those who have most reason on their side." The following passage from Mr. Pope's Preface to his Homer, fully exemplifies the rule I am now giving: "Homer was the greater genius; Virgil the better artist; in the one, we most admire the man; in the other, the work. Homer hurries us with a commanding impetuosity; Virgil leads us with an attractive majesty. Homer scatters with a generous profusion; Virgil bestows with a careful magnificence. Homer, like the Nile, pours out his riches with a sudden overflow; Virgil, like a river in its banks, with a constant stream.And when we look upon their machines, Homer seems like his own Jupiter in his terrors, shaking Olympus, scattering the lightnings, and firing the heavens; Virgil, like the same power, in his benevolence, counselling with the gods, laying plans for empires, and ordering his whole creation."Periods thus constructed, when introduced with propriety, and not returning too often, have a sensible beauty. But we must beware of carrying our attention to this beauty too far. It ought only to be occasionally studied, when comparison or opposition of objects naturally leads to it. If such a construction as this be aimed at in all our sentences, it leads to a disagreeable uniformity: produces a regularly returning clink in the period, which tires the ear, and plainly discovers affectation. Among the ancients, the style of Isocrates is faulty in this respect; and, on that account, by some of their best critics, particularly by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, he is severely censured.

This finishes what I had to say concerning sentences, considered with respect to their meaning, under the three heads of perspicuity, unity, and strength. It is a subject on which I have insisted fully, for two reasons: first, because it is a subject, which, by its nature, can be rendered more didactic, and subjected more to precise rule, than many other subjects of criti cism; and next, because it appears to me of considerable importance and use.

For, though many of those attentions, which I have been recommending, may appear minute, yet their effect upon writing and style, is much greater than might, at first, be imagined. A sentiment which is expressed in a period, clearly, neatly, and happily arranged, makes always a stronger impression on the mind, than one that is feeble or embarrassed. Every one feels this upon a comparison; and if the effect be sensible in one sentence, how much more in a whole discourse, or composition, that is made up of such sentences.

The fundamental rule of the construction of sentences, and into which all others might be resolved, undoubtedly is, to communicate, in the clearest, and most natural order, the ideas which we mean to transfuse into the minds of others. Every arrangement that does most justice to the sense, and expresses it to most advantage, strikes us as beautiful. To this point have tended all the rules I have given. And, indeed, did men always think clearly, and were they, at the same time, fully masters of the language in which they write, there would be occasion for few rules. Their sentences would then, of course, acquire all those properties of precision, unity, and strength, which I have recommended. For we may rest assured, that, whenever we express ourselves ill, there is, besides the mismanagement of language, for the most part, some mistake in our manner of conceiving the subject. Embarrassed, obscure, and feeble sentences, are generally, if not always the result of embarrassed, obscure, and feeble thought. Thought and language act and re-act upon each other mutually. Logic and rhetoric have here, as in many other cases, a strict connection; and he that is learning to arrange his sentences with accuracy and order, is learning, at the same time, to think with accuracy and order; an observation which alone will justify all the care and attention we have bestowed on this subject

LECTURE XIII.

STRUCTURE OF SENTENCES-HARMONY.

HITHERTO We have considered sentences, with respect to their meaning, under the heads of perspicuity, unity, and strength. We are now to consider them, with respect to their sound, their harmony, or agreeableness to the ear; which was the last quality belonging to them that I proposed to treat of.

Sound is a quality much inferior to sense; yet such as must not be disregarded. For, as long as sounds are the vehicle of conveyance for our ideas, there will be always a very considerable connection between the idea which is conveyed, and the nature of the sound which conveys it. Pleasing ideas can hardly be transmitted to the mind, by means of harsh and disagreeable sounds. The imagination revolts as soon as it hears them uttered. "Nihil," says Quintilian, "potest intrare in

affectum quod in aure, velut quodam vestibulo statim offendit." - Music has naturally a great power over all men to prompt and facilitate certain emotions: insomuch, that there are hardly any dispositions which we wish to raise in others, but certain sounds may be found concordant to those dispositions, and tending to promote them. Now, language may, in some degree, be rendered capable of this power of music; a circumstance which must needs heighten our idea of language as a wonderful inven tion. Not content with simply interpreting our ideas to others, it can give them those ideas enforced by corresponding sounds; and to the pleasure of communicated thought, can add the new and separate pleasure of melody.

In the harmony of periods, two things may be considered; first, agreeable sound, or modulation in general, without any particular expression; next, the sound so ordered, as to become expressive of the sense. The first is the more common; the second, the higher beauty.

First, let us consider agreeable sound in general, as the property of a well-constructed sentence: and, as it was of prose sentences we have hitherto treated, we shall confine ourselves to them under this head. This beauty of musical construction in prose, it is plain, will depend upon two things; the choice of words, and the arrangement of them.

