decency sometimes requires, it will be found, on examination, to stand opposed more properly to vivacity than to perspicuity of style, and will therefore fall to be considered afterward. I shall now, therefore, examine, in the first place, in what respect delicacy may be said to demand obscurity. Thus much, indeed, is evident, that delicacy often requires that certain sentiments be rather insinuated than expressed; in other words, that they be not directly spoken, but that sufficient ground be given to infer them from what is spoken. Such_sentiments are, though improperly, considered as obscurely expressed for this special reason, that it is not by the first operation of the intellect, an apprehension of the meaning of what is said, but by a second operation, a reflection on what is implied or presupposed, that they are discovered, in which double operation of the mind there is a faint resemblance to what happens in the case of real obscurity. But in the case of which I am treating, it is the thought more than the expression that serves for a veil to the sentiment suggested. If, therefore, in such instances there may be said to be obscurity, it is an obscurity which is totally distinct from obscurity of language. That this matter may be better understood, we must carefully distinguish between the thought expressed and the thought hinted. The latter may be affirmed to be obscure because it is not expressed, but hinted; whereas the former, with which alone perspicuity of style is concerned, must always be expressed with clearness, otherwise the sentiment will never be considered as either beautiful or delicate.* I shall illustrate this by examples. No subject requires to be treated more delicately than praise, especially when it is given to a person present. Flattery is so nauseous to a liberal spirit, that even when praise is merited it is disagreeable, at least to unconcerned hearers, if it appear in a garb which adulation commonly assumes. For this reason, an encomium or compliment never succeeds so well as when it is indirect. It then appears to escape the speaker unawares, at a time that he seems to have no intention to commend. Of this kind the following story will serve as an example: "A gentleman who had an employment bestowed on him without so much as being known to his benefactor, waited upon the great man who was so generous, and was beginning to say he was infinitely obliged Not at all,' says the patron, turning from him to another; had I This will serve to explain what Bonhours, a celebrated French critic, and a great advocate for perspicuity, hath advanced on this subject: "Souvenez-vous que rien n'est plus opposé à la véritable délicatesse que d'exprimer trop les choses, et que le grand art consiste à ne pas tout dire sur certain sujets; à glisser dessus plûtot que d'y appuyer; et un mot, à en laisser penser aux autres plus que l'on n'en dit."-Manière de bien Penser, &c. Сс known a more deserving man in Englund, he should not have had it.""* Here the apparent intention of the minister was only to excuse the person on whom the favour had been conferred the trouble of making an acknowledgment, by assuring him that it had not been given from personal attachment or partiality. But while he appears intending only to say this, he says what implies the greatest praise, and, as it were, accidentally betrays the high opinion he entertained of the other's merit. If he had said directly, "You are the most deserving man that I know in England," the answer, though implying no more than what he did say, would have been not only indelicate, but intolerable. On so slight a turn in the expression it frequently depends whether the samé sentiment shall appear delicate or gross, complimental or affronting. 666 -y, Sometimes praise is very successfully and very delicately conveyed under an appearance of chagrin. This constitutes the merit of that celebrated thought of Boileau: "To imagine in such a warlike age, which abounds in Achilleses, that we can write verses as easily as they take towns." The poet seems only venting his complaints against the unreasonable expectations of some persons, and at the same time discovers, as by chance, the highest admiration of his monarch and the heroes who served him, by suggesting the incredible rapidity of the success with which their arms were crowned. Sometimes, also, commendation will be couched with great delicacy under an air of reproach. An example of this I shall give from the paper lately quoted: My lord,' said the Duke of B- -m, after his libertine way, to the Earl of O 'you will certainly be damn'd.' 'How, my lord?' said the earl, with some warmth. 'Nay,' replied the duke,' there's no help for it; for it is positively said, "Cursed is he of whom all men speak well."""" A still stronger example in this way we have from the Drapier, who, speaking to Lord Molesworth of the seditious expressions of which he had himself been accused, says, "I have witnesses ready to depose that your lordship hath said and writ fifty times worse, and, what is still an aggravation, with infinitely more wit and learning, and stronger arguments; so that, as politics run, I do not know a person of more exceptionable principles than yourself; and if ever I shall be discovered, I think you will be bound in honour to pay my fine and support me in prison, or else I may chance to inform against you by way of reprisal." I shall produce one other instance from the same hand, of an indirect but successful manner of praising, by seeming to invert the course of the obligation, and to represent the per*Tatler, No. 17. +"Et dans ce tems guerrier et fecond en Achilles Croit que l'on fait les vers, comme l'on prend les villes." son obliging as the person obliged. Swift, in a letter to the Archbishop of Dublin, speaking of Mr. Harley, then lord-high treasurer, afterward Earl of Oxford, by whose means the Irish clergy had obtained from the queen the grant of the first fruits and tenths, says, "I told him that, for my part, I thought he was obliged to the clergy of Ireland for giving him an occasion of gratifying the pleasure he took in doing good to the Church."