Curtius; Tedius took the body of Clodius into his chaise; Cœlius was a young gentleman of equestrian rank. In the following passage, which is Dr. Doig's translation of a quotation from the scholiast on Pindar, we encounter ladies at a very early period in the history of society; inasmuch as they are found in the very act of discovering the use of petticoats: "The same ladies, too, from a sense of decency, invented garments made of the bark of trees."

PRECISION OF STYLE.

Το

THE third quality which enters into the composition of a perspicuous style, is precision. This implies the retrenching of all superfluity of expression. A precise style exhibits an exact copy of the writer's ideas. write, with precision, though this be properly a quality of style, he must possess a very considerable degree of distinctness in his manner of thinking. Unless his own conceptions be clear and accurate, he cannot convey to the minds of others a clear and accurate knowledge of the subject which he treats.

Looseness of style, which is properly opposed to precision, generally arises from using a superfluity of words. Feeble writers employ a multitude of words to make themselves understood, as they imagine, more distinctly; but, instead of accomplishing this purpose, they only bewilder their readers. They are sensible that they have not caught an expression that will convey their precise meaning; and therefore they endeavour to illustrate it by heaping together a mass of ill-consorted phrases. The image which they endeavour to present to our mind, is confused and inconsistent. When an author speaks of his hero's courage in the day of battle,

the expression is precise, and I understand it fully; but if, for the sake of multiplying words, he should afterwards extol his fortitude, my thoughts immediately begin to waver between those two attributes. In thus endeavouring to express one quality more strongly, he introduces another. Courage resists danger, fortitude supports pain. The occasion of exerting each of those qualities is different: and being led to think of both together when only one of them should be presented to me, I find my view rendered unsteady, and my conception of the hero indistinct.

An author may be very intelligible, without being precise. He uses proper words, and proper arrangements of words; but as his own ideas are loose and general, he cannot express them with any great degree of precision. Few authors in the English language are more easily understood than Archbishop Tillotson and Sir William Temple, yet neither of them can pretend to much precision; they are loose and diffuse, and very often do not select such expressions as are adapted for conveying simply the idea which they have in view.

All subjects do not require to be treated with the same degree of precision. It is requisite that in every species of writing this quality should in some measure be perceptible; but ve must at the same time be upon our guard, lest the study of precision, especially in treating subjects which do not rigidly require it, should betray us into a dry and barren style; lest, from the desire of pruning more closely, we retrench all copiousness and ornament. A deficiency of this kind may be remarked in the serious compositions of Swift.

To unite copiousness with precision, to be flowing and graceful, and at the same time correct and exact in the choice of every word, is one of the highest and most difficult attainments in writing. Some species of composition may require more of copiousness and ornament, others more of precision and accuracy; and even the same composition may, in different parts, require a difference of style; but these qualities must never be totally sacrificed to each other.

"If," says Dr. Armstrong, "I was to reduce my own private idea of the best language to a definition, I should call it the shortest, clearest, and easiest way of expressing one's thoughts, by the most harmonious. arrangement of the best chosen words, both for meaning and sound. The best language is strong and expressive, without stiffness or affectation; short and concise, without being either obscure or ambiguous; and easy, and flowing, and disengaged, without one undetermined or superfluous word."*

The want of precision is an unpardonable error in a writer who treats of philosophical subjects. On this account, the style of Lord Shaftesbury is highly exceptionable. The noble author seems to have been well acquainted with the power of words; those which he employs are generally proper and sonorous; and his arrangement is often judicious. His defect in precision is not so much imputable to indistinctness of conception, as to perpetual affectation. He is fond to excess of the pomp and parade of language; he is never satisfied with expressing anything clearly and simply; he must always give it the dress of state and majesty. Afraid of delivering his thoughts arrayed in a mean and o dinary garb, and allured by an appearance of splendur, he heaps together a crowd of superfluous words, ad inundates every idea which he means to express with a torrent of copious loquacity. Hence perpetual c.rcumlocutions, and many words and phrases employed to describe what would have much better been described by one. If he has occasion to introduce any author, he very rarely mentions him by his proper name. In the treatise entitled Advice to an Author, he employs two or three successive pages in descanting upon Aristotle, without naming him in any other manner than as "the master critic," "the prince of critics," "the consummate philologist," "the grand master of art," "the mighty genius and judge of art." In the same manner "the grand poetic sire,' "the philosophical patriarch,"

29.66

Armstrong's Miscellanies, vol. ii., p. 133

and "his disciple of noble birth and lofty genius," are the only names by which he condescends to designate Homer, Socrates, and Plato. This method of distinguishing persons is extremely affected, but it is not so contrary to precision as the frequent circumlocutions which he employs to express the powers and affections of the mind. In one passage, he denominates the moral faculty," that natural affection and anticipating fancy, which makes the sense of right and wrong." When he has occasion to mention self-examination, or reflection on our own conduct, he speaks of it as "the act of a man's dividing himself into two parties, becoming a self-dialogist, entering into partnership with himself, and forming the dual number practically within himself."

In the following paragraph he wishes to shew, that by every vicious action, we injure the mind as much as a man would injure his body by swallowing poison, or inflicting on himself a wound.

Now, if the fabric in the mind or temper appeared to us such as it really is; if we saw it impossible to remove hence any one good or orderly affection, or to introduce an ill or disorderly one, without drawing on in some degree, that dissolute state which, at its height, is confessed to be so miserable; it would then undoubtedly be confessed, that since no ill, immoral, or unjust action can be committed, without either a new inroad and breach on the temper and passions, or a farther advancing of that execution already done; whoever did ill, or acted in prejudice of his integrity, good nature, or worth, would of necessity act with greater cruelty towards himself, than he who scrupled not to swallow what was poisonous, or who with his own hands should voluntarily mangle or wound his outward form or constitution, natural limbs or body.-Shaftesbury's Inquiry concerning Virtue.

Such superfluity of words is offensive to every reader of a correct taste, and produces no other effect than that of perplexing the sense. To commit a bad action, is first, "to remove a good and orderly affection, and to introduce an ill or disorderly one;" next it is, "to commit an action that is ill, immoral, or unjust; and then "to do ill, or to act in prejudice of integrity, good nature, or worth." Nay, so very simple a thing as a man's wounding himself, is, " to mangle or wound

his outward form or constitution, natural limbs or body."

Dr. Crombie has justly remarked, "that a due attention to accuracy of diction is highly conducive to correctness of thought. For, as it is generally true that he whose conceptions are clear, and who is master of his subject, delivers his sentiments with ease and perspicuity, so it is equally certain that, as language is not only the vehicle of thought, but also an instrument of invention, if we desire to attain a habit of conceiving clearly, and thinking correctly, we must learn to speak and write with accuracy and precision.'

SYNONYMOUS WORDS.

MANY words are accounted synonymous, which are not so in reality; and indeed it may reasonably be disputed whether two words can be found in any language which express precisely the same idea. However closely they may approximate to each other in signification, the discriminating eye of the critic can still discover a line of separation between them. They agree in ex pressing one principal idea, but always express it with some diversity in the circumstances; they are varied by some accessory idea which severally accompanies each of the words, and which forms the distinction between them.

As they are like different shades of the same colour, an accurate writer can employ them to great advantage, by using them so as to heighten and to finish the picture which he gives us. He supplies by the one what was wanting in the other, and so adds to the force, or to the lustre of the image which he means to exhibit.

Crombie's Etymology and Syntax of the English Language, p. 429, 3d, edit.