I begin with the choice of words; on which head there is not much to be said, unless I were to descend into a tedious and frivolous detail concerning the powers of the several letters, or simple sounds, of which speech is composed. It is evident that words are most agreeable to the ear which are composed of smooth and liquid sounds, where there is a proper intermixture of vowels and consonants, without too many harsh consonants rubbing against each other, or too many open vowels in succession, to cause a hiatus or disagreeable aperture of the mouth. It may always be assumed as a principle, that, whatever sounds are difficult in pronunciation, are, in the same proportion, harsh and painful to the ear. Vowels give softness; consonants, strength to the sound of words. The music of language requires a just proportion of both; and will be hurt, will be rendered either grating or effeminate, by an excess of either. Long words are commonly more agreeable to the ear than monosyllables. They please it by the composition, or succession of

"Nothing can enter into the affections which stumbles at the threshold, by offending the ear."

sounds which they present to it; and accordingly, the most musical languages abound most in them. Among words of any length, those are the most musical which do not run wholly either upon long or short syllables, but are composed of an intermixture of them; such as, repent, produce, velocity, celerity, independent, impetuosity.

The next head, respecting the harmony which results from a proper arrangement of the words and members of a period, is more complex, and of greater nicety. For, let the words themselves be ever so well chosen, and well sounding, yet, if they be ill disposed, the music of the sentence is utterly lost. In the harmonious structure and disposition of periods, no writer whatever, ancient or modern, equals Cicero. He had studied this with care; and was fond, perhaps to excess, of what he calls the plena ac numerosa oratio. We need only open his writings to find instances that will render the effect of musical language sensible to every ear. What, for example, can be more full, round, and swelling, than the following sentence of the fourth oration against Catiline?" Cogitate quantis laboribus fundatum imperium, quantâ virtute stabilitam libertatem, quantâ Deorum benignitate auctas exaggeratasque fortunas, una nox pæne delerit." In English, we may take for an instance of a musical sentence, the following from Milton, in his Treatise on Education: "We shall conduct you to a hill-side, laborious, indeed, at the first ascent; but else, so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospects, and melodious sounds on every side that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming." Every thing in this sentence conspires to promote the harmony. The words are happily chosen; full of liquids and soft sounds; laborious, smooth, green, goodly, melodious, charming; and these words so artfully arranged, that, were we to alter the collocation of any one of them, we should presently be sensible of the melody suffering. For, let us observe, how finely the members of the period swell one above another. "So smooth, so green,” 9966 full of goodly prospects, and melodious sounds on every side," till the ear, prepared by this gradual rise, is conducted to that full elose on which it rests with pleasure; "that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming."

.

SO

The structure of periods, then, being susceptible of a very sensible melody, our next inquiry should be, how this melodious structure is formed, what are the principles of it, and by what laws it is regulated? And, upon this subject, were I to follow the ancient rhetoricians, it would be easy to give a great variety

of rules. For here they have entered into a very minute and particular detail, more particular, indeed, than on any other head that regards language. They hold, that to prose, as well as to verse, there belong certain numbers, less strict indeed, yet such as can be ascertained by rule. They go so far as to specify the feet, as they are called, that is, the succession of long and short syllables, which should enter into the different members of a sentence, and to show what the effect of each of these will be. Wherever they treat of the structure of sentences, it is always the music of them that makes the principal object. Cicero and Quintilian are full of this. The other qualities of precision, unity, and strength, which we consider as of chief importance, they handle slightly; but when they come to the junctura et numerus, the modulation and harmony, there they are copious. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, one of the most judicious critics of antiquity, has written a treatise on the Composition of Words in a Sentence, which is altogether confined to their musical effect. He makes the excellency of a sentence to consist in four things; first, in the sweetness of single sounds; secondly, in the composition of sounds; that is, the numbers or feet; thirdly, in change for variety of sound; and, fourthly, in sound suited to the sense. On all these points he writes with great accuracy and refinement and is very worthy of being consulted; though, were one now to write a book on the structure of sentences, we should expect to find the subject treated of in a more extensive manner.

In modern times, this whole subject of the musical structure of discourse, it is plain, has been much less studied; and, indeed, for several reasons, can be much less subjected to rule. The reasons it will be necessary to give, both to justify my not following the track of the ancient rhetoricians on this subject, and to show how it has come to pass, that a part of composition, which once made so conspicuous a figure, now draws much less attention.

In the first place, the ancient languages, I mean the Greek and the Roman, were much more susceptible than ours, of the graces and the powers of melody. The quantities of their syllables were more fixed and determined; their words were longer and more sonorous; their method of varying the terminations of nouns and verbs, both introduced a greater variety of liquid sounds, and freed them from that multiplicity of little auxiliary words which we are obliged to employ; and, what is of the greatest consequence, the inversions which their languages allowed, gave them the power of placing their words in