ments. Such thoughts, therefore, should be rejected because they violate propriety, and, besides, they are often deficient in point of truth or clearness. Example.-A modern poet thus addresses Pompey deprived of the rites of sepulture:

"Indignum tellus fuerat tibi victa sepulchrum;
Non decuit cœlo te nisi, Magne, tegi."

"Quel glace ne fondrait à la chaleur de vos belles larmes."

Balzac.

52. Extravagant thoughts present their objects in improbable or extraordinary circumstances, or attribute language to persons which is unsuitable to their characters or situations. They ought to be rejected because they violate truth, propriety, and often clear

ness.

Example. "Unde nil majus generatur ipso,

Nec viget quidquam simile aut secundum."

Martial.

Dimidiato corpore pugnabant sibi superstites et perempta partis ultores."-Strab.

53. Showy, inflated, or exaggerated thoughts represent as great, actions or sentiments which are not so, or they magnify them beyond the bounds of reason or propriety:-they ought to be rejected because they offend against truth, frequently also against clearness.

Example.

"Pro tumulo ponas orbem, pro tegmine cœlum,
Sidera pro facibus, pro lachrimis maria."
Epit. on Charles V.

PART II.

OF STYLE.

54. "Rien n'est beau que le vrai, le vrai seul est aimable."-Boileau. But the charm of truth especially depends upon the manner of expressing it; it is, therefore, not sufficient merely to think correctly, it is farther necessary that our thoughts be expressed in appropriate language. This is the object of style.

55. Style is the manner in which a person expresses his thoughts.

CHAPTER I.

Of the Qualities of Style.

56. Whatever may be an author's manner of writing, his style ought to be, first, clear; secondly, harmonious; thirdly, elegant; fourthly, suitable to the subject.

ART. I. OF CLEARNESS.

57. The style of an author is clear, when it expresses the thoughts in such a manner as to be readily and without effort understood.

58. Clearness depends upon the choice of words, and their arrangement in the construction of the sen

tence.

SECT. I. OF THE CHOICE OF WORDS.

59. In the choice of words, purity and propriety are the fundamental qualifications.

60. Purity consists in the use of those words and idiomatical expressions which have received the sanction of authority in the language. It is violated by the use of foreign, obsolete, or newly coined words or expressions.

61. Propriety consists in the selection of such words and phrases as the usage of the best authors has appropriated to those ideas which we intend to express by them.

It is violated by confounding synonymous words; that is, words which agree in expressing the general idea, but represent their object under a diversity of manner or circumstance, corresponding to the different shades of meaning this general idea may as

sume.

Ex. "I am too proud to be vain."-Swift.

"Tuta scelera esse possunt, secura non possunt."-Seneca.

SECT. II. OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF WORDS.

62. In the construction of words correctness, precision, and order are to be observed.

63. Correctness implies the observation of the rules of grammar. It is violated by the needless multiplication of adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, incidental clauses, personal and relative pronouns, or by separating them from the words upon which they depend; by passing suddenly from one person to another, or by the omission of words that are essential to complete the meaning of the sentence.

64. Precision (præ scindo) requires that all words which add nothing essential to the idea should be

retrenched. It is violated by the use of words or phrases that encumber the meaning, or which are too long to be distinctly apprehended by the mind.

65. It does not, however, exclude a happy copiousness of words, which, in order to produce a greater effect, dwells upon the idea, the sentiment, or the image, expressing it fully under its diversity of manner or circumstance.

66. We must be careful not to confound precision with conciseness, which presents the idea only once, and then always in the fewest possible words. For example, the style of Demosthenes, Tacitus, Swift, La Bruyère, is concise; that of Cicero, Livy, Addison, Massillon, is copious; yet the style of the last mentioned authors is not, on that account, the less precise.

Example. 1. "Vere novo terra colenda est."

2. "Vere novo, gelidus canis cum montibus humor Liquitur, et Zephyro putris se gleba resolvit, Depresso incipiat jam tum mihi taurus aratro Ingemere, et sulco attritus splendescere vomer." Virg.

67. Order consists in arranging the words according to the effect intended to be produced. Sometimes we follow the same order in which the ideas or facts present themselves to the mind;-at others we follow that of the impressions we receive from them, or which we wish to produce upon others.

68. In every sentence there is always a principal thought, and consequently a principal member;-in every member an idea, and consequently an essential

word upon which all the others depend. In this consists the unity of the sentence and of each of its parts. Hence this word and this member ought to be placed where it will make the strongest impression.

69. Generally speaking, the first and last word of each member, or of each sentence, strike the mind most forcibly. On this account we dispose the adverbs, incidental clauses, &c., in the body of the sentence, provided they do not express an important circumstance or relation, and if the grammatical construction permits it, we should always conclude a sentence or a member of a sentence by one of the principal words.

70. These words should be placed at the beginning of the sentence, if we wish to arouse the attention, or connect the sentence with what precedes; at the end, if we aim at impressing the thing upon the mind of the hearer or reader, to excite curiosity, to suspend interest to what, if brought forward sooner, would have seemed repulsive, to lead the mind from consequence to consequence, in so diversified a manner, that we arrive at truths which, if bluntly stated, would at first view appear more than doubtful, to attach a member to a sentence succeeding a word or phrase of which it is the development, or finally to produce a stronger impression upon the mind by the natural sequence of ideas.

71. The reason of this is, that the mind requires that the strength and importance of the thoughts should go on increasing, by an easy and natural gradation, to the conclusion, and that no word or phrase,