Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/327

Rh studies of the author show the elaborate and diversified matter of these volumes to have been long the favourite subject of his reflections. It had in view the aim of tracing the progress of taste as it is variously exhibited and acknowledged to exist, to the organic principles of the mind on which in its various departments it is originally founded, displaying the art of what his biographer justly nails "Philosophical Criticism," in opposition to that which is merely practical, or applicable to objects of taste as they appear, without any reference to the causes why the particular feelings are exhibited. But that lord Kames was in this "the inventor of a science," as his biographer has termed him, is a statement which may admit of some doubt.

The doctrine of reflex senses propounded by Hutchinson, the father of the Scottish System of Philosophy, had many years previously laid a firm foundation for the system, afterwards so ably erected. Some years previously to the publication of the Elements of Criticism, Hume and Gerard had drawn largely from the same inexhaustible source, and, if with less variety, certainly with more correctness and logical accuracy of deduction; and Burke, though he checked the principle of the sensations he has so vividly illustrated by arbitrary feelings assigned as their source, contributed much to the advancement of that high study. Nor is it to be denied, that the ancients at least knew the existence of this untried tract, if they did not venture far within its precincts, for few can read Cicero de Oratore, Longinus, or the Institutions of Quinctilian, without perceiving that these men were well acquainted with the fundamental principles of the rules of criticism. But relinquishing the discussion of its originality, the Elements of Criticism is a book no man can read without acquiring many new ideas, and few without being acquainted with many new facts: it is full of useful information, just criticism, and ingenious reasoning, laying down rules of composition and thought, which have become classical regulations for elegant writers. The author is, however, a serious transgressor of his own excellent rules; his mind seems to have been so perpetually filled with ideas, that the obstruction occasioned by the arrangement of a sentence would cause a considerable interruption in their flow; hence he is at all times a brief, unmelodious composer, and the broken form of his sentences frequently renders their meaning doubtful. The following specimen, chosen by chance, is an example of a good rule ill observed by its maker: "In arranging a period, it is of importance to determine in what part of it a word makes the greatest figure, whether at the beginning, during the course, or at the close. The breaking silence rouses the attention, and prepares for a deep impression at the beginning; the beginning, however, must yield to the close: which, being succeeded by a pause, affords time for a word to make its deepest impression. Hence the following rule, that to give the utmost force to a period, it ought, if possible, to be closed with that word which makes the greatest figure. The opportunity of a pause should not be thrown away upon accessories, but reserved for the principal object, in order that it may make a full impression: which is an additional reason against closing a period with a circumstance. There are, however, periods that admit not such a structure, and, in that case, the capital word ought, if possible, to be placed in the front, which next to the close, is the most advantageous for making an impression" (v. ii. p. 72). But were we to scrutinize with malicious accuracy, we might find' sentences like the following, bidding defiance to form and sense. "Benevolence and kindly affection are too refined for savages, unless of the simplest kind, such as the ties of blood," (Sketches of Hist, of Man, v. i. p. 270 ;) or, "Here it is taken for granted, that we see external objects, and that we see them with both eyes in the same place; inadvertently, it must be acknowledged, as it flatly contradicts what he had been all along inculcating,