For Poetry can ill express

Full many a tone of thought sublime;
And Painting, mute and motionless,

Steals but one partial glance from time:
But by the mighty actors brought,
Illusion's wedded triumphs come;
Verse ceases to be airy thought,

And Sculpture to be dumb."-CAMPBELL.

4. "How sleep the brave, who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes bless'd;
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod

Than Fancy's feet have ever trod."-COLLINS.

SECTION DCIIL-PROVERB.

PROVERB, Latin proverbium, a short sentence, expressing a wellknown truth or common fact ascertained by experience or observation; a maxim of wisdom.

"Out of sight out of mind."

SECTION DCIV.-REPARTEE.

REPARTEE, French repartie, a smart, witty reply.

"Said a would-be agreeable, taking his seat between Madame de Staël and the reigning beauty of the day, How happy I am to be thus seated between a wit and a beauty.' 'Yes,' replied Madame de Staël, and without possessing either!'

SECTION DCV.-SARCASM.

SARCASM, from the Greek oаpracμos, from σapka?w, to sneer at, or deride, primarily to flay or pluck off the skin, is a keen, reproachful expression, uttered with scorn or contempt. It is sometimes bitter, biting irony.

1. "My Lord,-The profound respect I bear to the gracious prince who governs this country, with no less honour to himself than satisfaction to his subjects, and who restores you to your rank under his standard, will save you from a multitude of reproaches. The attention I should have paid to your failings is iuvoluntarily attracted to the hand that rewards them; and though I am not so partial to the royal judgment as to affirm that the king can remove mountains of infamy, it serves at least to lessen, for undoubtedly it divides, the burden. While I remember how much is due to his sacred character, I cannot, with any decent appearance of propriety, call you the meanest and basest fellow in the kingdom. I protest, my lord, I do not think so. You will have a dangerous rival in that kind of fame to which you have hitherto so happily directed your ambition, as long as there is one man living who thinks you worthy of his confidence, and fit to be trusted with any share in his government. I confess you have great intrinsic merit, but take care you do not value it too highly. Consider how much of it would have been lost to the world if the king had not graciously affixed his royal stamp, and given it currency among his subjects. It it be true that a virtuous man struggling with adversity be a scene worthy of the gods, the glorious contest between you and the best of princes deserves a circle equally attentive and respectable. I think I see already other gods rising from beneath to behold it."-JUNIUS.

2. Sir Philip Francis, after his return to Parliament, 1784, gave great offence to Mr. Pitt by exclaiming, after he had pronounced an animated eulogy on Lord Chatham," But he is dead, and has left nothing in this world that resembles him."

SECTION DCVI.-SIMILE.

SIMILE, from the Latin similis, like, is a comparison expressed in form, and is founded on resemblance.

1. "The ship kept on away up the river, lessening and lessening in the waning sunshine like a little white cloud melting away in the summer sky."

2. "Like the aurora borealis of their native sky, the poets and historians of Iceland not only illuminated their own country, but flashed the light of their genius through the night which hung over the rest of Europe."

3. The noon-day sun came slanting down the rocky slopes of La Riccia, and its masses of entangled and tall foliage, whose autumnal tints were mixed with the wet verdure of a thousand evergreens, were penetrated with it as with rain. I cannot call it colour; it was conflagration. Purple, and crimson, and scarlet, like the curtains of God's tabernacle, the rejoicing trees sank into the valley in showers of light, every separate leaf quivering with buoyant and burning life; each, as it turned to reflect or to transmit the sunbeam, first a torch and then an emerald! Far up into the recesses of the valley, the green vistas arched like the hollows of mighty waves of some crystalline sea, with the arbutus flowers dashed along their flanks for foam, and silver flakes of orange spray tossed into the air around them, breaking over the gray wall of rocks into a thousand separate stars, fading and kindling alternately as the weak wind lifted and let them fall. Every glade of grass burned like the golden floor of heaven, opening in sudden gleams as the foliage broke and closed above it, as sheet lightning opens in a cloud at sunset!"-Modern Painters.

