missed the effect of the original in the passage, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city." By placing the participle of the predicate first, the force is restored: "Fallen, fallen, is Babylon, that great city."

The verbal root may be made to precede the auxiliary in compound tenses; as, "go I must," "do it he shall."

The object of the verb is brought forward to the place of emphasis in these examples: "Silver and gold have I none." "Such bursts of horrid thunder,

Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never

Remember to have heard."

"They could take their rest, for they knew Lord Stratford watched. Him they feared, him they trusted, him they obeyed."

The adverb, when unusually emphatic, is occasionally made to precede; as, "Up goes my grave Impudence to the maid." The negative adverb may thus be made emphatic.

"Not in the legions

Of horrid hell, can come a devil more damn'd
In ills to top Macbeth."

"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord," &c.

The place immediately after a conjunction, adverb, or adverbial clause, beginning a sentence, is emphatic, as in Mil

ton:

"At last his sail-broad vans

He spreads for flight.”

Also the place after the name of an object addressed:

"Powers and dominions, deities of heaven,

Me, tho' just right and the fixed laws of heaven
Did first create your leader,-"

"Among many nations there was no king like Solomon; nevertheless, even him did outlandish women cause to sin."

Thirdly, the place after a call to attention; as, “Behold, now is the accepted time."

In the following example, the inverted arrangement has to be aided by a pleonasm: "Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?"

The foregoing are Campbell's chief illustrations of the change of order for effect. We have still to see the reasons.

PLACE OF QUALIFYING WORDS.

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65. There are certain principles of arrangement that enable us more readily to apprehend the meaning of a complex statement.*

The first is that qualifying words should precede the object that they qualify; as, a black horse, a decidedly favorable answer.

This principle is otherwise expressed thus: "No concrete image should be suggested until the materials for it have been presented." The reason is, that if the name of the concrete thing is given first, "horse," for example, the image formed by the mind is likely to be wrong; probably a bay horse, as the most common, is pictured. Hence, when the word "black" is added, the mental image must be unmade; the bay color has to be suppressed and the black inserted, unless we have been accustomed to suspend the act of conceiving until all the expected qualifications are known. It is, therefore, better that the word black should prepare the way for the mention of horse. The English usage of placing the adjective before the noun is thus justified on principle. So with the adverb and the verb.

As the predicate of a proposition modifies the subject, like an adjective immediately qualifying it, there is a ground for making the predicate precede the subject. The mention of "great" should precede "the mystery of godliness," as it is under the condition implied in "great" that the mystery is meant to be imagined. The following verse from Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner," although elliptical in its structure, illustrates the general principle :—

Alone, alone, all all alone,

Alone on a wide wide sea !
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony."

When the predicate verb is accompanied by some limit or qualification as its complement, the limiting circumstances ought to come first. The priority of the verb, as well as of

*Taken from Herbert Spencer's Essay on the Philosophy of Style (Essays, p. 228).

the complement, is illustrated in the opening of Keats's "Hyperion":

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale,

Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon and eve's one star,
Sat gray-haired Saturn, quiet as a stone."

A conditional clause precedes the main clause, from the same consideration. If the main clause stands first, the hearer conceives it unconditionally, and then has to re-shape his conception. And generally, subordinate clauses are properly made to come before their principal. Containing, as the subordinate proposition does, some qualifying or explanatory idea, its priority prevents misconception of the principal one, and therefore saves the mental effort needed to correct such misconception.

The following is an example of the conditional clause placed first: "Were the honor given to wealth and to title bestowed exclusively on high achievements and intrinsic worth, how immense would be the stimulus to progress

י !

In the next example, two subordinate statements are given in advance, and the principal comes last.

"The secrecy once maintained in respect to the parliamentary debates, is still thought needful in diplomacy; and, in virtue of this secret diplomacy, England may any day be unawares betrayed by its ministers into a war costing a hundred thousand lives, and hundreds of millions of treasure; yet the English pique themselves on being a self-governed people!

66. A second principle is, that the words and expressions most nearly related in thought should be placed closest together. This consideration may prevent the foregoing principle from being carried out to the full.

The longer the time that elapses between the mention of the qualifying clause and that which it qualifies, the longer must the mind be burdened with unemployed ideas; and the burden is increased according to the number of qualifying clauses. Hence, other considerations being equal, preference is to be given to the arrangement that entails the fewest and the shortest suspensions. The following instance will illustrate what is meant :

ARRANGEMENT OF QUALIFYING CLAUSES.

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"A modern newspaper-statement, though probably true, would be laughed at, if quoted in a book as testimony; but the letter of a court gossip is thought good historical evidence, if written some centuries ago." Here the closely related clauses, "a modern newspaper-statement," and "if quoted in a book as testimony," are too far apart. Then, again, if both the qualifying clauses to "a newspaper-statement" ("though probably true," and "if quoted in a book as testimony"), were to precede, the suspension would be more than we are accustomed to. In such a case, the best arrangement is to place the subject between the two qualifying members, thus bringing it close to both. "Though probably true, a modern newspaper-statement, quoted in a book as testimony, would be laughed at; but the letter of a court gossip, if written some centuries ago, is thought good historical evidence."

To give another example. "We came to our journey's end, at last, with no small difficulty, after much fatigue, through deep roads, and bad weather." This sentence violates the principle just laid down, the qualifications being all placed after the statement qualified. On the other hand, the strict carrying out of that principle would cause too many suspensions: "At last, with no small difficulty, after much fatigue, through deep roads, and bad weather, we came to our journey's end." By arranging the qualifying clauses on the plan of beginning with the most abstract, and by carrying backward the verb and its subject we came, so as to enclose them in the middle of the qualifying clauses, and thereby shorten the suspensions, we get the best arrangement, as follows: "At last, with no small difficulty, and after much fatigue, we came, through deep roads, and bad weather, to our journey's end!"

In the consideration of the Sentence, there will be a farther reference to the principles of arrangement.

CHAPTER IV.

THE QUALITIES OF STYLE.

67. Under the great variety of descriptive words employed to denote the merits and the demerits of style, we may discern a few leading qualities.

In what has already been said regarding the Figures of Speech, and the Number and the Arrangement of Words, explanations have been furnished of many characteristics of style. A composition abounding in any one of the figures would be described by an epithet derived from the name of that figure; as, Metaphorical, Antithetical, Epigrammatic, Hyperbolical, Ironical, Sarcastic, Elliptical. A profusion of figurative language generally would receive the designations-Figurative, Flowery, Ornate, Imaginative, Illustrative; to which are opposed the Plain, Dry, Bald. The number of words employed determines, on the one hand, the Diffuse or Verbose, and, on the other, the Terse or Concise. So, according to the arrangement of the words we would distinguish the Natural or Flowing from the Inverted or Involved style.

With reference to THOUGHT, or meaning, there are two chief qualities-Simplicity and Clearness.

As regards FEELING, there is an important contrast between what is designated by the terms Strength, Energy, the Sublime, and the qualities denominated Feeling, Pathos, and Beauty (in a narrow sense); a contrast answering to the opposition of the Active and Passive sides of our nature. To these two classes of effects, we must add the peculiar qualities denoted by the Ludicrous, Humor and Wit.

It is necessary, further, to consider the Melody of language, and also Expressiveness, that is, the suiting of the sound to the

sense.

Finally, a few observations are needed on the meanings of Taste.