ceptionable, I declare my meaning to be only this, that it is conceived by the understanding, and not perceived by the senses, as the causes and the effects themselves often are. Would you then copy nature in an historical or descriptive poem, present to our imaginations the causes and the effects in their natural order; the suggestion of the power or agency which connects them will as necessarily result from the lively image you produce in the fancy, as it results from the perception of the things themselves, when they fall under the cognizance of the senses.

But if you should take the other method, and connect with accuracy where there is relation; and, with the help of conjunctions and relatives, deduce with care effects from their causes, and allow nothing of the kind to pass unnoticed in the description, in lieu of a picture, you will present us with a piece of reasoning or declamation. Would you, on the contrary, give to reasoning itself the force and vivacity of painting, follow the method first prescribed, and that even when you represent the energy of spiritual causes, which were never subjected to the scrutiny of sense. You will thus convert a piece of abstruse reflection, which, however just, makes but a slender impression upon the mind, into the most affecting and instructive imagery.

It is in this manner the psalmist treats that most sublime, and, at the same time, most abstract of all subjects, the providence of God. With what success he treats it every person of taste and sensibility will judge. After a few strictures on the life of man, and of the inferior animals, to whatever element, air, or earth, or water, they belong, he thus breaks forth; "These wait all upon thee, that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. Thou givest them. They gather. Thou openest thy hand. They are filled with good. Thou hidest thy face. They are troubled. Thou takest away their breath. They die and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy Spirit. They are created. Thou renewest the face of the earth." It must be acknowledged, that it is not every subject, no, nor every kind of composition, that requires, or even admits the use of such glowing colours. The psalm is of the nature of the ode, being, properly defined, a sacred ode; and it is allowed that this species of poesy demands more fire than any other.

It may indeed be thought, that the vivacity resulting from this manner of composing is sufficiently accounted for, from the brevity which it occasions, and of which I treated in the preceding chapter. It is an undoubted truth, that the brevity here contributes to the force of the expression, but it is not

6 Psalm civ. 27-30.

solely to this principle that the effect is to be ascribed. A good taste will discern a difference in a passage already quoted from the song of Moses, as it stands in our version, and as it is literally rendered from the Hebrew; though in both, the number of words, and even of syllables, is the same. Observe also, the expression of the psalmist, who having compared man, in respect of duration, to a flower, says concerning the latter, "The wind passeth over it, and it is gone." Had he said, "The wind passing over it, destroys it," he had expressed the same sentiment in fewer words, but more weakly.

But it may be objected, If such is the power of the figure asyndeton, and if the conjunctive particles are naturally the weakest parts in a sentence, whence comes it that the figure polysyndeton, the reverse of the former, should be productive of that energy which rhetoricians ascribe to it? I answer, the cases must be very different which require such opposite methods. Celerity of operation, and fervour in narration, are best expressed by the first. A deliberate attention to every circumstance, as being of importance, and to this in particular, the multiplicity of the circumstances, is best awakened by the second. The conjunctions and relatives excluded by the asyndeton are such as connect clauses and members; those repeated by the polysyndeton are such as connect single words only. All connectives alike are set aside by the former; the latter is confined to copulatives and disjunctives, A few examples of this will illustrate the difference. "While the earth remaineth," said God immediately after the deluge, "seedtime, and harvest, and cold, and heat, and summer, and winter, and day, and night shall not cease." Every thing to which a permanency of so great importance is secured, requires the most deliberate attention. And in the following declaration of the apostle, much additional weight and distinctness are given to each particular by the repetition of the conjunction. "I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God1."

SECTION III.-Complex Sentences.

PART I.-Subdivision of these into Periods and loose

I come now to the

These are of two kinds.

Sentences.

consideration of complex sentences. They are either periods, or sentences

7 Exod. xv. 7. 8 Psalm ciii. 16. 9 Gen. viii. 22. 1 Rom. viii. 38, 39.

of a looser composition, for which the language doth not furnish us with a particular name. A period is a complex sentence, wherein the meaning remains suspended, till the whole is finished. The connexion consequently is so close between the beginning and the end, as to give rise to the name period, which signifies circuit. The following is such a sentence: "Corruption could not spread with so much success, though reduced into system, and though some ministers, with equal impudence and folly, avowed it, by themselves and their advocates, to be the principal expedient by which they governed; if a long and almost unobserved progression of causes and effects did not prepare the conjuncture." The criterion of a period is this: If you stop any where before the end, the preceding words will not form a sentence, and therefore cannot convey any determined sense. This is plainly the case with the above example. The first verb being could, and not can, the potential and not the indicative mood, shows that the sentence is hypothetical, and requires to its completion some clause beginning with if, unless, or some other conditional particle. And after you are come to the conjunction, you find no part where you can stop before the end3. From this account of the nature of a period, we may justly infer, that it was much easier in Greek and Latin to write in periods than it is in English, or perhaps in any European tongue. The construction with them depended mostly on inflection: consequently the arrangement, which

