cles 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 afterward produced.

Sentences are either simple or complex: simple, consist ing of one member only, as this: "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth;* complex, consisting of two or more members linked together by conjunction, 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 master's crib; bu 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 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 were, imbosomed in the other, "when Christ shall appear."

So much for the primary distinction of sentences into simple and complex.

SECTION 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 out 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 * Gen., i., 1 † Isaiah, lxiii., 16.

Ibid., i., 3.

Prov., i., 24.

li The words member and clause in English are used as corresponding to the Greek kwow and κоμμа, and to the Latin membrum and incisum

T Col., iii., 4.

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 authorize 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 substantive verb, the participle, or predicate of whatever denomination it 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 Ephesians." 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.

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 from the natural order. This way of thinking ariseth from some very specious causes, but is far from being just. "Custom," it hath been said, "becomes 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 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 sup

* Let it be observed, that in speaking of English Syntax 1 use 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 agent or instrument operating, with which the verb agrees in number and person; by the accusative, the effect produ ced, the object aimed at, or the subject operated on

+ Acts, xix., 28 and 34.

port of the ordinary arrangement of a simple sentence above explained. The nominative, to talk in the logicians' 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 little uniformity in this particular in different tongues, unless where, in respect either of matter r of form, they have been in a great measure derived from

some common source.

The Hebrew is a very simple language, and hath not that variety either of moods or of conjunctions that is requisite for forming a complicated style. Here, therefore, if anywhere, one would expect to find an arrangement purely natural. Yet in this language, the most usual, and what would with them, therefore, be termed the grammatical disposition of the words, is not the disposition above mentioned. In the historic style, or when past events are related, they commonly place the verb first, then the nominative, afterward the regimen, predicate, or attendant circumstances.*

Thus the very first words of Genesis, a book even among the books of Scripture remarkable for simplicity of style, are an evidence of this in the

is preserved exactly in the Vulgate. "In principio creavit Deus cœlum et terram." That the same order is observed in disposing the substantive verb,

The order השמים זאת הארע כראשית ברא אלהים את : active verb

-The ar ויהי ערב ריחר בקר יום אחד (appears from the fifth verse

rangement here is perfectly exhibited in the Latin version of Junius and Tremellius, which is generally very literal. "Sic fuit vespera et fuit mane diei primi." Yet in English we should be apt to call the order in both pas sages, especially the last, rather unnatural. "In the beginning created God the heavens and the earth." "And was evening and was morning day first." The same thing might be illustrated in the passive verbs, in the neuter, and in the reciprocal, if necessary. Nothing, therefore, can be more evident than that it is custom only which makes us Britons prefer one order of words and others another, as the natural order. I am surprised that a critic of so much taste and discernment as Bouhours (see his Entretiens d'Ariste et d'Eugene: 2. La Langue Françoise) should represent this as one of the excellences of the French tongue, that it follows the natural order of the words. It is manifest, from what has been said, that its common arrangement has Lo more title to be denominated natural than that of any other language. Nay, we may raise an argument for confuting this silly pretence from the very laws that obtain in this language. Thus, if the natural order require that the regimen should follow the active verb, their way of arranging the oblique cases of the pronouns is unnatural, as they always place them before the verb; if, on the contrary, the natural order require that the regimen should precede the governing verb, their way of arranging nouns governed by verbs is unnatural, since they always place them after the verb; so that, whichever be the natural way, they depart from it in the disposition of one or other of these parts of speech. The like may be urged in regard to the nominative which, though for the most part it go before the active verb, in

The freedom which Greek and Latin allow on this article, renders it improper to denominate one order grammatical exclusively of others. I imagine, therefore, that perhaps the only principle in which, on this subject, we can safely rest, as being founded in nature, is, that whatever most strongly fixes the attention, or operates on the passion of the speaker, will first seek utterance by the lips. This is agreeable to a common proverb, which, perhaps, to speak in Shakspeare's phrase,* is something musty, but significant enough, "Nearest the heart, nearest the mouth." In these transpositions, therefore, I maintain that the order will be found, on examination, to be more strictly natural than when the more general practice in the tongue is followed.

