In the harmony of periods two things are to 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 superior beauty.

The beauty of musical construction depends upon the choice and ar rangement of words. Those words are most pleasing to the ear, which arc composed of smooth and liquid sounds, in which there is a proper intermixture of vowels and consonants, without too many harsh conso nants, or too many open vowels in succession. Long words are generally nore pleasing to the ear than monosyllables; and those are the most musical, which are not wholly composed of long or short syllables, but of an intermixture of them; such as, delight, amuse, velocity, celerity. beautiful, impetuosity. If the words, however, which compose a sentence, be ever so well chosen and harmonious; yet if they be unskilfully arranged, its music is entirely lost.

There are two things on which the music of a sentence principally depends; these are, the proper distribution of the several members of it, and the close or cadence of the whole.

First, the distribution of the several members should be carefully regarded. Whatever is easy to the organs of speech, is always grateful to the ear. While a period advances, the termination of each member forms a pause in the pronunciation; and these pauses should be so distributed, as to bear a certain musical proportion to each other.

The next thing which demands attention, is the close or cadence of the period. The only important rule, which can here be given, is this, when we aim at dignity or elevation, the sound should increase to the last; the longest members of the period, and the fullest and most sonorous words, should be reserved for the conclusion.

It may be remarked, that little words in the conclusion of a sentence are as injurious to melody, as they are inconsistent with strength of ex pression. A musical close in our language seems in general to require either the last syllable, or the last but one, to be a long syllable. Words which consist chiefly of short syllables; as, contrary, particular, retrospect, seldom terminate a sentence harmoniously, unless a previous run of long syllables havé rendered them pleasing to the ear.

Sentences constructed in the same manner, with the pauses at equal intervals, should never succeed each other. Short sentences must be blended with long and swelling ones, to render discourse sprightly as well as magnificent.

There is, however, a species of harmony of a higher kind than mere agreeableness to the ear; and that occurs when the sound is adapted to the sense. Of this there are two degrees. First the current of sound suited to the tenor of a discourse. Next, a peculiar resemblance effected between some object, and the sounds employed in describing it. [See Onomatopoeia.]

The sounds of words may be employed for representing three classes of objects; first, other sounds; secondly, motions; and thirdly, the emotions and passions of the mind.

In most languages, the names of many particular sounds are so formed as to bear some resemblance to the sounds which they signify. Instances of this kind will be found under the title of Onomatopoeia, on page 104. The following extracts from Milton's Paradise Lost present examples of similar words, united in sentences so happily arranged, that the sound seems almost an echo to the sense. The first represents the opening of the gates of Hell:

"On a sudden open fly,

With impetuous recoil, and jarring sounds
The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder."

The second represents the opening of the gates of Heaven

"Heaven opens wide

Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound

On golden hinges turning."

The sound of words, in the second place, is frequently employed to imitate motion.

Long syllables naturally excite an idea of slow motion; and a succession of short syllables gives the impression of quick motion. Instances of both these will be found under the title of Onomatopoeia, to which reference has just been made.

The third set of objects, which the sound of words is capable of representing, consists of emotions and passions of the mind. Thus, when pleasure, joy, and agreeable objects, are described, the language should run in smooth, liquid and flowing words. The following extract presents a good example:

"But O how altered was its sprightlier tone When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue; Her bow across her shoulder flung;

Her buskins gemmed with morning dew,

Blew an inspiring air that dale and thicket rang!

The hunter's call, to Fawn and Dryad known.

The oak crowned sisters, and their chaste-eyed Queen,

Satyrs and sylvan boys were seen

Peeping from forth their alleys green;

Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear,

And Sport leaped up and seized his beechen spear."

Melancholy and gloomy subjects are naturally connected with slow neasure and long words. Thus :

"In those deep solitudes and awful cells

Where heavenly pensive contemplation dweils," &c.

Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole. *

Exercises,

The student may correct the following sentences:

Want of Unity.

