the reader, by introducing some quiet rural image, or picture of familiar domestic life. The writers of every age and country, where taste has begun to decline, paint and adorn every object they touch; are always on the stretch; never deviate or sink a moment from the pompous and the brilliant. Lucan, Statius, and Claudian (as a learned critic has observed) are examples of this bad taste and want of judgment; they never soften their tones, or condescend to be natural; all is exaggeration and perpetual splendour, without affording repose of any kind. As we are speaking of excesses, it will not be remote from our purpose to say a few words upon simplicity; which, in one of the senses in which it is used, is considered as the general corrector of excess. We shall at present forbear to consider it as implying that exact conduct which proceeds from an intimate knowledge of simple unadulterated nature, as it is then only another word for perfection, which neither stops short of, nor oversteps reality and truth. In our inquiry after simplicity, as in many other inquiries of this nature, we can best explain what is right by showing what is wrong; and, indeed, in this case it seems to be absolutely necessary; simplicity being only a negative virtue, cannot be described or defined. We must therefore explain its nature, and show the advantage and beauty which is derived from it, by showing the deformity which proceeds from its neglect. Though instances of this neglect might be expected to be found in practice, we should not expect to find in the works of critics precepts that bid defiance to simplicity and everything that relates to it. De Piles recommends to us portrait-painters, to add grace and dignity to the characters of those whose pictures we draw: so far he is undoubtedly right; but, unluckily, he descends to particulars, and gives his own idea of grace and dignity. "_If_," says he, "_you draw persons of high character and dignity, they ought to be drawn in such an attitude that the Portraits must seem to speak to us of themselves, and, as it were, to say to us, 'Stop, take notice of me, I am that invincible King, surrounded by Majesty:' 'I am that valiant commander, who struck terror everywhere:' 'I am that great minister, who knew all the springs of politics:' 'I am that magistrate of consummate wisdom and probity.'_" He goes on in this manner with all the characters he can think on. We may contrast the tumour of this presumptuous loftiness with the natural, unaffected air of the portraits of Titian, where dignity, seeming to be natural and inherent, draws spontaneous reverence, and instead of being thus vainly assumed, has the appearance of an unalienable adjunct; whereas such pompous and laboured insolence of grandeur is so far from creating respect, that it betrays vulgarity and meanness, and new-acquired consequence.