Siyar al-mutaʾakhkhirin 42.32.2

42.32.2

Pray, Sir, did they think that the whole of that history ought to have been written in that style? and that a plain narrative of facts (called unornamented by the author himself) was to run at the rate of that lofty short-piece, which beginning, like all the Eastern prefaces, by the praises of God, and those of His Messenger, is of course susceptible of the highest pitch of poetical sublimity? Do you think that Sir William Jones, himself, when resuming on the Bench the harangues of two sides and balancing the arguments of two parties, would make use of that turn of phrase, or of that pomp of words, which look so admirable in that enchanting piece of his, intituled the Muse Recalled! And even admitting that he would, could it be in his power? could his subject rise to that sublimity of thought and that felicity of expression, so conspicuous in that admirable ode of his, probably the best of those written in our century? No. And why? Because the subject itself does not admit that lofty style. I dare say, you agree with me in opinion on this subject; but what shows that every man has his own, is, that a person, who is by no means deficient in either sense or knowledge, had the singularity, on my pointing out to him the propriety of language in that short piece of sixteen lines, to say, that it was priggish, and that he did not like it so much, as the plainness of the rest.