ness, or sometimes for pleasure, and variety, as travellers turn out of the highway, drawn either by the commodity of a foot-path, or the delicacy or freshness of the fields. And all this is called oxnuarioμévn, or figured language.

Language most shews a man: Speak, that I may see thee. It springs out of the most retired and inmost parts of us, and is the image of the parent of it, the mind.

a man's form, or likeness so true as his speech.

No glass renders
Nay, it is likened

to a man and as we consider feature and composition in a man, so words in language; in the greatness, aptness, sound, structure, and harmony of it.

Some men are tall and big, so some language is high and great. Then the words are chosen, their sound ample, the composition full, the absolution plenteous, and poured out, all grave, sinewy, and strong. Some are little and dwarfs; so of speech it is humble and low, the words poor and flat, the members and periods thin and weak, without knitting or number.

:

The middle are of a just stature. There the language is plain and pleasing; even without stopping, round without swelling all well-toned, composed, elegant and accurate.

The vicious language is vast, and gaping, swelling, and irregular : when it contends to be high, full of rock, mountain, and pointedness: as it affects to be low, it is abject, and creeps, full of bogs and holes. And according to their subject these styles vary, and lose their names for that which is high and lofty, declaring excellent matter, becomes vast and tumorous, speaking of petty and inferior things: so that which was even and apt in a mean and plain subject, will appear most poor and humble in a high argument. Would you not laugh to meet a great counsellor of state in a flat cap, with his trunk hose, and a hobby-horse cloak, his gloves under his girdle, and yond haberdasher in a velvet gown, furred with sables? There is a certain latitude in these things, by which we find the degrees.

The next thing to the stature, is the figure and feature in language; that is, whether it be round and straight, which consists of

short and succinct periods, numerous and polished, or square and firm, which is to have equal and strong parts every where answerable, and weighed.

The third is the skin and coat, which rests in the well-joining, cementing, coagmentation of words; when as it is smooth, gentle, and sweet, like a table upon which you may run your finger without rubs, and your nail cannot find a joint; not horrid, rough, wrinkled, gaping, or chapt: after these, the flesh, blood, and bones come in question.

We say it is a fleshy style, when there is much periphrasis, and circuit of words; and when with more than enough, it grows fat and corpulent; arvina orationis, full of suet and tallow. It hath blood and juice when the words are proper and apt, their sound sweet, and the phrase neat and picked.

But where there is redundancy, both the blood and juice are faulty and vicious: Redundat sanguine, quia multò plus dicit, quàm necesse est. Juice in language is somewhat less than blood; for if the words be but becoming and signifying, and the sense gentle, there is juice; but where that wanteth, the language is thin, flagging, poor, starved, scarce covering the bone, and shews like stones in a sack.

Some men, to avoid redundancy, run into that; and while they strive to have no ill blood or juice, they lose their good. There be some styles again, that have not less blood, but less flesh and corpulence. These are bony and sinewy; Ossa habent, et nervos.a

It was well noted by the late Lord St. Alban, that the study of words is the first distemper of learning; vain matter the second; and a third distemper is deceit, or the likeness of truth; imposture held up by credulity. All these are the cobwebs of learning, and to let them grow in us, is either sluttish, or foolish. Nothing is more ridiculous than to make an author a dictator, as the schools have done Aristotle. The damage is infinite knowledge receives by it; for to many things a man should owe but a tem

20 It abounds in blood [i.e. force] because it says much more than is neces21 They have bones and sinews.

sary.

porary belief, and suspension of his own judgment, not an absolute resignation of himself, or a perpetual captivity. Let Aristotle and others have their dues; but if we can make farther discoveries of truth and fitness than they, why are we envied? Let us beware, while we strive to add, we do not diminish, or deface; we may improve but not augment. By discrediting falsehood, truth grows in request. We must not go about, like men anguished and perplexed, for vicious affectation of praise: but calmly study the separation of opinions, find the errors have intervened, awake antiquity, call former times into question; but make no parties with the present, nor follow any fierce undertakers, mingle no matter of doubtful credit with the simplicity of truth, but gently stir the mould about the root of the question, and avoid all digladiations, facility of credit, or superstitious simplicity, seek the consonancy, and concatenation of truth; stoop only to point of necessity, and what leads to convenience. Then make exact animadversion where style hath degenerated, where flourished and thrived in choiceness of phrase, round and clean composition of sentence, sweet falling of the clause, varying an illustration by tropes and figures, weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention, and depth of judgment. This is monte potiri, to get the hill; for no perfect discovery can be made upon a flat or a level.

Now that I have informed you in the knowing these things, let me lead you by the hand a little farther, in the direction of the use, and make you an able writer by practice. The conceits of the mind are pictures of things, and the tongue is the interpreter of those pictures. The order of God's creatures in themselves is not only admirable and glorious, but eloquent: then he who could apprehend the consequence of things in their truth, and utter his apprehensions as truly, were the best writer or speaker. Therefore Cicero said much, when he said, Dicere rectè nemo potest, nisi qui prudenter intelligit." The shame of speaking unskilfully were

22 No one can speak rightly but one who understands wisely. — CICERO.

small, if the tongue only thereby were disgraced; but as the image of a king, in his seal ill-represented, is not so much a blemish to the wax, or the signet that sealed it, as to the prince it representeth; so disordered speech is not so much injury to the lips that give it forth, as to the disproportion and incoherence of things in themselves, so negligently expressed. Neither can his mind be thought to be in tune, whose words do jar; nor his reason in frame, whose sentence is preposterous; nor his elocution clear and perfect, whose utterance breaks itself into fragments and uncertainties. Were it not a dishonour to a mighty prince, to have the majesty of his embassage spoiled by a careless ambassador? and is it not as great an indignity, that an excellent conceit and capacity, by the indiligence of an idle tongue, should be disgraced? Negligent speech doth not only discredit the person of the speaker, but it discrediteth the opinion of his reason and judgment; it discrediteth the force and uniformity of the matter and substance. If it be so then in words, which fly and escape censure, and where one good phrase begs pardon for many incongruities and faults, how shall he then be thought wise, whose penning is thin and shallow? how shall you look for wit from him, whose leisure and head, assisted with the examination of his eyes, yield you no life or sharpness in his writing?

VI.

THOMAS FULLER.

(1608-1661.)

THE HOLY STATE AND THE PROFANE STATE.

THE HOLY STATE.

[Written about 1640.]

BOOK II. CHAPTER XVI.

The Good Schoolmaster.

THERE is scarce any profession in the commonwealth more necessary, which is so slightly performed. The reasons whereof I conceive to be these: First, young scholars make this calling their refuge: yea, perchance, before they have taken any degree in the University, commence schoolmasters in the country; as if nothing else were required to set up this profession, but only a rod and a ferula. Secondly, others, who are able, use it only as a passage to better preferment; to patch the rents in their present fortune, till they can provide a new one, and betake themselves to some more gainful calling. Thirdly, they are disheartened from doing their best, with the miserable reward which in some places they receive, -being masters to their children, and slaves to their parents. Fourthly, being grown rich, they grow negligent; and scorn to touch the school, but by the proxy of an usher. But see how well our schoolmaster behaves himself.

MAXIM I.

His genius inclines him with delight to his profession. - Some men had as lieve be school-boys as school-masters, to be tied to the school as Cooper's "Dictionary" and Scapula's "Lexicon "