, and misplaced
ornaments, thinking it proper that their understandings should enjoy
a holiday, while they are unbending their minds with verse, it may be
expected that such Readers will resemble their former selves also
in strength of prejudice, and an inaptitude to be moved by the
unostentatious beauties of a pure style. In the higher poetry, an
enlightened Critic chiefly looks for a reflection of the wisdom of
the heart and the grandeur of the imagination. Wherever these appear,
simplicity accompanies them, Magnificence herself, when legitimate,
depending upon a simplicity of her own, to regulate her ornaments. But
it is a well-known property of human nature, that our estimates are
ever governed by comparisons, of which we are conscious with various
degrees of distinctness. Is it not, then, inevitable (confining these
observations to the effects of style merely) that an eye, accustomed
to the glaring hues of diction by which such Readers are caught and
excited, will for the most part be rather repelled than attracted by
an original Work, the colouring of which is disposed according to a
pure and refined scheme of harmony? It is in the fine arts as in the
affairs of life, no man can _serve_ (i.e. obey with zeal and fidelity)
two Masters.

As Poetry is most just to its own divine origin when it administers
the comforts and breathes the spirit of religion, they who have
learned to perceive this truth, and who betake themselves to reading
verse for sacred purposes, must be preserved from numerous illusions
to which the two Classes of Readers, whom we have been considering,
are liable. But, as the mind grows serious from the weight of
life, the range of its passions is contracted accordingly; and its
sympathies become so exclusive, that many species of high excellence
wholly escape, or but languidly excite, its notice. Besides, men who
read from religious or moral inclinations, even when the subject is
of that kind which they approve, are beset with misconceptions and
mistakes peculiar to themselves. Attaching so much importance to the
truths which interest them, they are prone to overrate the Authors by
whom those truths are expressed and enforced. They come prepared
to impart so much passion to the Poet's language, that they remain
unconscious how little, in fact, they receive from it. And, on the
other hand, religious faith is to him who holds it so momentous
a thing, and error appears to be attended with such tremend