not by generations or centuries, but by vast periods of conquests and dynasties; by cycles of Pharaohs and Ptolemies, Antiochi and Arsacides! And these vast successions of time distinguished and figured by the uproars which revolve at their inaugurations by the drums and tramplings rolling overhead upon the chambers of forgotten dead-the trepidations of time and mortality vexing, at secular intervals, the everlasting Sabbaths of the grave !"'

III.

TYPES OF SENTENCES.

54. Classification.-Sentences are classified grammatically and rhetorically. Grammatically, they are divided, as regards structure, into simple, complex, and compound; and, as regards use, into declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamative. Rhetorically, they are divided into loose sentences and periods.

55. Divisions by Structure.-A simple sentence consists of one independent proposition; a complex sentence consists of one independent (or principal) proposition and one or more clauses; a compound sentence consists of two or more independent propositions.

56. Divisions by Use.-A declarative sentence is one that expresses an assertion (that is, an affirmation or a negation); an interrogative sentence is one that expresses a question; an imperative sentence is one that expresses a command or an entreaty; an exclamative sentence is one that expresses a thought in an interjectional manner.

57. A loose sentence consists of parts which may be separated without destroying the sense. Thus:

The Puritans looked down with contempt on the rich and the eloquent, on nobles | and priests.

I. The above is a loose sentence, because if we pause at any of the places marked, the sense is grammatically complete. Sometimes, as in this instance, it is necessary to supply ellipses in order to make the latter part complete; in other cases,

'The term clause is in this book always used in the sense of a dependent or subordinate proposition, introduced by a connective. It is never applied to the independent members of a compound sentence.

as in the following, the latter part will make complete sense alone: "It seems, gentlemen, that this is an age of reason; the time and the person have at last arrived that are to dissipate the errors of past ages." Here a full stop might be put after "reason," and the following word begun with a capital, thus converting the sentence into two sentences. II. Some writers so punctuate as to appear to write very long sentences, which are really only a union of short ones in one long loose sentence. Other writers (as Macaulay) are in the habit of breaking up loose sentences into their constituent parts and punctuating them as separate sentences. This practice gives rise to what the French call the style coupé.

58. A period is a sentence in which the complete sense is suspended until the close. Thus:

On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, the Puritans looked down with contempt.

I. Periods, in the strict sense of the definition, are not very nu-
merous, for in most periodic sentences a complete meaning
is reached somewhat before the close. Thus the first sen-
tence of Paradise Lost, if stopped at "heavenly Muse," would
be a period; continued to "in prose or rhyme," it is, strictly
speaking, loose. Nevertheless, sentences which, though not
absolutely periods, yet tend towards that type, are said to be
periodic in structure.

II. Balanced Sentence.-The term balanced sentence is applied
to a sentence in which the words, phrases, and clauses in one
part correspond with the words, phrases, and clauses in an-
other part. The balanced sentence generally consists of a
series of antitheses, and in this case it is identical with the
figure named parison, or isocolon. (See Def., p. xvii.)
III. It often happens that the cardinal distinction between the
style of two writers is simply a difference in the prevailing
type of sentence into which the writers cast their thoughts.
Thus, marked as is the contrast between the style of Hume
and that of Gibbon, analysis will show that the principal char-
acteristic of Hume's style is his habitual use of the loose sen-
tence, and of Gibbon's his habitual use of the period.

IV.

THE ENGLISH VOCABULARY.

59. The vocabulary of a language is the whole body of words in that language. Hence the English vocabulary consists of all the words in the English language.

The English vocabulary is very extensive, as is shown by the fact that in our great dictionaries there are nearly 100,000 words. But it should be observed that 3000 or 4000 serve all the ordinary purposes of oral and written communication. The Old Testament contains 5642 words, Milton uses about 8000; and Shakespeare, whose vocabulary is more extensive than that of any other English writer, employs no more than 15,000 words.

60. The principal elements of the English vocabulary are words of Anglo-Saxon and of Latin or French-Latin origin.

61. Anglo-Saxon is the earliest form of English. The whole of the grammar of our language, and the most largely used part of its vocabulary, are Anglo-Saxon.

