pound sentences can be broken up into short ones, and distinct fragments of meaning expressed one by one, the power of perspicuity is acquired. When the different circumstances in any narrative can be taken in at a glance, and the speaker or writer can fix upon those which are most likely to arrest attention and arrange them so as to produce this effect without losing the thread or coherence of truth, the power of impressiveness is reached. After this

comes the ability to put short clauses first, longer ones next, and the lengthiest last, so as to fill the ear without marring the meaning or weakening the force. When this can be done the power of elegance is possessed. When propositions can be stated with perspicuity, supported by cogent facts, and arranged with transparent method; when the enunciation is distinct, manly, and sonorous, when similitude or imagery can be introduced, illuminating the subject by the light of wit, sinking it by ridicule or elevating it by symbol, thrilling by pathos, or irresistibly impressing by rapid condensation; when a speaker can employ these weapons at pleasure, holding them at command with the grasp of a lion, and disposing them with the absolute will of a king, he has reached the summit of the rhetorical art; and if animated with a sublime purpose may influence, like Demosthenes or Mirabeau, the destinies of men.

Besides these there are other signs of mastery. Whewell thinks that we are never master of anything till we do it both well and unconsciously. But there is no test of proficiency so instructive as that put by George Sand into the mouth of Porpora, in her novel of Consuelo. When Consuelo, on the occasion of a trial performance, manifests some apprehension as to

the result, Porpora sternly reminds her, that if there is room in her mind for misgiving as to the judgment of others, it is proof that she is not filled with the true love of art, which would so absorb her whole thoughts as to leave her insensible to the opinions of others; and that if she distrusted her own powers it was plain they were not yet her powers, else they could not play her false. Porpora suggested the most instructive sign of mastery. The true love of art, like the perfect sense of duty, casteth out fear. And when study and discipline have done their proper work, failure is impossible; we do not tremble at the result of the trial of our powers; we are rather anxious for the opportunity and quite confident as to the result.

PART III.

APPLIED POWERS.

CHAPTER XIX.

CRITICISM.

ASSUMING that the various principles discussed in this treatise are practical and relevant, the application of them to the judgment, to literary and oratorical efforts, will be Criticism. For instance, after what has been said under the head of Effectiveness, the assenting reader will be prepared to pronounce that no work, consisting of many pages, should have detached and distinguishable beauties in every one of them. No great work indeed should have many beauties; if it were perfect, it would have but one, and that but faintly perceptible, except on a view of the whole. After what has been said in reference to the individuality resulting from Method, the reader of the works of the facetious American satirist, Paulding, will be able to decide to what extent he has the fault, in common with some others, of labeling his characters, gay, sedate, or cynical, as the case may be, with descriptive names, as if doubtful of their possessing sufficient individuality to be otherwise distinguished. If a hero cannot make himself known in his action and conversation, he is not worth bringing

upon the boards. The student who coincides with what has been explained relative to Brevity, will, on reading such a passage as this, "Nicias asked merely for quarter for the miserable remains of his troops who had not perished in the Asinarius, or upon its banks,"* be at no loss in discovering the superfluous information given, that Nicias asked for quarter for those who "had not perished." No general asks for quarter for those who have. The same writer tells us that "discipline yielded to the pressure of necessity. They hurried down the steep in confusion and without order, and trod one another to death in the stream." Necessity is all "pressure," and it is not necessary to specify the essence of a thing as operative. It is needless to tell us that men all "in confusion" " were without order."

When we discover a number of emphatic words employed, we know the writer or speaker has no consciousness of measure. He either has no strength or he does not know where it lies. "When Rigby," says D'Israeli," was of opinion he had made a point, you may be sure the hit was in italics, that last resource of the forcible feebles."

To tell your feelings on reading a book is one way of criticising its beauties. This rule was suggested to Gibbon on reading Longinus. The appeal to nature is here, as elsewhere, the purest guide.

One can only conceive of Hamlet by tracing out men. Brutus has first to be found in society. He who has never seen the majesty of a noble nature will hardly conceive it well. How can we test the orator's skill, or player's art, but by rules founded by ourselves on observation?

* Mayor's History of Greece, chap. xi.