spirit to the expression, which it is impossible to preserve in a modern translation. In the following passage, too, of Horace, the mere arrangement of words, particularly the position of the concluding word, produces a pathetic effect which must unavoidably be lost in any English or French version: "Te maris et terræ numeroque carentis arenæ Mensorem cohibent, Archyta, Pulveris exigui prope littus parva Matinum Aërias tentasse domos, animoque rotundum The only other instance I shall mention is the arrangement of the words which Virgil puts in the mouth of Eurydice, "Feror ingenti circumdata nocte, Invalidasque tibi tendens, heu! non tua, palmas."† Well might Marmontel ask, "Delille a-t-il pu faire entendre ce non tua désespérant ?" And yet (with the exception of the worse than useless epithet applied to death) Delille seems to have succeeded as well as the genius of the French tongue admitted of: "Adieu mon cher Orphée; Eurydice expirante En vain te cherche encore de sa main défaillante. Even in the modern tongues the slight inversions of which they admit have sometimes a singularly happy effect, particularly in poetry, as in these words of Milton, the force and vivacity of which need no comment:— "Out flew-millions of flaming swords." Upon this head of transposition we may remark further, that * [Od. i. 28, 1.] [Georg. iv. 497.] 1 Euvres Posthumes de Marmontel, tom. i. p. 322. A similar beauty is observable in the following lines of Parnell's Hermit: "Thus when a smooth expanse receives imprest Calm nature's image on its wat'ry breast, Down bend the banks, the trees depending grow, And skies beneath with an wering colours glow." In that fine line, too, of Gray, "Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap." With what picturesque force does the in consequence of the order observed in the ancient languages, more especially the Latin, the attention of the reader or hearer was kept up completely to the end of the period, where the verb, which is the key of the sentence, was generally to be found. I have elsewhere compared the effect produced by this position of the verb to that of the mirror in a well-known optical experiment, by which the apparently shapeless daubings in an anamorphosis are so reformed as to be converted into a beautiful picture. Quintilian tells us, that every transgression of this rule was a deviation from the established habit of arrangement."Verbo sensum cludere, multo, si compositio patiatur, optimum est. In verbis enim sermonis vis inest." He adds, "Sine dubio omne quod non cludet, hyperbaton est."* In our modern languages, the first half of a sentence is no sooner pronounced, than the rest may be anticipated; and hence it is impossible for a modern discourse to maintain that incessant hold of the hearer's attention which was secured by the nature of the languages in which the ancient orators spoke: nor is it possible, to the same degree, to give to every word and phrase their full effect on the imagination or the heart. The ancients compared the period (which word (IIepíodos) literally means a circuit) to a sling which throws out the stone after many revolutions; and Cicero ascribes to this skilful combination of words a great part of the effects produced by the eloquence of Demosthenes. "Demosthenis non tam vibrarent fulmina, nisi numeris contorta ferentur." "1 inverted position of the verb heaves present the image of the broken ground in a crowded church-yard! The same artifice is employed in various other passages of this elegy, and always with consummate taste and skill. "Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight." "How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!" "Even in our ashes live their wonted fires." "Here rests his head upon the lap of earth, A youth-." [Instit. Orat. L. ix. c. 4.] 1 Orator ad Brutum, c. lxx. I must own, however, that Lord Monboddo seems to me to consider, not without reason, this general rule in Latin composition with respect to the position of the verb, as necessarily tending to produce a monotony in the style of their best writers. To illustrate this, he quotes two sentences from the beginning of Cæsar's Commentaries, where not only both sentences terminate with a verb, but in general the several I already hinted, that the deranged collocation of words in the rhetorical compositions of the ancients, was perfectly different from what they themselves considered as the natural order, and which they used in conversation. Of this we may judge from their easy epistolary style, and from that of their dialogues, in which (even in those written by Cicero) there is not nearly so much of inversion and transposition as in their histories and orations. Lord Monboddo observes, that “in Cicero's Letters ad Familiares,1 the arrangement is such, that the words may be translated into English, in an order not very different from that in which they stand in the original." The same author takes notice of "the simple and natural arrangement of the words employed in the laws and decrees both of the Greeks and the Romans." In Demosthenes we have several of these inserted in his orations, where the