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4. The poems of Byron are as the scenes of a summer evening, where all is tender, and grand, and beautiful; but the damps of disease descend with the dews of heaven, and the pestilent vapours of night are breathed in with the fragrance and the balm, and the delicate and the fair are the surest victims of the exposure."

SECTION DCVII.-SYLLEPSIS.

SYLLEPSIS, from the Greek runs, taken together, is a trope by which a word is taken in two senses, the literal and the metaphorical; when we conceive the sense of the words to be otherwise than what the words impart, and construe them according to the sense of the writer.

1. "Lie heavy on him, Earth, for he

Laid many a heavy load on thee."-Epitaph on a bad Architect.

2. "And hope shall revive again, and, brighter and warmer than the beams of the morning sun, shall illumine and invigorate his dark soul."

3. "Perchance she died in youth; it may be, bowed
With woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb
That weighed upon her gentle dust."-BYRON.

SECTION DCVIII.-SYNECDOCHE.

SYNECDOCHE, from the Greek word avverdoxý, a taking together, is a trope by which the whole of a thing is put for a part, or a part for the whole; as a species for a genus, or a genus for a species. It comprehends more or less in the expression than the word which is employed literally signifies.

1. "A sail! a sail! a promised prize to hope,
Her nation's flag-how speaks the telescope?
No prize, alas! but yet a welcome sail."-BYRON.

Here we have a part for the whole.

2. "Belinda smiled, and all the world was gay."-POPE.

Here we have the whole for a part.

3. "I attest heaven and earth, that in all places and at all times I have steadfastly shoved aside the gilded hand of corruption, and endeavoured to stem the tide which threatened to overwhelm this island."-BURKE.

4. "The Lord Chancellor waited on his Majesty and resigned the seals."

5. "The governor came forth and delivered up the keys of the fort to the conqueror."

CHAPTER III.

SECTION DCIX.-PERSPICUITY.

WHATEVER may be the end aimed at by the orator, unless he speaks so as to be understood, he speaks to no purpose. If he fails in perspicuity, he fails in being understood. It is not enough that he can be understood by the closest attention on the part of the hearer. He must be easily understood. Perspicuity is eminently a rhetorical quality. Just as a sentence may be perfectly grammatical, and yet be false in reference to logic, so it may be perfectly grammatical and yet be deficient in perspicuity.

I. Obscurity may arise from ELLIPSIS; as, " You ought to contemn all the wit in the world against you." As the writer does not mean to say that all the wit in the world is actually excited against the person whom he addresses, there is a defect in the expression, which may be removed by filling up the ellipsis. "He talks all the way up stairs to a visit." Fill up the ellipsis, and you remove the obscurity. "He talks all the way as he walks up stairs to make a visit."

II. Obscurity may arise from bad ARRANGEMENT. There should be such an arrangement as will indicate the order and connection. "He advanced against the fierce ancient, imitating his address, his pace, and career, as well as the vigour of his horse and his own skill would allow." The clause as well as the vigour of his horse appears at first to belong to the former part of the sentence, and is afterward found to belong to the latter. 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." This sentence is deficient in unity and connection.

III. Obscurity may arise from using the SAME WORD IN DIFFERENT SENSES. "That he should be in earnest it is hard to conceive, since any reasons of doubt which he might have in the case would have been reasons of doubt in other men, who may give more, but cannot give more evident signs of thought than their fellow-creatures." Instead of using the same word more as an adjective and an adverb in the same sentence, the following form might be advantageously substituted: "Who may give more numerous, but cannot give more evident signs of doubt than their fellow-creatures." "The sharks who prey upon the inadvertency of young heirs are more pardonable than those who trespass on the good opinion of those who treat with them on the footing of choice and respect.'

IV. Obscurity may arise from the injudicious use of TECHNICAL TERMS. Every important science or art has its peculiar terms, which are of great utility in the study of that science or the practice of that art, but which are not adapted to general use; for the plain reason, that they are not generally understood.

SECTION DCX.-THE DOUBLE MEANING.

