The art of forming Transitions is as difficult to be subjected to rules, as to be reduced to practice.

Dr. BLAIR expands the Bishop's idea, and at the same time, gives it its proper bounds, when he says:

Unity is of great consequence in every composition; but ' in other discourses, where the choice and direction of the subject are not left to the speaker, it may be less in his 'power to preserve it. In a sermon it must be always the preacher's own fault, if he transgress it. What I mean by 'unity is, that there should be some one main point to which 'the whole strain of the sermon shall refer. It must not be " a bundle of different subjects strung together, but one ob'ject must predominate throughout. This rule is founded . on what we all experience, that the mind can attend only 'to one capital object at a time. By dividing, you always 'weaken the impression. Now this unity, without which 'no sermon can have much beauty, or much force, does not require that there should be no divisions or separate heads ⚫ in the discourse, or that one single thought only should be, · again and again, turned up to the hearers in different lights. It is not to be understood in so narrow a sense; it admits ❝ of some variety; it admits of under parts and appendages, provided always that so much union and connexion be pre'served, as to make the whole concur in some one impres 'sion upon the mind. I may employ, for instance, several 'different arguments to enforce the love of God; I may also inquire, perhaps, into the causes of the decay of this 'virtue; still one great object is presented to the mind: 'but if, because my text says, 'He that loveth God must love his brother also,' I therefore should mingle in one dis'course arguments for the love of God, and for the love of ⚫our neighbour, I should offend unpardonably against Unity, and leave a very loose and confused impression on the hearer's minds.'-BLAIR's Lectures, vol. ii. p. 108.

Bossuet's History of the Variations,' is justly quoted as a master-piece of this sort, wherein this great man unites all the branches of his subject, by the sole band of his logic; and thus connects, without confusion, the most abstract and dissimilar propositions.

Transitions, which are only built on the mechanism of the style, and merely consist in a fictitious connection between the last word of the paragraph which finishes, and the first word of the sentence which begins, cannot, with propriety, be admitted as natural, but are rather forced combinations. True' rhetorical Transitions are such as follow the course of the reasoning, or sentiment, with ease, almost without art, and unperceived by the hearers; such, as unite the materials of the discourse, instead of merely suspending some phrases upon each other; such, as bind the whole together, without obliging the Preacher to compose a new exordium to each subdivision, which his plan exhibits to him; such, as form an orderly and methodical arrangement, by the simple unfolding of the ideas, in some measure, imperceptible to the Orator himself: such, as call for, and correspond with, each other by an inevitable analogy, and not by an unexpected association; such, in fine, as meditation produces by suggesting valuable thoughts, not such as the pen furnishes in its search after combined resemblances.

Clear and distinct ideas reciprocally accord with easy and felicitous transitions.

'Stones

'well hewn,' says Cicero, 'unite of themselves, ' and without the aid of cement.'

SECTION XXXIII.

OF A COPIOUS STYLE.

F a desultory style, if short expressions, in a

IF

word, if poor ideas can never strictly unite, let us discard them, without hesitation, from a rhetorical discourse. A broken and sententious style will never make powerful impressions upon the multitude. Eloquence requires a kind of diction, expanded, lofty, sublime, in order to develop the emotions of the soul, and to impart to thought all its energy. He who renews his thoughts line by line, is always frigid, slow, monotonous, and superficial. Sublimity is simply the effort of genius transcending ordinary ideas. Let your thoughts dive deep. Stop not to pick up the sparkling grains of sand upon that ground which covers a mine of gold. Shoot beyond vulgar conceptions; and you will find the true sublime, between that which is common, and that which is exaggerated. Unconstrained in your steps, confine not yourself within the narrow limits of those curtailed phrases, which drop

every moment with the expiring idea; but display in their vast extent, those copious and commanding modes of expression, which impart to Eloquence its energy, its elevation, its vehemence,and its grandeur. 'The thundering strokes ' of Demosthenes,' said Cicero, would have 'been much less impressive, had they not been ' hurled with all the power and impetuosity of 'copiousness.'*

The same Cicero fixed the extent of the Orator's period to four verses of six feet, which can be pronounced with one single breathing. †

But, have we proper periods in our language, who can scarcely ever make use of transposition; who are constrained to give a signification, if not perfect, at least very distinct, to each word of the sentence, which the reader peruses; who are subjected to uniform and feeble constructions, in which the nominative is contiguous to the verb preceding the case governed; and who are perpetually embarrassed by the repetition or ambiguity of pronouns? The theory of our participles, too, is so obscure, our conjunctions are so insufficient, our cases, admitting we have any, so

* Demosthenis non tàm vibrarent fulmina illa nisi numeris contorta ferentur.-Orator. 234.

† Equatuor igitur quasi hexametrorum instar versuum, quod sit, constat ferè plena comprehensio. Orator. 222.

insignificant, that it becomes requisite, in writing, perpetually to recall the nominative, or the pronoun which represents it, and to sacrifice sublimity to perspicuity.*

The ancients compared the period to a sling, which throws out the stone, after many circuits. Our period is none other than an inanimate diction, like the servile translation of a precise interpreter, who expresses literally and unskilfully, ideas conceived in a foreign idiom.‡

* See remarks on the same subject in FENELON's Letter to the French Academy, § 5. p. 193.

†' With respect to the form or composition of sentences, Cicero distinguishes them into two sorts, called tracta, strait or direct: and contorta, bend or winding.§ By the former are meant such, whose members follow each other in a direct order, without any inflection; and by the latter, those which, strictly speaking, are called periods. Пegíodos in Greek signifies a circuit or circle. And so the Latins called circuitus and ambitus. By which they both mean a sentence consisting of corresponding parts, so framed, that the voice in pronouncing them may have a proper elevation and cadency, and distinguish them by its inflexion. And as the latter part returns back, and unites with the former, the period, like a circle, surrounds and encloses the whole sense.'-WARD's System of Oratory, vol. ii. p. 345.

The remarks of the learned Abbé, respecting the feeble and limited construction of the French tongue, are, in a great measure, applicable to the English, especially when compared with the greater liberty of transposition, which the Latin language allowed, and, in which Cicero, particularly, manifests that so much of its beauty and elegance consists. § Orat. c. 20.