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This conftruction would lead us to conclude, that it was the work, and not the poet, that was afflicted with an asthma. The following arrangement removes the ambiguity: "Being now afflicted with an asthma, and finding the powers of life gradually declining, he had no longer courage to undertake this work in its full extent."

Since it is neceffary that there fhould be a perpetual intercourfe of buying aud felling, and dealing upon credit, where fraud is permitted or connived at, or hath no law to punish it, the honeft dealer is always undone, and the knave gets the advantage. Swift's Travels of Gulliver.

This arrangement conveys the idea that people "deal upon credit" in thefe places only "where fraud is permitted.” The ambiguity might have been avoided by the infertion of a few additional fyllables." Since it is neceffary that there fhould be a perpetual intercourfe of buying and felling and dealing upon credit, the consequence is, that, where fraud is permitted or connived at, or hath no law to punish it, the honeft dealer is always undone, and the knave gets the advantage."

The minifter who grows lefs by his elevation, like a little statue placed on a mighty pedestal, will always have his jealoufy strong about him.

Bolingbroke's Dissertation on Parties.

This conftruction leaves it doubtful whether the object introduced by way of fimile, relate to the fubfequent or to the preceding claufe. Better thus: "The minifter who, like a little ftatue placed on a mighty pedeftal, grows lefs by his elevation, will always have his jealoufy ftrong about him."

Inftead of being able to employ troops trained to skill in arms, and to military fubordination, by regular discipline, monarchs were obliged to depend on fuch forces as their vaffals conducted to their standard in confequence of their military tenures. Robertson's View of Society.

Here the author's meaning is fufficiently obvious; yet from the conftruction, we might conclude, that a little regular difcipline had been administered to monarchs, in order to make them depend on fuch forces as their vaffals conducted to their

ftandard. The fentence may be thus arranged: "Inftead of being able to employ troops trained, by regular discipline, to fkill in arms, and to military fubordination, monarchs were obliged to depend on fuch forces as their vaffals conducted to their standard in confequence of their military tenures." Perhaps it may be thought, that fome of the foregoing ob jections are too fcrupulous, and that the defect of perfpicui. ty is easily fupplied by accurate punctuation. It may be granted, that punctuation will fometimes remove an ambigu ity; but it can never produce that peculiar beauty which is perceived when the fenfe is clearly and distinctly unfolded by means of happy arrangement. Such influence does this beauty poffefs, that by a natural tranfition of perception, it is communicated to the very found of the words, fo as in appearance to improve the mufic of the period.

Having now confidered, the principal circumftances which contribute to perfpicuity, and the various modes in which the laws relating to it may be tranfgreffed, I fhall conclude the fubject by enquiring whether it be poffible, that this eñèñ, tial quality of ftyle may be carried to excefs.

It has been alleged, that too much perfpicuity has a tendency to cloy the reader, and that it becomes irkfome by affording no opportunity of exertion to the rational powers of the mind. This objection arifes from the error of confounding two diffimilar objects, the common and the clear, and thence very naturally their contraries, the new and the obfcure. If you entertain your reader folely or chiefly with thoughts which are either trite or obvious, he will foon be filled with languor and difguft. You prefent no uncommon images or fentiments to his mind, you give him little or no information, and confequently afford neither exercise to his reafon, nor entertainment to his fancy. In what we read, and what we hear, we always expect to find fomething with which we were formerly unacquainted. And when this expectation is difappointed, we difcover nothing to repay our attention. We are foon difgufted with fuch a trifling minuteness of narration, defcription, or argument, as an ordinary apprehenfion renders fuperfluous. The reason is, not that any thing is faid with too much perfpicuity, but that many things are faid with which no perfon is unacquainted. Thus, when Quintus Curtius had informed us, that the fhouts of the Macedonian army were reverberated by the cliffs of

the mountains, and the vast forests, it was certainly very unneceffary to add, quippe femper circumjecta nemora petræque, quantamcumque accipere vocem, multiplicato fono referunt." Reafons that are known to every one, ought to be taken for granted to exprefs them is childish, and interrupts the narration.

this I fhall felect one Xerxes w

The practice of collecting trite maxims and common-place fentiments is finely ridiculed in an effay of Swift's. From "All rivers go to the fea, but none return from it. wept when he beheld his army; to confider that in less than an hundred years they would be ~ all dead. Anacreon was choqued with a grape-ftone; and violent joy kills as well as violent grief. There is nothing conftant in this world but inconftancy; yet Plato thought that if virtue would appear in the world in her own native drefs, all men would be enamoured with her. But now, fince intereft governs the world, and men neglect the golden mean, Jupiter himself, if he came on earth, would be defpifed, unlefs it were as he did to Danae, in a golden fhower. men, now-a-days, worship the rifing fun, and not the fetting."*

