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UPON

Accuracy of Style.

CONTAINING

The Chief Rules to be obferv'd] Of the Ufe of Obfolete Words. for obtaining an Accurate Rapin's Rules of Style.

Style.

Of the too frequent Ufe of tithefes.

Of the Ufe of Metaphors. Of Affectation in Style. Of Flashy Styles.

Of Obfcurity in Writing.
An-On Harmony of Sound.

Of the Ufe of Foreign Words.
Of the Laconick Style.
Of the Long Style.

Of Novelty of Style.

Of Poetical Expressions used in Profe.

French Writers not a Rule in other Languages.

Vogue not always a fure Proof of a good Writer.

Of the Beauties and Blemishes in the Style of the late famous Mr. COLLIER.

Of that Gentleman's Oddness of Expreffion, Metaphors,

With Brief OBSERVATIONS interfpers'd thro' the Whole, on

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c.

And many other Curious Particulars referr'd to in the INDEX.

By Mr. JOHN CONSTABLE.

Pars hominum vitiis gaudet conftanter, & urget
Propofitum: pars multa notat, modò recta capeffens,
Interdum pravis obnoxia.

HOR. Sat. L.ii. Sat. 7.

LONDON:

Printed for J. OSBORN, at the Golden Ball, in PaterNofter Row. M.Dcc. XXXIV.

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THE

PREFACE

A

Long and uniform discourse, with a series of abftract Rules, foon tires and fatigues the Reader. Efpecially if you add the frequent Definitions, Divifions, and Terms of Art, which have naturally place in fuch a difcourfe; and above all, the tedious Accuracy of Analytical Tables, and the like Schemes. A meer diftinction of Chapters ferves but little in fo dry a method of reafoning, and does not fufficiently unbend the application. The Reader is apt to be diffatisfied with hearing A 2

the

Whereas

the Author talk all alone. it has been justly obferved by many, that in Dialogues he imagines himself to share in the converfation. He takes up with one fide or other, and is glad to meet the answers he had already given in his own thoughts, and to find them approv'd by the Author: Or where he is in a different opinion from him, he is either willing to be civilly disabused by one who seems rather to converse with him, than to pretend to teach him : Or he is pleafed to look upon himfelf as judge between two contending parties.

NOT only these and the like reafons, but the real occafion of the following Reflections, determined me to write them by way of Dialogue. They were really occafion'd by converfation with one, who feemed to me too univerfal an admirer of a book written by an Author whom I

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