guage as ours, is abfolutely requifite for writing or ipeaking with any propriety.

Whatever the advantages, or defects of the English language be, as it is our own language, it deferves a high degree of our ftudy and attention, both with regard to the choice of words which we employ, and with regard to the fyntax, or the arrangement of these words in a fentence. We know how much the Greeks and the Romans in their most polished and flourishing times, cultivated their own tongues. We know how much study both the French and the Italians have bestowed upon theirs. Whatever knowledge may be acquired by the ftudy of other languages, it can never be communicated with advantage, unless by fuch as can write and fpeak their own language well. Let the matter of an author be ever fo good and ufeful, his compofitions will always fuffer in the public esteem, if his exprellion be deficient in purity and propriety. At the fame time, the attainment of a correct and elegant ftyle is an object which demands application and labour. If any imagine they can catch it merely by the ear, or acquire it by a flight perüfal of fome of our good authors, they will find themfelves much difappointed. The many errors, even in point of grammar, the many offences against purity of language, which are committed by writers who are far from being contemptible, demonftrate, that á careful study of the language is previously requifite, in all who aim at writing it properly*.

On this fubject, the reader cught to perufe dr. Lowth's fhort introduction to English grammar, with critical notes; which is the grammatical performance of highest authority that has appeared in our time, and in which he will fee, what I have faid, concerning the inaccuracies in language of fome of our beft writers, fully verified. In dr. Campbell's philofophy of rhetoric, he will likewife find many acute and ingenious obfervations, both on the English language, and on style in general. And dr. Priestley's rudiments of English grammar will also be useful, by pointing out feveral of the errors into which writers are apt to fall.

ま

TURE X.

LECT U

STYLE-PERSPICUÍTY AND
PRECISION.:

HAV

AVING finished the fubject of language, I now enter on the confideration of style, and the rules that relate to it.

It is not easy to give a precife idea of what is meant by ftyle. The best definition I can give of ity is, the peculiar manner in which a man expreffes his conceptions, by means of language. It is differa ent from mere language or words. The words, which an author employs, may be proper and faultlefs and his ftyle may, nevertheless, have great faults; it may be dry, or ftiff, or feeble, or affected. Style has always fome reference to an author's manner of thinking. It is a picture of the ideas which rife in his mind, and of the manner in which they rife there; and, hence, when we are examining an author's compofition, it is, in many cases, extremely difficult to feparate the ftyle from the fentiment. No wonder thefe two fhould be fo intimately connected, as ftyle is nothing elfe, than that fort of expreflion which our thoughts most

readily affume. Hence, different countries have been noted for peculiarities of ftyle, fuited to their different temper and genius. The eastern nations animated their ftyle with the most strong and hyperbolical figures. The Athenians, a polifhed and acute people, formed a ftyle accurate, clear, and neat. The Afiatics, gay and loose in their manners, affected a style florid and diffufe. The like fort of characteristical differences are commonly remarked in the style of the French, the English, and the Spaniards. In giving the general characters of if ftyle, it is ufual to talk of a nervous, a feeble, or a fpirited ftyle; which are plainly the characters of a writer's manner of thinking, as well as of expreffing himself: fo difficult it is to feparate these two things from one another. Of the general characters of style, I am afterwards to difcourfe; but it will be neceffary to begin with examining the more fimple qualities of it, from the affemblage of which, its more complex dénominations, in a great measure, refult.

All the qualities of a good style may be ranged under two heads, perfpicuity and ornament. For all that can poffibly be required of language, is, to convey our ideas clearly to the minds of others, and, at the fame time, in fuch a drefs, as by pleas fing and interefting them, fhall moft effectually ftrengthen the impreflions which we feek to make. When both thefe ends are anfwered, we certainly accomplish every purpose for which we ufe writing and difcourfe

Perfpicuity, it will be readily admitted, is the fundamental quality of style* ; a quality fo effential in every kind of writing, that, for the want of it, nothing can atone. Without this, the richest

Nobis prima fit virtus, perfpicuitas, propria verba, rectus ordo, non in longum dilata conclufio; nihil neque defit, neque fuperfluat.". QUINTIL. lib. viii.

ra

ornaments of ftyle only glimmer through the dark; and puzzle, instead of pleafing the reader. This, therefore, must be our firft object, to make our meaning clearly and fully understood, and underftood without the least difficulty. " Oratio," fays Quintilian," debet negligenter quoque audienti"bus effe aperta; ut in animum audientis, ficut "fol in oculos, etiamfi in eum non intendatur, oc"currat. Quare, non folum ut intelligere poffit, " fed ne omnino poffit non intelligere, curandumt." If we are obliged to follow a wr.ter with much care, to paufe, and to read over his fentences a fecond time, in order to comprehend them fully, he will never pleafe us long. Mankind are too indolent to relifh fo much labour. They may pretend to admire the author's depth, after they have difcovered his meaning; but they will feldom be inclined to take up his work a fecond time,

Authors fometimes plead the dificulty of their fubject, as an excufe for the want of perfpicuity. But the excufe can rarely, if ever, be admitted. For whatever a man conceives clearly, that it is in his power, if he will be at the trouble, to put into diftinct propofitions, or to exprefs clearly to others: and upon no fubject ought any man to write, where he cannot think clearly. His ideas, indeed, may, very excufably, be on fome fubjects incomplete or inadequate; but still, as far as they go, they ought to be clear; and, wherever this is the cafe, peripicuity, in expreffing them, is always attainable. The obfcurity which reigns fo much among many metaphyfical writers, is, for most part, owing to the

"Difcourfe ought always to be obvious, even to the most careless and negligent hearer; fo that the fenfe fhall ftrike his mind, as the light of the fun does our eyes, though they are not directed upwards to it. We must fludy, not only that every hearer may understand es, but that it fhall be impoffible fos him not to understand us."

indiftin&tnefs of their own conceptions. They fee the object but in a confufed light; and, of courte, can never exhibit it in a clear one to others.

Perfpicuity in writing, is not to be confidered as merely a fort of negative virtue, or freedom from defect. It has higher merit: it is a degree of politive beauty. We are pleafed with an author, we confider him as deferving praife, who frees us from all fatigue of searching for his meaning; who carries us through his fubject without any embarraffment or confufion; whofe ftyle flows always like a limpid ftream, where we fee to the very bottom.

The ftudy of perfpicuity requires attention, first, to fingle words and phrafes, and then to the conftruction of fententes. I begin with treating of the firft, and fhall confine myfelf to it in this lecture.

Perfpicuity, confidered with respect to words and phrafes, requires thefe three qualities in them, purity, propriety, and precifion.

Purity and propriety of language are often used indifcriminately for each other; and, indeed, they are very nearly allied. A diftinction, however, obtains between them. Purity is the ufe of fuch words, and fuch conftructions, as belong to the idiom of the language which we speak; in opposition to words and phrafes that are imported from other languages, or that are absolete, or new-coined, or used without proper authority. Propriety is the selection of fuch words in the language, as the best and most established ufage has appropriated to those ideas which we intend to exprefs by them. It implies the correct and happy application of them, according to that ufage, in oppofition to vulgarifms, or low expreffions; and to words and phrafes, which would be lefs fignificant of the ideas that we mean to convey. Style may be pure, that is, it may all be strictly English, without Scotticifms or Gallicifms, or ungrammatical irregular expreffions of any