in the substance." A single statement of a fact or truth does not always put the audience in full possession of it; and they cannot return, "where each sentence perishes as soon as it is born," to complete their grasp of it. Webster, whose style was formed in addressing juries, reiterates his meaning, but always varies his language, in his great senatorial speeches.

WORDS USED NEEDLESSLY.—(1) An, or a, before a noun which denotes the whole of a class; (2) the before a noun sufficiently distinguished without it; (3) an, a, or the before any, except the first, of a series of connected adjectives modifying the same noun; (4) he, she, and other personal pronouns when they have no function; (5) a second negative contradicting the first when you do not wish to affirm; (6) the participle got when it adds nothing to the force of the verb have; (7) more or most with adjectives in the comparative or the superlative degree; (8) other or others when by its use an object would be brought into a class to which it does not belong; and (9), in general, an adjective or an adverb, a preposition or a conjunction which has no special function — all these should be omitted.

Some of these offences, as (5) and (7), have not always been offences.

Direction.-Tell which of these three faults, tautology, verbosity, or redundancy, is committed here, and correct the faults in your recast of the sentences:

I Ezra received a royal edict from the King. 2. I wrote to you a long letter yesterday. 3. I will not waste my strength for nothing. 4. Spruce timber is cheaper than the pine. 5. Redundancy sometimes arises from a want of thought, which leads the author to repeat over and over again his little modicum of sense at his command. 6. Have you got matches to sell? 7.

He has not yet gone, I don't think. 8. That is the general rule. 9. Cast your eye in retrospect back over the past. 10. Charles V. and Francis I. were both mutually exhausted. II. The inebriety is a vice. 12. The prophecy has been fulfilled literally and to the letter. 13. Grant us each and every one thy favor. 14. Of all other men the Saxon is the slowest to admit the thought of revolution. 15. He received divine help from God. 16. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin-chamber, at the round-table, by a sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in Whitsun-week, when the prince broke thy head for likening his father to a singing man of Windsor; thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me. 17. The annual anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims, celebrated yearly, took place a few days since. 18. He lives near to his father. 19. Wellington he won Waterloo. 20. The dawn is overcast; the morning lowers, and heavily in clouds brings on the day. 21. He had not scarcely a moment to live. 22. Would to God that harmony might again return (meaning, come the second time). 23. Name the apple, if you can, by tasting of it. 24. I went home full of a great many serious reflections. 25. I don't like to hear a woman speak too loud. 26. A student, graduating, receives the title of an A.B. 27. The second and the third words are Latin. 28. After the most straitest sect of our religion, I lived a Pharisee. 29. The law is null, void, and dead. 30. The charge is utterly, totally, and absolutely false. 31. He can't hardly stand up. 32. The children need constant supervision all the while. 33. An equestrian statue of Lafayette on a horse was unveiled. 34. Who doubts but that the world is improving? 35. In December, the Congress assembles. 36. Most of them were for accepting the favorable terms and which embraced all the first Crusades had been intended to gain.

Direction. Bring in sentences illustrating these faults of excess in all their varieties, and correct them.

LESSON 40.

USE OF WORDS-TOO FEW WORDS.

6. USE A SUFFICIENT NUMBER OF WORDS.-The thought may be obscured through the failure to use a sufficient number of words.

WORDS WHICH SHOULD NOT BE OMITTED.-Some of the words which should not be omitted are (1) the when the object is not sufficiently distinguished without it; (2) an, a, or the before each of two or more connected adjectives modifying different nouns; (3) an, a, or the before each of two or more connected nouns denoting things that are to be distinguished from each other or emphasized; (4) a before few and little when these are opposed to none; (5) other when needed to keep an object in its class; (6) that or which or the words for which it stands, when required to complete a contrast or fully to express the thought; (7) the verb or the verb with its subject when needed after than or as to prevent ambiguity; (8) much when needed after very; (9) words required in order that two or more connected words or phrases referring to another word or phrase should each make good sense with it; and (10) adjectives, pronouns, prepositions, and all other parts of speech when their repetition would give distinctness or proper prominence to the ideas expressed by the words following them.

The thought may be obscured by the ambiguous use of nouns and pronouns in the possessive, by the use of a word in many senses in the same sentence, and by an expression too concise.

Direction. The italicized words in these sentences, whether repeated words or not, save the sentences from ambiguity or self-contradiction, or bring ideas into proper clearness or prominence. Read these sentences without such words, and then point out their functions:

1. These have been more distinguished by zeal than by can~ dor or by skill. 2. The poetry of Dante is picturesque beyond any other ever written. 3. The days of Charles II. were the golden age of the coward, the bigot, and the slave. 4. Every ancient and every modern language has contributed something of grace, of energy, or of music to Milton's poetry. 5. Did any brave Englishman who “rode into the jaws of death" at Balaklava serve England more truly than did Florence Nightingale? 6. The works of Clarendon and of Hume are the most authoritative and the most popular historical works in our language. 7. All the various kinds of interest which belong to the near and to the distant, to the present and to the past were collected on one spot and in one hour. 8. Voltaire gambols; he grins; he shakes the side; he points the finger; he turns up the nose; he shoots out the tongue. 9. In America, millions of Englishmen were at war with the country from which their blood, their language, and their institutions were derived. 10. I have always believed and still do believe that the soul is immortal. II. A has travelled more than H., but is not so well educated as he. 12. There was a heart, a kindly feeling, which prevailed over the party. 13. The beating I gave or received (not my beating) did him good. 14. Lovest thou me more than these love me, or lovest thou me more than thou lovest these? 15. Those who drove James from his throne, who seduced his army, who alienated his friends, who imprisoned him in his palace, who broke in upon his very slumbers by imperious messages, and who pursued him with fire and sword from one part of the empire to another were his nephew and his two daughters.

Direction. Find and classify the faults below, and correct them :

1. There are few artists who draw horses so well as Mr. Leech. 2. The grave of Robt. Bruce was only marked by two broad flag-stones, on which Burns knelt and kissed. 3. Our re

buke had the desired effect. 4. There is a great difference between the language under Charles I. and Charles II., between that under Charles II. and Queen Anne. 5. There is a great difference between the dog and cat. 6. She had not yet listened patiently to his heart-beats, but only felt that her own was beating violently. 7. He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and good, and sendeth rain on the just and unjust. 8. Neither blindness nor gout, age, penury, domestic affliction, political disappointment, abuse, proscription, nor neglect had power to disturb Milton's sedate and majestic patience. 9. One should covet nothing less than the best. 10. Pine is the tallest of our trees. II. Much to his comfort, few of his creditors met, and gave him little encouragement. 12. The brain needs rest as much if not more than the rest of the body. 13. We are charmed by that singularly humane and delicate humor in which Addison excelled all men. 14. He has worn to-day a silk and felt hat. 15. It required few talents to which most men are not born or, at least, may not acquire. 16. Sewal, Archbishop of York, complained of the way in which he had been harassed by suspensions, examinations, and in other ways. 17. Mrs. Horneck and her daughters were very pleased to have with them on this Continental trip so distinguished a person as Dr. Goldsmith. 18. The peasantry of Scotland loved Burns as never people loved a poet. 19. I ask him, you, and every honorable and patriotic man this question. 20. The rhythm of the second and third line is imperfect. 21. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between an interrogative and exclamatory sen22. Platinum is heavier but not so useful as iron. 23. The error has and will again be exploded. 24. Reform, therefore, without bravery or scandal of former times and persons: but yet set it down to thyself, as well to create good precedents as to follow them.

tence.

Direction. Bring in sentences illustrating all these errors of omission, and correct them.