2 Bolingbroke, Spirit of Patriotism.

3 It is surprising that most modern critics seem to have mistaken totally the import of the word period, confounding it with the complex sentence in general, and sometimes even with the simple but circumstantiated sentence. Though none of the ancients, as far as I remember, either Greek or Latin, have treated this matter with all the precision that might be wished, yet it appears to me evident, from the expressions they employ, the similitudes they use, and the examples they produce, that the distinction given above perfectly coincides with their notions on this subject. But nothing seems more decisive than the instance which Demetrius Phalereus has given of a period from Demosthenes, and which, for the sake of illustrating the difference, he has also thrown into the form of a loose sentence. I refer the learned reader to the book itself; IIept 'Epunvas I. IA. The ancients did indeed sometimes apply the word period to simple but circumstantiated sentences of a certain structure. I shall give the following example in our own language for an illustration; "At last, after much fatigue, through deep roads and bad weather, we came with no small difficulty to our journey's end." Otherwise thus, "We came to our journey's end at last, with no small difficulty, after much fatigue, through deep roads, and bad weather." The latter is in the loose, the former in the periodic composition. Accordingly in the latter there are, before the conclusion, no less than five words, which I have distinguished by the character, namely, end, last, difficulty, fatigue, roads, with any of which the sentence might have terminated. One would not have expected that a writer so accurate and knowing as M. du Marsais, should so far have mistaken the meaning of the word period in the usage of the ancients, as to define it in this manner: La période est un assemblage de propositions liées entr' elles par des conjonctions, et qui toutes ensemble font un sens fini. "The period is an assemblage of propositions connected by conjunctions, and making altogether one complete sense."(Principes de Grammaire, La Periode.) This is a proper definition of a complex sentence; and that he meant no more is manifest from all his subsequent illustrations. Take the following for an example, which he

BB

ascertains the character of the sentence in respect of composition, was very much in their own power; with us, on the contrary, the construction depends mostly on arrangement, which is therefore comparatively very little in our power. Accordingly, as the sense in every sentence hangs entirely on the verb, one ordinary way with them of keeping the sense suspended, was by reserving the verb to the end. This in most cases the structure of modern languages will not permit us to imitate. An example of a complex sentence, that is not a period, I shall produce from the same performance. "One party hath given their whole attention, during several years, to the project of enriching themselves, and impoverishing the rest of the nation; and by these and other means of establishing their dominion, under the government, and with the favour of a family who were foreigners, and therefore might believe that they were established on the throne by the good will and strength of this party alone." The criterion of such loose sentences is as follows: There will always be found in them one place at least before the end, at which if you make a stop, the construction of the preceding part will render it a complete sentence. Thus in the example now given, whether you stop at the word themselves, at nation, at dominion, at government, or at foreigners, all which words are marked in the quotation in italics, you will find you have read a perfect sentence.

Wherefore then, it may be asked, is this denominated one sentence, and not several? For this reason, that though the preceding words, when you have reached any of the stops above mentioned, will make sense, and may be construed separately, the same cannot be said of the words which follow.

In a period, the dependence of the members is reciprocal; in a loose sentence the former members have not a necessary dependence on the latter, whereas the latter depend entirely on the former. Indeed, if both former and latter members are, in respect of construction, alike independent on one another, they do not constitute one sentence, but two or more. And here I shall remark by the way, that it is by applying the observation just now made, and not always by the pointing, even where the laws of punctuation are most strictly observed, that we can discriminate sentences. When they are closely related in respect of sense, and when the sentences themselves are simple, they they are for the most part separated only by commas or by semicolons, rarely by colons, and almost never by points. In gives in another place of the same work: Il y a un avantage réel à être instruit ; mais il ne faut pas que cet avantage inspire de l'orgueil." "There is a real advantage in being instructed; but we ought not to be proud of this advantage." He adds, "Le mais rapproche 'les deux propositions ou membres de la période, et les met en opposition.' "The but connects the two propositions or members of the period, and sets them in opposition." Des Conjonctions. It is evident that the sentence adduced is no period in the sense of the ancients.

this way the passages above quoted from the song of Moses and the Psalms are pointed in all our English Bibles.

But there is an intermediate sort of sentences which must not be altogether overlooked, though they are neither entirely loose, nor perfect periods. Of this sort is the following: "The other institution," he is speaking of the eucharist, "has been so disguised by ornament, || and so much directed, in your church at least, to a different purpose from commemoration, that if the disciples were to assemble at Easter in the chapel of his Holiness, Peter would know his successor as little, || as Christ would acknowledge his vicar; and the rest would be unable to guess what the ceremony represented || or intended3." This sentence may be distributed into four members. The first is complex, including two clauses, and ends at commemoration. The second is simple, ending at Holiness. It is evident that the sentence could not terminate at either of these places, or at any of the intermediate words. The third member is subdivided into two clauses, and ends at vicar. It is equally evident that if the sentence had been concluded here, there would have been no defect in the construction. The fourth member, which concludes the sentence, is also compound, and admits a subdivision into three clauses. At the word represented, which finishes the second clause, the sentence might have terminated. The two words which could have admitted a full stop after them are distinguished by italics. Care hath also been taken to discriminate the members and the clauses, It may, however, justly be affirmed, that when the additional clause or clauses are, as in the preceding example, intimately connected with the foregoing words, the sentence may still be considered as a period, since it hath much the same effect. Perhaps some of the examples of periods to be produced in the sequel, if examined very critically, would fall under this denomination. But that is of little or no consequence.

On comparing the two kinds of complex sentences together, to wit, the period and the loose sentence, we find that each hath its advantages and disadvantages. The former savours more of artifice and design, the latter seems more the result of pure Nature. The period is nevertheless more susceptible of vivacity and force: the loose sentence is apt, as it were, to languish, and grow tiresome. The first is more adapted to the style of the writer, the second to that of the speaker. as that style is best, whether written or spoken, which hath a proper mixture of both; so there are some things, in every species of discourse, which require a looser, and some which require a preciser manner. In general, the use of periods best suits the dignity of the historian, the political writer, and the

4 Bol. Phil. Es. iv. Sect. 7.

But