and the "abrupt style" (style coupé) depends to a great extent upon the length of the sentences. The Periodic style (as we see from its description by De Quincey) implies something more than the use of the periodic structure; it implies long periods, elaborately constructed, holding "a flock of clauses" in suspense, and moving with a stately rhythm. So in the Abrupt style, the short sentence is an important feature, although, as appears in the style of Macaulay, it is not the only feature. 1

The use of a startling series of short sentences may almost be said to be a feature of English oratory. We find it in the journals of the Elizabethan Parliaments; and, later, in the writings of Bolingbroke, in the published speeches of Chatham, and in the speeches and writings of Burke.

The long sentence, formed of several members gradually increasing in length so as to make a climax in sound, would universally be designated oratorical. It was much affected by Cicero.

III. The Balanced Sentence.-"When the different clauses of a compound sentence are made similar in form, they are said to be balanced."

The artifice of constructing successive clauses upon the same plan is said to have been introduced into our language from the Italian. Wherever it came from, it begins to appear noticeably about the middle of the sixteenth century. In Elizabeth's reign it became very fashionable. It was one feature of Lyly's "Euphuism." It held its ground through the reign of James, appearing even in booksellers' advertisements and in the titles of maps. One of John Speed's maps is entitled, 'A new and accurate map of the world, drawn according to the truest descriptions, latest discoveries, and best observations, that have been made by English or strangers.'

The advantages of the balanced structure are pointed out briefly, but fully, in Bain's Rhetoric. It is a pleasure in itself; when not carried to excess, it is a help to the memory; and, when the balanced clauses stand in antithesis, it lends emphasis to the opposition. We find also in practice that it serves as a guide to the proper arrangement of the important words. Under a natural sense of effect the important word is often reserved for the last place, the best position for emphasis. Further, in impassioned prose, as in Raleigh's invocation to Death, and De Quincey's imitations-the invocations to Opium and to Solitude-balance has something of the effect of metre.

1 While speaking of these general distinctions of style, we may note a third, the Pointed style consisting in the profuse employment of the Balanced Sentence, in conjunction with Antithesis, Epigram, and Climax." How far these distinctions are from being distinctive, in the sense of indicating incompatible modes of composition, may be judged from the fact that Dr Johnson often employs all the three "styles" in one paragraph.

In the case of balance, much more than in the case of the periodic structure, it is necessary to beware of going to excess. There is almost no limit to the means of disguising the periodic structure. The reader may be entertained with such variety in the parts of a period, that he enjoys its bracing effects without knowing the cause. But the balanced structure cannot be so disguised: it is like metre—to disguise it is to destroy it. Clauses are constructed on the same plan, or they are not; corresponding words occupy corresponding places in their respective clauses, or they do not. And while the balanced structure is prominent, and thus apt to fatigue the ear, it is very catching; it has a great power of enslaving whoever employs it heedlessly. Several of our writers, such as Johnson, "Junius," and Macaulay, allowed their ear to be captivated, and not only employed balanced forms to excess, but often added tautologous and otherwise questionable clauses from an irresistible craving for the familiar measure.

IV. The Condensed Sentence.-"This is a sentence abbreviated by a forced and unusual construction."

Anything so violently artificial as this can be used but seldom without giving offence. It was a favourite artifice with Gibbon. In the present day, when used at all, it is used chiefly for comic purposes. Readers of Dickens and his imitators are familiar with such terms as 66 drew tears from his eyes and a handkerchief from his pocket." Occasionally we find it in works of more serious pretensions, as in Mr Forster's Life of Goldsmith; but nobody now uses it for serious purposes so often as Gibbon did.

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.-I. The Emphatic Places of a Sentence.- "As in an army on the march, the fighting columns are placed front and rear, and the baggage in the centre, so the emphatic parts of a sentence should be found either in the beginning or in the end, subordinate and matter-of-course expressions in the middle."

There is nothing more urgently required for the improvement of our sentences than a constant study to observe this principle. The special artifices that we have mentioned are good only for certain modes of composition and for particular purposes, and become offensive when too often repeated; but it is difficult to conceive when there would be an impropriety in placing important words where the reader naturally expects to find them. The reader's attention falls easily and naturally upon what stands at the beginning and what stands at the end, unless obviously introductory in the one case, or obviously rounding off in the other. The beginning and the end are the natural places for the important words. This arrangement is conducive both to clearness and to elegance it prevents confusion, and is an aid to justness of emphasis. As important words need not occupy absolutely the

first place nor absolutely the last, but at the beginning may bẹ preceded by qualifying clauses, and at the end may be followed by unemphatic appendages that are not of a nature to distract attention, we are not required to make unnatural inversions or to take unidiomatic liberties of any kind. If a writer finds a construction stiff and unnatural, he may be sure that he has not succeeded in throwing the emphasis where it should be thrown; if he has not buried the important words in the depths of the sentence, he has probably done worse: he has probably drawn off the reader's attention from the words altogether, and fixed it where it should seldom or never be fixed upon the form. The following out of this principle is not so easy as it appears. One is safe to assert that it will never be carried out thoroughly till it is made an important part of school drill. Without some such long and early training, a scrupulous purist in this respect might hang as long over his sentences as Lord Tennyson is said to hang over his lines, and commit blunders after all. In bringing sentences into harmony with this principle of arrangement alone, there is a field for endless variety of school exercises in composition.

II. Unity of Sentence.-Upon this point it is especially dangerous to lay down any abstract rule. Irving's statements, that "a sentence or period ought to express one entire thought or mental proposition," and that "it is improper to connect in language things which are separated in reality," are much too dogmatic and cramping. Separate particulars must often be brought together in the same sentence.

The only universal caution that can be given is, to beware of distracting from the effect of the main statement by particulars not immediately relevant. "Every part should be subservient to one principal affirmation."

The advice not to overcrowd a sentence may have to yield to a law of the paragraph concerning the due subordination in form of whatever is subordinate in meaning. "A statement merely explanatory or qualifying, put into a sentence apart, acquires a dangerous prominence.'

Most of the faults specified by Blair as breaches of "unity occur in connection with other arts of sentence-structure. "Excess of parenthetical clauses" is an abuse of the periodic structure, objectionable only in so far as it imposes too severe a strain upon the retentive powers of the reader. It is a fault often committed by De Quincey, whose own powers of holding several things in the mind at once without confusion sometimes betrayed him into forgetting that all are not equally gifted. The fault of not "bringing the sentence to a full and perfect close"-so flagrant in our

early writers—is not likely to be committed by any one aware of the value of the end of a sentence as the place for important words.

The specialties of the sentence in Narrative and in Description are examined at length in Bain's Rhetoric (THE SENTENCE, Sec. 25). He says that "the only rule that can be observed in distinguishing the sentences is to choose the larger breaks in the sense.'

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: 1st, 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 Germaus 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 distingushed 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 accumulation 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 opposite 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,"

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.