Example "Nothing is there to come, and nothing past, Analysis, What an insatiable thirst hath this bastard philosophy for absurdity and contradiction! In these school metaphysics, a now that lasts; that is, an instant which continues during successive instants; an eternal now; an instant that is no instant, and an eter. nity that is no eternity, is a mere figment of human imagination, a rhapsody of the transcendent unintelligible. 109. The third species we shall denominate the profound. It is most commonly to be met with in political writings. No where else, in the present day, do we find the merest nothings set off with an air of solemnity, as the result of very deep thought and sage reflection. But let us hear a politician of the old school. Example. ""Tis agreed, that in all governments, there is an ab1 solute and unlimited power, which naturally and originally seems to be placed in the whole body, wherever the executive part of it lies. This holds of the body natural; for wherever we place the beginning of motion, whether from the head, or the heart, or the animal spirits in general, the body moves and acts by consent of all its partst." Analysis. The first sentence in this passage contains one of the most hackneyed maxims of the writers on politics; a maxim, however, of which it will be more difficult than is commonly imagined, to discover, not the justness, but the sense. The illustration from the material body, contained in the second sentence, is indeed more glaringly nonsensical. It is utterly inconceivable to affirm what it is that constitutes this consent of all the parts of the body, which must be obtained previously to every motion. Yet the whole paragraph from which this quotation is taken, has in it such a speciousness, that it is a question, if even a judicious reader will not, on the first perusal, be sensible of the defect. 210. The marvellous is the last species of nonsense that we shall exemplify. It is the characteristic of this kind,, that it astonishes, and even confounds, by the boldness of the affirmations, which always appear flatly to contradict the plainest dictates of common sense, and thus to involve a manifest absurdity. * Cowley's Davideis, Book I. + Swift's Discourse of the Contents and Dissentions in Athens and Rome. Example. Nature in herself is unseemly, and he who copies her servilely, and without artifice, will always produce something poor, and of a m'en taste. What is called load in colours and lights, is an admirable industry, which makes the painted objects appear more true, if I may say so, than the real ones. this sense, it may be asserted, that in Reubens' pieces, art is above nature, and nature only a copy of that great master's works.""* In Analysis. What a strange subversion, or inversion, if you will, of all the most obvious, and hitherto undisputed, truths. Not satisfied with affirming the unseemliness of every production of Nature, whom this philosoplier has discovered to be an arrant bungler, and the immense superiority of human art, whose humble scholar dame Nature might be proud to be accounted he rises to asseverations, which shock all our notions, and utterly defy the powers of apprehension. Painting is found to be the original; or rather Reubens' pictures are the original, and Nature is the copy; and indeed very consequentially, the former is represented as the standard by which the beauty and perfections of the latter are to be estimated. Nor do the qualifying phrases, "if I may say so," and "in this sense it may be asserted," make here the smallest odds. For as this sublime critic has no where hinted what sense it is, which he denominates "this sense," no reader will be able to conjecture, what the author might have said, and not absurdly said to the same effect. When the expression is stripped of the absurd meaning, (Art. 204.) there remains nothing but balderdash, an unmeaning jumble of words, which at first seem to announce some great dis covery. Example 2. Witness, as another specimen of the same kind, famous prostration of an heroic lover, in one of Dryden's plays: My wound is great, because it is so small. the Analysis. The nonsense of this was properly exposed, by an extempore verse of the Duke of Buckingham, who, on hearing this line, exclaimed, in the house, It would be greater, were it none at all. Conclusion. Thus have we illustrated, as far as example can il "La Nature est ingrate d'elle même, et qui s'attacheroit à la copier simplement comme elle est, et sans artifice, feroit toujours quelque chose de pauvre et d'un très petit goût. Ce que vous nommez exagerations dans les couleurs, et dans les lumieres, est une admirable industrée que fait paroitre les objects peints plus véritables, s'il faut ainsi dire, que les véritables mêmes. C'est ainsi que les tabeleaux de Rubens sont plus beaux que la Nature, Jaquelle semble n'être que la opie des ouvrages de ce grand-homme." Receuil de divers ouvrage sur la peinture et le coloris. Par M. de Piles, Paris, 1755, p. 225. M Instrate, some of the principal varieties to be remarked in unmeaning sentences or nonsense; the puerile, the learned, the profound, and the marvellous; together with those other classes of the unintelligible, arising either from confusion of thought, accompanied with intricacy of expression, or from an excessive aim at excellence In the style and manner. CHAPTER IX. OF THE HARMONY OF PERIODS. 