Of the connectives employed in combining the parts of a sentence.

BUT will it be admitted as a maxim, that the custom of one language, or even of ever so many, may be urged as a rule in another language, wherein no such custom hath ever obtained? An argument founded on so false a principle, must certainly be inconclusive. With us indeed either arrangement is good; but I suspect that to make the preposition follow the word governing, is more suitable than the other to the original idiom of the tongue, as in fact it prevails more in conversation. The most common case wherein there is scope for election, is with the relatives whom and which, since these, as in the example quoted, must necessarily precede the governing verb or noun. But this is not the only case. Vivacity requires some, times, as hath been shown above, that even the governed part, if it be that which chiefly fixes the attention of the speaker, should stand foremost in the sentence. Let the following serve as an example :

The man whom you were so anxious to discover, I "have at length got information of." We have here indeed a considerable hyperbaton, as grammarians term it; there being no less than thirteen words interposed between the noun and the preposition. Yet whether the expression can be altered for the better, will perhaps be questioned. Shall we say, " Of the man whom you were so anxious to discover, I have "at length got information ?"-Who sees not that by this small alteration, not only is the vivacity destroyed, but the expression is rendered stiff and formal, and therefore ill adapted to the style of conversation?

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Shall we then restore what is called the grammatical, because the most common order, and say, "I have at

length gotten information of the man whom you "were so anxious to discover?" The arrangement here is unexceptionable, but the expression is unanimated. There is in the first manner something that displays an ardour in the speaker to be the messenger of good news. Of this character there are no traces in the last; and in the second there is a cold and studied formality which would make it appear intolerable. So much is in the power merely of arrangement. Ought we then always to prefer this way of placing the preposition after the governing word? By no means. There are cases wherein this is preferable. There are cases wherein the other way is preferable. In general, the former suits better the familiar and easy style which copies the dialect of conversation, the latter more befits the elaborate and solemn diction, which requires somewhat of dignity and pomp.

Bur to what purpose, I pray, those criticisms which serve only to narrow our range, where there would be no danger of a trespass, though we were indulged with more liberty? Is it that the genius of our language doth not sufficiently cramp us without these additional restraints? But it is the unhappiness of the generality of critics, that when two modes of expressing the same thing come under their consideration, of which one appears to them preferable; the other is condemned in gross, as what ought to be re

Of the connectives employed in combining the parts of a sentence.

probated in every instance. A few contractions have been adopted by some writers which appear harsh and affected; and all contractions without exception must be rejected, though ever so easy and natural, and though evidently conducing to enliven the expression +. One order of the words in a particular ex

+ About the beginning of the present century, the tendency to contract our words, especially in the compound tenses of the verbs, was undoubtedly excessive. The worst of it was, that most of the contractions were effected by expunging the vowels, even where there was no hiatus, and by clashing together consonants of most obdurate sound, as Swift calls them. This produced the animadversion of some of our ablest pens, Addison, Swift, Pope, and others, whose concurring sentiments have operated so strongly on the Public, that contractions of every kind have ever since been in disgrace, even those of easy pronunciation, and which had been in use long before. Yet our accumulated auxiliaries seemed to require something of this kind. And though I am sensible that wasn't, didn't, shouldn't, and couldn't, are intolerably bad, there are others of more pleasant sound, to which our critics, without any injury to the language, might have given a pass. On the contrary, even those elisions whereby the sound is improved, as when the succession of an initial to a final vowel is prevented (which in all languages men have a natural propensity to avoid by contracting), as I'm for I am; or when a feeble vowel is suppressed without harshness, as in the last syllable of the preterits of our regular verbs (which without a contraction we can never bear in verse); or when some of our rougher consonants are cut off after other consonants, as 'em for them; (these I say) have all shared the same fate. Some indulgence, I think, may still be given to the more familiar style of dia. logues, letters, essays, and even of popular addresses, which, like comedy, are formed on the dialect of conversation. In this dialect, wherein all language originates, the eagerness of conveying one's

ample seems worthy of the preference; and it must be established as a rule, that no other order in any case is to be admitted.

sentiments, the rapidity and ease of utterance, necessarily produce such abbreviations. It appears indeed so natural, that I think it requires, that people be more than commonly phlegmatic, not to say stupid, to be able to avoid them. Upon the whole, therefore, this tendency, in my opinion, ought to have been checked and regulated, but not entirely crushed. That contracting serves to improve the expression in vivacity is manifest; it was necessary only to take care, that it might not hurt it in harmony or in perspicuity. It is certainly this which constitutes one of the greatest beauties in French dialogue; as by means of it, what, in other languages, is expressed by a pronoun and a preposition, they sometimes convey not by a single syliable, but by a single letter. At the same time, it must be owned, they have never admitted contractions that could justly be denominated harsh; that they have not, on the other hand, been equally careful to avoid such as are equivocal, hath been observed already. We are apt to imagine, that there is something in the elision of letters and contraction of syllables that is particularly unsuitable to the grave and solemn style. This notion of ours is, I suspect, more the consequence of the disuse than the cause; since such abbreviations do not offend the severest critic, when they occur in books written in an ancient or a foreign language. Even the sacred penmen have not disdained to adopt them into the simple, but very serious style of holy writ. Witnesss the xay for xai syw, ex' εμε for απο εμε, κάκεινος for και εκείνος, and many others. No doubt desuetude alone is sufficient to create an unsuitableness in any language. I will admit further, that there is some convenience in discriminating the different characters of writing by some such differences in the style. For both these reasons, I should not now wish to see them revived in performances of a serious or solemn nature.

Of the connectives employed in combining the parts of a sentence.

Bur we are not peculiar in this disposition, though we may be peculiar in some of our ways of exerting it. The French critics, and even the academy, have proceeded, if not always in the same manner, on much the same principle in the improvements they have made on their language. They have indeed cleared it of many, not of all their low idioms, cant phrases, and useless anomalies; they have rendered the style in the main more perspicuous, more grammatical, and more precise, than it was before. But they have not known where to stop. Their criticisms often degenerate into refinements, and every thing is carried to excess. If one mode of construction, or form of expression, hath been lucky enough to please these arbitrators of the public taste, and to obtain their sanction, no different mode or form must expect so much as a toleration. What is the consequence? They have purified their language; at the same time they have impoverished it, and have, in a considerable measure, reduced all kind of composition to a tasteless uniformity. Accordingly, in perhaps no language, ancient or modern, will you find so little variety of expression in the various kinds of writing, as in French. prose and verse, in philosophy and romance, in tragedy and comedy, in epic and pastoral, the difference may be very great in the sentiments, but it is nothing, or next to nothing, in the style.

In

Is this insipid sameness to be envied them as an excellence? Or shall we Britons, who are lovers of