CXXXI.

Periodi.-Obscuritas offundit tenebras.-Superlatio. -Periods are beautiful, when they are not too long; for so they have their strength too, as in a pike or javelin. As we must take the care that our words and sense be clear; so if the obscurity happen through the hearer's or reader's want of understanding, I am not to answer for them, no more than for their not listening or marking; I must neither find them ears nor mind. But a man cannot put a word so in sense, but something about it will illustrate it, if the writer understand himself. For order helps much to perspicuity, as confusion hurts. Rectitudo lucem adfert; obliquitas et circumductio offuscat. We should therefore speak what we can the nearest way, so as we keep our gait, not leap; for too short may as well be not let into the memory, as too long not kept in. Whatsoever loseth the grace and clearness, converts into a riddle: the obscurity is marked, but not the value. That perisheth, and is passed by, like the pearl in the fable. Our style should be like a skein of silk, to be carried and found by the right thread, not ravelled and perplexed; then all is a knot, a heap. There are words that do as much raise a style, as others can depress it. Superlation and over-muchness amplifies. It may be above faith, but never above a mean. It was ridiculous in Cestius, when he said of Alexander :

Fremit oceanus, quasi indignetur, quòd terras relinquas;

But propitiously from Virgil:

Credas innare revulsas

Cycladas.

He doth not say it was so, but seemed to be so. Although it be somewhat incredible, that is excused

before it be spoken. But there are hyperboles which will become one language, that will by no means admit another. As Eos esse P. R. exercitus, qui cœlum possint perrumpere, who would say with us, but a madman? Therefore we must consider in every tongue what is used, what received. Quintilian warns us, that in no kind of translation, or metaphor, or allegory, we make a turn from what we began; as if we fetch the original of our metaphor from sea, and billows, we end not in flames and ashes it is a most foul inconsequence. Neither must we draw out our allegory too long, lest either we make ourselves obscure, or fall into affectation, which is childish. But why do men depart at all from the right and natural ways of speaking? sometimes for necessity, when we are driven, or think it fitter to speak that in obscure words, or by circumstance, which uttered plainly would offend the hearers. Or to avoid obsceneness, or sometimes for pleasure, and variety, as travellers turn out of the highway, drawn either by the commodity of a foot-path, or the delicacy or freshness of the fields. And all this is called εσχηματισμηνη, or figured language.

CXXXII.

Oratio imago animi.-Language most shews a man: Speak, that I may see thee. It springs out of the most retired and inmost parts of us, and is the image of the parent of it, the mind. No glass renders a man's form, or likeness so true as his speech. Nay, it is likened to a man and as we consider feature and composition in a man, so words in language; in the greatness, aptness, sound, structure, and harmony of it.

d Cæsar Comment. circa fin.

CXXXIII.

Structura et statura, sublimis, humilis, pumila.Some men are tall and big, so some language is high and great. Then the words are chosen, their sound ample, the composition full, the absolution plenteous, and poured out, all grave, sinewy, and strong. Some are little and dwarfs; so of speech it is humble and low, the words poor and flat, the members and periods thin and weak, without knitting or number.

CXXXIV.

Mediocris plana et placida.-The middle are of a just stature. There the language is plain and pleasing; even without stopping, round without swelling: all well-torned, composed, elegant, and accurate.

CXXXV.

Vitiosa oratio, vasta-tumens-enormis-affectata -abjecta.—The vicious language is vast, and gaping, swelling, and irregular: when it contends to be high, full of rock, mountain, and pointedness: as it affects to be low, it is abject, and creeps, full of bogs and holes. And according to their subject these styles vary, and lose their names: for that which is high and lofty, declaring excellent matter, becomes vast and tumorous, speaking of petty and inferior things so that which was even and apt in a mean and plain subject, will appear most poor and humble in a high argument. Would you not laugh to meet a great counsellor of state in a flat cap, with his trunk hose, and a hobby-horse cloak, his gloves under his girdle, and yond haberdasher in a velvet gown, furred with sables? There is a certain latitude in these things, by which we find the degrees.

CXXXVI.

Figura.-The next thing to the stature, is the

figure and feature in language; that is, whether it be round and straight, which consists of short and succinct periods, numerous and polished, or square and firm, which is to have equal and strong parts every where answerable, and weighed.

CXXXVII.

Cutis sive cortex. Compositio.-The third is the skin and coat, which rests in the well-joining, cementing, and coagmentation of words; when as it is smooth, gentle, and sweet, like a table upon which you may run your finger without rubs, and your nail cannot find a joint; not horrid, rough, wrinkled, gaping, or chapt after these, the flesh, blood, and bones come in question.

CXXXVIII.

Carnosa-adipata-redundans.—We say it is a fleshy style, when there is much periphrasis, and circuit of words; and when with more than enough, it grows fat and corpulent; arvina orationis, full of suet and tallow. It hath blood and juice when the words are proper and apt, their sound sweet, and the phrase neat and picked. Oratio uncta, et benè pasta. But where there is redundancy, both the blood and juice are faulty and vicious. Redundat sanguine, quia multò plus dicit, quàm necesse est. Juice in language is somewhat less than blood; for if the words be but becoming and signifying, and the sense gentle, there is juice; but where that wanteth, the language is thin, flagging, poor, starved, scarce covering the bone, and shews like stones in a sack.

CXXXIX.

Jejuna, macilenta, strigosa.-Ossea, et nervosa.— Some men, to avoid redundancy, run into that; and while they strive to have no ill blood or juice, they

lose their good. There be some styles again, that have not less blood, but less flesh and corpulence. These are bony and sinewy; Ossa habent, et

nervos.

CXL. V

Nota domini Sti. Albani de doctrin. intemper.Dictator.- Aristoteles. It was well noted by the late lord St. Alban, that the study of words is the first distemper of learning; vain matter the second; and a third distemper is deceit, or the likeness of truth; imposture held up by credulity. All these are the cobwebs of learning and to let them grow in us, is either sluttish, or foolish. Nothing is more ridiculous than to make an author a dictator, as the schools have done Aristotle. The damage is infinite knowledge receives by it; for to many things a man should owe but a temporary belief, and suspension of his own judgment, not an absolute resignation of himself, or a perpetual captivity. Let Aristotle and others have their dues; but if we can make farther discoveries of truth and fitness than they, why are we envied? Let us beware, while we strive to add, we do not diminish, or deface; we may improve, but not augment. By discrediting falsehood, truth grows in request. We must not go about, like men anguished and perplexed, for vicious affectation of praise: but calmly study the separation of opinions, find the errors have intervened, awake antiquity, call former times into question; but make no parties with the present, nor follow any fierce undertakers, mingle no matter of doubtful credit with the simplicity of truth, but gently stir the mould about the root of the question, and avoid all digladiations, facility of credit, or superstitious simplicity, seek the consonancy, and concatenation of truth; stoop only to point of necessity, and what leads to convenience. Then make