crete terms, and refer directly to things and actions, and their qualities as connected with them. Mixed subjects, which introduce both general and particular, abstract and concrete ideas, are properly discussed in terms which are drawn from both of the original sources of the language, in proportions depending on the comparative equality or preponderance of either form of thought. We find, accordingly, that good usage, in English writing, associates words of Latin etymology with the style of composition adopted in the language of philosophic theories, theoretical expositions, doctrinal discussions, rhetorical essays, scientific discourses, and other abstract and generalized modes of thought; but the homely Saxon vocabulary with ordinary affairs, domestic life, daily occurrences, familiar letters, and common conversation. The primitive character of the Saxon renders it, also, the fitting style of narrative and descriptive, though not of didactic poetry. Oratory and poetry, in their grandest forms, range through both of these fields, as well as all others within the domain of language. This trait, accordingly, is a striking characteristic in the style of Burke and Chatham, and in that of Milton and Shakspeare. A degree of this high attainment, however, is indispensable to every person who wishes to possess the humble merit of using his own language aright, even in conversation and in letter-writing. But to the student who would become “a scholar, and a ripe and good one", in the noble language which, as a professional man, he is to have in daily use, for the best and noblest purposes of communication, a perfect command over all its resources, is a worthy object of the highest ambition and the most assiduous application. EXERCISE. (1.) One useful form of exercise on the expressive power of words, as dependent on the source whence they are derived, consists in translating a given passage, in which terms of Latin origin prevail, into words purely Saxon. (2.) Another exercise serves the opposite purpose, of translating an idiomatic and vernacular passage from Anglo-Saxon into Latinized phraseology.(3.) A third course of exercises, consists in composing sentences with purely vernacular words predominating. — (4.) A fourth, in the opposite process of composing in Latinized diction; and (5.) a fifth, in composing sentences and paragraphs in which the phraseology intermingles both these forms of our language.* Suggestion to Teachers. A useful exercise for young pupils, in this department of practical grammar, may be found by prescribing a didactic paragraph, from any reading-lesson not too difficult, in its style of expression, for the understanding of a given class, to be turned into "plainer" language, with more or less aid, as may seem necessary, allowed from the use of the dictionary. This exercise not only contributes to skill in language, but greatly facilitates the comprehension of ideas, and is an excellent preparation for an intelligent and appropriate style of reading, as regards the right expression of the sense of what is read. Few exercises have more power than this, to call forth the judgment, and develope the understanding. None serves more effectually to keep the mind in the mood of wakeful *The extracts presented for the Analysis of Composition, in subsequent pages of this manual, will furnish convenient material for exercises in Variation of Expression. attention and lively interest in relation to the subject which, for the time, is presented as the groundwork of thought. - Suggestions to Students. All the great writers to whom we are referred as models in the use of words, are characterised by one common trait of critical judgment and skill, the exact adaptation of expression to thought; their style ever varying with the character of the subject of their composition. The greatest authors are least marked by the mechanical vice of mannerism. They preserve their personal identity in style, but vary, with the utmost ease, the complexion of their language with that of their subject. A language so copious as ours, affords little room for any apology for a narrow uniformity of style. No language is so well entitled to insist on the great canon, that expression should ever wear the living, shifting hue of thought. The genius of our tongue offers to him who would express himself worthily, on any subject, the largest choice of utterance, from the heights of poetic inspiration, to the humblest strains of ordinary life. A due attention to the obligation which ever lies on writers of the English language, to embrace the liberal opportunities which it offers them of adapting their uses of words to all varieties of occasion, is a matter of the utmost moment to the formation of style. The taste of our day demands the freest scope for expression. It forbids the stately regularity of even our best classic essayists of the past, as a model. But the license sometimes arising from a misinterpretation of freedom, leads, too frequently, to the fatal mistake that wild irregularity is inspired originality, or hardened mannerism independent individuality, or that low familiarity is pure Saxon. The careful study of authors, as models of style, is of great value, if rightly directed. To catch the spirit, not the manner, of a writer, should be the student's aim; to take every author as a model in that in which he excels, as a pervading effect, not in his turns of expression and favorite words. Adopting the true, liberal interpretation of the influence of example, the young writer may avoid every evil of imitation, while he acquires simplicity from Addison, dignity from Johnson, ease from Goldsmith, sublimity from Burke, plainness from Locke or Franklin, eloquence from Macaulay, strength and grandeur from Webster, elegance from Everett, and pliancy and grace from Irving. Johnson, however, in relation to our present subject, the choice of expression from the two great sources of our language,—may be fairly mentioned as a writer who carries to extreme the use of Latin phraseology, applying it indiscriminately to all subjects, and thus rendering his style heavy and uninteresting, to a degree which leaves the Rambler, in our day, undisturbed on the shelf, or causes him to be read with a listless attention, which we ascribe to the dulness of the writer. Goldsmith, on the other hand, from his fondness for familiar expression, falls, sometimes, below the dignity of a general theme; and, when writing on an elevated or abstract subject, disappoints alike the mind and the ear, by dropping suddenly from a noble height and extent of ideal survey, to an illustration comparatively low and narrow. But Addison, with his fine perception and disciplined taste, exemplifies that perfect command of expression which enables him to mould his language at will; and, in his beautiful essays, at one moment to expatiate in the widest scope of elevated and excursive thought, and, at another, to dwell on the homeliest circumstances of daily life, in equally appropriate but totally different forms of diction. Johnson has not a little of the magniloquence of an ambitious public speaker. Gold smith occasionally falls into a phraseology which savors too much of the company with which he often condescended to associate. Addison writes as a man of general culture, who carries with him, everywhere, the trained discernment and refined taste of a scholar, blended with the ease and dignity of a gentleman. Among the writers of our own country, Franklin forms an instructive example of an easy command of both the great elements of English expression, in the perfect propriety and excellent adaptation of language with which he writes on general subjects connected with morals and politics, and the peculiar facility with which he comes down to the humblest affairs of daily experience in domestic and individual life; passing from the one to the other of these styles, without an effort, and never, for a moment, betraying a lapse of critical judgment, or a fault in taste. His style has not the charm of polished elegance which attracts us to Addison; but its perfect simplicity and entire freedom have an influence scarcely inferior. A distinguished example, nearer to our own day, in whom we trace the same discriminating soundness of judgment, and a yet nobler mastery over all forms of our language, with an apparently unconscious purity of taste, and a felicitous power of adapting expression to every elevated form of thought, we find in our great national orator, Webster. As we trace the successive pages of one of his discourses, on whatever occasion, we find no false swell of style, no parade of lofty diction. The words which he employs, are those which we hear daily in intelligent conversation, or read in the productions of chaste and classical writers, -but always the most fitting to his subject; and, even in the highest flights of his oratory, there is a manly plainness of expression from which he never departs. |