expression, each in itself brief, yet collectively affording such expansiveness as will render the matter capable of being thoroughly digested and assimilated.

Unity. By this is meant such a distribution of materials as shall keep the dominant idea of the sentence prominently before the mind, with minor parts so arranged as to indicate at once their dependence and connection. Hence the loose collocation of numerous details; the crowding together of too many thoughts, or of thoughts disconnected and incongruous; the introduction of long or abrupt parenthetical clauses, especially of parentheses within parentheses-should be avoided:

For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, if ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward: how that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit ; that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel: whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power. Unto me who am less than the least of all saints is this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ: to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord; in whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him . . . . beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.-Ephesians.

ones.

....

In this and similar cases, the remedy is to cut up the long and crowded sentences into shorter and more congruous The simple structure is, on the whole, more favorable to perspicuity than the periodic. A too frequent or too prolonged suspension of the sense becomes painful. Mere length, however, is not of so great moment as the

character of the construction. The prime object is so to arrange the different parts that the meaning of each may be understood in the order in which it is presented, not left to be comprehended at the end, in itself and its connections, by re-reading and reflection. The following, from Cowley's Essay on Cromwell, is of unusual length, yet unity is preserved throughout:

What can be more extraordinary than that a person of mean birth, no fortune, no eminent qualities of body, which have sometimes or of mind, which have often-raised men to the highest dignities, should have the courage to attempt, and the happiness to succeed in so improbable a design, as the destruction of one of the most ancient and most solidly-founded monarchies upon the earth? that he should have the power or boldness to put his prince and master to an open and infamous death; to banish that numerous and strongly allied family; to do all this under the name and wages of a parliament; to trample upon them, too, as he pleased, and spurn them out of doors when he grew weary of them; to raise up a new and unheard-of monster out of their ashes; to stifle that in the very infancy, and set up himself above all things that ever were called sovereign in England; to oppress all his enemies by arms, and all his friends afterwards by artifice; to serve all parties patiently for awhile, and to command them victoriously at last; to overrun each corner of the three nations, and overcome with equal facility both the riches of the south and the poverty of the north; to be feared and courted by all foreign princes, and adopted a brother to the gods of the earth; to call together parliaments with a word of his pen, and scatter them again with the breath of his mouth; to be humbly and daily petitioned, that he would please to be hired, at the rate of two millions a year, to be the master of those who had hired him before to be their servant; to have the estates and lives of three kingdoms as much at his disposal as was the little inheritance of his father, and to be as noble and liberal in the spending of them; and lastly, for there is no end of all the particulars of his glory, to bequeath all this with one word to his posterity; to die with peace at home and triumph abroad; to be buried among kings, and with more than regal solemnity; and to leave a name behind him not to be extinguished but with the whole world; which, as it is now too little for his praises, so might have been, too, for his conquests, if the short

line of his human life could have been stretched out to the extent of his immortal designs?

We have already noticed how important is the function of connective and reference forms in promoting unity and clearness. A close reasoner and a good writer in general,' says Coleridge, 'may be known by his pertinent use of connectives.'

Imagery. Figures of speech should, for the purpose of clearness, be derived from such objects and truths as are familiar to the minds addressed, and should be so presented as to be easily intelligible. A chief instrument of perspicuity is comparison, implied or explicit. The known is made to shed light upon the unknown. Things remote receive lustre from things allied. A similitude or an analogy is more readily comprehensible than an abstract term. The Bible abounds in abstract similes. Antithesis

sharpens the outline of objects, material or mental, which are contrasted as well as compared. Of the value of comparison, illustrated elsewhere in its several forms, the following is an admirable example:

Last autumn, in some of the pastures, fire ran along the wall, and left the ground black with its ephemeral charcoal, where now the little wind-flower lifts its delicate form and bends its slender neck, and blushes with its own beauty, gathered from the black ground out of which it grew; or some trillium opens its painted cup, and in due time will show its fruit, a beautiful berry there. So out of human soil, blackened by another fire which has swept over it, in due time flowers will come in the form of spiritual beauty not yet seen, and other fruit will grow there whose seed is in itself, and which had not ripened but out of that black ground. Thus the lilies of peace cover the terrible fields of Waterloo, and out of the graves of our dear ones there spring up such flowers of spiritual loveliness as you and I else had never known. It is not from the tall crowded warehouse of prosperity that men first or clearest see the eternal stars of heaven. It is from the humble spots where we have laid our dear ones that we find our best observatory, which gives us glimpses into the far-off world of never-ending time.— Theodore Parker.

Finally, it cannot be too deeply impressed upon the youthful writer,

(1) That the foundation of clear expression is clear thinking. Thoughts that circulate under the name of deep thinking are often but often but half-formed thoughts. 'Words, words, nothing but words,' is Carlyle's criticism on some of the nebulous poetry of Robert Browning. Fontenelle's rule in composition was, 'I always try first to understand myself."

(2) That the most laborious and original thinkers have been the most faithful critics of diction and construction. Rousseau, who had much difficulty in finding words, wrote his Emile nine times. John Foster, some of whose essays are marvellously rich, often discussed arrangement in his correspondence with literary friends.

(3) That we are not sure of understanding ourselves perfectly, unless we have done what we can to make ourselves readily understood. In order to write clearly,' says La Bruyère, 'every writer should put himself in the place of his readers; should examine his own work as something which is new to him, which he reads for the first time, in which he has no peculiar interest, and which the author has submitted to his criticism.'

(4) That a negligent or slovenly habit of utterance begets an indolent habit of thought.

EXERCISES.

Criticise and amend:

1. Who can he take after?-Sheridan.

2. How agrees the devil and thee? — Shakespeare.

3. I did think to have beaten thee.-Ibid.

4. Who you saw sitting by me.—Ibid.

5. This hour I throw ye off.-Congreve.

6. Earth up hath swallowed all my hopes but she.—Shakespeare.

7. I can only regard them as Scotticisms.-Dean Alford.

8. A decided weak point is detected.—Ibid.

9. The vice of covetousness is what enters deepest into the soul of any other.-Guardian.

10. The great masters of critical learning differ among one another.-Spectator.

11. A petty constable will neither act cheerfully or wisely.—Swift. 12. The loveliest pair

That ever since in love's embraces met.-Milton.

13. We need not, nor do not, confine the purposes of God.— Bentley.

14. I can never think so very mean of him.—Ibid.

15. I shall endeavor to live hereafter suitable to a man in my station.-Addison.

16. I am equally an enemy to a female dunce or a female pedant.-Goldsmith.

17. Dr. Johnson, with whom I am sorry to differ in opinion, has treated it as a work of merit.-Scott.

18. This effect, we may safely say, no one beforehand could have promised upon.-Hume.

19. But the temper, as well as knowledge, of a modern historian, require a more sober and temperate language.-Gibbon.

20. 'Tis observable that every one of the letters bear date after his banishment.-Bentley.

21. I am persuaded that neither death nor life . . shall be able to separate us from the love of God.-St. Paul.

22. I have furnished the house exactly according to your fancy, or, if you please, my own; for I have long since learned to like nothing but what you do.-Dryden.

23. If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee.-Matthew.

24. For my part, I cannot think that Shelley's poetry, except by snatches and fragments, has the value of the good work of Wordsworth or Byron.-Matthew Arnold.

25. Nor is it easy to conceive that, in substituting the manners of Persia to those of Rome, he was actuated by vanity.-Gibbon.