generously communicating their thoughts for the good of the public, were fome time ago, by an unparallelled severity, and upon I know not what obfolete law, broke for blafphemy *. [Better thus] Having made a difcovery that there was no God, and having generously communicated their thoughts for the good of the public, were fome time ago, &c.

He had been guilty of a fault, for which his mafter would have put him to death, had he not found an opportunity to escape out of his hands, and fled into the deferts of Numidia.

Guardian, No 139.

If all the ends of the revolution are already ob. tained, it is not only impertinent to argue for obtaining any of them, but factious defigns might be imputed, and the name of incendiary be applied with fome colour, perhaps, to any one who should perfift in preffing this point.

Differtation upon parties, Dedication.

It is even unpleasant to find a negative and affirmative propofition connected by a copulative.

* An argument against abolishing Christianity, Swift.

Nec excitatur claffico miles truci,

Nec horret iratum mare; Forumque vitat, et fuperba civium Potentiorum limina,

Horace, Epod. 2. t. 5.

If it appear not plain, and prove untrue,
Deadly divorce ftep between me and

you.

Shakespear.

the words,

An artificial connection among is undoubtedly a beauty when it represents any peculiar connection among the conftituent parts of the thought; but where there is no fuch connection, it is a pofitive deformity, because it makes a difcordance betwixt the thought and expreffion. For the fame reason, we ought alfo to avoid every artificial oppofition of words where there is none in the thought. This laft, termed verbal antithefis, is ftudied by writers of no tafte; and is relished by readers of the same ftamp, because of a certain degree of livelinefs in it. They do not confider how incongruous it is, in a grave compofition, to cheat the reader, and to make him exbom pec

pect a contrast in the thought, which upon examination is not found there

A light wife doth make a heavy husband.

Merchant of Venice.

Here is a studied oppofition in the words, not only without any oppofition in the fenfe, but even where there is a very intimate connection, that of caufe and effect; for it is the levity of the wife that vexes the husband.

Will maintain

Upon his bad life to make all this good.

King Richard II. alt

Lucetta. What, fhall these papers lie like tell

tales here?

Julia. If thou refpect them, beft to take them

up.

Lucetta. Nay, I was taken up for laying them down.

Two Gentlemen of Verona, at 1. fc. 3.

To conjoin by a copulative, members that fignify things oppofed in the thought, Is an error too grofs to be commonly practi

fed

fed. And yet writers are guilty of this fault in fome degree, when they conjoin by a copulative things tranfacted at different periods of time. Hence a want of neatness in the following expreffion.

The nobility too, whom the King had no means of retaining by fuitable offices and preferments, had been seized with the general discontent, and unwarily threw themfelves into the fcale, which began already too much to preponderate.

Hiftory of G. Britain, vol. 1. p. 250,

In periods of this kind, it appears more neat to express the past time by the participle paffive, thus:

The nobility having been seized with the general difcontent, unwarily threw themselves, &c. [or], The nobility who had been seized, &c. unwarily threw themselves, &c.

So much upon conjunction and disjunction in general. I proceed to apply the rule to comparisons in particular. Where a resemblance betwixt two objects is described, the writer ought to study a resemblance betwixt the two members that express these objects.

objects. For it makes the resemblance the more entire to find it extended even to the words. To illuftrate this rule, I fhåll give various examples of deviations from it. I begin with the words that express the refemblance.

I have obferved of late, the style of fome great minifters very much to exceed that of any other productions.

Letter to the Lord High Treafurer. Swift.

This, instead of studying the resemblance of words in a period that expreffes a comparison, is going out of one's road to avoid it. Instead of productions which resemble not ministers great or fmall, the proper word is writers or authors.

If men of eminence are expofed to cenfure on the one hand, they are as much liable to flattery on the other. If they receive reproaches which are not due to them, they likewife receive praises which they do not deferve. Spectator.

Here the subject plainly demands uniformity in expreffion inftead of variety; and therefore