Sinful pleasures blast the opening prospects of human felicity, and degrade human honor.

In this state of mind, every employment of life becomes an oppressive burden, and every object appears gloomy.

These arguments were, without hesitation, and with great eagerness, laid hold of.

Form your measures with prudence; but all over-anxiety about the issue, divest yourself of.

Many would gladly exchange their honors, beauty and riches, for that more quiet and humble station, which you are now dissatisfied with.

We often acknowledge the existence of beauty, without inquiring intɔ the cause of it.

Under all its labors, hope is the mind's solace; and the situations which exclude it entirely are few.

The humbling of the mighty, and the precipitation of the ambitious, concern the bulk of us but little.

What an anchor is to a ship on a boisterous ocean, near a coast unknown, and in a dark night, is, when distracted by the confusions of the world, the hope of future happiness to the soul.

The British constitution stands, like an ancient oak in the wood, among the nations of the earth, which, after having overcome many a blast, overtops the other trees of the forest, and commands respect and awe.

Words may be chosen which shall in sound resemble the sounds of various objects which we may endeavor to describe, such as the sound of winds, or of flowing streams of water: thus we speak of the whistling of winds, the buzz and hum of insects, the hiss of serpents, the crash of falling trees.

Milton, by a skilful choice of words, happily discriminates the sounds of the opening of Heaven's gates, from those of Hell, in the following passages:

-"On a sudden, open fly,

With impetuous recoil, and jarring sound,

Th' infernal doors; and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder."

"Heaven opened wide

Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound,
On golden hinges turning."

Again, it is in the power of words, by their sound, to represent motion as swift or slow, violent or gentle, easy or laborious. Words of long syllables give the impression of slow motion; while a Fuccession of short syllables suggests to the mind rapid motion.

It will be noticed how effectively huge size, slowness and difficulty of motion, heaviness, and unwieldiness, are expressed in the lines of Milton:

The account of Satan's journey, in the Ninth Book of the Paradise Lost, is an exquisite specimen of harmonious composition.

Pope's poetical writings exhibit also many fine illustrations of the harmonious structure of sentences, and of the imitative harmony of sound and sense: for instance,

"And ten low words oft creep in one dull line,

Which, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along."

"But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,

The hoarse, rough verse, should like the torrent roar."

"With many a weary step, and many a groan,

Up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone."

"Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows."
"Deep-echoing groan the thickets brown,
Then rustling, crackling, crushing, thunder down."
"First march the heavy mules, securely slow,
O'er hills, o'er dales, o'er crags, o'er rocks they go."

"Just writes to make his barrenness appear,

And strains from hard-bound brains eight lines a year."

LESSON XCIII.

THE NATURE AND QUALITIES OF STYLE.

THE SIMPLE, OR NATURAL STYLE.

Style is the manner in which we express our thoughts by means of language. This manner ought to vary with

the subject. Dr. Blair speaks of style as being either dif fuse or concise; nervous or feeble; dry or florid; simple or affected; plain, neat, or elegant; and vehement.

Mr. Williams, whom we shall follow, considers style under the threefold division of Simple or Natural, Elegant, and Sublime.

The Simple or Natural Style.

"Simplicity of style," says Dr. Beattie, "is not easily acquired, or described; it is the effect of much practice, a clear understanding, and great knowledge of the language. A simple style is perfectly easy, natural, and perspicuous, without either defect or redundance. It admits of ornament; but all its ornaments seem to present themselves of their own accord, without being sought for. It conveys the idea of great plainness and candor in the writer, and looks more like the work of chance than of art, though in reality it is the effect of great art. But it is only by studying the best authors (for they in every language are in style the simplest), that one can either understand this simplicity or practice it. In simplicity, and in harmony, Addison is a model. The style of Scripture, especially in the historical parts and in the Psalms, is majestically and inimitably simple."

The Natural or Simple Style adopts the logical order of a sen tence the subject being presented first, and the predicate following.

