lighted. Dr. Bentley uses such a phrase as I lit upon

a passage.

Alarmed by the ungoverned, and, in him, unprecedented, emotions of Edgar, he had been to Beech Park.-D'Arblay's Camilla.

It was but of a piece, indeed, that a ceremony conducted in defiance of humanity, should be founded in contempt of justice.-Melmoth's Letters of Fitzosborne.

It is well if the reader, without rejecting by the lump, endeavour patiently to gather the plain meaning.-Kames's Elements of Criticism.

Eloquence, style, composition, and such like have already been so frequently and so fully treated by various writers, that it seems scarcely justifiable to resume them.-Leland's Dissertation on Elo

quence.

Rabelais had too much game given him for satire in that age by the customs of courts and of convents, of processes and of wars, of schools and of camps, of romances and legends.-Temple on Poetry.

One would think there was (were) more sophists than one had a finger in this volume of letters.-Bentley on Socrates's "Epistles.

I had as lief say a thing after him as after another.-Lowth's Letter to Warburton.

If all these were exemplary in the conduct of their lives, things would soon take a new face, and religion receive a mighty encouragement.—Swift on the Advancement of Religion.

Nor would he do it to maintain debate, or shew his wit, but plainly tell me what stuck with him.—Burnet's Life of Rochester.

It fell out unfortunately that two of these principal persons fell out, and had a fatal quarrel.- Clarendon's Life.

This is worse than the description of the children sliding on the ice, all on a summer day; of whom we are told, "It so fell out they all fell in.”

Content, therefore, I am, my lord, that Britain stands in this respect as she now does. Able enough she is at present to shift for herself.— Shaftesbury's Letter concerning Design.

What is it but a kind of rack that forces men to say what they have no mind to ?-Cowley's Essays.

Time hangs heavy on their hands ; they know not how to employ it, or what to make of themselves.-Logan's Sermons.

This is one among the many reasons which render biography the most agreeable kind of reading in the world.-Roberts, Looker-on.

A perfect union of wit and judgment is one of the rarest things in the world.—Burke on the Sublime and Beautiful.

In the mean time, the affairs of Bernardo went on indifferently well at Madrid, being furthered, as he supposed, by Ruy Gomez, prince of Evoli.—Black's Life of Tasso.

He went into all the best things that were in that great man, but so that he perfected every one of them.-—Birch's Life of Archbishop Tillotson.

A lady of fashion in Ireland, of the first rate for beauty, elegance, and accomplishment, was going apace into this way, at the instance of a proselyting acquaintance.-Jones's Memoirs of Bishop Horne.

The last two sentences are each written in so abject a style, that there is little or no room left for the distinction of Italics.

Whoever is in the least acquainted with Grecian history must know that their legislator, by the severity of his institutions, formed the Spartans into a robust, hardy, valiant nation, made for war. Leland's History of Philip.

He therefore made rhyming tragedies, till, by the prevalence of manifest propriety, he seems to have grown ashamed of making them any longer.--Johnson's Life of Dryden.

From that time he resolved to make no more translations.-Johnson's Life of Pope.

It is my design to comprise in this short paper, the substance of those numerous dissertations the critics have made on the subject.Pope's Discourse on Pastoral Poetry.

A few reflections on the rise and progress of our distemper, and the rise and progress of our cure, will help us of course to make a true judgment.--Bolingbroke's Dissertation on Parties. This application of the verb make is somewhat awkward, as well as familiar. To make tragedies, to make translations, to make dissertations, to make judgments, are

*

This may

expressions which ought very cautiously to be admitted into a dignified composition.

A vulgar expression, says Longinus, is sometimes much more significant than an elegant one. readily be granted ; but however significant it may be, no expression that has a tendency to create sensations of disgust, will, by a judicious writer, be thought worthy of admission.

The following quotation will serve to shew how the most beautiful descriptions of poetry may be deformed by the introduction of one low or vulgar expression.

'Tis night, dread night, and weary Nature lies
So fast as if she never were to rise ;
No breath of wind now whispers thro' the trees,
No noise at land, nor murmur in the seas;
Lean wolves forget to howl at night's pale noon,
No wakeful dogs bark at the silent moon,
Nor bay the ghosts that glide with horror by
To view the caverns where their bodies lie;
The ravens perch, and no presages give,
Nor to the windows of the dying cleave;
The owls forget to scream ; no midnight sound
Calls drowsy Echo from the bollow ground;
In vaults the walking fires extinguished lie ;

The stars, heaven's sentries, wink, and seem to die.—Lec. The practice of describing objects and circumstances peculiar to ancient times, by terms characteristic of modern institutions and manners, may safely be classed among the chief improprieties of style. Gavin Douglas,

. the celebrated bishop of Dunkeld, has exhibited many curious instances of this practice in his Scotish version

ܪ

of the Æneid : the Sibyl, for example, is converted into a nun, and admonishes Æneas, the Trojan baron, to persist in counting his beads. This plan of reducing every ancient notion to a modern standard, has been adopted by much later writers : many preposterous instances occur in Dr. Blackwell's Memoirs of the Court of Augustus ; and Dr. Middleton, who, if not a more learned, is certainly a more judicious writer, has in his Life of Cicero been repeatedly betrayed into the same species of affectation. Balbus was general of the artillery to Cæsar ; Cicero procured a regiment for Curtius ; Tedius took the body of Clodius into his chaise ; Cælius was a young gentleman of equestrian rank. In the following passage, which is Dr. Doig's translation of a quotation from the scholiast on Pindar, we encounter ladies at a very early period in the history of society; inasmuch as they are found in the very act of discovering the use of petticoats: “ The same ladies, too, from a sense of decency, invented garments made of the bark of trees."* A late historian of Greece speaks of a bill being proposed in the Athenian assembly, and of the light dragoons of Alexander the Great.+

CHAP. IV.

OF PRECISION OF STYLE.

The third quality which enters into the composition of a perspicuous style, is precision. This implies the retrenching of all superfluity of expression. A precise ! style exhibits an exact copy of the writer's ideas. To write with precision, though this be properly a quality of style, he must possess a very considerable degree of distinctness in his manner of thinking. Unless his own conceptions be clear and accurate, he cannot convey to the minds of others a clear and accurate knowledge of the subject which he treats.

Looseness of style, which is properly opposed to precision, generally arises from using a superfluity of words. Feeble writers employ a multitude of words to make themselves understood, as they imagine, more distinctly ; but, instead of accomplishing this purpose, they only bewilder their readers. They are sensible that they have not caught an expression calculated to convey their precise meaning ; and therefore they endeavour to illustrate it by heaping together a mass of ill-consorted phrases. The image which they endeavour to present to our mind, is always viewed double, and no double image can be viewed distinctly. When an author speaks of his hero's courage in the day of battle, the expression is precise, and I understand it fully; but if, for the sake of multiplying words, he should afterwards extol his fortitude,