The following sentences present examples of pleonasm, verbosity, and redundancy, which may be corrected by the learner.

Exercises.

The rain, is it not over and gone? I hear no wind, only the voice of the streams.

My banks they are furnished with bees.

It is impossible for us to behold the divine works with coldness or in difference, or to survey so many beauties, without a secret satisfaction and complacency.

Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

This great politician desisted from, and renounced his designs, when he found them impracticable.

He was of so high and independent a spirit, that he abhorred and detested being in debt.

Though raised to an exalted station, she was a pattern of piety, virtue, and religion.

The human body may be divided into the head, trunk, limbs, and vitals.

His end soon approached; and he died with great courage and fortitude. He was a man of so much pride and vanity, that he despised the sentiments of others.

Poverty induces and cherishes dependence; and dependence strength ens and increases corruption.

This man, on all occasions, treated his inferiors with great haughtiness and disdain.

There can be no regularity or order in the life and conduct of that man who does not give and allot a due share of his time to retirement and reflection.

Such equivocal and ambiguous expressions, mark a formed intention to deceive and abuse us,

His cheerful, happy temper, remote from discontent, keeps up a kind of daylight in his mind, excludes every gloomy prospect, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.

Being content with deserving a triumph, he refused the honor of it. In the Attic commonwealth, it was the privilege of every citizen and voet to rail aloud in public.

XXIII.

VARIETY OF EXPRESSION.

The various modes of transposition and inversion, by which the same idea can be expressed by different inflections of the words have already been presented. In this exercise the

modes are suggested by which the idea may be clothed in different language, still, for the most part preserving its identity.*

Example 1st.

The young should be diligent and industrious, and make a proper use of their time.

Diligence, industry, and proper improvement of time are material duties of the young.

Young men, be industrious; make the best use of your time; an awful responsibility rests upon you.

Young persons should be made sensible, that it is their duty to be diligent and industrious, and to employ their time in useful pursuits.

To be diligent and industrious, and to employ their time in profitable occupations, are things which we expect from young persons.

In the morning of life, when the phantoms of hope are flitting before their sight, and the visions of fancy are decorating their prospects, the young should not suffer themselves to be deluded by expectations which cannot be realized. The golden sands should not be wantonly wasted in their path, nor should the precious moments of life be suffered to take flight, without bearing on their wings some token of their value.

Duty addresses the young in an imperative tone, requiring them to apply themselves with diligence to their proper occupations, and forbidding them to pay one moment but in purchase of its worth. "And what is its worth? Ask deathbeds; they can tell.”

Young persons cannot be commended when they devote those hours to indolence, which should have been given to industry; for time is valuable, and should be properly employed.

*It is to be observed, that, in the practice of the principle involved in this exercise, the teacher should not be too rigid in noticing the faults of pleonasm, verbosity, or redundancy. The object of the exercise is to give a command of language, and it will be well, when this object is partially effected, to require the learner to take his own sentences and prune them on the principles explained in the preceding exercises.

The young should be diligent and industrious, and properly improve their time.*

It is not only when duty addresses them with her warning voice that the young should practise the virtues of diligence and industry; a proper improvement of their time is at all times expected from them.

Example 2d.

[The different modes of expressing the same idea give rise to the distinctions of style which have been mentioned in the Introduction. The subject of style will be more fully treated in the subsequent pages. The following sentence will exemplify to the student the effect of two of the varieties of style.]

Style of simple Narration.

Yesterday morning, as I was walking in the fields, I saw John stab James through the heart with a dagger.

Style of passionate exclamation, in which the prominent idea is brought forward, and the circumstances are cast into the shade.

James is murdered! I saw John stab him to the heart.

Exercises.

[The student must be careful to make use of his understanding and dis crimination, as well as his dictionary, in the performance of these exer cises.]

True friendship is like sound health, the value of it is seldom known til it is lost.

As no roads are so rough as those that have just been mended, so no sinners are so intolerant as those that have just turned saints.

When certain persons abuse us, let us ask ourselves what description of characters it is that they admire; we shall often find this a very consolatory question.

