I

MAY THERE NOT BE AN EXCESS OF PERSPICUITY?

SHALL conclude this subject with inquiring whether it be possible that perspicuity should be carried to excess. It hath been said, that too much of it has a tendency to cloy the reader, and, as it gives no play to the rational and active powers of the mind, will soon grow irksome through excess of facility. In this man. ner some able critics have expressed themselves on this point, who will be found not to differ in sentiment, but only in expression from the principles above laid down.

The objection ariseth manifestly from the confounding of two objects, the common and the clear, and thence very naturally their contraries, the new and the dark, that are widely different. If you entertain your reader solely or chiefly with thoughts that are either trite or obvious, you cannot fail soon to tire him. You introduce few or no new sentiments into his mind, you give him little or no information, and consequently afford neither exercise to his reason, nor entertainment to his fancy. In what we read, and what we hear, we always seek for something in one respect or other new, which we did not know, or at least attend to before. The less we find of this, the sooner we are tired. Such a trifling minuteness, therefore, in narration, description, or argument, as an ordinary apprehension would render superfluous, is apt quickly to disgust us. The reason is, not because any thing is said too perspicuously, but because many things are said which ought not to be said at all. Nay, if those very things had been expressed obscurely (and the most obvious things may be expressed obscurely,) the fault would have been much greater; because it would have required a good deal of attention to discover what, after we had discovered it, we should perceive not to be of sufficient value for requiting our pains. To an author of this kind we should be apt to apply the character which Bassanio in the play gives of Gratiano's conversation : He speaks an infinite "deal of nothing. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid

THE

PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC.

BOOK III.

THE DISCRIMINATING PROPERTIES OF ELOCUTION.

CHAPTER I.

Of Vivacity as depending on the Choice of Words.

HAVING discussed the subject of perspicuity, by which the discourse is fitted to inform the understanding, I come now to those qualities of style by which it is adapted to please the imagination, and consequently to awake and fix the attention. These I have already denominated vivacity and elegance, which correspond to the two sources, whence, as was observed in the beginning of this inquiry,* the merit of an address to the fancy immediately results. By vivacity of expression, resemblance is attained, as far as language can contribute to the attainment; by elegance, dignity of manner.

I begin with vivacity, whose nature (though perhaps the word is rarely used in a signification so extensive) will be best understood by considering the several principles from which it arises. There are three things in style on which its vivacity depends, the choice of words, their number, and their arrangement.

The first thing then that comes to be examined, is the words chosen. Words are either proper terms or rhetorical tropes; and whether the one or the other, they may be regarded not only as signs, but as sounds; and consequently as capable, in certain cases, of bearing in some degree a natural resemblance or affinity to the

Book I. Chap. I.

things signified. These three articles therefore, proper terms, rhetorical tropes, and the relation which the sound may be made to bear to the sense, I shall, on the first topic, the choice of words, consider severally, as far as concerns the subject of vivacity.

SECTION I.

PROPER TERMS.

I BEGIN with proper terms, and observe that the quality of chief importance in these for producing the end proposed, is their speciality. Nothing can contribute more to enliven the expres sion, than that all the words employed be as particular and determinate in their signification, as will suit with the nature and the scope of the discourse. The more general the terms are, the picture is the fainter; the more special they are, it is the brighter. The same sentiments may be expressed with equal justness, and even perspicuity, in the former way, as in the latter; but as the colouring will in that case be more languid, it cannot give equal pleasure to the fancy, and by consequence will not contribute so much either to fix the attention, or to impress the memory. I shall illustrate this doctrine by some examples.

In the song of Moses, occasioned by the miraculous passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea, the inspired poet, speaking of the Egyptians, says, "They sank as lead in the mighty wa "ters." Make but a small alteration on the expression, and say, "They fell as metal in the mighty waters ;" and the difference in the effect will be quite astonishing. Yet the sentiment will be equally just, and in either way the meaning of the author can hardly be mistaken. Nor is there another alteration made upon the sentence, but that the terms are rendered more compre hensive or generical. To this alone, therefore, the difference of the effect must be ascribed. To sink is as it were the species, as it implies only "falling or moving downwards in a liquid ele66 ment;" to full answers to the genus;† in like manner, lead is the species, metal is the genus.

* Exod. xv. 10.

† I am sensible that genus and species are not usually, and perhaps cannot be so properly applied to verbs; yet there is in the reference which

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Consider," says our Lord," the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that So"lomon in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. If "then God so clothe the grass which to-day is in the field, and "to-morrow is cast into the oven, how much more will he clothe 66 you?"* Let us here adopt a little of the tasteless manner of modern paraphrasts, by the substitution of more general terms, one of their many expedients of infrigidating, and let us observe the effect produced by this change. "Consider the flowers, how "they gradually increase in their size, they do no manner of "work, and yet I declare to you, that no king whatever, in his "most splendid habit, is dressed up like them. If then God in ❝his providence doth so adorn the vegetable productions, which ❝ continue but a little time on the land, and are afterwards put "into the fire, how much more will he provide clothing for you? ? How spiritless is the same sentiment rendered by these small variations? The very particularizing of to-day and to-morrow, is infinitely more expressive of transitoriness, than any description wherein the terms are general, that can be substituted in its

room.

Yet to a cold annotator, a man of mere intellection without fancy, the latter exhibition of the sentiment would appear the more emphatical of the two. Nor would he want some show of reason for this preference. As a specimen, therefore, of a cer. tain mode of criticising, not rarely to be met with, in which there is I know not what semblance of judgment without one particle of taste, I shall suppose a critic of this stamp entering on the comparison of the preceding quotation and the paraphrase. the one,' he would argue, the beauty of only one sort of flow. 6 ers is exalted above the effects of human industry, in the other C the beauty of the whole kind. In the former one iudividual

In

the meanings of two verbs sometimes bear to each other, what nearly resembles this relation. It is only when to fall means to move downwards, as a brick from a chimney-top, or a pear from the tree, that it may be denominated a genus in respect of the verb to sink. Sometimes, indeed, the former denotes merely a sudden change of posture from erect to prostrate, as when a man who stands upon the ground is said to fall, though he remain still on the ground. In this way we speak of the fall of a tower, of a house or of a wall.

*Luke xii. 27 and 28.