for his philofophical writings are declamations, and not meditations.

There is another method in which a writer may employ the faculties of his readers, but it is giv-, ing them a more difagreeable kind of exercise than that which was referred to above, and which is productive of a much lower kind of pleasure: I mean the trouble a writer may give his reader to understand his meaning: If the meaning of a writer be intelligible, the exercise he gives our faculties is employed upon his fubject, in taking those views of things and of their relations which were indiftinctly pointed out by himself: and, provided these discoveries be not very difficult to make, they yield a very high kind of entertainment. But if all the difficulty of a compofition be owing to frequent ellipfes, and a difordered conftruction, and, confequently, terminate when the writer's meaning is perfectly understood; it is a business of words only, and can yield but little fatisfaction. Is not this the cafe fometimes with Thucydides, and Lord Clarendon ?

Not that a writer is, in all cafes, to be condemned when he gives his reader fome trouble to underftand him. Provided it be not the chief exercise he gives our faculties, it may, upon the whole, have a good effect. To this purpose the transpofition of words and claufes from their natural order, and occafional parenthefes, are sometimes well employed. Thefe, when they are used moderate

ly,

ly, occafion no greater pain from fufpenfe, than what is more than counterbalanced by the pleafure we receive, the moment it terminates, in our seeing the fense complete. It is certainly an advantage peculiar to ancient languages, that the words of them may be transposed, for this and other purposes, at pleasure. However, in the generality of compofitions, it is indifputable, that the proper medium of excellence is much nearer the extreme of perfpicuity than of obscurity.

Perfons who have much leifure for reading and fpeculation may derive great advantage from thefe obfervations, concerning the moderate exercise of our faculties, in the conduct of their studies. Intense application to the abstract sciences, to the mathematics, and philofophy, the reading of languages that are rather difficult to us, or the bufinefs of compofition, is, undoubtedly at first, very fatiguing to all minds. Many perfons are foon discouraged from so severe an exercise of their faculties; and it is only habit that can make it easy, and reconcile the mind to it. But then the confequence of a fuccessful application to these fevere ftudies, being attended with a continued confcioufnels of the strength of our faculties, is a very high fenfe of pleasure, which remains very fenfibly a confiderable time after the exercise is over; whereas the pleasure we receive from the reading of hiftory, romance, familiar effays, and poetry, though it may be very exquifite for a time, yet,

if it engrofs all our leifure hours, it is attended with great languor and indifference; and there is scarce the least trace of pleasure left after our at→ tention to them is over: nay, very often, though we read with pleasure, we give over with disgust, and a fecret diffatisfaction with ourselves. The reason is, that, in mere reading of this kind, we are little more than paffive. Trains of ideas pafs before our minds, but no active powers of the foul are exerted. Life paffed in that manner is mere indolence and inaction, to which, whether it be of the body or of the mind, no genuine and lafting happiness was ever annexed.

To have a full enjoyment of a studious life, the feverer ftudies fhould be intermixed with the perufal of entertaining authors. In this fucceffion, books of entertainment are read with tenfold more avidity and fatisfaction. Poetry and works of fiction make a high entertainment, when they are made nothing more of; but they make a very poor and infipid employment. Infinitely preferable were it to be confined to the study of geometry, algebra, or law, without even having-a glimpse of any thing more amusing, than be condemned to pafs one's life fleeping over history, romances, poetry, and plays.

Application to true history seems to be the most rational of all these, but unless hiftory be read either with a view to gain a knowledge of man

kind, in order to form our own conduct; or with some scientific view, in order to determine some important subject of rational inquiry, it is nothing better than reading romance. By reading hiftory. with some farther view, as a means to a farther end, we make it a science. It then engages our active powers. It is a serious business, and is capable of being pursued with continued and increasing ardour. Otherwife, hiftory is no more than an amusement; and, confidering what hath ever been the state of the political world, and the general objects of hiftorians, it must exhibit many scenes extremely disagreeable to a reader of humanity and delicacy.

LECTURE

LECTURE XIX.

Of NOVELTY.

To the general account of the pleasures we

receive from the exercife of our perceptive and active powers, I fhall fubjoin a particular account of those properties of objects which derive their power of pleasing from the fame fource.

To this, in the first place, we must have recourfe for the charms of NOVELTY. For the firft For the first perception of an object makes a much stronger impreffion than any fubfequent perception of it. This muft neceffarily be the cafe if perception depend upon any mechanical laws affecting the brain. Upon whatever principle we account for it, the oftener any fenfations are repeated, the lefs we are affected by them. But the chief fource of the charms of novelty is the exercise of our active powers. Both previous to the perception of any new object, if we have any intimation of it, and immediately upon the perception of it, whether it be a new scene in nature, a new train of adventures, or a new system of principles, the mind is full of expectation, and is eagerly employed in furveying it; which keeps the attention ftrongly awake, and gives the object an opportunity