* It may be observed, that delicacy requires indirectness of manner no less in censure than in praise. If the one, when open and direct, is liable to be branded with the name of flattery, the other is no less exposed to the opprobrious appellation of abuse; both alike, though in different ways, offensive to persons of tase and breeding. I shall give, from the work last quoted, a specimen (I cannot say of great delicacy) in stigmatizing, but at least of such an indirect manner as is sufficient to screen the author from the imputation of downright rudeness. "I hear you are like to be the sole opposer of the Bank; and you will certainly_miscarry, because it would prove a most perfidious thing. Bankrupts are always for setting up banks; how, then, can you think a bank will fail of a majority in both houses?" It must be owned that the veil here is extremely thin, too thin to be atlogether decent, and serves only to save from the imputation of scurrility a very severe reproach. It is the manner which constitutes one principal distinction between the libeller and the satirist. I shall give one instance more of this kind from another work of the same author. "To smooth the way for the return of popery in Queen Mary's time, the grantees were confirmed by the pope in the possession of the abbey-lands. But the bishop tells us that this confirmation was fraudulent and invalid. I shall believe it to be so, although I happen to read it in his lordship's history." Thus he insinuates, or signifies by implication, that his lordship's history is full of lies. Now, from all the specimens I have exhibited, it will, I suppose, sufficiently appear to any person of common understanding, that the obscurity required by delicacy, either in blaming or in commending, is totally distinct in kind from obscurity of expression, with which none of the examples above quoted is in the smallest degree chargeable. The illustrations I have given on this topic will contribute in some measure to explain the obscurity that is requisite in allegories, apologues, parables, and enigmas. In all these sorts of composition there are two senses plainly intended, the literal and the figurative: the language is solely the sign *Swift's Letters, 10. + Swift's Letter, 40. Preface to the Bishop of Sarum's Introduction to the 3d volume of his History of the Reformation. of the literal sense, and the literal sense is the sign of the figurative. Perspicuity in the style, which exhibits only the literal sense, is so far from being to be dispensed with here, that it is even more requisite in this kind of composition than in any other. Accordingly, you will, perhaps, nowhere find more perfect models both of simplicity and of perspicuity of style than in the parables of the Gospel. Indeed, in every sort of composition of a figurative character, more attention is always and justly considered as due to this circumstance than in any other sort of writing. Æsop's fables are a noted example of this remark. In farther confirmation of it, we may observe, that no pieces are commonly translated with greater ease and exactness than the allegorical, and that even by those who apprehend nothing of the mystical sense. This surely could never be the case if the obscurity were chargeable on the language. The same thing holds here as in painting emblems or graving devices. It may, without any fault in the painter or engraver, puzzle you to discover what the visible figure of the sun for example, which you observe in the emblem or the device, was intended to signify; but if you are at a loss to know whether it be the figure of the sun or the figure of the moon that you are looking at, he must have undoubtedly been a bungling artist. The body, therefore, if I may so express myself, of the emblem or of the device, and precisely for the same reason, of the riddle or of the allegory, must be distinctly exhibited, so as scarcely to leave room for a possibility of mistake. The exercise that in any of these performances is given to ingenuity, ought wholly to consist in reading the soul. I know no style to which darkness of a certain sort is more suited than to the prophetical. Many reasons might be assigned which render it improper that prophecy should be perfectly understood before it be accomplished. Besides, we are certain that a prediction may be very dark before the accomplishment, and yet so plain afterward as scarcely to admit a doubt in regard to the events suggested. It does not belong to critics to give laws to prophets, nor does it fall within the confines of any human art to lay down rules for a species of composition so far above art. Thus far, however, we may warrantably observe, that when the prophetic style is imitated in poetry, the piece ought, as much as possible, to possess the character above mentioned. This character, in my opinion, is possessed in a very eminent degree by Mr. Gray's ode called The Bard. It is all darkness to one who knows nothing of the English history posterior to the reign of Edward the First, and all light to one who is well acquainted with that history. But this is a kind of writing whose peculiarities can scarcely be considered as exceptions from ordinary rules. But, farther, may not a little obscurity be sometimes very suitable in dramatic composition? Sometimes, indeed, but very seldom; else the purpose of the exhibition would be lost. The drama is a sort of moral painting, and characters must be painted as they are. A blunderer cannot properly be introduced conversing with all the perspicuity and precision of a critic, no more than a clown can be justly represented expressing himself in the polished style of a courtier. In like manner, when the mind is in confusion and perplexity, arising from the sudden conflict of violent passions, the language will of necessity partake of the perturbation. Incoherent hints, precipitate sallies, vehement exclamations, interrupted, perhaps, by feeble checks from religion or philosophy-in short, everything imperfect, abrupt, and desultory, are the natural expressions of a soul overwhelmed in such a tumult. But even here it may be said with truth, that to one skilled in reading Nature there will arise a light out of the darkness, which will enable him to penetrate farther into the spirit than he could have done by the help of the most just, most perspicuous, and most elaborate description. This might be illustrated, were it necessary; but a case so singular is hardly called an exception. The dramatist, then, can but rarely claim to be indulged in obscurity of language, the fabulist never. CHAPTER IX. MAY THERE NOT BE AN EXCESS OF PERSPICUITY? I SHALL Conclude this subject with inquiring whether it be possible that perspicuity should be carried to excess. It hath been said that too much of it has a tendency to cloy the reader, and, as it gives no play to the rational and active powers of the mind, will soon grow irksome through excess of facility. In this manner some able critics have expressed themselves on this point, who will be found not to differ in sentiment, but only in expression, from the principles above laid down. The objection ariseth manifestly from the confounding of two objects, the common and the clear, and thence very naturally their contraries, the new and the dark, that are widely different. If you entertain your reader solely or chiefly with thoughts that are either trite or obvious, you cannot fail soon to tire him. You introduce few or no new sentiments into his mind, you give him little or no information, and, consequently, afford neither exercise to his reason nor entertain |