necessity requires them, should always be avoided. Barren languages may need such assistances; but ours is not one of these. Dean Swift, one of our most correct writers, valued himself much on using no words but such as were of native growth and his language may, indeed, be considered as a standard of the strictest purity and propriety, in the choice of words. At pre sent, we seem to be departing from this standard. A multitude of Latin words have of late been poured in upon us. On some occasions, they give an appearance of elevation and dignity to style. But often also, they render it stiff and forced: and, in general, a plain native style, as it is more intelligible to all readers, so, by a proper management of words, it may be made equally strong and expressive with this latinized English.

Let us now consider the import of precision in language, which, as it is the highest part of the quality denoted by perspicuity, merits a full explication; and the more, because distinct ideas are, perhaps, not commonly formed about it.

The exact import of precision may be drawn from the etymology of the word. It comes from præcidere to cut off. It imports retrenching all superfluities, and pruning the expression so as to exhibit neither more nor less than an exact copy of his idea who uses it. I observed before, that it is often difficult to separate the qualities of style from the qualities of thought; and it is found so in this instance; for, in order to write with precision, though this be properly a quality of style, one must possess a very considerable degree of distinctness and accuracy in his manner of thinking.

The words which a man uses to express his ideas may be faulty in three respects: They may either not express that idea which the author intends, but some other which only resembles, or is akin to it; or they may express that idea, but not quite fully and completely; or, they may express it together with something more than he intends. Precision stands opposed to all these three faults: but chiefly to the last. In an author's writing with propriety, his being free from the two former faults seems implied. The words which he uses are proper ; that is, they express that idea which he intends, and they express it fully; but to be precise, signifies that they express that idea, and no more. There is nothing in his words which introduces any foreign idea, any superfluous unseasonable accessory, so as to mix it confusedly with the principal object, and thereby to render our conception of that object loose and indistinct. This requires a writer to have, himself, a very clear

apprehension of the object he means to present to us; to have laid fast hold of it in his mind; and never to waver in any one view he takes of it: a perfection to which, indeed few writers attain.

The use and importance of precision may be deduced from the nature of the human mind. It never can view, clearly and distinctly, above one object at a time. If it must look at two or three together, especially objects among which there is resemblance or connexion, it finds itself confused and embarrassed. It cannot clearly perceive in what they agree, and in what they differ. Thus, were any object, suppose some animal, to be presented to me, of whose structure I wanted to form a distinct notion, I would desire all its trappings to be taken off, I would require it to be brought before me by itself, and to stand alone, that there might be nothing to distract my attention. The same is the case with words. If, when you would inform me of your meaning, you also tell me more than what conveys it; if you join foreign circumstances to the principal object; if, by unnecessarily varying the expression, you shift the point of view, and make me see sometimes the object itself, and sometimes another thing that is connected with it; you thereby oblige me to look on several objects at once, and I lose sight of the principal. You load the animal you are showing me with so many trappings and collars, and bring so many of the same species before me, somewhat resembling, and yet somewhat differing, that I see none of them clearly.

This forms what is called a loose style; and is the proper opposite to precision. It generally arises from using a superfluity of words. Feeble writers employ a multitude of words to make themselves understood, as they think, more distinctly; but they only confound the reader. They are sensible of not having caught the precise expression, to convey what they would signify; they do not, indeed, conceive their own meaning very precisely themselves: and, therefore, help it out as they can, by this and the other word, which may, as they suppose, supply the defect, and bring you somewhat nearer to their idea: they are always going about it, and about it, but never just hit the thing. The image, as they set it before you, is always seen double; and no double image is distinet. When an author tells me of his hero's courage in the day of battle, the expression is precise, and I understand it fully. But if, from the desire of multiplying words, he will needs praise his courage and fortitude; at the moment he joins these words together, my idea begins to waver

He means to express one quality more strongly; but he is, in truth, expressing two. Courage resists danger; fortitude supports pain. The occasion of exerting each of these qualities is different; and being led to think of both together, when only one of them should be in my view, my view is rendered unsteady, and my conception of the objects indistinct.

From what I have said, it appears that an author may, in a qualified sense, be perspicuous, while yet he is far from being precise. He uses proper words, and proper arrangement; he gives you the idea as clear as he conceives it himself; and so far he is perspicuous: but the ideas are not very clear in his own mind; they are loose and general; and, therefore, cannot be expressed with precision. All subjects do not equally require precision. It is sufficient, on many occasions, that we have a general view of the meaning. The subject, perhaps, is of the known and familiar kind; and we are in no hazard of mistaking the sense of the author, though every word which he uses be not precise and exact.

Few authors, for instance, in the English language, are more clear and perspicuous, on the whole, than Archbishop Tillotson, and Sir William Temple; yet neither of them are remarkable for precision. They are loose and diffuse; and accustomed to express their meaning by several words, which shew you fully whereabouts it lies, rather than to single out those expressions, which would convey clearly the idea they have in view, and no more. Neither, indeed, is precision the prevailing character of Mr. Addison's style; although he is not so deficient in this respect as the other two authors.

