is required between the sense and the expression will be impaired. In that view, a passage from Tacitus is exceptionable; where words that signify ideas very little connected, are however forced into an artificial union, Here is the passage: Germania omnis a Galliis, Rhætiisque, et Pannoniis, Rheno et Danubio fluminibus; a Sarmatis Dacisque, mutuo metu aut montibus separatur. De Moribus Germanorum. Upon the same account, I esteem the following passage equally exceptionable. The fiend look'd up, and knew His mounted scale aloft; nor more, but fled Paradise Lost, b. iv. at the end. There is no natural connexion between a person's flying and retiring, and the succession of daylight to darkness; and therefore to connect artificially the terms that signify these things cannot have a sweet effect. Two members of a thought connected by their relation to the same action, will naturally be expressed by two members of the period governed by the same verb; in which case these members, in order to improve their connexion, ought to be constructed in the same manner. This beauty is so common among good writers, as to have been little attended to; but the neglect of it is remarkably disagreeable: For example, "He did not mention "Leonora, nor that her father was dead." Better thus: "He did not mention Leonora, nor her fa"ther's death." Where two ideas are so connected, as to require but a copulative, it is pleasant to find a connexion in the words that express these ideas, were it even so slight as where both begin with the same letter: The peacock, in all his pride, does not display half the colour that appears in the garments of a British lady, when she is either dressed for a ball or a birth-day. Spectator, No. 265. Had not my dog of a steward run away as he did, without making up his accounts, I had still been immersed in sin and sea, coal. Ibid. No. 530. My life's companion, and my bosom-friend, Dryden, Translation of Eneid. There is sensibly a defect in neatness when uniformity in this case is totally neglected;* witness the following example, where the construction of two members connected by a copulative is unnecessarily varied. For it is confidently reported, that two young gentlemen of real hopes, bright wit, and profound judgment, who, upon a thorough examination of causes and effects, and by the mere force of natural abitities, without the least tincture of learning, have made a discovery that there was no God, and generously communicating their thoughts for the good of the public, were some time ago, by an unparalleled severity, and upon I know not what obsolete law, broke for blasphemy.† [Better thus:]-having made a discovery that there was no God, and having generously communicated their thoughts for the good of the public, were some time ago, &c. He had been guilty of a fault, for which his master would have put him to death, had be pot found an opportunity to escape out of his hands, and fled into the deserts of Numidia. Guardian, No.139. If all the ends of the Revolution are already obtained, it is not only impertinent to argue for obtaining any of them, but factious designs might be imputed, and the name of incendiary be applied with some colour, perhaps, to any one who should persist in pressing this point. Dissertation upon Parties, Dedication. Next as to examples of disjunction and opposition in the parts of the thought, imitated in the ex * See Girard's French Grammar, Discourse xii. + An argument against abolishing Christianity. Swift. pression; an imitation that is distinguished by the name of antithesis. Speaking of Coriolanus soliciting the people to be made consul: With a proud heart he wore his humble weeds, Coriolanus. Had you rather Cæsar were living, and die all slaves, than that Cæsar were dead, to live all free men ? Julius Cesar, He hath cool'd my friends and heated mine enemies. Shakspeare. An artificial connexion among the words, is undoubtedly a beauty when it represents any peculiar connexion among the constituent parts of the thought; but where there is no such connexion, it is a positive deformity, as above observed, because it makes a discordance between the thought and expression. For the same reason we ought also to avoid every artificial opposition of words where there is none in the thought. This last, termed verbal antithesis, is studied by low writers, because of a certain degree of liveliness in it. They do not consider how incongruous it is, in a grave composition, to cheat the reader, and to make him expect a contrast in the thought, which upon examination is not found there. A light wife doth make a heavy husband. Merchant of Venice, Here is a studied opposition in the words, not only without any opposition in the sense, but even where there is a very intimate connexion, that of cause and effect; for it is the levity of the wife that torments the husband. -Will maintain Upon his bad life to make all this good. King Richard II. Act I. Sc. 3. Lucetta. What, shall these papers lie like tell-tales here? Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act I. Sc. 3. A fault directly opposite to that last mentioned, is to conjoin artificially words that express ideas opposed to each other. This is a fault too gross to be in common practice; and yet writers are guilty of it in some degree, when they conjoin by a copulative things transacted at different periods of time. Hence a want of neatness in the following expression. The nobility too, whom the King had no means of retaining by suitable offices and preferments, had been seized with the general discontent, and unwarily threw themselves into the scale which began already too much to preponderate. History of Great-Britain, vol. I. p. 250. In periods of this kind, it appears more neat to express the past time by the participle passive, thus: The nobility having been seized with the general discontent, unwarily threw themselves, &c. (or) The nobility, who had been seized, &c. unwarily threw themselves, &c. It is unpleasant to find even a negative and affirmative proposition connected by a copulative: Nec excitatur classico miles truci, Forumque vitat, et superba civium Horace, Epod. ii. 1. 5. If it appear not plain, and prove untrue, Deadly divorce step between me and you. Shakspeare. In mirth and drollery it may have a good effect to connect verbally things that are opposite to each other in the thought. Example: Henry IV. of France introducing the Mareschal Biron to some of his friends, "Here, Gentlemen," says he, "is "the Mareschal Biron, whom I freely present both "to my friends and enemies." This rule of studying uniformity between the thought and expression, may be extended to the construction of sentences or periods. A sentence or period ought to express one entire thought or mental proposition; and different thoughts ought to be separated in the expression by placing them in different sentences or periods. It is therefore offending against neatness, to crowd into one period entire thoughts requiring more than one; which is joining in language things that are separated in reality. Of errors against this rule take the following examples. Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea pleasant; also our bed is green. Cæsar, describing the Suevi: Atque in eam se consuetudinem adduxerunt, ut locis frigidissimis, neque vestitus, præter pelles, habeant quidquam, quarum propter exiguitatem, magna est corporis pars aperta, et laventur in luminibus. Commentaria, l. iv. prin. Burnet, in the History of his own Times, giving Lord Sunderland's character, says, His own notions were always good; but he was a man of great expense. I have seen a woman's face break out in heats, as she has been talking against a great lord, whom she had never seen in her life; and indeed never knew a party-woman that kept her beauty for a twelvemonth Spectator, No. 57. Lord Bolingbroke, speaking of Strada: I single him out among the moderns, because he had the fool ish presumption to censure Tacitus, and to write history himself; and your Lordship will forgive this short excursion in honour of a favourite writer, Letters on History, Vol. I. Let. v. It seems to me, that in order to maintain the moral system of the world at a certain point, far below that of ideal perfection, (for we are made capable of conceiving what we are incapable of attaining), but however sufficient upon the whole to |