I. Obscurity may arise from the use of EQUIVOCAL TERMS. "The next refuge was to say that it was overlooked by one, and many passages wholly written by another." The word overlooked sometimes signifies revised, and sometimes neglected. In this case the word revised would have been preferable.

“The

II. Obscurity may arise from AMBIGUOUS CONSTRUCTION. rising tomb a lofty column bore." Did the tomb bear the column, or the column the tomb?

Obscurity also arises from Long sentences, or from an Artificial Construction of sentences, or from the use of foreign idioms.

SECTION DCXI.-THE UNINTELLIGIBLE.

I. Obscurity may arise from CONFUSION OF THOUGHT. Though distinct thoughts are rendered confused by a gross medium, no clearness of medium can render a confused thought clear. The following indicates a confusion of thought: "The serene aspect of these writers, joined with the great encouragement I observe is given to another, or what is intended to be suspected, in which he indulges himself, confirmed me in the notion I have of the lence of ambition this way."

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II. Obscurity may arise from AFFECTATION OF ELEGANCE. "Men must acquire a very peculiar and strong habit of turning their eye inward, in order to explore the interior regions and recesses of the mind, the hollow caverns of deep thought, the private seats of fancy, and the wastes and wildernesses, as well as the more fruitful and cultivated tracts, of this obscure climate." This is the way in which an author tells us that it is difficult to trace the operations of the mind.

III. Obscurity may arise from WANT OF MEANING. "Whatever renders a period sweet and pleasant, makes it also graceful; a good ear is the gift of Nature. It may be much improved, but it cannot be acquired by art; whoever is possessed of it will scarcely need dry critical precepts to enable him to judge of the true rhythmus and melody of composition: just members, accurate proportions, a musical symphony, magnificent figures, and that decorum which is the result of all these, are unison to the human mind; we are so framed by nature that their charm is irresistible." We have here only some faint glimmerings of sense.

IV. Obscurity may arise from AFFECTATION OF METAPHYSICAL DEPTH AND ACCURACY. "Man is the dwarf of himself. Once he

was permeated and dissolved by spirit. He filled nature with his overflowing currents."

"The

V. Obscurity may arise from the LOVE OF PARADOX. Gospel appeals, not only to our sense of duty, but to all our selfishness."

VI. Perspicuity is often violated by the use of the Latin rather than the Saxon element of the language. In scientific works, words derived from the Classical stock are often especially appropriate. Indeed, in many cases, there are no equivalent words derived from the Anglo-Saxon; but on common subjects the Anglo-Saxon element is much more expressive and perspicuous. See Section III. Perspicuity is often violated by the introduction of long parentheses. They call off the attention from the main subject, and fix it upon what is subordinate, and thus introduce confusion into the mind."

CHAPTER IV.

SECTION DCXII.-LIVELINESS OF EXPRESSION.

LIVELINESS OF EXPRESSION is of the greatest importance to the orator or the writer, inasmuch as it serves to fix the attention of the hearer or the reader, to awaken his imagination, and to impress the thought conveyed upon the memory.

I. Liveliness of Expression as depending on the CHOICE OF WORDS. 1. In the Song of Moses on the shores of the Red Sea, the inspired poet says, "They sank as lead in the mighty waters." Make but a small alteration in the expression, and say, "They fell as metal in the mighty waters," and the difference in the impression produced on the mind will be quite remarkable. In the one case we have the specific terms, sank and lead; in the other the generic terms, fell and metal. In the one case the picture is more distinct and brighter than the other. Specific Terms are more striking and vivid than General Terms.

2. Words of Anglo-Saxon origin produce a livelier impression than those of Latin origin. "You lie will awaken more feeling than "You tell a falsehood."

3. Words used Tropically are more expressive than other words. See Section DLXVIII.

II. Liveliness of Expression as depending on the NUMBER OF WORDS. As a general rule, the fewer the words, the more lively the expression. Brevity is the soul of wit." The principal faults committed against brevity are,

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1. Tautology, which is the repetition of some idea in different words; as, "It was the privilege and birthright of every citizen and poet to rail aloud and in public."

2. Pleonasm. This implies bare superfluity, or more than enough;