Thus: As medicine is the art of health, pilotage of navigation, so prudence is the art of living: Ut medicina valetudinis, navigationis gubernatio, sic vivendi ars est prudentia. One clause ends with the genitive, and the next begins with it, to give greater variety to the sentence. This varied order should in general be observed in the enumeration of several particulars. EXAMPLES. 1. Friendship is a real pleasure in prosperity: a resource in adversity: quietness in private life. (In mediis.) 2. These are the pleasing effects of philosophy: it pours balm into our minds, it removes all imaginary auxieties, it delivers us from inordinate desires, and dispels every alarm. 3. I have read in the natural history of Pliny, that there are certain families of men in Africa, which have the power of fascinating by the voice; and if any should too immoderately praise their stately trees, their smiling harvests, their beautiful children, their fine horses, and their herds of the most excellent breed, all these would die immediately. THE arrangement of words depends also upon our ideas the order and succession of which being closely observed, will give greater perspicuity and elegance to the style: the neglect of this method in modern languages, and especially in the English, is apt to lead the scholar into erWhat arises first, or is supposed upon mature consideration, to arise first, in the natural ΤΟΥ. order of our thoughts, should as much as possible be placed first in the sentence; except harmony, or a climax, which, in order to raise the attention, throws back the most emphatical words, should require the contrary. The natural order of the ideas may be partly understood from this, that we say, men and women, day and night, rising and sitting, rather than the reverse of these. To illustrate this more fully: Cicero, in his oration against Verres, has this passage: Annius, a Roman Knight, says, that a Roman citizen was beheaded; he does not say, Annius, Eques Romanus, dicit civem Romanum securi percussum esse; but, as what stamped the deed with peculiar indignity, was the idea that it was a Roman citizen, who was so inhumanly treated, the Orator begins by these emphatical words: Civem Romanum, securi esse percussum, &c.Thus the inattention of the English to these nice distinctions would prevent the scholar, if he adhered too closely to it, from giving the passage all the force and elegance, of which it is capable. The same citizen, at the place of execution, at Messana, exclaims, Civis Romanus sum, not sum Civis Romanus. In the Latin language, then, the arrangement most commonly observed, is, to place first in the sentence, that word which expresses the principal object of the discourse, together with its circumstances; and afterwards, the person, or the thing that acts upon it. This order, besides the natural succession of the ideas, gratifies more the rapidity of the imagination, which naturally runs first to that which is its chief object; and having once named it, carries it in view through the rest of the sentence. Thus in these lines of Horace: Justum et tenacem propositi virum, Here the words are arranged with a much greater regard to the figure which the several objects make in the fancy, than the construction of the English sentence would admit; which would require the "Justum et tenacem propositi virum," though undoubtedly the capital object in the sentence to be thrown into the last place. EXAMPLES. 1. We make most use of the direction of the soul, and of the service of the body. 2. It is impossible for me to pass over in silence, such remarkable mildness, such singular and unheard-of clemency, and such unusual moderation, in the exercise of supreme power. 3. For, O my dearest brother, thou hast lost with thy life, not a kingdom, but banishment, poverty, and all those afflic tions which now overwhelm me. 4. He occupies with his armies your very kingdom: he keeps me closely besieged whom you have appointed governor of that province; and my dangers prove how little he valued the words of your ambassadors. The person, to which the nominative refers, as the object of its agency, that is, as the case of the verb, is in the nature of the thoughts, before the verb itself, and therefore should be so in the structure of the sentence. EXAMPLES. 1. My brother promised me, that he would send me some books. *2. But he instructed by various means to the perpetration of the vilest practices, the youth whom, as we have seen before, he had so artfully inveigled into all his purposes; from these he could at pleasure command wretches, who would not scruple either to give false evidence, or to forge a will; in whose esteem, honour, fortune or dangers, were cheap and insignificant. 3. I know that the whole weight of this difficult and dangerous task will be imposed on you; for the whole people have fixed their eyes on you, they regard you as their protector and guardian. The same may be said of a thing, or word, which comes in the place of the person; as 1. Your father has forgiven your crimes. *2. You basely flattered their supine indifference by which the state was nearly brought to the brink of ruin; and turned into ridicule our firmness of mind, which resolutely stemmed the opposing dangers. The reason for which a thing is done, being in the order of the ideas thought of before the verb, should be placed before it. EXAMPLES. 1. I beseech you to succour my misery, in consideration of our former friendship. 2. But you had presented him with a golden crown, on account of his great virtue. 3. Again and again, most earnestly do I entreat you on the score of our strict intimacy, and your own distinguished benevolence. 4. Of which friends you have a great number, owing to your very great and exemplary virtues. Let it not, however, be understood that these words, to which we assign this precedence, are always to be in the very beginning of a sentence; for generally either the nominative or the case of the verb, or some other words, are prefixed, and then these words, if there be more than one clause in the sentence, from the first periodical circuit, or transposition; as we shall show more fully, when we come to give rules for the structure of a period. Thus; Cæsar said that he would receive them into his friendship, for the sake of the Edui: we shall say; Cæsar, Eduorum causâ, sese, eos in fidem recepturum dixit; with greater elegance than Eduorum causâ, Cæsar...., In mentioning several things. from which one is excepted or particularized, the particles denoting that exception with their cases, as præter, nisi, will be placed before the others. EXAMPLES. 1. I greatly admire your benevolence and liberality, besides your other virtues. 2. For if we should exhibit to your view the whole tissue of this man's vices and iniquities, except this foul transaction, which delicacy obliges me to pass over in silence, we shall not find his life distinguished by one single trait, that can retrieve his name from eternal disgrace, |