For

It is futility in the thought, and not perfpicuity in the language, which conftitutes. the fault of fuch performances as thofe to which I have here alluded. There is as little hazard, that a compofition fhall be faulty in the latter refpect, as that a mirror fhall be too faithful in reflecting the images of objects, or that the glaffes of a telescope fhall be too transparent. At the fame time, it is not to be difembled, that, with inattentive readers, darkness frequently paffes for depth. On the contrary, to be perfpicuous, and to be fuperficial, are regarded by them as fynonymous. But it is not furely to their abfurd notions that our language ought to be adapted.

Before I difmifs this fubject, it may, however, be proper to obferve, that every fpecies of compofition does not admit of an equal degree of perfpicuity. In the fublime ode, for example, it is impoffible, or at leaft very difficult, to reconcile the utmoft perfpicuity with that force and vivacity which are indifpenfably requifite in fuch performances. But even in this cafe, though the genius of the higher fpe

* Swift's Critical Effay upon the Faculties of the Mind.

cies of lyric poetry may render obfurity to a certain degree excufeable, nothing can ever constitute it a pofitive excellence.

CHAP. VIII.

OF UNITY IN THE STRUCTURE OF SENTENCES.

Iunity is abfolutely requifite. There muft always be

N compofitions of every defcription, a certain degree of

fome leading principle to form a chain of connexion between the component parts. In fingle fentences, which are members of a compofition, the fame principle must also be predominant.

I. Objects that have no intimate connexion fhould never be crowded into one fentence. A fentence or period ought to exprefs one entire thought or mental propofition; and different thoughts ought to be feparated in the expreffion, by being placed in different periods. It is improper to connect in language things which are feparated in reality. Of errors against this rule I fhall produce a few examples.

In this uneafy ftate, both of his public and private life, Cicero was oppreffed by a new and cruel affliction, the death of his beloved, daughter Tullia; which happened foon after her divorce from Dolabella, whofe manners and humours were entirely difagreeable to her.

Middleton's Life of Cicero.

The principal object in this fentence, is the death of Tullia, which was the caufe of her father's affliction, The time when the event took place is, without any impropriety, pointed out in the courfe of the fentence; but the fubjunction of Dolabella's character is foreign to the main object. It breaks the unity and compactnefs of the period, by prefenting a new picture to the reader.

He is fuppofed to have fallen, by his father's death into the hands of his uncle, a 'vintner, near Charing-cross, who fent him for fome time to Dr. Busby, at Westminster; but, not intending to give him any education beyond that of the

fchool, took him, when he was well advanced in literature to his own houfe, where the earl of Dorfet, celebrated for patronage of genius, found him by chance, as Burnet relates, reading Horace, and was fo well pleafed with his proficiency, that he undertook the care and coft of his academical education. Johnson's Life of Prior.

This fingle fentence contains no inconfiderable number of the particulars that are known with regard to the perfonal hiftory of Prior. He is conducted from the house of his father to that of his uncle; fent to Westminster fchool, where he makes confiderable progrefs in literature; is taken from fchool, and remains at his uncle's; obtains the patronage of the earl of Dorfet, who, if Burnet may be credited, found him reading Horace; and, laft of all, is about being fent to the university, under the protection of that noble

man.

The ufual acceptation takes profit and pleasure for two - different things, and not only calls the followers or votaries of them by feveral names of bufy and idle men, but dif. tinguishes the faculties of the mind that are converfant about them, calling the operations of the first wifdom, and of the other wit, which is a Saxon word, that is used to exprefs what the Spaniards and Italians call ingenio, and the French esprit, both from the Latin; but I think wit more peculiarly fignifies that of poetry, as may occur upon remarks on the Runic language. Temple on Poetry.

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Before the author arrives at the clofe of this fentence, he feems to have forgotten what he fet out with inculcating. A right honourable author, having had occafion to mention the influence of the fun, expatiates in the following

manner:

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It breaks the icy fetters of the main, where vaft fea-monfters pierce through floating islands, with arms that can withftand the crystal rock; whilst others, who of themselves feem great as iflands, are by their bulk alone armed again!t all but man, whofe fuperiority over creatures of fuch fize and force, fhould make him mindful of his privilege of reafon, and force him humbly to adore the great Composer of thefe wondrous frames, and the author of his own fuperior wisdom. Shaftesbury's Moralists.

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