I am more doubtful about this other instance:

The fiend look'd up, and knew His mounted scale aloft; nor more, but fled Murm'ring, and with him fled the shades of night. Paradife Loft, B. 4. at the end.

I fhall add fome other examples where the oppofition in the thought is imitated in the words; an imitation that is diftinguished by the name of antithefis.

Speaking of Coriolanus foliciting the people to be made conful:

With a proud heart he wore his humble weeds.

Coriolanus.

Had you rather Cæfar were living, and die all flaves; than that Cæfar were dead, to live all free men ? Julius Cæfar.

He hath cool'd my friends and heated mine ene mies. Shakespear.

Why, if two gods fhould play fome beav'nly match,
And on the wager lay two earthly women,
And Portia one, there must be something else

Pawn'd

1

Pawn'd with the other; for the
Hath not her fellow.

poor

rude world

Merchant of Venice, act 3. sc.6.

It is

to

This rule may be extended to govern the conftruction of fentences or periods. A fentence or period in language ought to express one entire thought or mental propofition; and different thoughts ought to be feparated in the expreffion by placing them in different fentences or periods. therefore offending against neatnefs, crowd into one period entire thoughts which require more than one; for this is conjoining in language things that are separated in reality; and confequently rejecting that uniformity which ought to be preferved betwixt thought and expreffion. Of errors against this rule take the following examples.

Cæfar, defcribing the Suevi:

Atque in eam fe confuetudinem adduxerunt, ut locis frigidiffimis, neque veftitus, præter pelles, habeant quidquam, quarum, propter exiguitatem,A

magna

magna eft corporis pars operta, et laventur in flu» minibus. to get Commentaria, 1.4. prin.

of Burnet, in the hiftory of his own times, giving Lord Sunderland's character, fays,

His own notions were always good; but he was a man of great expence.

Thave feen a woman's face break out in heats, as she has been talking against a great lord, whom fhe had never seen in her life; and indeed never knew a party-woman that kept her beauty for a twelvemonth. Boling oo Spectator, No 57.

Lord Bolingbroke, speaking of Strada :

Ifingle him out among the moderns, because he had the foolish prefumption to cenfure Tacitus, and to write history himfelf: and your Lord hip will forgive this fhort excurfion in honour of sa favourite author.n the answekimdir? buit dod ordwes Letters on hiftory, vol. 1. leta 51 tana and oil daw ninad It seems to me, that in order to maintain the moral system of the world at a certain point, far below that of ideal perfection, (for we are made capable of conceiving what we are incapable of at

taining),

taining), but however fufficient upon the whole to conftitute a ftate eafy and happy, or at the worst tolerable: I fay, it feems to me, that the author of nature has thought fit to mingle from time to time, among the focieties of men, a few, and but a few, of those on whom he is graciously pleased to bestow a larger proportion of the ethereal spirit than is given in the ordinary course of his providence to the fons of men.

Bolingbroke, on the spirit of patriotifm, let. 1.

To crowd into a single member of a period, different fubjects, is still worse than to crowd them into one period.

Trojam, genitore Adamasto› }

Paupere (manfiffetque utinam fortuna) profectus. ed mod 2 mabond Eneid. iii. 614.

प Where two things are fo connected as to require but a copulative, it is pleasant to find a resemblance in the members of the period, were it even fo flight as where both begin with the fame letter:

The peacock, in all his pride, does not display half the colour that appears in the garments of a OWL M British

"VOL. II.

British lady, when she is either dreffed for a ball or a birth-day.

Spectator, No 265.

Had not my dog of a steward run away as he did, without making up his accounts, I had ftill been immersed in fin and fea coal.

Ibid. No.530.

My life's companion, and my bofom-friend,
One faith, one fame, one fate fhall both attend.
Dryden, Tranflation of Æneid.

There is obviously a fenfible defect in neatness when uniformity is in this case totally neglected; witnefs the following example, where the conftruction of two members connected by a copulative is unnecessarily varied.

For it is confidently reported, that two young gentlemen of real hopes, bright wit, and profound judgment, who upon a thorough examination of caufes and effects, and by the mere force of natural abilities, without the least tincture of learning, have made a discovery that there was no God, and

* See Gerard's French grammar, discourse 12.

generoufky