1. Is it perspicuous, or intelligible?
2. Is it energetic, or impressive?
3. Is it graceful, or pleasing?

58. In regard to the Language in particular, the questions to be considered are :

1. Is it accurate?

2. Is it simple?

3. Is it concise?

4. Is it pure?

59. In regard to the Construction in particular, the questions to be asked are :—

1. Does it possess unity?
2. Is it clear?

3. Is it strong or forcible? 4. Is it melodious?

60. The following extracts may be examined and tested by these general questions. But a few special questions are appended to each extract, with the view of bringing out its particular features.

(1)

(3)

(4)

(5)

Exercise 1.

MILTON. (1608-1674.)

"What could a man require more from a nation so pliant and (2) so prone to seek after knowledge? What wants there to such a towardly and pregnant soil, but wise and faithful labourers, to make a knowing people, a nation of prophets, of sages, and of worthies? We reckon more than five months yet to harvest; there need not be five weeks: had we but eyes to lift up, the fields are white already. Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making. Under these fantastic terrors of sect and schism, we wrong the earnest and zealous thirst after knowledge and understanding which God hath stirred up in this city. What some lament of, we rather should rejoice at,-should rather praise this pious forwardness among men to re-assume the ill-deputed care of their religion into their own hands again. A little generous prudence, a little forbearance of one another, and some grain of charity, might win all these diligencies to join and unite into one general and brotherly search after truth; could we but forego this prelatical tradition of crowding free consciences and Christian liberties into canons and precepts of men. I doubt not, if some great and worthy stranger should come among us, wise to discern the mould and temper of a people, and how to govern it,

(6)

(7)

(8)

observing the high hopes and aims, the diligent alacrity of our extended thoughts and reasonings in the pursuance of truth and freedom, but that he would cry out as Pyrrhus did, admiring the Roman docility and courage, 'If such were my Epirots, I would not despair the greatest design that could be attempted to make a church or kingdom happy."

QUESTIONS.

1. What figure of construction have we in (1) and (2)? Turn these sentences into the direct form.

2. Point out the figure of language in (3).

3. What is the connexion between sentences (3) and (4) and (5)?

4. Point out the examples of redundancy in this paragraph.

5. Point out instances of the postponed preposition.

6. Are there any uncommon words here, or words employed in an unusual sense?

7. Is there any example of a period in the paragraph?

8. Point out the case of dislocation in (8).

9. What is the general character of the style? Is it energetic or graceful, or the reverse of either?

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

Exercise 2.

DRYDEN. (1631-1701.)

"It may now be expected, that having written the life of an historian, I should take occasion to write somewhat concerning history itself; but I think to commend it is unnecessary, for the profit and pleasure of that study are both so very obvious, that a quick reader will be beforehand with me, and imagine faster than I can write. Besides that, the post is taken up already; and few authors have travelled this way but who have strewed it with rhetoric as they passed. For my own part, who must confess it to my shame that I never read anything but for pleasure, it has always been the most delightful entertainment of my life; but they who have employed the study of it as they ought, for their instruction, for the regulation of their private manners, and the management of public affairs, must agree with me, that it is the most pleasant school of Wisdom. It is a familiarity with past ages, and an acquaintance with all the heroes of them: it is, if you will pardon the similitude, a prospective glass carrying your soul to a vast distance, and taking in the farthest objects of antiquity. It informs the understanding by the memory: it helps us to judge of what will happen, by showing us the like revolutions of former times. For mankind being the same in all ages, agitated by the same passions, and moved to action by the same interests, nothing can come to pass but some precedent of the like nature

has already been preduced; so that having the causes before our eyes we cannot easily be deceived in the effects, if we have judgment enough but to draw the parallel."

1. Point out an ellipsis in (1).

QUESTIONS.

2. What have you to remark upon the expression "will be beforehand with me," in (1) ?

3. "Besides that," introducing (2), is clumsy. What connecting particle might be substituted for it?

4. Point out a grammatical inaccuracy in (2).

5. "It" occurs four times in (3): What is its correlative in each case? Is any of them equivocal?

6. Do you notice any inelegance in (4)?

7. Sentence (6) is loose: at what point would the period close?
8. Criticize the paragraph as to unity, variety, and continuity.
9. Remark upon the melody of the passage.

(1)

(2)

Exercise 3.

ADDISON. (1672-1719.)

"In the first place, true honour, though it be a different principle from religion, is that which produces the same effects. The lines of action, though drawn from diffcrent parts, terminate in the same point. Religion embraces virtue, as it is enjoined by the laws of God; honour, as it is graceful to human nature. (4) The religious man fears, the man of honour scorns, to do an ill

(3)

action. The latter considers vice as something that is beneath him, the other as something that is offensive to the Divine Being. (6) The one as what is unbecoming, the other as what is forbidden. Thus Seneca speaks in the natural and genuine language of a man of honour, when he declares, that were there no God to see or punish vice, he would not commit it, because it is of so mean, so base, and so vile a nature."