Lord Shaftesbury's faults, in point of precision, are much greater than Mr. Addison's; and the more unpardonable, because he is a professed philosophical writer; who, as such, ought above all things to have studied precision. His style has both great beauties and great faults; and, on the whole, is by no means a safe model for imitation. Lord Shaftesbury was well acquainted with the power of words; those which he employs are generally proper and well sounding; he has great variety of them; and his arrangement, as shall be afterwards shown, is commonly beautiful. His defect, in precision, is not owing so much to indistinct or confused ideas, as to perpetual affectation. He is fond, to excess, of the pomp and parade of language; he is never satisfied with expressing any thing clearly and simply; he must always give it the dress of state and majesty. Hence perpetual circumlocutions, and many words and phrases em

ployed to describe somewhat that would have been described much better by one of them. If he has occasion to mention any person or author, he very rarely mentions him by his proper name. In the treatise entitled, Advice to an Author, he descants for two or three pages together upon Aristotle, without once naming him in any other way, than the master critic, the mighty genius and judge of art, the prince of critics, the grand master of art, and consummate philologist. In the same way, the grand poetic sire, the philosophical patriarch, and his disciple of noble birth and lofty genius, are the only names by which he condescends to distinguish Homer, Socrates, and Plato, in another passage of the same treatise. This method of distinguishing persons is extremely affected; but it is not so contrary to precision, as the frequent circumlocutions he employs for all moral ideas; attentive, on every occasion, more to the pomp of language, than to the clearness which he ought to have studied as a philosopher. The moral sense, for instance, after he had once defined it, was a clear term; but how vague becomes the idea, when, in the next page, he calls it, "That natural affection, and anticipating fancy, which makes the sense of right and wrong!" Self-examination, or reflection on our own conduct, is an idea conceived with ease; but when it is wrought into all the forms of " A man's dividing himself into two parties, becoming a self-dialogist, entering into partnership with himself, forming the dual number practically within himself;" we hardly know what to make of it. On some occasions, he so adorns, or rather loads with words, the plainest and simplest propositions, as, if not to obscure, at least to enfeeble them.

In the following paragraph, for example, of the inquiry concerning virtue, he means to show, that by every ill action we hurt our mind, as much as one who should swallow poison, or give himself a wound, would hurt his body. Observe what a redundancy of words he pours forth: "Now, if the fabric of the mind or temper appeared to us, such as it really is; if we saw it impossible to remove hence any one good or orderly affection, or to introduce any ill or disorderly one, without drawing on, in some degree, that dissolute state which, at its height, is confessed to be so miserable; it would then, undoubtedly, be confessed, that since no ill, immoral, or unjust action can be committed, without either a new inroad and breach on the temper and passions, or a further advancing of that execution already done; whoever did ill, or acted in prejudice to his integrity, good-nature, or worth, would, of

necessity, act with greater cruelty towards himself, than he who scrupled not to swallow what was poisonous, or who, with his own hands, should voluntarily mangle or wound his outward form or constitution, natural limbs or body."* Here, to commit a bad action, is, first, "To remove a good and orderly affection, and to introduce an ill or disorderly one ;" next, it is, "To commit an action that is ill, immoral, and unjust ;" and in the next line, it is, "To do ill, or to act in prejudice of integrity, good-nature, and worth ;" nay, so very simple a thing as a man wounding himself, is, "To mangle, or wound, his outward form or constitution, his natural limbs or body." Such superfluity of words is disgustful to every reader of correct taste; and serves no purpose but to embarrass and perplex the sense. This sort of style is elegantly described by Quintilian, "Est in quibusdam turba inanium verborum, qui dum communem loquendi morem reformidant, ducti specie nitoris, circumeunt omnia copiosa loquacitate quæ dicere volunt."+ Lib. vii. cap. 2.

The great source of a loose style, in opposition to precision, is the injudicious use of those words termed synonymous. They are called synonymous because they agree in expressing one principal idea; but for the most part, if not always, they express it with some diversity in the circumstances. They are varied by some accessory idea which every word introduces, and which forms the distinction between them. Hardly in any lauguage are there two words that convey precisely the same idea; a person thoroughly conversant in the propriety of the language will always be able to observe something that distinguishes them. As they are like different shades of the same colour, an accurate writer can employ them to great advantage, by using them so as to heighten and to finish the picture which he gives us. He supplies by one, what was wanting in the other, to the force, or to the lustre of the image which he means to exhibit. But in order to this end, he must be extremely attentive to the choice which he makes of them. For the bulk of writers are very apt to confound them with each other; and to employ them carelessly, merely for the sake of filling up a period, or of rounding and diversifying the language,

Characterist. Vol. ii. p. 85.

"A crowd of unmeaning words is brought together by some authors, who, afraid of expressing themselves after a common and ordinary manner, and allured by an appearance of splendour, surround every thing which they mean to say with a certain copious loquacity."