Charity creates much of the misery it relieves, but does not relieve all the misery it creates.-Senior.

When we meet an apparent error in a good author, we are to presume ourselves ignorant of his understanding, until we are certain that we understand his ignorance.-Coleridge.

As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth.-Cicero.

The Book of Job, the Psalms, the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, abound in sentences more or less balanced.

A group of sentences containing the development of a single topic or feature of the general subject of discourse is called a paragraph. It is indicated to the eye by indenting the initial line. Its value to the reader in announcing where the treatment of a point begins and ends can hardly be overestimated. The bearing of each constituent sentence upon what precedes should be explicit, and the passage from one sentence to another should be easy and natural. Observe how conjunctions, expletives, demonstratives, and repetitions are employed for reference, so as to make a link, as it were, between the preceding and the succeeding sentence or paragraph: there is no void to be filled up, no rupture of continuity:

Some things are valuable finally, or for themselves,-these are ends; other things are valuable, not on their own account, but as conducive towards certain ulterior ends, these are means. The value of ends is absolute, the value of means is relative. Absolute value is properly called a good,- relative value is properly called a utility. Of goods or absolute ends, there are for man but two,— perfection and happiness. By perfection is meant the full and harmonious development of all our faculties, corporeal and mental, intellectual and moral; by happiness, the complement of all the pleasures of which we are susceptible.

Now, I may state, though I cannot at present attempt to prove, that human perfection and human happiness coincide, and thus constitute, in reality, but a single end. For as, on the one hand, the perfection or full development of a power is in proportion to its

capacity of free, vigorous, and continued action, so, on the other, all pleasure is the concomitant of activity; its degree being in proportion as that activity is spontaneously intense, its prolongation in proportion as that activity is spontaneously continued; whereas, pain arises either from a faculty being restrained in its spontaneous tendency to action or from being urged to a degree, or to a continuance, of energy beyond the limit to which it of itself freely tends. To promote our perfection is thus to promote our happiness; for to cultivate fully and harmoniously our various faculties is simply to enable them, by exercise, to energise longer and stronger without painful effort; that is, to afford us a larger amount of a higher quality of enjoyment.

In considering the utility of a branch of knowledge, it behooves us, in the first place, to estimate its value as viewed simply in itself; and, in the second, its value as viewed in relation to other branches. Considered in itself, a science is valuable in proportion as its cultivation is immediately conducive to the mental improvement of the cultivator. This may be called its Absolute utility. In relation to others, a science is valuable in proportion as its study is necessary for the prosecution of other branches of knowledge. This may be called its Relative utility.

In the former point of view, that is, considered absolutely, or in itself, the philosophy of mind comprises two several utilities, according as it (1) cultivates the mind or knowing subject, by calling its faculties into exercise; and (2) furnishes the mind with a certain complement of truths or objects of knowledge. The former of these constitutes its Subjective, the latter its Objective utility. These utilities are not the same, nor do they even stand to each other in any necessary proportion. As an individual may possess an ample magazine of knowledge, and still be little better than an intellectual barbarian, so the utility of one science may be chiefly seen in affording a greater number of higher and more indisputable truths,- the utility of another in determining the faculties to a higher energy, and consequently to a higher education.—Sir William Hamilton.

From these general and preparatory observations on the nature and classification of sentences, we shall pass to a more particular consideration of the qualities necessary to make sentences perfect according to the standards of reputable practice.

CHAPTER III.

METHODS OF EXPRESSION-FIGURES.

A language without figures and metaphors would of necessity be a language without poetry.-F. W. FARrar.

You have no likes in your sermons. Christ taught that the kingdom of Heaven was like to leaven hid in meal-like to a grain of mustard, etc. You tell us what things are, but never what they are like.-ROBERT HALL.

BE

EFORE entering, however, upon an examination of the classified excellences of expression, it is thought best to give distinct and ample consideration to a subject on which each of them is largely dependent — a subject of vast importance, whether we regard the growth of language; the lustre and the power of composition, or the just appreciation of literary art. We refer to those deviations from the plain and ordinary mode of speaking which conduce to the greater effectiveness of poetry and of prose: as, when a commentator says of an approving conscience, 'How delightful it is to have the bird in the bosom sing sweetly'; or when St. Paul enumerates different topics with an unusual omission of conjunctions:

Be ye kindly affectionate one to another, with brotherly love, in honor preferring one another, not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer, distributing to the necessities of the saints, given to hospitality.

Such departures from the customary, each having a cast or turn peculiar to itself, much as the shape of one body distinguishes it from another, are called Figures of Speech. They affect the form, meaning, and arrangement of words, rising in value and complexity from a designedly false

16

My soul is an enchanted boat,

Which like a sleeping swan doth float

Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing,

And thine doth like an angel sit

Beside the helm conducting it,

we are not to imagine that the words in these lines are
used in their ordinary sense, which would make the whole
a piece of arrant nonsense. Yet the enchanted boat, the
sleeping swan, the silver waves, and the angel sitting at
the helm form, by their suggestions to our fancy, a vivid
picture of the soul's quiet and dream-like rapture. The
face of the words imports one thing-a material object;
their intent, another-a spiritual condition. When, as
in these examples, words are employed to signify some-
thing different from their original and common meaning,
they are said to be used figuratively. The literal mean-
ing being the one first given to a word, a figurative
meaning is a meaning different from the first, yet sug-
gested by it on account of a similarity. Thus the literal
meaning of head is that part of the body containing the
brain: its figurative meaning is any secondary use to
denote a similar relation of parts; as, the head of this
chapter, the head of a column, the head of a stream.
The word dull is literally applied to a sensible object-
an edged tool. Imagining that there is some likeness
between the mental effect of a stupid essay and the ma-
terial effect of a blunt instrument, we may speak of the
essay as being dull-using the word in an extended or
changed sense. 'A deep stream' is literal. A deep
thinker' is figurative. Sometimes the deviation is, as has
been intimated, formal rather than significant. Thus:
I saw a vision in my sleep

That gave my spirit strength to sweep
Adown the gulf of time.-Campbell.