extravagances, 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 over-rate 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