arrangement of the words is very different from what it is in the composition of the orator. The same inartificial order of words may be remarked in the Roman laws, or senatus consulta, and in the edicts of their prætors preserved to us in the collection of their laws made by the Emperor Justinian.2 It is easy to conceive, from what was formerly said on the Association of Ideas, how much this specific distinction between the ordinary and the rhetorical or poetical style of expression, must have contributed to the elevation and to the grace of the latter; as it enabled the orator or the poet, without enlarging the common vocabulary, to give to the simplest words and phrases the same effects which we strive to produce by an appropriate poetical or rhetorical diction. This I presume was Horace's idea, in a passage of his Art of Poetry, which has been the subject of a good deal of dispute among his commentators. "In verbis etiam tenuis cautusque serendis "Cautious and sparing in the introduction of new words, aim rather at giving to your expressions the air of novelty, by skill in composition." In the Greek and Latin languages, but much more in the latter of these, the callida junctura must have been one of the principal secrets of fine writing, both in prose and in poetry.1 The observations already made are sufficient to show how peculiarly favourable the genius of the ancient languages was to rhetorical and poetical compositions. It is a question, however, of a very different nature, and one still more interesting to us, how far it was favourable to the communication of scientific knowledge, and well adapted to the purposes of philosophy. In general, it may be observed, the same circumstance which gave the ancient languages an advantage in poetry and oratory, rendered them unfit for philosophical communication; for, in proportion as the imagination is excited and captivated, the understanding is disqualified for the investigation of truth. Even those artificial and complicated periods, which the genius [Verse 45, seq.] 1 Dr. Beattie, in some critical remarks on these lines, supposes the poet's meaning to be, that, when we find it necessary to introduce a new word, we should be careful to place it in such a manner, that its meaning may be collected from the connexion in which it stands. He acknowledges, at the same time, that this idea would have been conveyed much more directly and explicitly, if the words novum and notum had been made to change places. "Novum si callida verbum ble, the first syllable in novum being short, and in notum long." I cannot help thinking this a very lame solution of the difficulty, when we consider with what facility Horace (who was not tied down to ring changes on this particular form of words like a school-boy performing an exercise) could have varied his mode of expression a thousand different ways, without either departing from metrical exactness, or incurring the fault of indistinctness and ambiguity. Indeed, I have no doubt, whether we consult the context, or the grammatical interpretation of the sentence, that the poet's idea was what I have above stated. of the ancient languages admitted to so great a degree, and of which Cicero has remarked the extraordinary effects, derived their principal charm from their tendency to suspend the cool exercise of the judgment, by arresting the imagination, or inflaming the passions. And, accordingly, the style of speaking which, in modern times, has been formed on this model, however well fitted to help out a lame argument, or, as Milton expresses it, to make the worse appear the better reason, is neither found to be the best for meeting, in a popular assembly, the close attack of a logical antagonist, nor for undergoing, when committed to the press, the calm examination of a discerning reader.1 But this is not all. The transpositions used in ancient languages could not fail to counteract those habits of association among words, which, in most instances, are the foundation of our reasonings, and which afford us the readiest means of detecting the erroneous reasonings of others. For the illustration of this remark I must refer to Dr. Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric, where the reader will find it fully confirmed by a train of most ingenious and refined reasoning. These associations must, of necessity, be much stronger in a language which is tied down to an analogous construction, than in one where a transpositive construction is admitted; and it is De la Construction Grammaticale, substitutes, instead of the epithet analogous, the word simple, or natural.* Gebelin objects to the language used both by Girard and Du Marsais, as prejudging a question which he considers as problematical, and substitutes two epithets of his own, (construction libre and construction locale,) which, in my opinion, have no advantage over them. As his criticisms, however, are always entitled to respect, I shall transcribe them in his own words. "En donnant à la construction Françoise ou à celle de telle autre langue que ce soit, le nom d'analogue, on suppose *Court de Gebelin, tom. ii. pp. 511, 512. |