The peculiar properties of Simplicity of Style, are plainness, neatness, conciseness, vivacity, vigor of thought and of expression. It is defective, when it is harsh, dry, abrupt, obscure, feeble, verbose, florid, affected, or artificial.

The simple style is adapted to all subjects, to the most obvious, and to the most abstruse and profound. It is suited to all kinds of writing-descriptive, didactic, moral, epistolary, philosophical, or humorous. It is compatible with grace and ornament.

Not only in diction, but in thought, should simplicity be studied. The most obvious association of ideas should be observed in pass ing from each sentence to the following one.

A narration should proceed in the order of cause and effect, according to the succession of circumstances, and in the order of time

in which they happened; as in the following description of a storm: "The wind raged, the lightning flashed, the thunder roared, the storm was indeed terrific." The same facts stated in a reversed order, or from effect to cause, is less natural and lively: "The storm was indeed terrific, the thunder roared, the wind raged, the lightning flashed, and the rain fell in torrents.”

Among other works that abound in simplicity of diction and thought, may be named the letters of Gray, Cowper, Burns; the Commentaries of Blackstone, the writings of Franklin, of Webster, and of Washington Irving.

EXERCISES.

The following specimens of Simple or Natural Style may be transcribed, supplying capital letters where rcquired, and punctuating according to the rules heretofore given:

APRIL! the singing month many voices of many birds call for resurrection over the graves of flowers and they come forth go see what they have lost what have ice and snow and storm done unto them how did they fall into the earth stripped and bare how do they come forth opening and glorified is it then so fearful a thing to lie in the grave in its wild career shaking and scourged of storms through its orbit the earth has scattered away no treasures the hand that governs in april governed in january you have not lost what god has only hidden you lose nothing in struggle in trial in bitter distress if called to shed thy joys as trees their leaves if the affections be driven back into the heart as the life of flowers to their roots yet be patient thou shalt lift up thy leaf-covered boughs again roots new flowers be patient wait off secretly the plants love each other

thou shalt shoot forth from thy when it is february april is not far H. W. B.

LESSON XCIV.

THE ELEGANT STYLE. THE SUBLIME STYLE.

The Elegant or Graceful Style possesses not only the qualities described in the last lesson, but also a certain

copiousness of expression, and all the embellishments of figurative language.

By copiousness is not meant an easy flow of high-sounding words, or the use of a multitude of synonymous words; but it consists in the use of expressions suited to convey all the various modifications of thought. An elegant writer is one who clothes his ideas in all the beauty of expression, while he avoids all misplaced finery. When ornament is too rich and gaudy for the sub.. ject; when it is too abundant and wears a dazzling brilliancy, the style is denominated florid. This may be pardoned and indulged in a young writer; but a tinsel splendor of diction which some writers constantly affect, is not true elegance, nor does it afford pleasure to persons of cultivated taste.

For specimens of the Elegant style we may refer to the writings of Irving, Scott, Hume, Robertson, Bancroft, Prescott, Webster, Clay, Everett, &c.

The Sublime Style.-The office of this kind of style, is to describe the grand and sublime agents and works of nature, the magnificent productions of art, the great actions of men, the lofty affections of the human mind, with simplicity, conciseness, and strength.

Whatever ennobles human nature, and displays superior energy of intellectual and moral qualities, is a proper subject for this kind of style: for example, an heroic disregard of danger in the performance of duty; great presence of mind in difficulties and perils; disinterested and expanded benevolence; a virtuous superiority to the debased propensities of human nature and to the corrupt practices of society; a calm and dignified self-possession amid the agitations of the passions.

To write with sublimity, to furnish a sublime description of great objects and events, a vivid and energetic conception of them must be formed, and a judicious selection made of the most affecting circumstances connected with them. Mean and inadequate ideas, trivial circumstances, a turgid pomp of expression, a parade of high-sounding words, an accumulation of epithets, and all forced embellishments, are incompatible with true sublimity of language. The sublime lies in the thought, not in the words. When the