in which they are placed. Hence the beauty of lanwith respect to signification may be distinguished into two kinds: first, the beauties that arise from a right choice of words for constructing the period; and next, the beauties that arise from a due arrangement of these words. I begin with rules that direct us to a right choice of words, and then proceed to rules that concern their arrangement.

And with respect to the former, communication of thought being the chief end of language, it is a rule that perspicuity ought not to be sacrificed to any other beauty whatever: if it should be doubted whether perspicuity be a positive beauty, it cannot be doubted that the want of it is the greatest defect. Nothing therefore in language ought more to be studied, than to prevent all obscurity in the expression; for to have no meaning, is but one degree worse than to have a meaning that is not understood.

Want of perspicuity from a wrong arrangement, belongs to the next branch. Obscurity from a wrong choice of words is a common error among the herd of writers; and there may be a defect in perspicuity proceeding even from the slightest ambiguity in construction; as where the period commences with a member conceived to be in the nominative case, which afterward is found to be in the objective. Another error against perspicuity, and which passes with some writers for a beauty, is the giving different names to the same object, mentioned oftener than once in the same period.

The next rule, because next in importance, is, that language ought to correspond with the subject. Heroic actions or sentiments require elevated language; tender sentiments ought to be expressed in words soft and flowing; and plain language void of ornament, is adapted to subjects grave and didactic. Language is the dress of thought: and where the one is not suited to the other, we are sensible of incongruity; as where a judge is dressed like a fop, or a peasant like a man of

quality. Where the impression made by the words resembles the impression made by the thought, the similar emotions mix sweetly in the mind, and double the pleasure; but where the impressions made by the thought and the words are dissimilar, the unnatural union they are forced into is disagreeable.

This concordance between the thought and the words has been observed by every critic, and is so well understood as not to require any illustration. But there is a concordance of a peculiar kind, that has scarcely been touched upon in works of eriticism, though it contributes to neatness of composition. It is what follows. In a thought of any extent, we commonly find some parts intimately united, some slightly, some disjoined, and some directly opposed to each other. To find these conjunctions and disjunctions imitated in the expression, is a beauty; because such imitation makes the words concordant with the sense. Two members of a thought, connected by their relation to the same action, will be expressed by two members of the period governed by the same verb; in which case these members, to improve their connexion, ought to be constructed in the same manner. This beauty is common among good writers. Where two ideas are so connected, as to require but a copulative, it is pleasant to find a connexion in the words that express these ideas, were it even so slight as where both begin with the same letter.

Next as to examples of disjunction and opposition in the parts of the thought, imitated in the expression; an imitation that is distinguished by the name of antithesis. Speaking of Coriolanus soliciting the people to be made consul:

With a proud heart he wore his humble weeds.

CORIOL ANUS. Had you rather Cæsar were living, and die all slaves, than that Cæsar were dead, to live all free men? JULIUS CESAR.

Artificial connexion among words is a beauty when it represents any peculiar connexion among the con

stituent parts of the thought; but we ought to avoid every artificial opposition of words, where there is none in the thought. This is termed verbal antithesis, and is much studied by low writers.

A fault directly opposite to that last mentioned, is to conjoin artificially, words that express ideas opposed to each other. This is a fault too gross to be in common practice; and yet writers are guilty of it in some degree, when they conjoin by a copulative things transacted at different periods of time.

This rule of studying uniformity between the thought and expression, may be extended to the construction of sentences or periods. A sentence or period ought to express one entire thought or mental proposition; and different thoughts ought to be separated in the expression by placing them in different sentences or periods. It is therefore offending against neatness, to crowd into one period entire thoughts requiring more than one; which is joining in language things that are separated in reality. To crowd into a single member of a period different subjects, is still worse than to crowd them into one period.

From conjunctions and disjunctions in general, we proceed to comparisons, which make one species of them, beginning with similies. And here, also, the intimate connexion that words have with their meaning, requires that in describing two resembling objects, a resemblance in the two members of the period ought to be studied. Next, as to the length of the members that signify the resembling objects. To produce a resemblance between such members, they ought not only to be constructed in the same manner, but as nearly as possible to be equal in length. Of a comparison where things are opposed to each other, it must be obvious, that if resemblance ought to be studied in the words which express two resembling objects, there is equal reason for studying opposition in the words which express contrasted objects.

We proceed to a rule of a different kind. During

the course of a period, the scene ought to be continued without variation: the changing from person to person, from subject to subject, or from person to subject, within the bounds of a single period, distracts the mind, and affords no time for a solid impression. I illustrate this rule by giving an example of a deviation from it.

This prostitution of praise is not only a deceit upon the gross of mankind, who take their notion of characters from the learned; but also the better sort must, by this means, lose some part at least of that desire of fame which is the incentive to generous actions, when they find it promiscuously bestowed on the meritorious and undeserving. GUARDIAN, No. 4.

A plurality of copulatives in the same period ought to be avoided, except where the words are intended to express the coldness of the speaker; for there the redundancy of copulatives is a beauty:

Dining one day at an alderman's in the city, Peter observed him expatiating after the manner of his brethren, in the praises of his sirloin of beef. "Beef," said the sage magistrate," is the king of meat: beef comprehends in it the quintessence of partridge, and quail, and venison, and pheasant, and plum-pudding, and custard." TALE OF A TUB. § 4.

And the author shows great delicacy of taste by varying the expression in the mouth of Peter, who is represented more animated:

"Bread," says he, “dear brothers, is the staff of life; in which bread is contained, inclusive, the quintessence of beef, mutton, veal, venison, partridges, plum-pudding, and custard."

The next beauty consists in a due arrangement of the words. In every thought there is at least one capital object considered as acting and suffering. This object is expressed by the substantive, and its action by the verb. Its suffering, or passive state, is expressed by a passive verb; and the thing that acts upon it, by a substantive-noun. Words that import a relation, must be distinguished from such as do not. Substantives commonly imply no relation; such as animal, man, tree, river. Adjectives, verbs, and adverbs, imply a relation; the adjective good must relate to some being possessed of that quality; the verb write is

applied to some person who writes; and the adverbs moderately, diligently, have plainly a reference to some action which they modify. When a relative word is introduced, it must be signified by the expression to what word it relates, without which the sense is not complete. When two substantives happen to be connected, as cause and effect, as principal and accessory, such connexion cannot be expressed by contiguity solely; for words must often in a period be placed together which are not thus related: the relation between substantives, therefore, cannot otherwise be expressed but by particles denoting the relation. These words are called prepositions.

Transposition and inversion, change the natural order of words in a sentence, and this license is illustrated by the following examples:

Moon that now meet'st the orient sun, now fliest

With the fix'd stars, fix'd in their orb that flies,

And ye five other wand'ring fires that move

In mystic dance not without song, resound

His praise.

In the following example, where the word first introduced imports relation, the disjunction will be found more violent.

་

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste

Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,

Sing, heavenly muse.

In entering on the rules of arrangement, we begin with the natural style, and proceed to the most inverted. And in the arrangement of a period, as well as in a right choice of words, the first and great object being perspicuity, the rule above laid down, that perspicuity ought not to be sacrificed to any other beauty, holds equally in both. Ambiguities occasioned by a wrong arrangement are of two sorts; one where the arrangement leads to a wrong sense, and one where the sense is left doubtful. The first, being the more

$