The Grammar of English Grammars Part 100

"Were Demosthenes's Philippics spoken in a British a.s.sembly, in a similar conjuncture of affairs, they would convince and persuade at this day. The rapid style, the vehement reasoning, the disdain, anger, boldness, freedom, which perpetually animate them, would render their success infallible over any modern a.s.sembly. I question whether the same can be said of Cicero's orations; whose eloquence, however beautiful, and however well suited to the Roman taste, yet borders oftener on declamation, and is more remote from the manner in which we now expect to hear real business and causes of importance treated."--_Blair's Rhet._, p. 248.

"In fact, every attempt to present on paper the splendid effects of impa.s.sioned eloquence, is like gathering up dewdrops, which appear jewels and pearls on the gra.s.s, but run to water in the hand; the essence and the elements remain, but the grace, the sparkle, and the form, are gone."--_Montgomery's Life of Spencer_.

"As in life true dignity must be founded on character, not on dress and appearance; so in language the dignity of composition must arise from sentiment and thought, not from ornament."--_Blair's Rhet._, p. 144.

"And man, whose heaven-erected face the smiles of love adorn, Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn."

--_Burns_.

"Ah wretched man! unmindful of thy end!

A moment's glory! and what fates attend."

--_Pope, Iliad_, B. xvii, l. 231.

LESSON III.--ADJECTIVES.

"Embarra.s.sed, obscure, and feeble sentences, are generally, if not always, the result of embarra.s.sed, obscure, and feeble thought."--_Blair's Rhet._, p. 120.

"Upon this ground, we prefer a simple and natural, to an artificial and affected style; a regular and well-connected story, to loose and scattered narratives; a catastrophe which is tender and pathetic, to one which leaves us unmoved."--_Ib._, p. 23.

"A thorough good taste may well be considered as a power compounded of natural sensibility to beauty, and of improved understanding."--_Ib._, p.

18.

"Of all writings, ancient or modern, the sacred Scriptures afford us the highest instances of the sublime. The descriptions of the Deity, in them, are wonderfully n.o.ble; both from the grandeur of the object, and the manner of representing it."--_Ib._, p. 36.

"It is not the authority of any one person, or of a few, be they ever so eminent, that can establish one form of speech in preference to another.

Nothing but the general practice of good writers and good speakers can do it."--_Priestley's Gram._, p. 107.

"What other means are there to attract love and esteem so effectual as a virtuous course of life? If a man be just and beneficent, if he be temperate, modest, and prudent, he will infallibly gain the esteem and love of all who know him."--_Kames, El. of Crit._, i, 167.

"But there are likewise, it must be owned, people in the world, whom it is easy to make worse by rough usage, and not easy to make better by any other."--_Abp. Seeker_.

"The great comprehensive truth written in letters of living light on every page of our history--the language addressed by every past age of New England to all future ages, is this: Human happiness has no perfect security but freedom;--freedom, none but virtue;--virtue, none but knowledge: and neither freedom, nor virtue, nor knowledge, has any vigour or immortal hope, except in the principles of the Christian faith, and in the sanctions of the Christian religion."--_President Quincy_.

"For bliss, as thou hast part, to me is bliss; Tedious, unshared with thee, and odious soon."

--_P. Lost_, B. ix, l. 880.

LESSON IV.--p.r.o.nOUNS.

"There is but one governor whose sight we cannot escape, whose power we cannot resist: a sense of His presence and of duty to Him, will accomplish more than all the laws and penalties which can be devised without it."--_Woodbridge, Lit. C._, p. 154.

"Every voluntary society must judge who shall be members of their body, and enjoy fellows.h.i.+p with them in their peculiar privileges."--_Watts_.

"Poetry and impa.s.sioned eloquence are the only sources from which the living growth of a language springs; and even if in their vehemence they bring down some mountain rubbish along with them, this sinks to the bottom, and the pure stream flows along over it."--_Philological Museum_, i, 645.

"This use is bounded by the province, county, or district, which gives name to the dialect, and beyond which its peculiarities are sometimes unintelligible, and always ridiculous."--_Campbell's Rhet._, p. 163.

"Every thing that happens, is both a cause and an effect; being the effect of what goes before, and the cause of what follows."--_Kames, El. of Crit._, ii, 297.

"Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it."--_Prov._, iii, 27.

"Yet there is no difficulty at all in ascertaining the idea. * * * By reflecting upon that which is myself now, and that which was myself twenty years ago, I discern they are not two, but one and the same self."--_Butler's a.n.a.logy_, p. 271.

"If you will replace what has been long expunged from the language, and extirpate what is firmly rooted, undoubtedly you yourself become an innovator."--_Campbell's Rhet._, p. 167; _Murray's Gram._, 364.

