studies, and that whatever we read we may strongly mark, and inwardly digest it. Bless our parents, guardians, and instructors; and grant that we may make them the best return in our power, for giving us opportunities of improvement, and for all their care and attention to our welfare. They ask no return, but that we should make use of those opportunities, and co-operate with their endeavours-O grant that we may not disappoint their anxious expectations. Assist us mercifully, O Lord, that we may immediately engage in the studies and duties of the day, and go through them cheerfully, diligently, and successfully. Accept our endeavours, and pardon our defects, through the merits of our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. $290. An Evening Prayer. O Almighty God! again we approach: thy mercy-seat, to offer unto thee our thanks and praises for the blessings and protection afforded us this day; and humbly to implore thy pardon for our manifold transgressions. Grant that the words of various instruction which we have heard or read this day, may be so inwardly grafted in our hearts and memories, as to bring forth the fruits of learning and virtue. Grant that as we recline on our pillows, we may call to mind the transactions of the day, condemn those things of which our conscience accuses us, and make and keep resolutions of amendment. Grant that thy holy angels may watch over us this night, and guard us from temptation, excluding all improper thoughts, and filling our breasts with the purest sentiments of piety. Like as the hart panteth for the water-brook, so let our souls thirst for thee, O Lord, and for whatever is excellent and beautiful in learning and behaviour. Correct, by the sweet influence of Christian charity, the irregularities of our temper; and restrain every tendency to ingratitude, and to ill-usage of our parents, teachers, pastors, and masters. Teach us to know the value of a good education, and to be thankful to those who labour in the improvement of our minds and morals. Give us grace to be reverent to our superiors, gentle to our equals or inferiors, and benevolent to all mankind. Elevate and enlarge our sentiments, and let all our conduct be regulated by right reason, attended with Christian charity, and that peculiar generosity of mind, which becomes a liberal scholar, and a sincere Christian. O Lord, bestow upon us whatever may be good for us, even though we should is hurtful, though in the blindness of our omit to pray for it; and avert whatever hearts we should desire it. Into thy hands we resign ourselves, as we retire to rest; hoping by thy mercy, to rise again with renewed spirits, to go through the business of the morrow, and to prepare ourselves for this life, and for hope to attain, through the merits and ina blessed immortality; which we ardently tercession of thy Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 291. THE LORD'S PRAYER. Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven: Give us this day our daily bread; And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us; And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory, for ever ever.. Amen. ard END OF TIPE FIRST BOOK. ELEGANT IN PROSE. BOOK THE SECOND. CLASSICAL AND HISTORICAL. 1. Beneficial Effects of a Taste for the BELLES LETTRES. BELLES ELLES Lettres and Criticism chiefly consider Man as a being endowed with those powers of taste and imagination, which were intended to embellish his mind, and to supply him with rational and useful entertainment. They open a field of investigation peculiar to themselves. All that relates to beauty, harmony, grandeur, and elegance; all that can soothe the mind, gratify the fancy, or move the affections, belongs to their province. They present human nature under a different aspect from that which it assumes when viewed by other sciences. They bring to light various springs of action, which, without their aid, might have passed unobserved; and which, though of a delicate nature, frequently exert a powerful influence on several departments of human life. Such studies have also this peculiar advantage, that they exercise our without fatiguing it. They lead to enquiries acute, but not painful; profound, but not dry nor abstruse. They strew flowers in the path of science; and while they keep the mind bent, in some degree, and active, they relieve it at the same time from that more toilsome labour to which it must submit in the acquisition of necessary erudition, or the investigation of abstract truth. reason Blair. it naturally tends to produce on human life. The most busy man, in the most active sphere, cannot be always occupied Men of serious professions by business. cannot always be on the stretch of serious thought. Neither can the most gay and flourishing situations of fortune afford any mau the power of filling all his hours with pleasure. Life must always languish in the hands of the idle. It will frequently languish even in the hands of the busy, if they have not some employment subsidiary to that which forms their main pursuit. How then shall these vacant spaces, those unemployed intervals, which, more or less, occur in the life of every one, be filled up? How can we contrive to dispose of them in any way that shall be more agreeeble in itself, or more consonant to the dignity of the human mind, than in the entertainments of taste, and the study of polite literature? He who is so happy as to have acquired a relish for these, has always at hand an innocent and irreproachable amusement for his leisure hours, to save him from the danger of many a pernicious passion. He is not in hazard of being burden to himself. He is not obliged to fly to low company, or to court the riot of loose pleasures, in order to cure the tediousness of existence. Providence seems plainly to have pointed out this useful purpose, to which the pleasures of taste may be applied by interposing them in a middle station between $2. Beneficial Effects of the Cultivation the pleasures of sense and those of pure of TASTE. The cultivation of Taste is further recommended by the happy effects which intellect. We were not designed to grovel always among objects so low as the former; nor are we capable of dwelling con stantly in so high a region as the fatto Cc 2 The The pleasures of taste refresh the mind af- pre So consonant is this to experience, that in the education of youth, no object has in every age appeared more important to wise men than to tincture them early with a relish for the entertainments of taste. The transition is commonly made with, case from these to the discharge of the higher and more important duties of life. Good hopes may be entertained of those whose minds have this liberal and elegant turn. It is favourable to many virtues. Whereas to be entirely devoid of relish for eloquence, poetry, or any of the fine arts, is justly construed to be an unpromising symptom of youth; and raises suspicions of their being prone to low gratifications, or destined to drudge in the more vulgar and illiberal pursuits of life. Blair. 