Of vivacity as depending on the arrangement of the words. ed to be written or spoken in a cool, temperate mood, must rigidly adhere to the established order, which with us, as I observed, allows but little freedom. What is said will otherwise inevitably be exposed to the censure of quaintness and affectation, than which, perhaps, no censure can do greater prejudice to an orator. But as it is indubitable, that in many cases both composition and arrangement may, without incurring this reproach, be rendered greatly subservient to vivacity, I shall make a few observations on these, which I purpose to illustrate with proper examples. COMPOSITION and arrangement in sentences, though nearly connected, and therefore properly in this place considered together, are not entirely the same. Composition includes arrangement, and something more. When two sentences differ only in arrangement, the sense, the words, and the construction are the same; when they differ also in other articles of composition, there must be some difference in the words themselves, or at least in the manner of construing them. But I shall have occasion to illustrate this distinction in the examples to be afterwards produced. SENTENCES are either simple or complex; simple, consisting of one member only; as this, " In the be"ginning, God created the heaven and the earth *;" complex, consisting of two or members linked toge * Gen, i, 1, Sect. I. Of the nature of arrangement, and the principal division of sentences. ther by conjunctions; as this, "Doubtless thou art "our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and "Israel acknowledge us not *." In the composition of the former, we have only to consider the distribution of the words; in that of the latter, regard must also be had to the arrangement of the members. The members too are sometimes complex, and admit a subdivision into clauses, as in the following example, "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his mas"ter's crib ;—but Israel doth not know, my people "doth not consider " This decompound sentence hath two members, each of which is subdivided into two clauses. When a member of a complex sentence is simple, having but one verb, it is also called a clause. Of such a sentence as this, "I have called, but 66 ye refused " we should say indifferently, that it consists of two members, or of two clauses §. The members or the clauses are not always perfectly separate, the one succeeding the other; one of them is sometimes very aptly enclosed by the other, as in the subsequent instance: "When Christ (who is our life) "shall appear;—then shall ye also appear with him "in glory." This sentence consists of two members, the former of which is divided into two clauses; one of these clauses, "who is our life," being as it + Ibid. i. 3. + Prov. i. 24. *Isaiah lxiii. 16. The words member and clause in English, are used as corresponding to the Greek zahov and xouux, and to to Latin membrum and incisum. II. Col. iii. 4. Of vivacity as depending on the arrangement of the words. were embosomed in the other, "when Christ shall appear." So much for the primary distinction of sentences into simple and complex, SECT. II....Simple sentences, WITH regard to simple sentences, it ought to be observed first, that there are degrees in simplicity. "God made man," is a very simple sentence. " On "the sixth day God made man of the dust of the "earth after his own image," is still a simple sentence in the sense of rhetoricians and critics, as it hath but one verb, but less simple than the former, on account of the circumstances specified. Now it is evident, that the simpler any sentence is, there is the less scope for variety in the arrangement, and the less indulgence to a violation of the established rule. Yet even in the simplest, whatever strongly impresses the fancy, or awakens passion, is sufficient to a certain degree to authorise the violation. No law of the English tongue, relating to the disposition of words in a sentence, holds more generally than this, that the nominative has the first place, the verb the second, and the accusative, if it be an active verb that is employed, has the third *; if it be a sub Let it be observed, that in speaking of English syntax, I use stantive verb, the participle, adjective, or predicate, of whatever denomination it may be, occupies the third place. Yet this order, to the great advantage of the expression, is often inverted. Thus, in the general uproar at Ephesus, on occasion of Paul's preaching among them against idolatry, we are informed, that the people exclaimed for some time without intermission, "Great is Diana of the Ephe"sians *." Alter the arrangement, restore the grammatic order, and say, "Diana of the Ephesians is great," and you destroy at once the signature of impetuosity and ardour resulting, if you please to call it so, from the disarrangement of the words. 66 We are apt to consider the customary arrangement as the most consonant to nature, in consequence of which notion we brand every departure from it as a transgression of the natural order. This way of thinking ariseth from some very specious causes, but is far from being just. "Custom," it hath been said, “be"comes a second nature." Nay, we often find it strong enough to suppress the first. Accordingly, what is in this respect accounted natural in one language, is the terms nominative and accusative, merely to avoid tedious circumlocutions, sensible that in strict propriety our substantives have no such cases. By the nominative I mean always the efficient, a gent, or instrument operating, with which the verb agrees in number and person; by the accusative, the effect produced, the object aimed at, or the subject operated on. * Acts xix. 28. and 34, Of vivacity as depending on the arrangementof the words. unnatural in another. In Latin, for example, the negative particle is commonly put before the verb, in English it is put after it; in French one negative is put before, and another after. If in any of these languages you follow the practice of any other, the order of the words will appear unnatural. We in Britain think it most suitable to nature to place the adjective before the substantive; the French and most other Europeans think the contrary. We range the oblique cases of the personal pronouns, as we do the nouns. whose place they occupy, after the verb; they range them invariably before, notwithstanding that when the regimen is a substantive, they make it come after the `verb, as we do. They and we have both the same reason, custom, which is different in different countries. But it may be said, that more than this can be urged in support of the ordinary arrangement of a simple sentence above explained. The nominative, to talk in the logician's style, is the subject; the adjective, or participle, is the predicate; and the substantive verb, the copula. Now, is it not most natural, that the subject be mentioned before the thing predicated of it? and what place so proper for the copula which unites them, as the middle? This is plausible, and, were the mind a pure intellect, without fancy, taste, or passion, perhaps it would be just. But as the case is different with human nature, I suspect there will be found to be little uniformity in this particular in different tongues, unless where, in respect either of matter or of form, they have been in a great measure derived |