fully convinced of it. It is your duty and your interest to be studious and obliging.—It is not only your duty, but interest, to be studious and obliging.

To-day we are here; to-morrow we are gone.-The old may inform the young; and the young may animate those who are advanced in life.-Venerable shade! I then gave thee a tear; accept now of one cordial drop that falls to thy memory.-The account is generally balanced; for what we lose on the one hand, we are gainers by on the other. This author is more remarkable for strength of sentiment, than harmonious language.—The langhers will be for those who have most wit; the serious part of mankind for those who have most reason on their side. He can bribe, but he is not able to seduce; he can buy, but he has not the power of gaining; he can lie, but no one is deceived by him. He embraced the cause of liberty faintly, and pursued it without resolution; he grew tired of it, when he had much to hope; and gave it up when there was no ground for apprehension. The great friend of truth is time; that which is most unfriendly to her is prejudice; and that which is constantly in the act of accompanying her, is humility.-He thus became the principal man in his native place-by the friends he made, he obtained rank and honors; by honesty and generous dealing, he made friends; and by early industry, he raised himself to wealth.-There are three modes of bearing the ills of life; by religion, which is the best; by indifference, which is the most common; by philosophy, which is the most ostentatious.-It is pleasant to be virtuous and good, because that is to excel many others; it is pleasant to grow better, because that is to excel ourselves; it is pleasant to command our appetites and passions, and keep them in due order within the bounds of reason and religion, because this is empire; nay, it is pleasant even to mortify and subdue our lusts, because that is victory.

LESSON CXIV.

THE INTERROGATION. THE EXCLAMATION.

Interrogation (or Erotesis) is a figure, or form of sentence, which requests, or apparently requests an answer without the logical formality of affirming the request; as "Art thou angry ?" "Where are your fathers ?"

These expressed with logical formality, would be expanded in some such manner as the following: "Whether or not thou art angry, is what I request thee to tell me." "Where your fathers are, is a fact which you are called upon to declare."

All sentences interrogative in form are rhetorical, even the most familiar. A distinction has been made between such as really, and such as apparently require an answer, the former being deemed plain, and only the latter figurative. The distinction is unsound. It is framed on a supposition that rhetoric begins late in helping to form the structure of speech. We are rhetoricians in infancy, and by slow degrees become grammarians and logicians.

The design of the Interrogation is to awaken particular attention to the subject of discourse, and it is admirably adapted to produce a powerful impression of the truth of a subject, as it seems to challenge the impossibility of contradiction.

The Scripture furnishes many beautiful examples of the use of this figure: “He that planted the ear, shall He not hear? He that formed the eye, shall He not see?" "Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?" "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices

unto me?"

Satan's address to Eve is wonderfully heightened by the interrogations with which it is interspersed :

"Queen of this Universe! do not believe

Those rigid threats of death; ye shall not die;
How should you? By the fruit? It gives you Life
To knowledge. By the threat'ner? Look on me,
Me who have touch'd and tasted, yet both live,
And life more perfect have attain'd than Fate
Meant me, by venturing higher than my lot."

The following passage in that noblest of descriptive poems, "The Seasons," contains a series of the most beautiful interrogatories: "Falsely luxurious, will not man awake,

And springing from his bed of sloth, enjoy
The cool, the fragrant, and the silent hour,

To meditation due and sacred song?

For is there aught in sleep can charm the wise?

To lie in dead oblivion, losing half

The fleeting moments of too short life;
Total extinction of the enlighten'd soul!
Or else to feverish vanity alive,

Wilder'd and tossing through distemper'd dreams?
Who would in such a gloomy state remain
Longer than Nature craves; when ev'ry muse
And every blooming pleasure waits without,
To bless the wildly devious morning walk?"

EXCLAMATION (or Ecphonesis), is a natural cry carried out into a sentence; the expression of emotion without the logical formality of affirming the emotion; as "How surprising !" "What a piece of work is man!"

These, expressed with logical formality, would be expanded in some such manner as the following: "That which is before me, is very surprising;" "man is a most wonderful piece of work.”

The Exclamation expresses strong passion or emotion in vehement language: as, "O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory."-St. Paul.

"Oh! unexpected stroke-worse than death!" Milton.

LESSON CXV.

EXERCISES ON EXCLAMATION AND INTERROGATION.

