other rule, above laid down. I proceed as usual to illustrate this rule by examples. The following period is placed in its natural order. Were instruction an essential circumstance in epic poetry, I doubt whether a single instance could be given of this species of composition, in any language. The period thus arranged admits a full close upon the word composition; after which it goes on languidly, and closes without force. This blemish will be avoided by the following arrangement: Were instruction an essential circumstance in epic poetry, I doubt whether, in any language, a single instance could be given of this species of composition. Some of our most eminent divines have made use of this Platonic notion, as far as it regards the subsistence of our passions after death, with great beauty and strength of reason.-Spectator, No. 90. Better thus: Some of our most eminent divines have, with great beauty and strength of reason, made use of this Platonic notion, &c. Men of the best sense have been touched more or less with these groundless horrors and presages of futurity, upon surveying the most indifferent works of nature.-Ibid. No. 505. Better, Upon surveying the most indifferent works of nature, men of the best sense, &c. She soon informed him of the place he was in, which, notwithstanding all its horrors, appeared to him more sweet than the bower of Mahomet, in the company of his Balsora.-Guardian, No. 167. Better, She soon, &c., appeared to him, in the company of his Balsora, more sweet, &c. The emperor was so intent on the establishment of his absolute power in Hungary, that he exposed the empire doubly to desolation and ruin fʊr the sake of it.-Letters on History, vol. i. let. vii. Bolingbroke. Better, ruin. -that for the sake of it he exposed the empire doubly to desolation and None of the rules for the composition of periods are more liab.o to be abused, than those last mentioned; witness many Latin writers, among the moderns especially, whose style, by inversions too violent, is rendered harsh and obscure. Suspension of the thought till the close of the period, ought never to be preferred before perspicuity. Neither ought such suspension to be attempted in a long period; because in that case the mind is bewildered amidst a profusion of words: a traveller, while he is puzzled about the road, relishes not the finest prospect: 448. Rule, when force and liveliness of expression are demanded.-Disadvantage of constructing a period with more than one complete close in the sense. Examples.-WhoB the suspension of thought to the close of a period should not be attempted. All the rich presents which Astyages had given him at parting, keeping only some Median horses, in order to propagate the breed of them in Persia he distributed among his friends whom he left at the court of Ecbatana. Travels of Cyrus, Book i. 449. The foregoing rules concern the arrangement of a single period: I add one rule more concerning the distribution of a discourse into different periods. A short period is lively and familiar: a long period, requiring more attention, makes an impression grave and solemn. In general, a writer ought to study a mixture of long and short periods, which prevent an irksome uniformity, and entertain the mind with a variety of impressions. In particular, long periods ought to be avoided till the reader's attention be thoroughly engaged; and therefore a discourse, especially of the familiar kind, ought never to be introduced with a long period. For that reason the commencement of a letter to a very young lady on her marriage is faulty: Madam, the hurry and impertinence of receiving and paying visits on account of your marriage, being now over, you are beginning to enter into a course of life, where you will want much advice to divert you from falling into many errors, fopperies, and follies, to which your sex is subject.-Swift. See another example still more faulty, in the commencement of Cicero's oration, Pro Archia Poeta. 450. Before proceeding farther, it may be proper to review the rules laid down in this and the preceding section, in order to make some general observations. That order of the words and members of a period is justly termed natural, which corresponds to the natural order of the ideas that compose the thought. The tendency of many of the foregoing rules is to substitute an artificial arrangement in order to catch some beauty either of sound or meaning for which there is no place in the natural order. But seldom it happens, that in the same period there is place for a plurality of these rules: if one beauty can be retained, another must be relinquished; and the only question is, Which ought to be preferred? This question cannot be resolved by any general rule: if the natural order be not relished, a few trials will discover that artificial order which has the best effect; and this exercise, supported by a good taste, will in time make the choice easy. All that can be said in general is, that in making a choice, sound ought to yield to signification. The transposing words and members out of their natural order, so remarkable in the learned languages, has been the subject of much speculation.* It is agreed on all hands, that such transposi * [The very great difference of the genius of the ancient and modern languages in this respect has been thus illustrated by Prof. Barron, Lect. III.: "Suppose an English historian were to address his readers, in the introduction of a work from which he expected high literary fame, in the following style: All men who themselves wish to exceed the inferior animals, by every effort to endeavor ought,' he would find himself disappointed; as few read 449. Rule for the distribution of discourse into different periods. Long and short periods. tion or inversion bestows upon a period a very sensible degree of force and elevation; and yet writers seem to be at a loss how to account for this effect. Cerceau ascribes so much power to inversion, as to make it the characteristic of French verse, and the single circumstance which in that language distinguishes verse from prose: and yet he pretends not to say, that it hath any other effect but to raise surprise; he must mean curiosity, which is done by suspending the thought during the period, and bringing it out entire at the close. This indeed is one effect of inversion; but neither its sole effect, nor even that which is the most remarkable, as is made evi dent above. But waiving censure, which is not an agreeable task, 1 enter into the matter; and begin with observing, that if conformity between words and their meaning be agreeable, it must of course be agreeable to find the same order or arrangement in both. Hence the beauty of a plain or natural style, where the order of the words corresponds precisely to the order of the ideas. Nor is this the single beauty of a natural style: it is also agreeable by its simplicity and perspicuity. This observation throws light