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Of vivacity as depending on the number of the words.

Nine times the space that measures day and night
To mortal men, he with his horrid crew
Lay vanguish'd rolling in the fiery gulf †.

To have said nine days and nights, would not have been proper, when talking of a period before the creation of the sun, and consequently before time was portioned out to any being in that manner. Sometimes this figure serves, as it were accidentally, to introduce a circumstance which favours the design of the speaker, and which to mention of plain purpose, without apparent necessity, would appear both impertinent and invidious. An example I shall give from Swift, "One "of these authors (the fellow that was pilloried, I have forgot his name,) is so grave, sententious, dogmati"cal a rogue, that there is no enduring him." What an exquisite antonomasia have we in this parenthesis ! Yet he hath rendered it apparently necessary by his saying, "I have forgot his name." Sometimes even the vivacity of the expression may be augmented by a periphrasis, as when it is made to supply the place of a separate sentence. Of this the words of Abraham afford an instance: "Shall not the judge of all the "earth do right?" The judge of all the earth is a periphrasis for GOD, and as it represents him in a character to which the acting unjustly is peculiarly unsuitable, it serves as an argument in support of the sentiment, and is therefore conducive even to conciseness.

+ Paradise Lost, B. I.

* Letters concerning the Sacramental Test. Gen. xviii. 25.

Sect. II.

The offences against brevity considered.... Part III. Verbosity.

In this view we may consider that noted circumlocution employed by Cicero, who, instead of saying simply, Milo's domestics killed Clodius, says, "They did "that which every master would wish his servants to "do in such an exigence ‡." It is far from being enough to say of this passage, that it is an euphemism, by which the odious word killed is avoided. It contains also a powerful vindication of the action, by an appeal to the conscience of every hearer, whether he would not have approved it in his own case. But when none of these ends can be answered by a periphrastical expression, it will inevitably be regarded as injuring the style by flattening it. Of this take the following example from the Spectator, "I won't say, we "see often, in the next tender things to children, tears "shed without much grieving*." The phrase here employed appears, besides, affected and far-fetched.

ANOTHER Source of languor in the style is, when such clauses are inserted, as to a superficial view appear to suggest something which heightens, but, on reflection, are found to presuppose something which abates the vigour of the sentiment. Of this I shall give a specimen from Swift: "Neither is any condition of life more honourable in the sight of God than another, otherwise he would be a respecter of per

"Fecerunt id servi Milonis,quod suos quisque servos in tali. "re facere voluisset." Cicero pro Milone.

*No. 95.

Of vivacity as depending on the number of the words.

66 sons, which he assures us he is not t." It is evident that this last clause doth not a little enervate the thought, as it implies but too plainly, that, without this assurance from God himself, we should naturally conclude him to be of a character very different from that here given him by the preacher.

A-KIN to this is the juvenile method of loading every proposition with asseverations. As such a practice in conversation more commonly infuseth a suspicion of the speaker's veracity, than it engages the belief of the hearer, it hath an effect somewhat similar in writing. In our translation of the Bible, God is represented as saying to Adam, concerning the fruit of the tree of knowledge," In the day thou eatest thereof, thou "shalt surely die ‡." The adverb surely, instead of enforcing, enfeebles the denunciation. My reason is the same as in the former case. A ground of mistrust is insinuated, to which no affirmation is a counterpoise. Are such adverbs then never to be used? Not when either the character of the speaker, or the evidence of the thing, is such as precludes the smallest doubt. In other cases they are pertinent enough. But as taste itself is influenced by custom, and as, for that reason, we may not be quick in discerning a fault to which our ears have from our infancy been habituated, let us consider how it would affect us in an act of parliament, to read that the offender shall for the first of

Sermon on Mutual Subjection.

‡ Gen. ii. 17.

Sect. II. 'The offences against brevity considered.... Part III. Verbosity.

fence certainly be liable to such a penalty, and, for the second, he shall surely incur such another. This style would appear intolerable even to one of ordinary discernment. Why? The answer is obvious. It ill suits the dignity of the British senate, to use a manner which supposes that its authority or power can be called in question. That which hath misled our translators in the passage quoted, as in many others, hath been an attempt to express the import of a hebraism, which cannot be rendered literally into any European tongue. But it is evident, that they have not sufficiently attended to the powers of the language which they wrote. The English hath two futures, no inconsiderable advantage on some occasions, both for perspicuity and for emphasis. The one denotes simply the futurition of the event, the other also makes the veracity and power of the speaker vouchers of its futurition. The former is a bare declaration; the latter is always in the second person and the third, unless when used imperatively, either a promise or a threatening. No language that I know, exactly hits this distinction but our own. In other languages you must infer, not always infallibly, from the tenor of the story, whether the future is of the one import or of the other; in English you find this expressed in the words *. Fur

* This remark needs perhaps a further illustration, and, in order to this it will be necessary to recur to some other language. The passage quoted is thus translated into Latin by Castalio, Si ea vesceris, moriere. He judged right not to add certé or profecto even in

Of vivacity as depending on the number of the words.

ther, it was observed, that affirmative adverbs are no less improper when doubt is entirely precluded by the evidence of the fact, than when it is prevented by the authority of the speaker. I have given an example of the latter, and shall now produce one of the former. An Israelite informing David concerning Goliath, is represented in our version as saying, "Surely, to defy Israel is he come up * " Had the giant shown himself between the camps, and used menacing gestures, or spoken words which nobody understood, this expression would have been natural and proper. But no man could have talked in this manner who had himself been a witness that every day, for forty days successively, this champion had given an open defi ance to Israel in the most explicit terms, and in the

Latin. Neither of these adverbs could have rendered the expression more definite; and both are liable to the same exception with the English adverb surely. Yet take the version as it stands, and there is an evident ambiguity in the word moriere. It may be either the declaration of one who knew that there was a poisonous quality in the fruit, and meant only to warn Adam of his danger, by representing the natural consequence of eating it; or it may be the denunciation of a legislator against the transgression of his law. Every one who understands English, will perceive immediately, that, on the first supposition, he must render the words into cur language, "If "thou eat thereof, thou wilt die ;" and, on the second supposition, he must render them, " If thou eat thereof, thou shalt die." If there be any thing emphatical in the original idiom, it serves here, in my opinion, to mark the distinction between a simple declaration and the sanction of a law; which are perfectly distinguished in our tongue by the two futures.

1 Sam. xvii. 25.

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