THE PARAGRAPH. Professor Bain was the first, so far as I am aware, to consider how far rules can be laid down for the perspicuous construction of paragraphs. Other writers on composition, such as Campbell, Lord Kames, Blair, and Whately, stop short with the sentence. De Quincey, a close student of the art of composition, felt the importance of looking beyond the arrangement of the parts of a sentence, and philosophised in a desultory way concerning the bearing that one sentence should have upon another. "It is useless," he says, in one of his uncollected papers, "to judge of an artist until you have some principles in the art. The two capital secrets in the art of prose composition are these: Ist, The philosophy of transition and connection; 2dly, The way in which sentences are made to modify each other; for the most powerful effects in written eloquence arise out of this reverberation, as it were, from each other, in a rapid succession of sentences; and because some limitation is necessary to the length and complexity of sentences, in order to make this interdependency felt: hence it is that the Germans have no eloquence." These "two capital secrets" correspond very much with Professor Bain's two first rules of the paragraph. I have examined at considerable length the paragraph arrangement of Macaulay. Very few writers in our language seem to have paid much attention to the construction of paragraphs. Macaulay is perhaps the most exemplary. Bacon and Temple, from their legal and diplomatic education, are much more methodical than the generality. Johnson is also entitled to praise. But none of them can be recommended as a model. FIGURES OF SPEECH. In most treatises on composition, the consideration of figurative language occupies a large space. Of the small portion of Aristotle's Rhetoric devoted to composition purely, it constitutes about one half. So in the works of Campbell, Kames, and Blair, particularly in Kames's 'Elements of Criticism,' the origin, nature, limits, minute divisions, the uses and the abuses of figures of speech, are examined and exemplified at great length. And yet these later writers profess to be much more concise than "the ancient critics and grammarians," and to have discarded many vexatiously subtle subdivisions. The chief thing wanted in the ancient divisions and subdivisions was some broad principle of classification. This is supplied by referring figures to their origin in the operations of the intellect. A proper basis for a classification is found in the ultimate analysis of these operations. When the classes thus instituted-Figures of Similarity, Figures of Contiguity, and Figures of Contrast-have gathered up all the figures that belong to them respectively, very few remain unclassified. Some of those that do remain are distinguished from the others on a different principle. Such figures as interrogation, exclamation, and apostrophe, are departures from the ordinary structure of sentences, and thus are distinguished from such figures as are departures from the ordinary application of words. According to the distinction of the old grammarians, they are "figures," as distinguished from "tropes." So much for the classification of figures. It is not quite complete-it leaves hyperbole, climax, innuendo, and irony unclassified; but it is a great improvement upon the old chaos. The truth is, that the subjects included in books of composition under the head of Figures of Speech do not admit of a logical classification. Under that head rhetoricians have gradually accumulated all artifices of style that do not belong to the choice of plain words and the structure of sentences. Such an accumula tion could hardly be other than heterogeneous.1 One of the ancient terms it might be well to revive and redefine in accordance with its derivation and original application-namely, the word "trope." At present, when used at all, it is used loosely as a kind of general synonym for a figure of speech. By Quintilian it was defined as an opposition to the term figure designating, as we have just seen, extraordinary applications of individual words in contrast to irregular constructions of sentence. Such a distinction is of no practical value-it would be useful to have a special term for irregular constructions of sentence; but it would be impossible to restrict the word figure to such an application. Apart from that, the word trope is not treated with much delicacy when set up as an expression for all "figures of speech" (in the wide sense), except irregular constructions of sentence. I would propose to rescue the word from an application so promiscuous, and to settle it in its original application as a name for a much narrower class of artifices. Interpreted by its derivation, trope signifies a word "turned," diverted from its ordinary application, and pressed, as it were, into special service. Now only a limited number of figures of speech consist in this extraordinary use of single words; it would be convenient to have a common designation for them. What could be more proper than to use for that designation the existing word trope? To vindicate the restriction of a term to a special class of figures, 1 Had paragraph structure been sooner recognised, the so-called figure of speech, "climax," would probably have been referred to the paragraph as a special artifice in paragraph construction. Climax is no more a figure of speech than the periodic, the balanced, or the condensed structure of sentence. even when that restriction is warranted by the derivation of the term, we must show that occasions arise for speaking of that class of figures collectively. In this case such a vindication is easy. There are writers, such as De Quincey, who use comparatively few formal similitudes, and yet use metaphors, personification, synecdoches, or metonymy, in almost every sentence. On the other hand there are writers, such as Macaulay, whose diction in its general texture is plain, but who employ a great many formal similitudes. Both classes of writers are figurative, but the one class is rich in tropes, the other in similes. The want of such a word as trope, thus defined, has led to an abuse of the word metaphor by popular writers. Metaphor has been taken to supply the want. În strict language, metaphor means a similitude implied in the use of a single word, without the formal sign of comparison; but it is often loosely used as a common designation for synecdoches and metonymies as well. The temptation to such an abuse is withdrawn by reviving the original meaning of the word trope. The chief points that we shall notice under Figures of Speech, besides the profusion of any one figure or class of figures, are the sources of similitudes and compliance with the conditions of effective comparison. The sources of an author's similitudes are often