3. Improvement of TASTE connected with Improvement in VIRTUE. There are indeed few godd disposition$ of any kind with which the improvement of taste is not more or less connected. A cultivated taste increases sensibility to all the tender and humane passions, by giving them frequent exercise; while it tends to weaken the more violent and fierce emotions. -Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros*. The clevated sentiments and high examples which poetry, eloquence, and history are often bringing under our view, naturally tend to nourish in our minds public spirit, the love of glory, contempt of external fortune, and the admiration of what is truly illustrious and great. I will not go so far as to say that the improvement of taste and of virtue is the same, or that they may always be expected to co-exist in an equal degree. More powerful correctives than taste can apply; are necessary for reforming the corrupt propensities which too frequently prevail among mankind. Elegant speculations are sometimes found to float on the surface of the mind, while bad passions possess the interior regions of the heart. At the same time this cannot but be admitted, that the The polish'd arts have humaniz'd mankind, Soften'd the rude, and calm'd the boist'rous mind. exercise of taste is, in its native tendency, moral and purifying. From reading the most admired productions of genius, whether in poetry or prose, almost every one rises with some good impression left on his mind; and though these may not always be durable, they are at least to be ranked among the means of disposing the heart to virtue. One thing is certain, and I shall hereafter have occasion to illustrate it more fully, that, without possessing the virtuous affections in a strong degree, no man can attain eminence in the sublime parts of eloquence. He must feel what a good man feels, if he expects greatly to move or to interest mankind. They are the ardent sentiments of honour, virtue, magnanimity, and public spirit, that only can kindle that fire of genius, and call up into the mind those high ideas which attract the admiration of ages; and if this spirit be necessary to produce the most distinguished efforts of eloquence, it must be necessary also to our relishing them Ibid. with proper taste and feeling. It is not easy to give a precise idea of what is meant by Style. The best definition I can give of it is, the peculiar manner in which a man expresses his conceptions, by means of Language. It is dif ferent from mere Language or words. The words, which an author employs, may be proper and faultless; and his Style may, nevertheless, have great faults; it may be dry, or stiff, or feeble, or affected. Style has always some reference to an author's manner of thinking. It is a picture of the ideas which rise in his mind, and of the manner in which they rise there; and hence, when we are examining an author's composition, it is, in many cases, extremely difficult to separate the Style from the sentiment. No wonder these two should be se intimately connected, as Style is nothing else, than that sort of expression which our thoughts most readily assume. Hence, different countries have been noted for peculiarities of Style, suited to their dillerent temper and genius. The eastern nations animated their Style with the most strong and hyperbolical figures. The Athenians, a polished and acute people, formed a Style, accurate, clear, and neat. The Asiatics, gay and loose in their manners, affected a Style florid and diffuse The like sort of characteristical differences are com only remarked in the Style of the French, the the English, and the Spaniards. In giving the general characters of Style, it is usual to talk of a nervous, a feeble, or a spirited Style; which are plainly the characters of a writer's manner of thinking, as well as of expressing himself; so difficult it is to separate these two things from one another. Of the general characters of Style, I am afterwards to discourse, but it will be necessary to begin with examining the more simple qualities of it; from the assemblage of which its more complex denominations, in a great measure, result. All the qualities of a good Style may be ranged under two heads, Perspicuity and Ornament. For all that can possibly be required of Language is, to convey our ideas clearly to the minds of others, and, at the same time, in such a dress, as, by pleasing and interesting them, shall most effectually strengthen the impressions which we seek to make. When both these ends are answered, we certainly accomplish every purpose for which we use Writing and Discourse. Blair. 5. On PERSPICUITY. Perspicuity, it will be readily admitted, is the fundamental quality of Style; a quality so essential in every kind of writing, that for the want of it nothing can atone. Without this, the richest ornaments of Style only glimmer through the dark; and puzzle, instead of pleasing, the reader. This, therefore, must be our hrst object, to make our meaning clearly and fully understood, and understood without the least difficulty. "Oratio," says Quinctilian, "de"bet negligenter quoque audientibus esse 66 66 long. Mankind are too indolent to relish so much labour. They may pretend to admire the author's depth after they have discovered his meaning; but they will seldom be inclined to take up his work a second time. aperta; ut in animum audientis, sicut "sol in oculos, etiamsi in eum non inten"datur, occurrat. Quarre, non solum ut non intelligere, curandum +." If we are obliged to follow a writer with much care, to pause, and to read over his sentences a second time, in order to comprehend them fully, he