every thing familiar or flippant, which accords with our idea of him who sits in judgment on the generations that are past. It may, perhaps, be questioned by some, whether Dr Robertson has not carried

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to an extreme, his idea of what he has himself called the dignity of history; but, whatever opinion we form on this point, it cannot be disputed, that his plan of separating the materials of historical composition from those which fall under the provinces of the Antiquary, and of the writer of Memoirs, was on the whole happily conceived; and that one great charm of his works arises from the taste and judgment with which he has carried it into execution.-Nor has he suffered this scrupulous regard to the unity of historical style to exclude that variety which was necessary for keeping alive the reader's attention. Whenever his subject admits of being enriched or adorned by political or philosophical disquisition, by picturesque description, or by the interesting details of a romantic episode, he scruples not to try his strength with those who have excelled the most in these different departments of literature; uniformly, however, avoiding to mingle in the humble scenes of ordinary life, or to meet his rivals on any ground where he did not feel himself completely their equal.

To this systematical selection of the more regular and analogical forms of construction, is to be ascribed, in a considerable degree, his popularity among foreigners, who unite in esteeming him, not only as one of the most eloquent, but as one of the most intelligible of our writers. And, it is presumable, that the same circumstance will secure in his fa