62. The Latin element in the English vocabulary consists of a large number of words of Latin origin, adopted directly into English at various periods.

The principal periods during which Latin words were brought directly into English are.

1. At the introduction of Christianity into England by the Latin Catholic missionaries, A.D. 596.

2. At the revival of classical learning in the sixteenth century. 3. By modern writers.

63. The French-Latin element in the English language consists of French words, first largely introduced into English by the Norman - French, who conquered England in the eleventh century A.D.

64. Proportions.-From examination of the dictionary, it

has been found that of every hundred words sixty are of Anglo-Saxon origin, thirty of Latin, and five of Greek, while all the other sources combined furnish the remaining five. This, however, is an inadequate mode of estimating the real proportion of the Anglo-Saxon element in the English vocabulary; the true way of judging is by an examination of the literature.

The constant repetition, in any discourse, of conjunctions, prepositions, auxiliaries, and common adverbs (all of which are of Anglo-Saxon origin) causes this element greatly to preponderate in the pages of even the most Latinized writer. Thus Gibbon (Decline and Fall, chapter liv.) uses 68 per cent., Hallam (Constitutional History, chapter vii.) 70 per cent., and Burke (Nabob of Arcot's Debts) 74 per cent; while Scott (Lay of the Last Minstrel, canto i.), Byron (Prisoner of Chillon), and Dickens (Pickwick Papers, "The Bagman's Story") employ 90 per cent., and Defoe, Bunyan, and the English Bible rise to 93 per cent.

65. English a Composite Language. The great simplicity and perspicuity of words of Anglo-Saxon origin have led some writers, if not to an overvalue of this element, at least to an undervalue of the classical element. This is a one-sided view, and is not justified by the genius of English, which is essentially a composite language. The classical element is of inestimable value, and tends to give our speech that richness and variety which so eminently characterize it.

The following hexameters, by William Wetmore Story, poet and sculptor, present a striking description of the various elements which contribute to the English vocabulary:

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

1. Give me, of every language, first my vigorous English, Stored with imported wealth, rich in its natural mines,

Grand in its rhythmical cadence, simple for household employ

ment,

Worthy the poet's song, fit for the speech of man.

2. Not from one metal alone the perfectest mirror is shapen,
Not from one color is built the rainbow's aerial bridge;
Instruments blending together yield the divinest of music,
Out of myriad of flowers sweetest of honey is drawn.

3. So unto thy close strength is welded and beaten together Iron dug from the North, ductile gold from the South;

So unto thy broad stream the ice-torrents, born in the mountains, Rush, and the rivers pour, brimming with sun from the plains.

4. Thou hast the sharp clean edge and the downright blow of the Saxon,

Thou the majestical march and the stately pomp of the Latin;
Thou the euphonious swell, the rhythmical roll of the Greek;
Thine is the elegant suavity caught from sonorous Italian;
Thine the chivalric obeisance, the courteous grace of the Nor-

man;

Thine the Teutonic German's inborn guttural strength.

5. Raftered by firm-laid consonants, windowed by opening vowels, Thou securely art built, free to the sun and the air;

Over thy feudal battlements trail the wild tendrils of fancy,
Where in the early morn warbled our earliest birds;

Science looks out from thy watch-tower, love whispers in at thy lattice,

While o'er thy bastions wit flashes its glittering sword.

6. Not by corruption rotted, nor slowly by ages degraded,
Have the sharp consonants gone crumbling away from our words;
Virgin and clean is their edge, like granite blocks chiselled by
Egypt;

Just as when Shakespeare and Milton laid them in glorious verse.

7. Fitted for every use like a great majestical river,
Blending thy various streams, stately thou flowest along,
Bearing the white-winged ship of Poesy over thy bosom,
Laden with spices that come out of the tropical isles,

Fancy's pleasuring yacht with its bright and fluttering pennons,
Logic's frigates of war, and the toil-worn barges of trade.

8. How art thou freely obedient unto the poet or speaker, When, in a happy hour, thought into speech he translates!