Without style, it is impossible that there can be a good work in any kind of eloquence or poetry. A profusion of words is the great vice of all our modern philosophers and anti-philosophers. The "_Système de la Nature_" is a great proof of this truth. It is very difficult to give just ideas of God and nature, and perhaps equally so to form a good style. As the kind of execution to be employed by every artist depends upon the subject of which he treats--as the line of Poussin is not that of Teniers, nor the architecture of a temple that of a common house, nor music of a serious opera that of a comic one--so has each kind of writing its proper style, both in prose and verse. It is obvious that the style of history is not that of a funeral oration, and that the despatch of an ambassador ought not to be written like a sermon; that comedy is not to borrow the boldness of the ode, the pathetic expression of the tragedy, nor the metaphors and similes of the epic. Every species has its different shades, which may, however, be reduced to two, the simple and the elevated. These two kinds, which embrace so many others, possess essential beauties in common, which beauties are accuracy of idea, adaptation, elegance, propriety of expression, and purity of language. Every piece of writing, whatever its nature, calls for these qualities; the difference consists in the employment of the corresponding tropes. Thus, a character in comedy will not utter sublime or philosophical ideas, a shepherd spout the notions of a conqueror, not a didactic epistle breathe forth passion; and none of these forms of composition ought to exhibit bold metaphor, pathetic exclamation, or vehement expression. Between the simple and the sublime there are many shades, and it is the art of adjusting them which contributes to the perfection of eloquence and poetry. It is by this art that Virgil frequently exalts the eclogue. This verse: _Ut vidi ut perii, ut me malus abstulit error!_ (Eclogue viii, v. 41)--I saw, I perished, yet indulged my pain! (Dryden)--would be as fine in the mouth of Dido as in that of a shepherd, because it is nature, true and elegant, and the sentiment belongs to any condition. But this: _Castaneasque nuces me quas Amaryllis amabat._ --_Eclogue, ii, v. 52._. And pluck the chestnuts from the neighboring grove, Such as my Amaryllis used to love. --DRYDEN. belongs not to an heroic personage, because the allusion is not such as would be made by a hero. These two instances are examples of the cases in which the mingling of styles may be defended. Tragedy may occasionally stoop; it even ought to do so. Simplicity, according to the precept of Horace, often relieves grandeur. _Et tragicus plerumque dolet sermone pedestri_ (_Ars Poet._, v. 95)--And oft the tragic language humbly flows (Francis). These two verses in Titus, so natural and so tender: