highest dignity of phrase; which brings me to speak of his
diction. Here I shall only beg one postulatum, viz., That the greatest
perfection of the language of a tragedy is, that it is not to be
understood; which granted (as I think it must be), it will necessarily
follow that the only way to avoid this is by being too high or too low
for the understanding, which will comprehend everything within its
reach. Those two extremities of stile Mr Dryden illustrates by the
familiar image of two inns, which I shall term the aerial and the
subterrestrial.

Horace goes farther, and sheweth when it is proper to call at one of
these inns, and when at the other:

Telephus et Peleus, cum pauper et exul uterque,
Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba.

That he approveth of the sesquipedalia verba is plain; for, had not
Telephus and Peleus used this sort of diction in prosperity, they
could not have dropt it in adversity. The aerial inn, therefore (says
Horace), is proper only to be frequented by princes and other great
men in the highest affluence of fortune; the subterrestrial is
appointed for the entertainment of the poorer sort of people only,
whom Horace advises,

--dolere sermone pedestri.

The true meaning of both which citations is, that bombast is the
proper language for joy, and doggrel for grief; the latter of which is
literally implied in the sermo pedestris, as the former is in the
sesquipedalia verba.