"To speak as others speak, is one of those tacit obligations, annexed to the condition of living in society, which we are bound in conscience to fulfill, though we have never ratified them by any express promise; because, if they were disregarded, society would be impossible, and human happiness at an end."--See _Murray's Gram._, 8vo, p. 139.

"In England _thou_ was in current use until, perhaps, near the commencement of the seventeenth century, though it was getting to be regarded as somewhat disrespectful. At Walter Raleigh's trial, c.o.ke, when argument and evidence failed him, insulted the defendant by applying to him the term _thou_. 'All that Lord Cobham did,' he cried, 'was at _thy_ instigation, _thou_ viper! for I _thou_ thee, _thou_ traitor!'"--_Fowler's E. Gram._, --220.

"Th' Egyptian crown I to your hands remit; And with it take his heart who offers it."--_Shakspeare_.

LESSON V.--VERBS.

"Sensuality contaminates the body, depresses the understanding, deadens the moral feelings of the heart, and degrades man from his rank in the creation."--_Murray's Key_, ii, p. 231.

"When a writer reasons, we look only for perspicuity; when he describes, we expect embellishment; when he divides, or relates, we desire plainness and simplicity."--_Blair's_ _Rhet._, p. 144.

"Livy and Herodotus are diffuse; Thucydides and Sall.u.s.t are succinct; yet all of them are agreeable."--_Ib._, p. 178.

"Whenever petulant ignorance, pride, malice, malignity, or envy, interposes to cloud or sully his fame, I will take upon me to p.r.o.nounce that the eclipse will not last long."--_Dr. Delany_.

"She said she had nothing to say, for she was resigned, and I knew all she knew that concerned us in this world; but she desired to be alone, that in the presence of G.o.d only, she might without interruption do her last duty to me."--_Spect._, No. 520.

"Wisdom and truth, the offspring of the sky, are immortal; while cunning and deception, the meteors of the earth, after glittering for a moment, must pa.s.s away."--_Robert Hall_. "See, I have this day set thee over the nations, and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant."--_Jeremiah_, i, 10.

"G.o.d might command the stones to be made bread, or the clouds to rain it; but he chooses rather to leave mankind to till, to sow, to reap, to gather into barns, to grind, to knead, to bake, and then to eat."--_London Quarterly Review_.

"Eloquence is no invention of the schools. Nature teaches every man to be eloquent, when he is much in earnest. Place him in some critical situation, let him have some great interest at stake, and you will see him lay hold of the most effectual means of persuasion."--_Blair's Rhet._, p. 235.

"It is difficult to possess great fame and great ease at the same time.

Fame, like fire, is with difficulty kindled, is easily increased, but dies away if not continually fed. To preserve fame alive, every enterprise ought to be a pledge of others, so as to keep mankind in constant expectation."--_Art of Thinking_, p. 50. "Pope, finding little advantage from external help, resolved thenceforward to direct himself, and at twelve formed a plan of study which he completed with little other incitement than the desire of excellence."--_Johnson's Lives of Poets_, p. 498.

"Loose, then, from earth the grasp of fond desire, Weigh anchor, and some happier clime explore."--_Young_.

LESSON VI.--PARTICIPLES.

"The child, affrighted with the view of his father's helmet and crest, and clinging to the nurse; Hector, putting off his helmet, taking the child into his arms, and offering up a prayer for him; Andromache, receiving back the child with a smile of pleasure, and at the same instant bursting into tears; form the most natural and affecting picture that can possibly be imagined."--_Blair's Rhet._, p. 435.

"The truth of being, and the truth of knowing are one; differing no more than the direct beam and the beam reflected."--_Ld. Bacon_. "Verbs denote states of being, considered as beginning, continuing, ending, being renewed, destroyed, and again repeated, so as to suit any occasion."--_William Ward's Gram._, p. 41.

"We take it for granted, that we have a competent knowledge and skill, and that we are able to acquit ourselves properly, in our own native tongue; a faculty, solely acquired by use, conducted by habit, and tried by the ear, carries us on without reflection."--_Lowth's Gram._, p. vi.

"I mean the teacher himself; who, stunned with the hum, and suffocated with the closeness of his school-room, has spent the whole day in controlling petulance, exciting indifference to action, striving to enlighten stupidity, and labouring to soften obstinacy."--_Sir W. Scott_.

"The inquisitive mind, beginning with criticism, the most agreeable of all amus.e.m.e.nts, and finding no obstruction in its progress, advances far into the sensitive part of our nature; and gains imperceptibly a thorough knowledge of the human heart, of its desires, and of every motive to action."--_Kames, El. of Crit._, i, 42.

"They please, are pleased; they give to get esteem; Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem."--_Goldsmith_.