This trait of genius often betrays young writers into a style of affected grandiloquence, which their feebleness of thought makes doubly ridiculous. Yet this pompous style of writing is often a genuine mark of superior powers. Quintilian thinks extravagance a more favorable sign in a very young writer, than a more sedate simplicity; for his maturer judgment may be safely left to prune such luxuriance, but where the soil is barren by nature, no art of cultivation will produce a vigorous growth. Scarcely any writer was ever guilty of more extravagance than Lucan; but his poem was written in the earliest spring of manhood, and shows such strength of genius as would probably have made him equal to Homer, had his rising powers been suffered to reach their utmost elevation, and receive the corrections of his finished taste. But here it may not be amiss to mention that a style of such affected pomp is tolerable only in young writers. When the fancy is fresh and vigorous, and the judgment unformed, redundance in words and ornament may be pardoned; but it is a sure evidence of feeble genius to continue the same style in riper age. Hortensius, Cicero's rival, was in his youth admired for his florid oratory; but in after life was justly despised for the same childish taste. The most elegant writers always select the simplest words. Learning should appear in the subject, but never in the language. Even the powers of Johnson were too weak to preserve his ponderous learned style from ridicule. It may be assumed as a universal rule, that when two words equally express the same meaning, the shortest and simplest is always the best. When the enthusiasm of poetry is joined with a correct and chastened judgment, the utmost fastidiousness in composition is often produced. To this may be ascribed the small number and extent of writings left by some of our best authors. "I am tormented with a desire to write better than I can," said Robert Hall in a letter to a friend: and yet his works are said by Dugald Stewart (himself an admirable writer in point of style) to combine the beauties of Addison, Johnson and Burke, without their defects, and to contain the purest specimens of the English language. And of Pascal too, it is told that he spent much time in revising and correcting what to others appeared from the first almost too perfect for amendment. Gray, who had genius to become a pre-eminent poet, was never content with the polish which repeated revisions were able to give his works. The conclusion of Boileau's second Satire is so appropriate to my purpose, that I will give it in full.