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LECT. difficult to feparate the Style from the fentiment. No wonder these two should be fo intimately connected, as Style is nothing else, than that fort of expreffion which our thoughts most readily affume. Hence, different counties have been noted for peculiarities of Style, fuited to their different temper and genius. The eastern nations animated their Style with the most strong and hyperbolical figures. The Athenians, a polifhed and acute people, formed a Style accurate, clear, and neat. The Afiatics, gay and loofe in their manners, affected a Style florid and diffuse. The like fort of characteristical differences are commonly remarked in the Style of the French, the Englifh, and the Spaniards. In giving the general characters of Style, it is usual to talk of a nervous, a feeble, or a spirited Style; which are plainly the characters of a writer's manner of thinking, as well as of expreffing himfelf: So difficult it is to feparate these two things from one another. Of the general characters of Style, I am afterwards to discourse; but it will be neceffary to begin with examining the more fimple qualities of it; from the affemblage of which, its more complex denominations, in a great measure, result,

ALL the qualities of a good Style may be ranged under two heads, Perfpicuity and Ornament. For all that can poffibly be required

of

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of Language, is, to convey our ideas clearly L E C T. to the minds of others, and, at the fame time, in fuch a dress, as by pleafing and interesting them, fhall most effectually strengthen the impreffions which we seek to make. When both these ends are answered, we certainly accomplish every purpose for which we use Writing and Difcourfe.

PERSPICUITY, 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 richeft ornaments of Style only glimmer through the dark; and puzzle, instead of pleasing, the reader. This, therefore, must be our firft object, to make our meaning clearly and fully understood, and understood without the leaft difficulty. "Oratio," fays Quinctilian," debet negligenter quoque au"dientibus effe aperta; ut in animum audi"entis, ficut fol in oculos, etiamfi in eum non "intendatur, occurrat. Quare, non folum "ut intelligere poffit, fed ne omnino poffit "non intelligere curandum t." If we are obliged

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

+"Difcourfe ought always to be obvious, even to the "most careless and negligent hearer; fo that the fenfe " shall strike his mind, as the light of the fun does our eyes?

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LEC T. obliged to follow a writer 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 relish so 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 difficulty 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 ftill, as far as they go, they ought to be clear; and, wherever this is the cafe, Perfpicuity, in expreffing them, is always attainable. The obscurity which reigns fo much among many metaphyfical writers, is, for the moft part, owing to the indiftin&tness of their own conceptions.

eyes, though they are not directed upwards to it. We "muft ftudy, not only that every hearer may understand us, but that it shall be impoffible for him not to underftand us."

They

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They fee the object but in a confufed light; LECT, and, of course, can never exhibit it in a clear one to others.

PERSPICUITY 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 pofitive beauty. We are pleafed with an author, we confider him as deferving praise, who frees us from all fatigue. of fearching for his. meaning; who carries us through his fubject without any embarrassinent or confufion; whofe ftyle flows always like a limpid ftream, where we fee to the very bottom.

THE ftudy of Perfpicuity requires attention, firft, to fingle words and phrafes, and then to the construction of fentences. I begin with treating of the first, and shall confine myself to it in this Lecture.

PERSPICUITY, confidered with refpect to words and phrases, requires these 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,

LECT. Purity, is the use of such words, and fuch

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constructions, as belong to the idiom of the Language which we fpeak; in oppofition to words and phrases that are imported from other Languages, or that are obfolete, or newcoined, or used without proper authority. Propriety, is the selection of fuch words in the Language, as the best and most established usage has appropriated to those ideas which we intend to exprefs by them. It implies the correct and happy application of them, according to that usage, in oppofition to vulgarisms, or low expreffions; and to words and phrases, 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 Scotticifins or Gallicifins, or ungrammatical irregular expreffions of any kind, and may, nevertheless, be deficient in Propriety. The words may be ill chofen; not adapted to the fubject, nor fully expreffive of the author's fenfe. He has taken all his words and phrases from the general mafs of English Language; but he has made his felection among these words unhappily. Whereas, Style cannot be proper without being alfo pure; and where both Purity and Propriety meet, befides making Style perfpicuous, they also render it graceful. There is no ftandard, either of Purity or of Propriety, but the practice of the beft writers and speakers in the country.

WHEN

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