greater unity* your discourse will have; the more will its parts be linked together, and the ideas follow in succession.

* Fenelon presents us with the following valuable observations on this subject: "Every truth is set by the orator in its proper place with regard to the whole; it prepares, leads on, and supports another truth that needed its assistance. Thus the whole discourse is one, and may be reduced to one single position, set in the strongest light by various views and explications of it. This unity of design shows the whole performance at one view; as in the public places of a city one may see all the streets and gates of it, when the streets are straight, equal, and duly proportioned. The discourse is the proposition unfolded, and the proposition is an abstract of the discourse."

Denique sit quodvis simlpex duntaxat et unum.

HOR., de Art. Poet., v. 23. "An author who does not thus methodise his discourse is not fully master of his subject: he has but an imperfect taste and a low genius. Order, indeed, is an excellence we seldom meet with in the productions of the mind. A discourse is perfect when it has at once method, propriety, strength, and vehemence. But, in order to this, the orator must have viewed, examined, and comprehended every point, that he may range each word in its proper place. This is what an ignorant declaimer, who is guided by his imagination, can never discern."-FENELON on Eloquence, p. 180, 181.

Observe how another sensible author expresses himself. "It is an infallible proof of the want of just integrity in

The art of forming transitions is as difficult to be subjected to rule as to be reduced to practice.

every writing, from the epopeï, or heroic poem, down to the familiar epistle, or slightest essay, either in verse or prose, if every several part or portion fit not its proper place so exactly that the least transposition would be impracticable. If there be any passage in the middle or end which might have stood in the beginning, or any in the beginning which might have stood as well in the middle or end, there is properly, in such a piece, neither beginning, middle, nor end; it is a mere rhapsody, not a work; and the more it assumes the air or appearance of a real work, the more ridiculous it becomes."-Characteristics, vol. iii., p. 259, 260.

Bishop BURNET gives the following direction to preach

ers:

"A text being explained, then the point upon which the sermon is to run is to be opened; and it will be the better heard and understood if there be but one point in a sermon, so that one head, and only one, is well stated and fully set out."-Discourse of the Pastoral Care, p. 249.

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 trangress 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 object must predominate throughout. This rule is

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 connexion between the last word of the paragraph which finishes and the first word of the sentence

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 preserved as to make the whole concur in some one impression upon the mind. I may employ, for instance, several different arguments to enforce the love of God; 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 discourse 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 hearers' minds."-BLAIR'S Lectures, vol. ii., p. 108.

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.

Ir a desultory style, if short expressions, in a 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 pow

erful 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.t

But, have we proper periods in our language, who

* 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.