by design into the hands of fortune, and voluntarily to quit the power of governing themselves.

The brightness of the sky, the lengthening of the days, the increasing verdure of the spring, the arrival of any piece of good news, or whatever carries with it the most distant glimpse of joy, is frequently the parent of a social and happy conversation.

Sophocles, Euripides, Pindar, Thucydides,] Demosthenes, Phidias, Apelles, were the contemporaries of Socrates or of Plato,

III. Between the object and the modifying words (adjectives and adverbs) in their inverted order,

N.B.-Adjectives have nouns for their object, adverbs either adjectives or verbs,

He was a man patient, sober, honest and industrious.

To love wisely, rationally, and prudently, is, in the opinion of lovers, not to love at all,

IV. After words in apposition with, or in opposition to, each other,

When first thy Sire to send on earth
Virtue his darling child designed,
To thee he gave the heavenly birth,
And bade thee form her infant mind,

Here, the words virtue and darling child are in

apposition with each other, and require a short pause after them.

Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles.

But when the two nouns are single, no pause is required, as,

Paul the Apostle.

Examples of words in opposition to each other. Homer was the greater genius, Virgil the better artist; in the one] we must admire the man, in the other the work | Homer] hurries us with a commanding impetuosity; leads us with an attractive majesty ||

Virgil

The pleasures of the imagination taken in their full extent are not so gross as those of sense, nor so refined as those of the understanding.

If our principles are false, no apology from ourselves can make them right; if founded in truth, no censnre from others can make them wrong.

Passions are winds to urge us o'er the wave Reason the rudder] to direct and save.

This without those
Those without this

obtains a vain employ

but urge us to destroy.

V. After the word which forms the principal subject of a discourse.

Wisdom comprehends at once the end and the means, estimates easiness or difficulty, and is cau

tious or confident in due proportion. Trials, in this state of being, are the lot of man.

A quibble is to Shakspere, what luminous vapours are to the traveller; he follows it at all adventures; it is sure to lead him out of his way, and sure to engulph him in the mire. It has some malignant power over his mind, and its fascinations are irresistible. Whatever be the dignity or the profundity of his disquisitions, whether he be enlarging knowledge or exalting affection, whether he be amusing attention with incidents or enchanting it in suspense, let but a quibble spring up before him, and he leaves his work unfinished. A quibble is the golden apple for which he will always turn aside from his career, or stoop from his elevation. A quibble, poor and barren as it is, gave him such delight, that he was content to purchase it by the sacrifice of reason, propriety, and truth. A quibble] was to him the fatal Cleopatra, for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it.-Johnson's Preface to Shakspère.

This rule must be extended to a proper name, or any word of import ince that begins a sentence.

VI. Before who, which, what and how (when it means in what manner), and before that used relatively.

A man can never be obliged to any power, unless he can be satisfied who is the person who has a

right to exercise it.

Death is the season which brings our affections to the test.

Call now to mind what high capacious powers Lie folded up in Man.

Nothing is in vain

that rouses the soul.

Oh, how wretched

Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours,

He is an evening reveller who makes
His life an infancy, and sings his fill.

Ye stars which are the poetry of heaven !

But, my Lords, who is the man that, in addition to the disgraces and mischiefs of the war, has dared to authorise and associate with our arms the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the savage?

I had a dream which was not all a dream.

N.B. The same rule generally applies when the relative is not expressed, but understood, as:

The dreadful circumstances you have supposed, did not occur,

Virtue is the only good

Man justly boasts of, or can call his own.
Tell me how I may serve you.

VII. Before that, used conjunctively.

I am glad that my weak words

Have struck but this much show of fire from Brutus.

We believe that poetry, far from injuring society, is one of the great instruments of its refinement and exaltation.

VIII. Before the infinitive mood, when not immediately preceded by a modifying word.

He left the room to see whether all was secured. The practice among the Turks is, to destroy or imprison for life any presumptive heir to the throne.

IX. Before and after a parenthesis.*

N.B.-There is often a parenthetic clause where no parenthesis is marked.

There is a place]

(If ancient and prophetic fame in heaven
Err not) another world, the happy seat
Of some new race called man.

MILTON.

Let us (since life can little more supply
Than just to look about us and to die])
Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man,
A mighty maze! but not without a plan.
POPE.

The other shape

(If shape it might be called that shape had none

* When the parenthesis is long, it should be pronounced with a degree of monotone, in order to distinguish it from the rest of the sentence. It must likewise be pronounced with greater rapidity. (See p. 62.)

VOL. I.

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