upon the subject for if a natural style be in itself agreeable, a transposed style cannot be so; and therefore its agreeableness must arise from admitting some positive beauty that is excluded in a natural style. To be confirmed in this opinion, we need but reflect upon some of the foregoing rules, which make it evident, that language by means of inversion, is susceptible of many beauties that are totally excluded in a natural arrangement. From these premises it clearly follows, that inversion ought not to be indulged, unless in order to reach some beauty superior to those of a natural style. It may with great certainty be pronounced, that every inversion which is not governed by this rule, will appear harsh and strained, and be disrelished by every one of taste. Hence the beauty of inversion when happily conducted; the beauty, not of an end, but of means, as furnishing opportunity for numberless ornaments that find no place in a natural style: hence the force, the elevation, the harmony, the cadence, of some compositions: hence the manifold beauties of the Greek and Roman tongues, of which living languages afford but faint imitations. ["If we attend to the history of our own language," says Prof. Barron, "we may discover a strong disposition in some of our prose ers, I believe, unless to indulge a little mirth, would be induced to proceed further than the first sentence; yet a Roman historian could express these ideas in that very arrangement with full energy and propriety: Omnes homines, qui sese student præstare cæteris animalibus, summa ope niti decet.' "Little less surprising and uncouth would be the following exordium on a similar occasion: Whether I shall execute a work of merit, if, from the building of the city, the affairs of the people of Rome I shall relate, neither sufficiently know I, nor if I knew declare durst I.' The reader perhaps would not suspect such language to be a literal translation of the first sentence of the most finished historical production of antiquity, which runs thus in the elegant diction of Livy: Facturusne sum operæ pretium si a primordio urbis, res po puli Romani perscripserim; nec satis scio, nec, si scirem, dicere ausim.'"] writers, to accommodate its arrangement to that of the languages of Greece and Rome. But, in executing the design, they disfigured our language in every respect. They Latinized our words and our terminations. They introducel inversions so violent, as to render the sense often obscure, in some cases unintelligible; and they extended their periods to a length which extinguished every spark of patience in the reader. Hobbes, Clarendon, and even Milton in his prose writings, afford numberless instances of this bad taste; and it is remarkable, that it prevailed chiefly during the latter part of the seventeenth century. In the beginning of that century, and in the end of the preceding one, during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and James I., the purity of the English language, and a correct taste in writing it, were perhaps farther advanced, both in England and Scot land, than in the succeeding period. The works of Shakspeare Hooker, Melvil, and the translation of the Bible, have scarcely beer equalled for good style, by any productions of the seventeenth century; and, in point of grammatical correctness, have not yet been often surpassed. The fanaticism and violence of the civil wars corrupted the taste, and the imitation of Latin composition in theological controversy, seems to have disfigured the language of England." —Lect. III.]* SECTION III. Beauty of Language from a Resemblance between Sound and Signification. 451. A RESEMBLANCE between the sound of certain words and their signification, is a beauty that has escaped no critical writer, and yet is not handled with accuracy by any of them. They have probably been of opinion, that a beauty so obvious to the feeling requires no explanation. This is an error; and to avoid it, I shall give examples of the various resemblances between sound and signification, accompanied with an endeavor to explain why such resemblances are beautiful. I begin with examples where the resemblance between the sound and signification is the most entire; and next examples where the resemblance is less and less so. There being frequently a strong resemblance of one sound to another, it will not be surprising to find an articulate sound resembling [In connection with the above, may be read with great advantage, the first of chap. xxii. on the Philosophy of Style.] 450. The order of words and members that may be called natural. Rule for choice between it and an artificial order.-Transposition in the learned languages. Illustration.Whence the beauty of a natural style. Whence, then, the agreeableness of a transposed style. When, only such a style should be used.-Style of the latter part of the seventeenth century. one that is not articulate: thus the sound of a bowstring is imitated by the words that express it: -The string let fly, Twang'd short and sharp, like the shrill swallow's cry. The sound of felling trees in a wood: Odyssey, xxi. 419. Loud sounds the axe, redoubling strokes on strokes, Iliad, xxiii. 144. But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, Dire Scylla there a scene of horror forins, And here Charybdis fills the deep with storms; The rough rock roars; tumultuous boil the waves.-Pope. No person can be at a loss about the cause of this beauty: it is obviously that of imitation. 452. That there is any other natural resemblance of sound to signification, must not be taken for granted. There is no resemblance of sound to motion, nor of sound to sentiment. We are however apt to be deceived by artful pronunciation; the same passage may be pronounced in many different tones, elevated or humble, sweet or harsh, brisk or melancholy, so as to accord with the thought or sentiment; such concord must be distinguished from that concord between sound and sense, which is perceived in some expressions independent of artful pronunciation: the latter is the poet's work; the former must be attributed to the reader. Another thing contributes still more to the deceit in language, sound and sense being intimately connected, the properties of the one are readily communicated to the other; for example, the quality of grandeur, of sweetness, or of melancholy, though belonging to the thought solely, is transferred to the words, which by that means resemble in appearance the thought that is expressed by them (see chap. ii. part i. sec. 5). ["Wordsworth has not only presented the hues of nature to the eye, but has also imitated her harmonies to the ear. Of this I will adduce an instance: Astounded in the mountain gap Till breaking in upon the dying strain, A rending o'er his head begins the fray again.- Wagoner. 451. Resemblances between sound and signification. Its beauty.-Articulate sound re sembling one that is not so. The cause of this beauty. |