will never please us “Nobis prima sit virtus, perspicuitas, propria verba, rectus ordo, non in longum dilata “conclusio; mihil neque desit, neque super "fluat." QUINCTIL. lib. viii. Authors sometimes plead the difficulty of their subject, as an excuse for the want of Perspicuity. But the excuse can rarely, if ever, be admitted. For whatever a man conceives clearly, that it is in his power, if he will be at the trouble, to put into distinct propositions, or to express clearly to others: and upon no subject ought any man to write, where he cannot think clearly. His ideas, indeed, may, very excusably, be on some subjects incomplete or inadequate; but still, as far as they go, they ought to be clear; and, wherever this is the case, Perspicuity in expressing them is always attainable. The obscurity which reigns so much among many metaphysical writers, is, for the most part, owing to the indistinctness of their own conceptions. They see the object but in a confused light; and, of course, can never exhibit it in a clear one to others. "Discourse ought always to be obvious, even to the most careless and negligent “hearer; so that the sense shall strike his mind, as the light of the sun does our eyes, though they are not directed upwards to it. We "must study, not only that every hearer may “understand us, but that it shall be impossible "for him not to understand us." Perspicuity in writing, is not to be considered as merely a sort of negative virtue, or freedom from defect. It has higher merit: it is a degree of positive beauty. We are pleased with an author, we consider him as deserving praise, who frees ust from all fatigue of searching for his meaning; who carries us through his subject without any embarrassment or confusion; whose style flows always like a limpid stream, where we see to the very bottom. Ibid. 6. On PURITY and PROPRIETY. Purity and Propriety of Language, are often used indiscriminately for each other; and, indeed, they are very nearly allied. A distinction, however, obtains between them. Purity, is the use of such words, and such constructions, as belong to the idiom of the Language which we speak; in opposition to words and phrases that are imported from other Languages, or that are obsolete, or new-coined, or used without proper authority. Propriety is the selection of such words in the Language, as the best and most established usage has appropriated to those ideas which we intend to express by them. It implies the correct and happy application of them, according to that usage, in opposition to vulgarisms, or low expressions; and to words Gc 3 and and phrases, which would be less signifi- Style may be pure, that is, it may all be When I mentioned obsolete or newcoined words as incongruous with Purity of Style, it will be easily understood, that some exceptions are to be made. On certain occasions, they may have grace. Poetry admits of greater latitude than prose, with respect to coining, or, at least, newcompounding words; yet, even here, this liberty should be used with a sparing hand. In prose, such innovations are more hazardous, and have a worse effect. They are apt to give Style an affected and conceited air; and should never be ventured upon except by such, whose established reputation gives them some degree of dictatorial power over Language. 7. On PRECISION. The exact import of Precision may be drawn from the etymology of the word. It comes from "precidere," to cut off: it imports retrenching all superfluities, and pruning the expression so, as to exhibit neither more nor less than an exact copy of his idea who uses it.. I observed before, that it is often difficult to separate the qualities of Style from the qualities of Thought; and it is found so in this instance. For in order to write with Precision, though this be properly a quality of Style; one must possess a very considerable degree of distinctness and accuracy in his manner of thinking. The words, which a man uses to express his ideas, may be faulty in three respects; They may either not express that idea which the author intends, but some other which only resembles, or is a-kin to it; or, they may express that idea, but not quite fully and completely; or, they may express it together with something more than he intends. Precision stands opposed to all these three faults; but chiefly to the last. In an author's writing with propriety, his being free from the two former faults seems implied. The words which he uses are proper; that is, they express that idea which he intends, and they express it fully; but to be Precise, siguines, that they express that idea, and no more. There is nothing in his words which introduces any foreign idea, any The introduction of foreign and learned superfluous, unseasonable accessory, so as words, unless where necessity requires to mix it confusedly with the principal them, should always be avoided. Barren object, and thereby to render, our conLanguages may need such assistances; but ception of that object loose and indistinct. ours is not one of these. Dean Swift, This requires a writer to have, himself, a one of our most correct writers, valued very clear apprehension of the object he himself much on using no words but such means to present to us; to have laid fast as were of native growth: and his Lan-hold of it in his mind; and never to waguage, nray, indeed, be considered as a standard of the strictest Purity and Propriety in the choice of words. At present, we seem to be departing from this standard. A multitude of Latin words have, of late, been poured in upon us. On some occasions, they give an appearance of elcvation and dignity to Style. But often; also, they render it stiff and forced: and, in general, a plain native Style, as it is ore intelligible to all readers, so, by a proper management of words, it may be made equally strong and expressive with this latinized English. Blair. ver in any one view he takes of it; a perfection to which, indeed, few writers attain. Ibid. $ 8. On the Use and Importance of PRECISION. The use and importance of Precision, may be deduced from the nature of the human mind. It never can view, clearly and distinctly, above one object at a time. If it must look at two or three together, especially objects among which there is resemblance or connection, it finds itself confused and embarrassed. It cannot clearly |