When, for rhetorical effect, it is desirable to use one or other of these figures, instead of plainer forms of the sentence, and which of these figures is preferable to the other in particular cases, must be left to the student's judgment. At present nothing more is proposed than examples for exercises; previously to which, let the following sentences be compared:

"He who only believes that after a short turn on the stage of the world, he is to sink into oblivion, and lose his consciousness forever, cannot exalt his thoughts to any thing great or noble."

The thought is here laid down, without the least indication of feeling, in the shape of a plain logical proposition, a shape which ●n some occasions may be the most eligible.

"He cannot exalt his thoughts to any thing great or noble, because he

only believes that after a short turn on the stage of this world, he is to sink into oblivion, and to lose his consciousness forever."

This change of construction effects a change in the logical character of the sentence-it is no longer the enunciation of the thought as a general proposition, but as a particular one included in it, accompanied by the reason or argument based on that understood general proposition.

"He cannot exalt his thoughts to any thing great or nobie, who only believes that after a short turn on the stage of this world, he is to sink into oblivion, and lose his consciousness forever."

This is a rhetorical deviation from the pure logical form of the first example, with no other effect than the indication of some degree of feeling accompanying conviction. The two grammatical parts are now, as in the second example, not nominative and verb, but verb, and another verb which we may deem the adverb of the former.

"Can he exalt his thoughts to any thing great or noble, who only believes that after a short turn on the stage of this world, he is to sink into oblivion, and to lose his consciousness forever?"

"How impossible that any one should exalt his thoughts to any thing great or noble, who only believes that after a short turn on the stage of this world, he is to sink into oblivion, and to lose his consciousness forever!"

These deviations are still more decidedly rhetorical, indicating, in both instances, a greater degree of feeling in the speaker. And such forms of sentence, with a preference sometimes for one, sometimes the other, are adopted by every speaker, as often as the occasion, and his degree of feeling, call for them.

EXERCISE.

Cast the following sentences into the form of Interrogation or Exclamation, choosing the one or the other as the sense may seem to render desirable.

1. There is no reason, if we have all that nature craves, that we should not be content. (Why.)

2. The best resolutions avail nothing, if we do not put them in practice. (What.)

3. To breathe the fresh air of the country after being long confined in the close and murky city, is very delightful. (How.)

4. To come on shore, and feed on fresh provisions after a long voyage, is a luxury. (What.)

5. After so long a time, I am happy to see you. (How.)

6. There is nothing in all the pomp of the world, the enjoyment of luxury, the gratification of passion, comparable to the tranquil delight of a good conscience.

er.

7. We wait till to-morrow to be happier; there is no reason for not being o to-day. We shall not be younger. We are not sure we shall be healthOur passions will not become feebler, and our love of the world less. 8. No shadow can be more vain than the life of a great part of mankind. Of all that eager and bustling crowd which we behold on earth, very few discover the path of true happiness. Very few can we find whose activity has not been misemployed, and whose course terminates not in confessions of disappointment.

9. We cannot expect that mankind will take advice, when they will not so much as take warning. 10. None are so seldom found alone, and so soon tired of their own company, as those coxcombs that are on the best terms with themselves. 11. If men are born with two eyes, and with only one tongue, it is that they should see twice as much as they say. 12. It is very foolish to be quick in arraigning physical difficulties which we cannot account for. It is absurd to be wiser than nature, in other words, to be wiser than God. 13. He is much to be pitied that can please nobody. But much more is he to be pitied that nobody can please. 14. A clear and flowing style seems very easy of imitation. To him who first makes the attempt, it is very difficult. 15. Very great are the facilities to travelling, which have been opened in our days, by the application of the powers of steam. 16. There is a very great difference between the race of mankind, and any, the highest race among brutes. And, among men, a difference, almost or quite as great, is often seen between one man and another.

17. It frequently happens, that they who are loudest in their exclamations against the partiality, the envy, and the ingratitude of mankind, are themselves remarkable instances, in their own conduct, of the vices they are so forward to denounce.

LESSON CXVI.

PARENTHESIS.-ANALEPSIS.-APPOSITION.

66

Parenthesis is the insertion of a sentence within a sentence; as, Almost every man (with shame be it spoken) looks more to his temporal than to his eternal interests."

Analepsis (or Recovery) is a method of enforcing the