peculiarly interesting, as affording a means of measuring the circumference of his knowledge. We cannot, to be sure, by such means, take a very accurate measure, but we can tell what books a man has dipped into, may discover what writers he has plagiarised from, and may be able to guess how his interests are divided between books and the living world. What casts doubt upon our conclusions is the fact, that so many writers are similitude-hunters, are very often on the watch for good similitudes; and the consequent presumption that they utilise a large proportion of their knowledge. Thomas Fuller is one of the most versatile, as he is one of the most delightful, masters of allusion. He would seem to have turned almost every item of his knowledge to account, and thus has a greater appearance of learning than many men of really profounder erudition and wider knowledge of the world. The conditions of effective comparison exhaust all that can be said in the way of advice concerning the use of figures. When a similitude is addressed to the understanding-is intended merely to make one's meaning more perspicuous-care must be taken that the point of the comparison be clear, that there be no distracting circumstances, and that the comparison be more intelligible to those addressed than the thing compared. When a similitude is intended to elevate or to debase an object by displaying its high or its low relations, care must be taken that the comparison be, in the estimation of those addressed, really higher or (as the case may be) lower than the object; farther, that it be not extravagantly and offensively out of level, and that it be fresh. These are the main conditions of effective comparison for purposes of exposition, and for persuasive eulogy or ridicule. In comparisons designed only for embellishment, the conditions are novelty and harmony, or, as it might also be called, propriety. As regards the number of figures employed, every writer must be guided by his own discretion. The critic of style can only remark, that if writers were always careful to make their comparisons effective for a purpose of some kind, the number would be considerably reduced. In treating of an author's figures, as in treating of his vocabulary, we might anticipate most of the qualities of his style. Figures may be simple, or stirring, or grand, or touching, or witty, or humorous. A full account of a man's figurative language would display nearly all his characteristics. As a sort of postscript to the Elements of Style, we may easily define the mutual relation of two terms often used in contradistinction-MANNER and MATTER. As distinguished from matter, manner includes everything that we have designated by the general title Elements of Style-not only the choice of words and the structure of the parts of a discourse, but everything superinduced upon the subject of discourse by way either of comparison or of contrast. QUALITIES OF STYLE. The division of qualities into purity, perspicuity, ornament, propriety, is open to the objection of being too vague. This appears in amendments of the scheme proposed by different critics. Some would strike off "propriety" as being common to all the other qualities. Others, confining propriety to the choice of individual words, would retain it and strike off "purity," as being a part of propriety thus restricted. Others still would dispense with "ornament," as a separate division, and discuss ornaments under perspicuity and propriety. And Blair maintains that "all the qualities of a good style may be ranged under two heads, perspicuity and ornament." Such vague fumbling is inevitable so long as qualities of style are viewed in the abstract, and without reference to their ends. Campbell was the first to suggest a substantial principle of classification by considering style as it affects the mind of the reader. His analysis is not perfect, but he was upon the right track. appears," he says, "that besides purity, which is a quality entirely grammatical, the five simple and original qualities of style, considered as an object to the understanding, the imagination, the pas It sions, and the ear, are perspicuity, vivacity, elegance, animation, and music." That so many writers on composition should have fallen back from this comparatively thorough analysis to bad versions of the old analysis, is not much to their credit. One of the causes of imperfection in Campbell's analysis was his desire to separate rigidly between the effects of style or manner, and the effects of the subject-matter. This cannot be done: the manner must always be viewed in relation to the matter. In order to get at qualities of style, we must first make an analysis of the effects of a composition as a whole-matter and manner together; not till then are we in a position to consider how far the effect is due to the manner and how far to the matter. For example, if a composition is readily intelligible, we consider how far this is due to the familiarity of the subject-matter, and how far to the author's treatment, to his choice and arrangement of words, and to his illustrations. Nothing could be more absurd than Blair's confident assertion that the difficulty of a subject can never be pleaded as an excuse for want of perspicuity; that if an author's ideas are clear, he should always be able to make them perspicuous to others. Perspicuous, as Blair understands the word, means easily seen through; and it may be doubted whether any powers of style could make the generalisations of a science easily and immediately apparent to a mind not familiar with the particulars. Style can do much, but it has a limit. It can never make a subject naturally abstruse as easily understood as a subject naturally simple, a treatise on Logic as perspicuous as a statement of familiar facts. So with compositions that address the feelings; the master of style cannot but work at a disadvantage when his subject is not naturally impressive. The chief aim of the following brief remarks on Qualities of Style is to define prevailing critical terms as closely as may be with reference to the ultimate analysis here adopted. INTELLECTUAL QUALITIES OF STYLE— Aristotle recognises but one intellectual quality, clearness. The first requisite of composition is that it be clear. So Quintilian : "The first virtue of eloquence is perspicuity." In Campbell's scheme, also, "the first and most essential of the qualities of style is perspicuity." Blair, while he reduced all qualities to perspicuity and ornament, was led, in his consideration of perspicuity, to another intellectual quality-namely, precision. He described precision as "the highest part of the quality denoted by perspicuity," and then made the following contrast between precision and perspicuity "in a qualified sense." "It appears," he said, "that an author may, in a |