The successor of Henry the Second was his son Francis the Second, the first husband of Mary, afterwards Queen of Scots, who died after a reign of one year, and was succeeded by his brother Charles the Ninth, then a boy only ten years old, who had for his guardian Catharine de Medicis an ambitious and unprincipled woman.

Want of Purity.

The gardens were void of simplicity and elegance, and exhibited much that was glaring and bizarre.

Want of Propriety.

He was very dexterous in smelling out the views and designs of others. The pretenders to polish and refine the English language have chiefly multiplied abuses and absurdities.

Want of Precision.

There can be no regularity or order in the life and conduct of that man who does not give and allot a due share of his time to retirement and reflection.

Wont of Clearness.

There is a cavern in the island of Hoonga which can only be entered by diving into the sca.

Want of Strength.

The combatants encountered each other with such rage, that, being eager only to assail, and thoughtless of making any defence, they both fell dead upon the field together.

Want of Harmony.

By the means of society, our wants come to be supplied, and our lives are rendered comfortable, as well as our capacities enlarged, and our vir tuous affections called forth into their proper exercise. †

*The teacher or student who wishes for exercises under the heads of Clearness, Unity, Strength, and Harmony, will find a good collection of them in Murray's Exercises, an appendage to his large Grammar; or an abridgement of them in Parker and Fox's Grammar, Part 3d in the ap pendix

†The student who wishes a larger collection of exercises under the heads abovementioned, will find them in Parker and Fox's Grammar. Part 3d.

Onomatopoeia, or Onomatopy, consists in the formation of words in such a manner that the sound shall imitate the sense. Thus the words buzz, crackle, crash, flow, rattle, roar, hiss, whistle, are evidently formed to imitate the sounds themselves. Sometimes the word expressing an object is formed to imitate the sound produced by that object; as, wave, cuckoo, whippoorwill, whisper, hum.

It is esteemed a great beauty in writing when the words selected for the expression of an idea, convey, by their sound, some resemblance to the subject which they express, as in the following lines:

The whitewashed wall, the nicely sanded floor,

The varnished clock that clicked behind the door. *

Of a similar character, and nearly of equal merit, are those sentences or expressions which in any respect imitate or represent the sense which they are employed to express. Thus Gray, in his Elegy, beautifully expresses the reluctant feeling to which he alludes in the last verse of the following stanza:

"For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,

This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind!"

And Pope, in his "Essays on Criticism," in a manner, though different. yet scarcely less expressive, gives a verbal representation of his idea, by the selection of his terms, in the following lines:

"These, equal syllables alone require,
Though oft the ear the open vowels tire,

These lines will not fail to recall to the memory of the classical student those peculiarly graphic lines of Virgil, in one of which he describes the galloping of a horse:

"Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum."

and in another the appearance of a hideous monster:

"Monstrum horrendum in forma ingens cui lumen ademptum."

While expletives their feeble aid do join,
And ten low words oft creep in one dull line."

"A needless Alexandrine ends the song,

That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.

"Soft is the strain, when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows,
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labors, and the words move slow.

Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main."

As an exercise in Onomatopoeia, the student may select such words as he can recall in which the sound bears a resemblance to the significa tion.

XXXIV.

DEFINITION, AND DISTINCTION OR DIFFERENCE.

The object of this exercise is to accustom the student to acquire clear ideas of things, and to perceive distinctions and differences wherever they exist. Clear ideas of a subject must be acquired before any thing can be correctly said or written upon it.

A definition, as described by logicians, consists of two parts, which they call the genus and the difference. The genus is the name of the class to which the object belongs. The difference is the property or properties by which the individual thing to be defined is distinguished from other individuals of the same class. Thus, if a definition is required of the word justice, we may commence by saying, "Justice is that virtue which induces us to give every one his due." Here, virtue is the class to which the object belongs; but this part of the definition may be applied to honesty, another quality of the same class, as well as to justice; for "Honesty is also a virtue which induces us to give every one his due." Something more, therefore, must be added to our definition, by which justice may be distinguished from honesty, and this something more, in whatever form it may be presented, will be the difference which excludes honesty from the same definition.