fication. The place therefore of the three
principal members of the phrafe is in the
English, and for the fame reafon in the French
and Italian languages, almost always pre-
cifely determined; whereas in the ancient
languages a greater latitude is allowed, and
the place of those members is often, in a
great measure, indifferent. We must have
recourse to Horace, in order to interpret fome
parts of Milton's literal tranflation;

Who now enjoys thee credulous all gold,
Who always vacant, always amiable

Hopes thee; of flattering gales

Unmindful

are verfes which it is impoffible to interpret
by any rules of our language. There are
no rules in our language, by which any man
could difcover, that, in the first line, credulous
referred to who, and not to thee; or that all gold
referred to any thing; or, that in the fourth
line, unmindful, referred to who, in the
fecond, and not to thee in the third; or, on
the contrary, that, in the second line, always
vacant, always amiable, referred to thee in
the third, and not to who in the fame line
with it. In the Latin, indeed, all this is
abundantly plain.

Qui nunc te fruitur credulus aureâ,
Qui femper vacuam, femper amabilem
Sperat te; nefcius auræ fallacis.

Because the terminations in the Latin de

termine the reference of each adjective to its proper fubftantive, which it is impoffible for any thing in the English to do. How much this power of tranfpofing the order of their words muft have facilitated the compofition of the ancients, both in verse and profe, can hardly be imagined. That it must greatly have facilitated their verfification it is needless to obferve; and in profe, whatever beauty depends upon the arrangement and conftruction of the feveral members of the period, muft to them have been acquirable with much more eafe, and to much greater perfection, than it can be to those whofe expreffion is conftantly confined by the prolixnefs, constraint, and monotony of modern languages.

ESSAYS

ON

PHILOSOPHICAL SUBJECTS.

VOL. V.

E

ADVERTISEMENT

BY

THE EDITORS

HE much lamented Author of thefe

THE

Effays left them in the hands of his friends to be difpofed of as they thought proper, having immediately before his death destroyed many other manufcripts which he thought unfit for being made public. When these were inspected, the greater number of them appeared to be parts of a plan he once had formed, for giving a connected. history of the liberal fciences and elegant arts. It is long fince he found it neceffary to abandon that plan as far too extenfive; and these parts of it lay befide him neglected until his death. His friends are perfuaded however, that the reader will find in them that happy connection, that full and accurate expreffion, and that clear illuftration which are confpicuous in the rest

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