11. IN the HARMONY OF PERIODS, two things may be considered. First, agreeable sound, or modulation in general, without any particular expression: next, the sound so ordered, as to become expressive of the sense. The first is the more common; the second, the higher beauty. Obs. Agreeable sound, in general, is the property of a well-constructed sentence. This beauty of musical construction in prose, depends upon two things; the choice of words, and the arrangement of them. 212. Those words are most agreeable to the ear which are composed of smooth and liquid sounds, where there is a proper intermixture of vowels and consonants; without too many harsh consonants grating upon each other; or too many open vowels in succession, to cause a hiatus or disagreeable aperture of the mouth. (Illus. Art. 13.) Illus. It may always be assumed as a principle, that, whatever sounds are difficult in pronunciation, are, in the same proportion, harsh and painful to the ear. Vowels give softness; consonants, strength to the sounds of words. The music of language requires a just proportion of both; and it will be hurt, and rendered either grating or effeminate, by an excess of either. Long words are commonly more agreeable to the ear than monosyllables. They please it by the composition or succession of sounds, which they present to it; and accordingly, the most musical languages abound most in polysyllables. Among words of any length, those are the most musical, which do not run wholly either upon long or short syllables, but are composed of an intermixture of them; such as, repent, produce, velocity, celerity, independent, impetuosity. 213. The harmony which results from a proper arrangement of the words and members of a period, is complex, and of great nicety. For let the words themselves be ever so well chosen, let them sound ever so well, yet, if they be ill disposed, the music of the sentence is utterly lost. (Scholium, p. 79. Art. 138.) Illus. 1. In the harmonious structure and disposition of periods, no writer whatever, ancient or modern, equals Cicero. He had studied this with care; and was fond, perhaps, to excess, of what he calls the "plena ac numerosa oratio." We need only open his writings to find instances that will render the effect of musical language sensible to every ear. 2. As an instance of a musical sentence, in our own language, we may take the following from Milton's Treatise on Education: "We shall conduct you to a hill-side, laborious, indeed, at the first ascent; but else, so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospects, and melodious sounds on every side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming " Analysis. Every thing in this sentence conspires to promote the harmony. The words are happily chosen; full of liquids and soft sounds; laborious, smooth, green, goodly, melodious, charming: and these words so artfully arranged, that were we to alter the collocation of any one of them, we should, presently, be sensible of the melody's suffering. For, let us observe, how finely the members of the period swell one above another. "So smooth, so green," so full of goodly prospects, and melodious sounds on every side;" till the ear, prepared by this gradual rise, is conducted to that full close on which it rests with pleasure that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming." 214. The structure of periods, then, being susceptible of a very sensible melody, our next inquiry should be, how this melodious structure is formed, what are the principles of it, and by what laws is it regulated? (Art. 138. Ilus.) Obs. The ancient rhetoricians have entered into a very minuteand particular detail of this subject; more particular, indeed, than into any other that regards language. Illus. They bold, that to prose, as well as to verse, there belong certain numbers, less strict indeed, yet such as can be ascertained by rule. They go so far as to specify the feet, as they are called, that is, the succession of long and short syllables, which should enter into the different members of a sentence, and to shew what the effect of each of these will be. Wherever they treat of the struc ture of sentences, it is always the music of them that makes the principal object. Cicero and Quinctilian are full of this. The other qualities of precision, unity, and strength, which we consider as of great importance, they handle slightly; but when they come to the "junctura et numerus," the modulation and karmony, there they are copious. Dionysius, of Halicarnassus, one of the most judicious critics of antiquity, wrote a treatise on the Composition of Words in a Sentence, which is altogether confined to their musical effect. He makes the excellency of a sentence to consist in four things; first, in the sweetness of single sounds; secondly, in the composition of sounds; that is, the numbers, or feet; thirdly, in change or variety of sounds; and, fourthly, in sound suited to the sense. On all these points, he writes with great accuracy and refinement, and is very worthy of being consulted. 2. The ancient languages of Greece and Rome, were much more susceptible, than our language is, of the graces and the powers of melody. The quanti ies of their syllables were more fixed and determined; their words were longer and more sonorous; their method of varying the terminations of nouns and verbs, both introduced a greater variety of liquid sounds, and freed them from that multiplicity of little auxiliary words which we are obliged to employ ; and, what is of the greatest consequence, the inversions which their languages allowed, gave them the power of placing their words in whatever order was most suited to a musical arrangement. All these were great advantages, which they enjoyed above us, for harmony of period. 215. The doctrine of the Greek and Roman critics, on this head, has misled some to imagine, that it might be equally applied to our tongue; and that our prose writing might be regulated by spondees and trochees, and iambuses and pæons, and other metrical feet. Obs. 1. But, first, our words cannot be measured, or, at least, can be measured very imperfectly by any feet of this kind. For, the quantity, the length and shortness of our syllables, is far from being so fixed and subjected to rule, as in the Greek and Roman tongues; but very often left arbitrary, and determined only by the emphasis and the sense. 2. Next, though our prose could admit of such a metrical regula tion, yet from our plainer method of pronouncing every species of discourse, the effect would not be at all so sensible to the ear, nor be relished with so much pleasure, as among the Greeks and Ro mans. 3. And lastly, this whole doctrine about the measures and num bers of prose, even as it has been delivered by the ancient rhetoricians themselves, is, in truth, in a great measure, loose and uncer tain, It appears, indeed, that the melody of discourse was a mat |