tions from person to person, nor from subject to subject. There is commonly, in every sentence, some person or thing, that is the governing word. This should be continued so, if possible, from the beginning to the end of the sentence.

Illus. Should I express myself thus: "After we came to anchor, they put me on shore, where I was welcomed by all my friends, who received me with the greatest kindness." Though the objects contained in this sentence, have a sufficient connection with each other, yet, by this manner of representing them, by shifting so of ten both the place and person, we, and they, and I, and who, they appear in such a disunited view, that the sense of the sentence is almost lost. The sentence is restored to its proper unity, by turning it after the following manner: "Having come to an anchor, I was put on shore, where I was welcomed by all my friends, and received with the greatest kindness." Writers who transgress this rule, for the most part transgress, at the same time.

156. A second rule; never crowd into one sentence, things which have so little connection, that they could bear to be divided into two or three sentences. The violation of this rule never fails to injure the style, and displease the reader. Its effect, indeed, is so disagreeable, that of the two, it is the safer extreme, to err rather by too many short sentences, than by one that is overloaded and embarrassed.

Illus. 1. Examples abound in our own authors. We shall produce some, to justify what we have said. "Archbishop Tillotson," says an Author of the History of England, "died in this year. He was exceedingly beloved both by King William and Queen Mary, who nominated Dr. Tennison, Bishop of Lincoln, to succeed him." Who would expect the latter part of this sentence to follow, in consequence of the former? "He was exceedingly beloved by both King and Queen," is the proposition of the sentence: we look for some proof of this, or at least something related to it, to follow; when we are on a sudden carried off to a new proposition, " who nominated Dr. Tennison to succeed him."

2. The following is from Middleton's Life of Cicero: "In this uneasy state, both of his public and private life, Cicero was oppressed by a new and cruel affliction, the death of his beloved daughter Tullia; which happened soon after her divorce from Dolabella, whose manners and humours were entirely disagreeable to her." The principal object in this sentence is, the death of Tullia, which was the cause of her father's affliction; the date of it, as happening soon after her divorce from Dolabella, may enter into the sentence

with propriety; but the subjunction of Dolabella's character is foreign to the main object, and totally breaks the unity and compactness of the sentence, by setting a new picture before the reader. (Art. 149.)

3. The following sentence, from a translation of Plutarch, is still worse: speaking of the Greeks under Alexander, the author says. "Their march was through an uncultivated country, whose savage inhabitants fared hardly, having no other riches than a breed of lean sheep, whose flesh was rank and unsavory, by reason of their continual feeding upon sea-fish." Here the scene is changed upon us again and again. The march of the Greeks, the description of the inhabitants through whose country they travelled, the account of these people's riches lying wholly in sheep, and the cause of their sheep being ill-tasted food, form a jumble of objects, slightly related to each other, which the reader cannot, without much difficulty, comprehend under one view. (Cor. Art. 149.)

157. A third rule, for preserving the unity of sentences, is, to avoid all parentheses in the middle of them. On some occasions, they may have a spirited appearance; as prompted by a certain vivacity of thought, which can glance happily aside, as it is going along. (Art. 187.)

Obs. For the most part their effect is not always spirited: nay, sometimes it is extremely bad. They seem a sort of wheels within wheels; sentences in the midst of sentences; the perplexed method of disposing of some thought, which a writer wants art to introduce in its proper place. It were needless to give any instances, as they occur so often among incorrect writers.

158. The fourth and last rule for the unity of a sentence, is, to bring it always to a full and perfect close. Every thing that is one, should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. An unfinished sentence is no sentence at all, according to any grammatical rule.

Obs. But we very often meet with sentences, that are, so to speak, more than finished. When we have arrived at what we expected was to be the conclusion, when we are come to the word on which the mind, by what went before, is naturally led to rest; unexpectedly, some circumstance appears, which ought to have been omitted, or to have been disposed of elsewhere; but which is left lagging behind, like a tail adjected to the sentence. This looks to the rhetorician's eye, as does to the naturalist's the prodigious tail which the rude hand of early astronomy has given to the constellation Ursa Major.

159. The third quality of a correct sentence, is

STRENGTH. By this is meant such a disposition of the several words and members, as shall bring out the sense to the best advantage; as shall render the impression which the period is designed to make, most full and complete; and give every word, and every member, its due weight and force. (Example. Art. 175.)

Obs. The two former qualities of perspicuity and unity, are, no doubt, absolutely necessary to the production of this effect; but more is still requisite. For a sentence may be clear enough, it may also be compact enough in all its parts, or have the requisite unity; and yet, by some unfavourable circumstance in the structure, it may fail in that strength or liveliness of impression which a more happy arrangement would have produced.

160. The first rule for promoting the strength of a sentence, is, to divest it of all redundant words. These may, sometimes, be consistent with a considerable degree both of clearness and unity; but they are always enfeebling. (See Art. 121.)

