thought, which upon examination is not found there.

A light wife doth make a heavy husband.

Merchant of Venice.

Here is a ftudied oppofition in the words, not only without any oppofition in the sense, but even where there is a very intimate connection, that of cause and effect; for it is the levity of the wife that torments the hufband.

Will maintain

Upon his bad life to make all this good.

King Richard II. act 1. fc. 2.

Lucetta. What, fhall these papers lie like tell-tales here? Julia. If thou refpect them, beft to take them up. Lucetta. Nay, I was taken up for laying them down. Two Gentlemen of Verona, act 1. fc. 3.

A fault directly opposite to that last mentioned, is to conjoin artificially words that exprefs ideas opposed to each other in the thought. This is a fault too grofs to be in common practice; and yet writers are guilty of it in fome degree, when they conjoin by a copulative things tranfacted at different periods of time. Hence a want of neatness in the following expreffion.

The nobility too, whom the King had no means of retaining by fuitable offices and preferments, had been feized with the general difcontent, and unwarily threw themfelves

themselves into the fcale which began already too much. to preponderate.

Hiftory of G. Britain, vol. 1. p. 250.

In periods of this kind, it appears more neat to exprefs the past time by the participle paffive,

thus:

The nobility having been feized with the general dif content, unwarily threw themselves, &c. (or), The nobility who had been feized, &c. unwarily threw themfelves, &c.

It is unpleasant to find even a negative and affirmative propofition connected by a copulative:

Nec excitatur claffico miles truci,
Nec horret iratum mare;

Forumque vitat, et fuperbo civium

Potentiorum limina.

Horace, Epod. 2. l. 5.

If it appear not plain, and prove untrue,
Deadly divorce step between me and you.

Shakespear.

In mirth and drollery it may have a good effect to connect verbally things that are oppofite to each other in the thought. Example: Henry the Fourth of France introducing the Marefchal Biron to fome of his friends," Here, Gentlemen," fays he, "is the Marefchal Biron, whom I freely "present both to my friends and enemies."

This rule of ftudying uniformity between the thought and expreffion, may be extended to govern the conftruction of fentences or periods. A fentence or period in language ought to exprefs one entire thought or mental propofition; and different thoughts ought to be feparated in the expreffion by placing them in different fentences or periods. It is therefore offending against neatnefs, to crowd into one period entire thoughts which require more than one: for this is conjoining in language things that are feparated in reality; and confequently rejecting that uniformity which ought to be preferved between thought and expreffion. Of errors against this rule take the following examples.

Cæfar, defcribing the Suevi :

Atque in eam fe confuetudinem adduxerunt, ut locis frigidiffimis, neque veftitus, præter pelles, habeant quid quam, quarum propter exiguitatem, magna eft corporis pars aperta, et laventur in fluminibus.

Commentaria, l. 4. prin.

Burnet, `in the history of his own times, giving Lord Sunderland's character, fays,

His own notions were always good; but he was a man of great expence.

I have feen a woman's face break out in heats, as fhe has been talking against a great Lord, whom she had ne

ver seen in her life; and indeed never knew a party-woman that kept her beauty for a twelvemonth.

Spectator, N° 57.

Lord Bolingbroke, fpeaking of Strada:

I fingle him out among the moderns, because he had the foolish prefumption to cenfure Tacitus, and to write history himself; and your Lordship will forgive this fhort excurfion in honour of a favourite writer.

Letters on hiftory, vol. 1. let. 5.

It seems to me, that in order to maintain the moral fyftem of the world at a certain point, far below that of ideal perfection, (for we are made capable of conceiving what we are incapable of attaining), but however fufficient upon the whole to constitute a state easy and happy, or at the worst tolerable: I fay, it seems to me, that the author of nature has thought fit to mingle from time to time, among the focieties of men, a few, and but a few, of thofe on whom he is graciously pleased to beftow a larger proportion of the ethereal fpirit than is given in the ordinary courfe of his providence to the fons of men.

Bolingbroke, on the fpirit of patriotifm, let. 1.

To crowd into a fingle member of a period different fubjects, is ftill worse than to crowd them into one period :

Trojam, genitore Adamasto

Paupere (manfiffetque utinam fortuna) profectus.

Eneid. iii. 614.

From

From conjunétions and disjunctions in general, we proceed to comparisons, which make one fpecies of them, beginning with fimiles. And here alfo, the intimate connection that words have with their meaning requires, that in describing two resembling objects a refemblance in the two members of the period ought to be ftudied. To illuftrate the rule in this cafe, I fhall give various examples of deviations from it; beginning with refemblances expreffed in words that have no refemblance.

I have obferved of late, the ftyle of fome great minifters very much to exceed that of any other productions. Letter to the Lord High Treasurer. Swift.

This, instead of studying the resemblance of words in a period that expreffes a comparison, is going out of one's road to avoid it. Instead of productions, which refemble not minifters great nor fmall, the proper word is writers or authors.

If men of eminence are expofed to cenfure on the one hand, they are as much liable to flattery on the other, If they receive reproaches which are not due to them, they likewife receive praifes which they do not deferve.

Spectator,

Here the fubject plainly demands uniformity in expreffion instead of variety; and therefore it is fubmitted, whether the period would not do better in the following manner;