Idler No. 63. Saturday, June 30, 1759.
The natural
progress of the works of men is from rudeness to convenience, from
convenience to elegance, and from elegance to nicety.
The first
labour is enforced by necessity. The savage finds himself incommoded by
heat and cold, by rain and wind; he shelters himself in the hollow of a
rock, and learns to dig a cave where there was none before. He finds the
sun and the wind excluded by the thicket; and when the accidents of the
chase, or the convenience of pasturage, leads him into more open
places, he forms a thicket for himself, by planting stakes at proper
distances, and laying branches from one to another.
The next
gradation of skill and industry produces a house closed with doors, and
divided by partitions; and apartments are multiplied and disposed
according to the various degrees of power or invention; improvement
succeeds improvement, as he that is freed from a greater evil grows
impatient of a less, till ease in time is advanced to pleasure.
The
mind, set free from the importunities of natural want, gains leisure to
go in search of superfluous gratifications, and adds to the uses of
habitation the delights of prospect. Then begins the reign of symmetry;
orders of architecture are invented, and one part of the edifice is
conformed to another, without any other reason, than that the eye may
not be offended.
The passage is very short from elegance to
luxury, Ionick and Corinthian columns are soon succeeded by gilt
cornices, inlaid floors and petty ornaments, which show rather the
wealth than the taste of the possessour.
Language proceeds, like
every thing else, through improvement to degeneracy. The rovers who
first took possession of a country, having not many ideas, and those not
nicely modified or discriminated, were contented, if by general terms
and abrupt sentences they could make their thoughts known to one
another: as life begins to be more regulated, and property to become
limited, disputes must be decided, and claims adjusted; the differences
of things are noted, and distinctness and propriety of expression become
necessary. In time, happiness and plenty give rise to curiosity, and
the sciences are cultivated for ease and pleasure; to the arts, which
are now to be taught, emulation soon adds the art of teaching; and the
studious and ambitious contend not only who shall think best, but who
shall tell their thoughts in the most pleasing manner.
Then begin
the arts of rhetorick and poetry, the regulation of figures, the
selection of words, the modulation of periods, the graces of transition,
the complication of clauses, and all the delicacies of style and
subtilties of composition, useful while they advance perspicuity, and
laudable while they increase pleasure, but easy to be refined by
needless scrupulosity till they shall more embarrass the writer than
assist the reader or delight him.
The first state is commonly
antecedent to the practice of writing; the ignorant essays of imperfect
diction pass away with the savage generation that uttered them. No
nation can trace their language beyond the second period, and even of
that it does not often happen that many monuments remain.
The
fate of the English tongue is like that of others. We know nothing of
the scanty jargon of our barbarous ancestors; but we have specimens of
our language when it began to be adapted to civil and religious
purposes, and find it such as might naturally be expected, artless and
simple, unconnected and concise. The writers seem to have desired little
more than to be understood, and, perhaps, seldom aspired to the praise
of pleasing. Their verses were considered chiefly as memorial, and,
therefore, did not differ from prose but by the measure or the rhyme.
In
this state, varied a little according to the different purposes or
abilities of writers, our language may be said to have continued to the
time of Gower, whom Chaucer calls his master, and who, however obscured
by his scholar's popularity, seems justly to claim the honour which has
been hitherto denied him, of showing his countrymen that something more
was to be desired, and that English verse might be exalted into poetry.
From
the time of Gower and Chaucer, the English writers have studied
elegance, and advanced their language, by successive improvements, to as
much harmony as it can easily receive, and as much copiousness as human
knowledge has hitherto required. These advances have not been made at
all times with the same diligence or the same success. Negligence has
suspended the course of improvement, or affectation turned it aside;
time has elapsed with little change, or change has been made without
amendment. But elegance has been long kept in view with attention as
near to constancy as life permits, till every man now endeavours to
excel others in accuracy, or outshine them in splendour of style, and
the danger is, lest care should too soon pass to affectation.
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