energetic expressions, exhibits no longer its ancient, masculine, and nervous taste, and has at the same time the mortification of seeing that in several countries abroad writers pretend to resemble their celebrated authors, by imitating their defects and their singularities; if amongst another nation, who have proposed nature and the feelings of the heart as the principal objects of their literature, authors should be found, who are accused, not unjustly, of having overcharged their images and expressions; if all these defects really exist amongst those nations, ought it not to be our first care to preserve ourselves from the contagion of their example, and should we not be careful to examine whether any of those blemishes begin already to infect our literature?
I am not presumptuous enough to decide the question; but I will only ask, Have we always been careful to distinguish our own feelings from the sentiments which we may expect to excite in others; the sense which we may attach internally to our expressions, from the sense in which the same expressions will most probably strike our readers; and our own selfcomplacency, from the approbation of the public? Have we never mistaken an empty prodigality of exclamation for the language of passion, confusion for genius, obscurity for depth, and bombast for sublimity? Have we always well examined what additions the prevailing thought and principal sentiment will bear, without being weakened and concealed by the accessory expressions, which should only serve to throw a greater light upon the first, and to give more life to the latter?