As an irrefragable argument in support of this doctrine, it may be pleaded that, though the most usual, which is properly the artificial order, be different in different languages, the manner of arranging, or (if you like the term better) of transposing above specified, which is always an effect of vivacity in the speaker, and a cause of producing a livelier conception in the hearer, is the same in all languages. It is for this reason, among others, that I have chosen to take most of my examples on this topic, not from any original performance in English, but from the common translation of the Bible, and shall here observe, once for all, that, both in the quotations already made and those hereafter to be made, our translators have exactly followed the order of the original; and, indeed, all translators of any taste, unless when cramped by the genius of the tongue in which they wrote, have in such

certain cases follows it. This happens frequently when the verb is preceded by the oblique case of the relative, as in this sentence: "Le retardement, que souffre le lecteur, le rend plus attentif." And even in placing their adjectives, wherever use hath made exceptions from the general rule, it has carried the notion of what is natural along with it. They would call it as unnatural to say homme jeune as to say gardien ange. All, therefore, that can be affirmed with truth is, that the French adhere more inviolably than other nations to the ordinary arrangement established in the language. But this, as I hope to evince in the sequel, is one of the greatest imperfections of that tongue. The ease with which the Italian admits either order in the personal pronouns, especially in poetry, adds often to the harmony and the elegance, as well as to the vivacity of the expression, as in these lines of Metastasio's Artaserse:

"Sallo amor, lo sanno i numi;

Il mio core, il tuo lo sa."

Bouhours, in the dialogue above mentioned, has dropped the character of critic and philosopher for that of encomiast. He talks like a lover about his mistress. He sees neither blemish nor defect. All is beauty and excellence. For my part, if I were to prove the inferiority of French to Italian and Spanish, the two languages with which he compares it, I should not desire other or better topics for evincing the point than the greater part of those which he has employed, in my judgment very unsuccessfully, for the contrary purpose. * Hamlet.

cases done the same. * It may be proper, also, to remark, that there are some modern tongues which in this respect are much more inflexible than ours.

The next example I shall produce is very similar to the former, as in it the substantive verb is preceded by the participle passive, and followed by the nominative, In the acclamations of the people on our Saviour's public entry into Jerusalem, the historian informs us that they cried out, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." Instead of this, say, "He that cometh in the name of the Lord is blessed," and by this alteration in the order of the words, apparently trifling, you convert a fervid exclamation into a cold aphorism.

The third example shall be of an active verb, preceded by the accusative, and followed by the nominative. It may be proper to observe, by-the-way, that, unless one of these is a pronoun, such an arrangement is scarcely admissible in our language. These cases in our nouns, not being distinguished by inflection, as they are in our pronouns, are solely ascertained by place. But to come to the proposed example, we are informed by the sacred historian, that when Peter and John ordered the cripple who sat begging at the beautiful gate of the temple to look on them, he looked at them very earnestly, expecting to receive something from them. Then Peter said, "Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, arise and walk."‡ Here the wishful look and expectation of

Gr., Meyaλnn Apreμis Epeoluv. Lat. Vulg., Erasm., "Magna Diana Ephesiorum." Castal., Beza, "Magna est Diana Ephesiorum." Ital., Di odati, "Grande e la Diana degli Efesii." How weak in comparison is the French version of Le Clerc! "La Diane des Ephesiens est une grande deese." How deficient that of Beausobre! "La grande Diane des Ephe siens." How ridiculous that of Saci! "Vive la grande Diane des Ephesiens."

46

+ Matt., xxi, 9. Gr., Ευλογημενος δ ερχομενος εν ονοματι Κυρίου. Lat. Vulg., Eras., Bez., Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini." Cast., "Bené sit ei qui venit," &c. Ital., Diod., "Benedetto colui che viene nel nome del Signiore." Fr., Le Clerc, Beaus., Saci, "Beni soit celui qui vient au nom du Seigneur."

+ Acts, iii. 6. Gr., Αργυριον και χρυσιον ουχ ὑπαρχει μσι· δ δε εχω, τουτο σοι δίδωμι. Εν ονόματι Ιησου Χριστού του Ναζωραίου έγειραι και περίπατοι. Lat. Vul., Eras., Bez., "Argentum et aurum non est mihi; quod autem habeo, hoc tibi do. In nomine Jesu Christi Nazareni, surge et ambula.' Castaglio hath not adhered so closely to the order of the words in the origi nal, but hath in this and some other places, for the sake of Latinity, weakened the expression: "Nec argentum mihi nec aurum est; sed quod habeo, hoc tibi do. In nomine," &c. It would seem that neither the Italian lan guage nor the French can admit so great a latitude in arranging the words, for in these the vivacity resulting from the order is not only weakened, but destroyed. Diod., "Io non ho ne argento ne oro; ma quel che ho, io t'el dono: nel nome di Jesu Christo il Nazareo, levati e camina." Le Clerc, Beausobre, "Je n'ai ni or ni argent; mais ce que j'ai, je vous le donne: au nom de Jesus Christ de Nazareth, levez-vous et marchez." Saci's is the