tum mors patris attulit, verum etiam egestatem. Accusant ii, qui hunc ipsum jugulare summè cupierunt; causam dicit is, qui etiam ad hoc ipsum judicium cum praesidio venit, ne hic ibidem ante oculos vestros trucidetur. The accusation and defence, with their respective circumstances, are contrasted with each other; and the keenness of this contrast arises in a great degree from this arrangement of the words. There is no form of English translation, in which you can preserve in this sentence the energy, derived from the position of the verb. If you retain the verb and say, they accuse, who profited by the death of Roscius' father, the pronoun they usurps the place in front, and you are even compelled to make it the emphatic word; for it is not only essential, as a part of the Latin verb accusant, but it is also the only representative you have for the Latin pronoun i. If you change the verb into a substantive, and say the accusers are they, who profited by the murder of the father, the article still veils that all-important idea of accusation, and the whole construction of the sentence must be changed. It is unnecessary to pursue this argument any further. ciple, which shall illuminate the progress of our inquiry concerning the order of English oratorical composition. The maxim that the word, which bears the most important portion of the idea contained in the sentence, should be stationed at its head, so easily practised in Latin, is subject in English to such numerous and insuperable ob stacles, that it cannot even be prescribed as a general rule. But so great is its efficacy in imparting animation and energy to the thought, that, whenever ardent sentiment is to be uttered, the speaker will find nothing more instrumental to the purpose, than its employment. Several of the most eminent English writers at the close of the seventeenth century attempted to approximate the construction of their language to the idiom of the Greek and Latin; and the same attempt, though under different shapes, has been renewed by later writers within our own memory. But in language, as in all other things the use of which is universal, reason seldom controls, and must generally submit to the authority of usage. Languages are formed by a succession of casualties, rather than by any system of philosophical arrangement. Each of them is remarkable for some traits of character peculiar to itself; and no 26 VOL. II. human genius or exertion can entirely transmit to one the features of another. The same experiment, at a still earlier period, was made upon the French language; and as the violence was greater for assimulating that to the Greek and Latin, than in reducing the English to the same standard, so the failure was more complete; and Ronsard, the writer of France, who in French spoke Greek and Latin, is now scarcely remembered but by the ridicule of Boileau; while Milton, who strained the English tongue to the same bent, still continues the delight and glory of his nation. From his familiarity with the classic languages, Milton discovered the power of this principle to govern the composition of sentences; and there is no other writer in the language, from whom so many examples may be drawn of forceful expression, effected by the appearance of the most emphatic word in the front. Hence it is, that the style of his prose has so generally been noted, and sometimes so ignorantly censured, for the frequency of its inversions. But in his poetry, and especially that poem which warrants his proudest pretensions to immortal fame, he has enjoyed and exercised a much freer latitude in the application of the principle, than he could venture to assume in prose. Not only because the latitude of inversion in all languages is much greater for poetry than for prose, but because by the introduction of blank verse, as the measure of his poem, he ac quired a new instrument for the position of emphatic words in front. He not only was enabled to invigorate his thoughts by exhibiting occasionally the strong word at the head of the sentence; but he multiplied the use of this artifice, by presenting it in the front of the line, where its effect is equally striking, and where he could more frequently and more easily sweep away from before his frontispiece the rubbish of articles, auxiliaries, pronouns, and prepositions. Thus then, by combining in your consideration the genius of your language with the natural order of utterance for the expression of feeling, and with the particular thought you are desirous of expressing, you may form an excellent general rule, which will direct you how to settle the arrangement of every sentence. If you address only the understanding of your hearer, if the process you are performing be directed only to his judgment, if the recipient mind be cool, and unwilling to be roused from its tranquillity, the regular, grammatical arrangement of the words should be steadily observed. Inversions to express ideas of this character would be as incongruous, as it would be to use apostrophe, interrogation, or any other figure of ardent passion, to demonstrate a proposition in Euclid. But are you speaking to the heart? Are you grappling with the feelings of your auditor? Would you seize the strongest holds of his affections, and with the hand of a master guide him by the uncontrollable impulsion of his own will? Invert the order of your sentences. Give to your phrase the arrangement of nature. First utter that, which you first feel; and the conspicuous word will derive energy from its location, in proportion to the wideness of its departure from that usual order, which you have habituated your hearer to expect in the coolness of your discourses to his reason. The genius of the English language itself appears not altogether insensible to the principles, which I have here explained. For although its construction, as I have shown, generally precludes the possibility of placing the noun or the verb in the front of the sentence; yet for the special purposes of command, of interrogation, and of exclamation, it has discarded from both those trifling and burdensome precursors, to which in other |