QUESTIONS.

1. What is the general subject of this paragraph? What is the general character of the sentences?

2. What sentences contain the enunciation of the general subject? In what relation do the others stand to these?

3. Of what is (7) an instance.?

4. Show the ellipses in several sentences. Which sentence is incomplete by ellipsis?

5. What is the logical effect of "is that which" in (1)? Are these words necessary?

6. Is any word in the passage objectionable, or out of place?

Exercise 4.

JOHNSON. (1709–1784.)

A. (1) "Bossu is of opinion that the poet's first work is to find a moral, (2) which his fable is afterwards to illustrate and establish. This seems to have been the process only of Milton: the moral of other poems is incidental and consequent; in Milton's only it is essen(3) tial and intrinsic. His purpose was the most useful and the most arduous, to vindicate the ways of God to man; to show the reasonableness of religion, and the necessity of obedience to the divine law.

B. (4)

"To convey this moral there must be a fable, a narration artfully constructed, so as to excite curiosity and surprise expec(5) tation. In this part of his work Milton must be confessed to have equalled every other poet. He has involved in his account of the fall of man the events which preceded and those that were to follow it he has interwoven the whole system of theology with such propriety that every part appears to be necessary; and scarcely any recital is wished shorter for the sake of quickening the progress of the main action.

C. (7) "The subject of an epic poem is naturally an event of great (8) importance. That of Milton is not the destruction of a city, the (9) conduct of a colony, or the foundation of an empire. His subject is the fate of worlds, the revolutions of heaven and of earth; rebellion against the Supreme King raised by the highest order of created beings; the overthrow of their host and the punishment of their crime; the creation of a new race of reasonable creatures; their original happiness and innocence, their forfeiture of immortality, and their restoration to hope and peace.

D. (10)

"Great events can be hastened or retarded only by persons (11) of elevated dignity. Before the greatness displayed in Milton's (12) poem, all other greatness shrinks away. The weakest of his

agents are the highest and noblest of human beings, the original parents of mankind, with whose actions the elements consented; on whose rectitude or deviation of will depended the state of terrestrial nature, and the condition of all the future inhabitants of the globe."

QUESTIONS.

1. Show the train of thought which connects these paragraphs with one another. Is the connexion obvious?

2. Point out the similarity of the paragraphs, in construction and variety of sentence.

3. What is the difference in meaning between "excite curiosity" and "surprise expectation” in (4)?

4. Pʊint out in (2) an example of antithesis, and an instance of tautology, and correct the latter.

5. Are any words in (5) and in (12) employed in an unusual sense? 6. Note the proportion of Classical and of Saxon words.

7. Are there any figures of language in the passage? 8. Remark on the melody of the passage.

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7)

(8)

(9)

(10)

(11)

Exercise 5.

GIBBON. (1737-1794.)

"In the vacant space between Persia, Syria, Egypt, and Æthiopia, the Arabian peninsula may be conceived as a triangle of spacious but irregular dimensions. From the northern point of Beles on the Euphrates, a line of fifteen hundred miles is terminated by the Straits of Babelmandel and the land of frankincense. About half this length may be allowed for the middle breadth, from east to west, from Bassora to Suez, from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. The sides of the triangle are gradually enlarged, and the southern basis presents a front of a thousand miles to the Indian Ocean. The entire surface of the peninsula exceeds in a fourfold proportion that of Germany or France; but the far greater part has been justly stigmatized with the epithets of the stony and the sandy. Even the wilds of Tartary are decked, by the hand of nature, with lofty trees and luxuriant herbage; and the lonesome traveller derives a sort of comfort and society from the presence of vegetable life. But in the dreary waste of Arabia, a boundless level of sand is intersected by sharp and naked mountains; and the face of the desert, without shade or shelter, is scorched by the direct and intense rays of a tropical sun. Instead of refreshing breezes, the winds, particularly from the south-west, diffuse a noxious and even deadly vapour; the hillocks of sand which they alternately raise and scatter, are compared to the billows of the ocean, and whole caravans, whole armies, have been lost and buried in the whirlwind. The common benefits of water are an object of desire and contest; and such is the scarcity of wood, that some art is requisite to preserve and propagate the element of fire. Arabia is destitute of navigable rivers, which fertilize the soil, and convey its produce to the adjacent regions: the torrents that fall from the hills are imbibed by the thirsty earth: the rare and hardy plants, the tamarind or the acacia, that strike their roots into the clefts of the rocks, are nourished by the dews of the night: a scanty supply of rain is collected in cisterns and aqueducts: the wells and springs are the secret treasure of the desert; and the pilgrim of Mecca, after many a dry and sultry march, is disgusted by the taste of the waters, which have rolled over a bed of sulphur or salt. Such is the general and genuine picture of the climate of Arabia.”