RAY, COLLINS, &c.

I shall in the present Lecture go back to the age of Queen Anne, and
endeavour to give a cursory account of the most eminent of our poets, of
whom I have not already spoken, from that period to the present.

The three principal poets among the wits of Queen Anne's reign, next
to Pope, were Prior, Swift, and Gay. Parnell, though a good-natured,
easy man, and a friend to poets and the Muses, was himself little more
than an occasional versifier; and Arbuthnot, who had as much wit as the
best of them, chose to shew it in prose, and not in verse. He had a very
notable share in the immortal History of John Bull, and the inimitable
and praiseworthy Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus. There has been a great
deal said and written about the plagiarisms of Sterne; but the only real
plagiarism he has been guilty of (if such theft were a crime), is in
taking Tristram Shandy's father from Martin's, the elder Scriblerus. The
original idea of the character, that is, of the opinionated, captious
old gentleman, who is pedantic, not from profession, but choice, belongs
to Arbuthnot.--Arbuthnot's style is distinguished from that of his
contemporaries, even by a greater degree of terseness and conciseness.
He leaves out every superfluous word; is sparing of connecting
particles, and introductory phrases; uses always the simplest forms of
construction; and is more a master of the idiomatic peculiarities and
internal resources of the language than almost any other writer. There
is a research in the choice of a plain, as well as of an ornamented or
learned style; and, in fact, a great deal more. Among common English
words, there may be ten expressing the same thing with different degrees
of force and propriety, and only one of them the very word we want,
because it is the only one that answers exactly with the idea we have in
our minds. Each word in familiar use has a different set of associations
and shades of meaning attached to it, and distinguished from each other
by inveterate custom; and it is in having the whole of these at our
command, and in knowing which to choose, as they are called for by the
occasion, that the perfection of a pure conversational prose-style
consists. But in writing a florid and artificial style, neither the same
range of invention, nor the same quick sense of propriety--nothing but
learning is required. If you know the words, and their general meaning,
it is sufficient: it is impossible y