Illus. It is a general maxim, that any words which do not add some importance to the meaning of a sentence, always spoil it. They cannot be superfluous, without being hurtful. All that can be easily supplied in the mind, is better left out in the expression. Thus: "Content with deserving a triumph, he refused the honour of it," is better language than to say, 66 Being content with deserving a triumph, he refused the honour of it."

Corol. One of the most useful exercises of correction, upon reviewing what we have written or composed, is therefore to contract that round-about method of expression, and to lop off those useless excressences which are commonly found in a first draught. Here a severe eye should be employed; and we shall always find our sentences acquire more vigour and energy when thus retrenched; provided always, that we run not into the extreme of pruning so very close, as to give a hardness and dryness to style. For here, as in all other things, there is a due medium. Some regard, though not the principal, must be had to fulness and swelling of sound. Some leaves must be left to surround and shelter the fruit.

161. As sentences should be cleared of redundant words, so also of redundant members. As every word ought to present a new idea, so every member ought to contain a new thought. Opposed to this, stands the fault with which we sometimes meet, of the last mem

ber of a period being nothing else than the echo of the former, or the repetition of it in a different form. For example; speaking of beauty,

:

Illus. Mr. Addison says, "The very first discovery of it, strikes the mind with inward joy, and spreads delight through all its facul ties*." And elsewhere, "It is impossible for us to behold the divine works with coldness or indifference, or to survey so many beauties, without a secret satisfaction and complacencyt." In both these instances, little or nothing is added by the second member of the sentence to what was already expressed in the first and though the free and flowing manner of such an author as Mr. Addison, and the graceful harmony of his periods, may palliate such negligences; yet, in general, it holds, that style, freed from this prolixity, appears both more strong and more beautiful. The attention becomes remiss, the mind falls into inaction, when words are multiplied without a corresponding multiplication of ideas. (See Crit. 1. and 2 p. 62.)

162. After removing superfluities, the second rule for promoting the strength of a sentence, is, to attend particularly to the use of copulatives, relatives, and all the particles employed for transition and connection.

Illus. These little words, but, and, which, whose, where, &c. are frequently the most important words of any; they are the joints or hinges upon which all sentences turn, and, of course, much, both of the gracefulness and the strength of sentences, must depend upon the proper use of such particles. The varieties in using them are, indeed, so numerous, that no particular system of rules can be given respecting them. Attention to the practice of the most accurate writers, joined with frequent trials of the different effects, produced by a different usage of those particles, must here direct us. (Art. 145. Illus. 1-11.)

163. What is called splitting of particles, or separating a preposition from the oun which it governs, is always to be avoided. (Illus. 11, Art. 145.)

Illus. "Though virtue borrows no assistance from, yet it may often he accompanied by, the advantages of fortune." In pronouncing this instance we feel a sort of pain from the revulsion, or violent separarion of two things, which, by their nature, should be closely united. We are put to a stand in thought; being obliged to rest for a little on the preposition by itself, which, at the same time, carries no significancy, till it is joined to its proper substantive

noun.

*Spectator, No. 412.

+ Ibid. No. 413.

164. Some writers needlessly multiply demonstrative and relative participles, by the frequent use of such phraseology as the following:

Illus. "There is nothing which disgusts us sooner than the empty pomp of language." In introducing a subject, or laying down a proposition to which we demand particular attention, this sort of style is very proper; but in the ordinary current of discourse, it is better to express ourselves more simply and shortly: "Nothing disgusts us sooner than the empty pomp of language."

165. Other writers make a practice of omitting the relative, by adopting a phraseology of a different kind from the former. This error springs from the absurd supposition that, without this omission, the meaning could not be understood.

Illus. "The man I love."-" The dominions we possessed, and the conquests we made." But though this elliptical style be intelligible, and allowable in conversation and epistolary writing, yet, in all writings of a serious or dignified kind, it is ungraceful. There, the relative should always be inserted in its proper place, and the construction filled up: as, "The man whom I love."—" The dominions which we possessed, and the conquests which we made."

166. With regard to the copulative participle, and, which occurs so frequently in all kinds of composition, several observations are to be made. First, it is evident, that the unnesessary repetition of this, participle enfeebles style. It has much the same effect as the frequent use of the vulgar phrase, and So, when one is telling a story in common conversasion.

Illus. 1. We shall, for one instance, take a sentence from Sir William Temple. He is speaking of the refinement of the French language: "The academy set up by Cardinal Richelieu, to amuse the wits of that age and country, and to divert them from raking into his politics and ministry, brought this into vogue; and the French wils have, for this last age, been wholly turned to the refinement of their style and language: and, indeed, with such success, that it can hardly be equalled, and runs equally through their verse and their prose." Here are no fewer than eight ands in one sentence. This agreeable writer too often makes his sentences drag in this manner, by a careless multiplication of copulatives.

2. It is strange that a writer so accurate as Dean Swift, should have stumbled on so improper an application of this participle, as he has made in the following sentence: "There is no talent so useful