solely upon thought and knowledge. A sensible man cannot be conscious of his dress and figure; and neither can a sensible writer allow himself to be conscious of the dress or of the body of his thoughts.

The law of sincerity, moreover, is grossly violated in such a passage as the following from Sir John Cheke:

"Who can persuade when treason is above reason, and might ruleth right, and it is had for lawful whatsoever is wishful, and commotioners are better than commissioners, and common woe is named common wealth?”

Cheke was thinking far more of his words than of his subject, was aiming at puns and quirks and quibbles, instead of trying to give a vivid and truthful representation of the terrible state of his country and of a time in which such a state of things could exist. In one word, such a style is radically and irremediably bad, because it is self

conscious.

CHAPTER III.

THE LAW OF CLEARNESS.

LEARNESS comes in the first instance from a thorough knowledge and a clear conception of the subject one is writing about. If one's notions are clear, the language which will rush in to embody and to express these notions, will also be clear. Thus complete knowledge and complete clearness, will generally be found in the closest union. If a writer expresses himself vaguely, or obscurely, or confusedly, it will be found, upon examination, either that his knowledge is insufficient, or that he has written in a hurry, and has not given himself time to form clear notions upon the subject he is writing of. (There is, of course, the third case—that he may not be fully acquainted with the language he is using.)

The practical rule on this point, therefore, is :—

Get up the subject on which you are going to write with the greatest care, and think over it as long as you can.

There are also three minor rules that will help us in connection with this point.

I.-Draw up a skeleton of the subject. On this question Dr. Whately's remarks are of great use:

"It should be added, as a practical rule for all cases, whether it be an

exercise that is written for practice' sake, or a composition on some real occasion, that an outline should be first drawn out,—a skeleton as it is sometimes called, of the substance of what is to be said. The more briefly this is done, so that it does but exhibit clearly the heads of the composition, the better; because it is important that the whole of it be placed before the eye and the mind in a small compass, and be taken in, as it were, at a glance; and it should be written therefore, not in sentences, but like a table of contents. Such an outline should not be allowed to fetter the writer, if, in the course of the actual composition, he find any reason for deviating from his original plan,—it should serve merely as a track to mark out a path for him, not as a groove to confine him. But the practice of drawing out such a skeleton will give a coherence to the composition, a due proportion of its several parts, and a clear and easy arrangement of them; such as can rarely be attained if one begins by completing one portion before thinking of the rest."

II. Contrast your statements, if possible, with the opposite statements on the same subject, or with similar statements on an opposite subject.

If, for example, you have to write about Travelling by Railway, you can make your statements clearer and more vivid to your reader by contrasting your rate of progress with that of a traveller on foot, or by the old mail-coach, or on horseback. Again, if you are writing on an abstract subject, it is useful to remember that "the only light of every truth is its contrasting error," and to seek for the most remarkable examples of these errors that can be found either in the actions of people or in the writings of authors. Though it may appear pedantic to say so, it is in fact a very great help to thinking to accustom one's mind to dwell constantly upon the contrasts of things, and so to get the one to throw new light upon the nature of the other. The habit of doing so in writing gives great vividness to the style; but we must be on our guard against overdoing this kind of device. A white surface gains in prominence by being put beside a black surface, a red surface beside a green, and so on.

This device is called in books on Rhetoric (or Style) ANTITHESIS. Pope is full of it-too full of it, and so is Macaulay. He says of the Thames :

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Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull,

Strong without rage, without o'erflowing, full."

"Worth makes the man, the want of it the fellow;
The rest is naught but leather and prunella."

"A mighty maze, but not without a plan.”

"A tun of man in thy large bulk is writ,
But sure thou 'rt but a kilderkin of wit."

And Macaulay has the following:

"The subjects of Charles began to love his memory as heartily as they hated his person, and posterity has estimated his character from his death rather than from his life."

"The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators."

"If Boswell had not been a great fool, he would never have been a great writer."

"Tacitus tells a fine story finely; but he cannot tell a plain story plainly.”

And Fuller is peculiarly rich in antitheses:—

"To want a grave is the cruelty of the living, not the misery of the dead."

"Laud is a man of low stature, but of high parts." (This is a little childish, and would not be tolerated now in any sensible writer.)

Swift is also fond of using them:

"Churches are dormitories of the living as well as of the dead."

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Apollo was the god of physic and the sender of diseases. originally the same trade, and still continue."

Both were

* Opposite-placing.
*=

"The two maxims of a great man at court are, always to keep his countenance, and never to keep his word."

"We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love, one another."

The following is from Sterne :

"I find a blockhead to be a man (for I am not at present in a humour to involve the poor women in the definition) who thinks he has what in fact he has not, and who does not know how to make a right use of what he has."

Goldsmith is also not without them:

"We see more of the world by travel, more of human nature by remaining at home."

"We grow learned, not wise, by too long a continuance * at college."

Burke, too, allows his thoughts to move often upon the line of Antithesis :

"Tenderness to individuals is considered as treason to the public. Liberty is always to be estimated perfect as property is rendered insecure."

"They put me in mind of Old Sarum, where the representatives, more in number than the constituents, only serve to inform us that this was once a place of trade, and sounding with the 'busy hum of men,' though now you can only trace the streets by the colour of the corn, and its sole manufacture is in members of Parliament."

And Dr. Johnson was perhaps a little too partial to this device :

"If his jests are coarse, his arguments are strong."

"He was too judicious to commit faults, but not sufficiently vigorous to attain excellence."

"Goldsmith has the art of being minute without tediousness, and general without confusion; † his language is copious without exuberance, exact without restraint, and easy without weakness."

*This is a distinct error in style. The phrase errs by being (1) too abstract, and (2) by not being simple. It should be: "by remaining too long."

† A modern writer would have said "without being confused."