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of commiferation, not as a matter of self-indulgence, but in order to bring relief to those who need it, to give hope to the defponding, and comfort to the forrowful, for the fake of which one endures the fight of wretchedness, when, instead of giving pleasure, it diftreffeth every feeling heart. Such, however, enjoy at length, a luxury far fuperior to that of pity, the godlike luxury of difpelling grief, communicating happiness, and doing good.

THE

THE

PHILOSOPHY

OF

RHETORIC.

BOOK II.

The Foundations and effential Properties of Elocution.

CHAP. I.

The Nature and Characters of the Ufe which gives Law to Language.

ELOQUENCE

LOQUENCE hath always been confidered, and very juftly, as having a parti cular connexion with language. It is the inten tion of eloquence, to convey our fentiments into the minds of others, in order to produce a certain effect upon them. Language is the only vehicle by which this conveyance can be made. The art of speaking then is not less neceffary to the orator, than the art of thinking. Without the

Z 2

the latter, the former could not have exifted. Without the former, the latter would be ineffective. Every tongue whatever is founded in use or cuftom,

-Whofe arbitrary fway

Words and the forms of language muft obey. FRANCIS.

LANGUAGE is purely a fpecies of fashion (for this holds equally of every tongue) in which, by the general, but tacit confent of the people of a particular ftate or country, certain founds come to be appropriated to certain things, as their figns, and certain ways of inflecting and combining thofe founds come to be established, as denoting the relations which fubfift among the things fignified.

IT is not the bufinefs of grammar, as fome critics feem prepofteroufly to imagine, to give law to the fashions which regulate our fpeech. On the contrary, from its conformity to thefe, and from that alone, it derives all its authority and value. For, what is the grammar of any language? It is no other than a collection of general obfervations methodically digefted, and

-Ufus

Quem penes arbitrium eft et jus et norma lequendi.

HOR. De Arte Poet.

comprifing

comprifing all the modes previously and independently established, by which the fignifications, derivations, and combinations of words in that language, are afcertained. It is of no confequence here to what caufes originally thefe modes or fashions owe their exiftence, to imitation, to reflection, to affectation, or to caprice; they no fooner obtain and become general, than they are laws of the language, and the grammarian's only bufinefs is to note, collect, and methodise them. Nor does this truth concern only thofe more comprehenfive analogies or rules, which affect whole claffes of words; fuch as nouns, verbs, and the other parts of fpeech; but it concerns every individual word, in the inflecting or the combining of which, a particular mode hath prevailed. Every fingle anomaly, therefore, though departing from the rule affigned to the other words of the fame clafs, and on that account called an exception, ftands on the fame bafis, on which the rules of the tongue are founded, cuftom having prescribed for it a feparate rule*.

THE

• Thus in the two verbs call and fall, the fecond perfon fin gular of the former is calleft, agreeably to the general rule, the fecond perfon fingular of the latter is fhalt, agreeably to a particular rule affecting that verb. To say shallest for shalt, would

THE truth of this pofition hath never, for ought I can remember, been directly contraverted by any body, yet it is certain, that both critics and grammarians often argue in fuch a way as is altogether inconfiftent with it. What, for example, fhall we make of that complaint of Doctor Swift, that our language, in many "inftances, offends against every part of gram

mar?" Or what could the Doctor's notion of grammar be, when he expreffed himself in this manner? Some notion, poffibly, he had of grammar in the abstract, an univerfal archetype, by which the particular grammars of all different tongues ought to be regulated. If this was his meaning, I cannot fay whether he is in the right or in the wrong in this accufation. I acknowledge myself to be entirely ignorant of this ideal grammar; nor can I form a conjecture where its laws are to be learnt. One thing, indeed, every fmatterer in philofophy will tell us, that there can be no natural connexion between the founds of any language, and the things fignified, or between the modes of inflection and combination, and the relations they are intended to exprefs.

be as much a barbarifm, though according to the general rule, as to fay calt for calleft, which is according to no rule.

+ Letter to the Lord High Treasurer, &c.

Perhaps

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