Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net ELEMENTS OF CRITICISM. VOLUME II. EDINBURGH: Printed for A. MILLAR, London; AND A. KINCAID & J. BELL, Edinburgh. MDCCLXII. ELEMENTS OF CRITICISM. CHAP. X. Congruity and Propriety. Man is distinguished from the brute creation, not more remarkably by the superiority of his rational faculties, than by the greater delicacy of his perceptions and feelings. With respect to the gross pleasures of sense, man probably has little superiority over other animals. Some obscure perception of beauty may also fall to their share. But they are probably not acquainted with the more delicate conceptions of regularity, order, uniformity, or congruity. Such refined conceptions, being connected with morality and religion, are reserved to dignify the chief of the terrestrial creation. Upon this account, no discipline is more suitable to man, or more _congruous_ to the dignity of his nature, than that by which his taste is refined, to distinguish in every subject, what is regular, what is orderly, what is suitable, and what is fit and proper[1]. No discerning person can be at a loss about the meaning of the terms _congruity_ and _propriety_, when applied to dress, behaviour, or language; that a decent garb, for example, is proper for a judge, modest behaviour for a young woman, and a lofty style for an epic poem. In the following examples every one is sensible of an unsuitableness or incongruity: a little woman sunk in an overgrown farthingale, a coat richly embroidered covering coarse and dirty linen, a mean subject in an elevated style, or an elevated subject in a mean style, a first minister darning his wife’s stocking, or a reverend prelate in lawn sleeves dancing a hornpipe.