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A. Never crowd into a sentence things which have so little connexion, that they can be divided into two or three sentences, Q. What is the third rule?

A. Keep clear of all parentheses in the middle of a sentence.

Q. What is the last?

A. Always bring the sentence to a full and perfect close.

QIn what consists the strength of a sentence?

A. In such a disposition of the several words and members, as shall bring out the sense to the best advantage, and give every word and member due force.

Q. What is the first rule for promoting the strength of a sentence ?

A. Prune it of all redundant words and members.*

Q. What is the second?

A. Attend particularly to the use of copulatives, relatives, and all the particles employed for transition and connexion ;—as but, and, which, when, where, &c.

Q. What is the third?

A. Place the capital word or words in that part of the sentence where they will make the fullest impression.

Q. What is the fourth?

"Concise your diction, let your sense be clear,

Nor with a weight of words, fatigue the ear."

HORACE.

A. Make the members of the sentence go on rising in their importance one above another.

Q. What is the fifth?

A. Avoid concluding the sentence with an adverb, a preposition, or any inconsiderable word.

Q. What is the sum of all rules for the construction of sentences?

A. Communicate, in the clearest and most natural order, the ideas which you mean to transfuse into the minds of others.

HARMONY OF SENTENCES.

Q. What is the harmony of a period ?
A. Its agreeableness to the ear.

Q. What things are to be considered in the harmony of Periods?

A. First, agreeable sound, 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 higher kind of beauty.

Q. On what does agreeable sound, in prose, depend?

A. On the choice of words, and on their arrangement.

Q. What attention did the ancients pay to the music of sentences?

A. Great. Often an orator would be pub. licly applauded for the perfection of his periods.

Q. What attention has it received among the Moderns ?

A. But little. Their taste is different, and their language is not so susceptible of the graces and powers of melody; yet it should not be wholly neglected.*

Q. On what does the music of a sentence chiefly depend?

A. On the proper distribution of its several members, and on the close or cadence of the whole.

Q. How many degrees of sound are there adapted to the sense?

A. Two. First, the current of sound, adapted to the tenour of a discourse; next, a particular resemblance between some object, and the sounds that are employed in describing it.t

The following is a very harmonious sentence from Milton: "We shall conduct you to a hill-side, laborious indeed at the first ascent; but else, so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospects and melodious sounds, on every side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming."

+ The contrast between the opening of the gates of hell and heaven, in Paradise Lost, displays to great advantage the poet's art :

On a sudden, open fly,

With impetuous recoil, and jarring sound,
Th' infernal doors; and, on their hinges, grate
Harsh thunder.".

Q. How many classes of objects may the sounds of words represent?

A. Three. Other sounds, as the noise of waters and roaring of winds ;-motion; and the emotions and passions of the mind.

ORIGIN AND NATURE OF FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE.

Q. What is figurative language?

A. Language prompted either by the imagination or the passions.

Q. Are figures the mere product of study?

A. No. The most illiterate speak in figures as often as the most learned.

Q. Why have rhetoricians devoted much attention to them?

A. Because, in them consists much of the beauty and force of language.

Q. Into how many classes are Figures divided?

A. Two. Figures of Words, and Figures of Thought.

Q. What are Figures of Words called?
A. Tropes.

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"Heaven open'd wide

Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound,
On golden hinges turning."

In what do these consist?

A. In words being employed to signify some thing different from their original meaning. Thus, " Light ariseth to the upright in darkness. Here light and darkness are put for comfort and adversity.

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Q. In what do Figures of Thought consist?

A. In the turn of the Thought;-the words used retaining their proper and literal meaning, as in exclamations, apostrophes, and comparisons.

Q. What is the origin of Figures of Speech? A. The barrenness of Language, but chiefly the influence which imagination possesses over our speech.

Q. What is the use of Tropes or Figures? A. They enrich language; bestow dignity and grace upon style ;* give us the enjoyment of two objects presented together without confusion and furnish a much more striking view of the

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*To say, that the sun rises,' is trite and common; but it becomes a magnificent image when expressed as Mr. Thomson has done :

"But yonder comes the powerful king of day, Rejoicing in the east."

To say,

that all men are subject alike to death," presents only a vulgar idea; but it rises and fills the imagination, when painted thus by Horace :

"Pallida mors æquo pulsat pede, pauperum tabernas Regumque turres."

"With equal pace, impartial fate,

Knocks at the palace, as the cottage gate."

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