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OF

CRITICIS M.

WITH THE

AUTHOR'S LAST CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS,

Nicholas Emery's

First American from the Seventh London Edition,

VÒ L. II.

Bolton:

From the Prefs

OF SAMUEL ETHERIDGE,

For 7. WHITE, THOMAS & ANDREWS, W. SPOTSWOOD,
D. WEST, W. P. BLAKE, E. LARKIN, & J. WEST.

M DCC XCVI,

ELEMENTS

CRITICISM:

CHAPTER XVIII.

Beauty of Language.

Of all the fine arts, painting only and

fculpture are in their nature imitative. An ornamented field is not a copy or imitation of nature, but nature itself embellished. Architecture is productive of originals, and copies not from nature. Sound and motion may in fome measure be imitated by mufic; but for the most part music, like architecture, is productive of originals. Language copies not from nature, more than mufic or architecture; unlefs, where, like mufic, it is imitative of found or motion. Thus, in the defcription of particular founds, language fometimes furnifheth words, which, befide their customary power of exciting ideas, refemble by their foftnefs or harfhnefs the founds defcribed; and there are words which, by the celerity or flowness of pronunciation, have fome refemblance to the motion they fignify. The imitative power of words goes one step farther: the loftinefs of fome words makes them proper fymbols of lofty ideas; a rough fubject

VOL. II.

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