* In the Introduction to this book, notice was taken of the different forms, or style, of composition. In this model, an attempt has been made to imitate several of the diversities of style there mentioned; and it will be useful to the student, when he shall have become acquainted with the diversities of style, in the subsequent pages of this volume, to endeavor to designate them respectively by their peculiar characteristics. It may here be remarked, that the style of common conversation, called the colloquial style, allows the introduction of terms and expressions, which are not used in grave writing.

Contemporaries appreciate the man rather than the merit; but pos terity will regard the merit rather than the man.

All beyond enough is too much; all beyond nourishment is luxury all beyond decency is extravagance.

Form your taste on the classics, and your principles on the book of all truth.

Let the first fruits of your intellect be laid before the altar of Him who breathed into your nostrils the breath of life; and with that breath, your immortal spirit.

The love of learning, though truly commendable, must never be gratified beyond a certain limit. It must not be indulged in to the injury of your health, nor to the hindrance of your virtue.

What will the fame derived from the most profound learning avail you, if you have not learned to be pious and humble, and temperate and charitable.

There is nothing more extraordinary in this country, than the tran sition of the seasons. The people of Moscow have no spring. Winter vanishes, and summer is. This is not the work of a week, or of a day. ent of one instant; and the manner of it exceeds belief.

On eagles' wings immortal scandals fly,

While virtuous actions are but born and die.

XXIV.

TRANSLATION, OR CONVERSION OF POETRY INTO PROSE.

Poetry when literally translated makes in general but inipid prose. Prose is the language of reason, poetry of feeling or passion. Prose is characterized by fulness and precision. Poetry deals largely in elliptical expressions, exclamations, exaggerations, apostrophes, and other peculiarities not usually found in prose. For the purpose, also, of accommodating them to the measure of a verse, the poets frequently alter or abbreviate words, and use expressions which would not be authorized in prose. Such abbreviations and alterations, together with other changes sometimes made, are called poetic licences, because they are principally used by poetical writers.

The following are some of the licences used by poetical writers.

1. ELISION, or the omission of parts of a word. When the elision is from the beginning of a word, it is called apheresis, and consists in cut

ting off the initial letter or syllable of a word; as, 'squire for esguire gainst for against, 'gan for began, &c. When the elision is from the body of the word, it is called syncope; as, list'ning for listening, thund'ring for thundering, lov'd for loved, &c. When the elision is from the end of a word. it is called apocope, and consists in the cutting off of a final vowel or syl lable, or of one or more letters; as, gi' me for give me, fro' for from, o' foi of, th' evening for the evening, Philomel' for Philomela.

2. SYNERESIS, or the contraction of two syllables into one, by rapidly pronouncing in one syllable two or more vowels which properly belong to separate syllables; as ae in the word Israel.

3. APOSTROPHE, or the contraction of two words into one; as, 't is f it is, can't for cannot, thou 'rt for thou art.

4. DIÆRESIS, or the division of one syllable into two; as, pu-is-sant for puissant.

5. PARAGOGE or the addition of an expletive letter; withouten for uith out, crouchen for crouch.

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6. PROSTHESIS, or the prefixing of an expletive letter or syllable word; as, appertinent for pertinent, beloved for loved.

7. ENALLAGE, or the use of one part of speech for another; as in the following lines, in which an adjective is used for an adverb; as,

"Blue through the dusk the smoking currents shine."

"The fearful hare limps awkward."

8. HYPERBATON, or the inversion or transposition of words, placıng that first which should be last; as,

"And though, sometimes, each dreary pause between.”

"Him answered then his loving mate and true."

9. PLEONASM, or the use of a greater number of words than are neces sary to express the meaning; as,

"My banks they are furnished with bees."

10. TMESIS, or the separation of the parts of a compound word; as, Un which side soever, for, On whichsoever side.

11. ELLIPSIS, or the omission of some parts not absolutely essential to express the meaning, but necessary to complete the grammatical construction.

The poets have likewise other peculiarities which are embraced under the general name of poetic diction. In order to accommodate their language to the rules of melody, and that they may be relieved, in some measure, from the restraints which verse imposes on them, they are indulged in the following usages, seldom allowable in prose.

1. They abbreviate nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, &c.; as, morn for morning, amaze for amazement, fount for fountain, dread for dreadful, lone for lonely, lure for allure, list for listen, ope for open, oft for often, haply for hap pily, &c., and use obsolete words * and obsolete meanings.

* Obsolete words are words which, although formerly current, are not now in common use.