Cicero is pre-eminent. In English literature the most striking examples are Jeremy Taylor, Edmund Burke, and Thomas De Quincey.

This may be illustrated by the following passage from Macaulay :

"In truth there is no sadder spot on earth than that little cemetery. Death is there associated, not as at Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's, with genius and virtue, with public veneration and imperishable renown; not as in our humblest churches and churchyards, with everything that is most endearing in social and domestic charities; but with whatever is darkest in ́ human nature and in human destiny-with the savage triumph of implacable enemies-with the inconstancy, the ingratitude, the cowardice of friends -with all the miseries of fallen greatness and of blighted fame. Thither have been carried, through successive ages, by the rude hands of jailers, without one mourner following, the bleeding relics of men who had been the captains of armies, the leaders of parties, the oracles of senates, and the ornaments of courts."

In this passage we are struck by the great variety of modes in which one idea, that of the sadness of St. Peter's Chapel, is presented to the mind. The writer seeks, in many different directions, for points of contrast with his main theme, and his meaning is set forth with great richness of language and clearness of illustration.

Affluence of style is as useful in expository writing as in descriptive and narrative, and may be illustrated by the following passage, in which Professor Tyndall speaks of the

sun:

"Measured by our largest standards, such a reservoir of power is infinite; but it is our privilege to rise above these standards, and to regard the sun himself as a speck in infinite extension, a mere drop in the universal sea. We analyze the space in which he is immersed, and which is the vehicle of his power. We pass to other systems and other suns, each pouring forth energy like our own, but still without infringement of the law which reveals immutability in the midst of change, which recognizes incessant transference and conversion, but neither final gain nor loss. This law generalizes the aphorism of Solomon that there is nothing new under the sun, by teaching us to detect everywhere, under its infinite variety of appearances, the same primeval force. To nature nothing can be added; from nature nothing can be taken away; the sum of her energies is constant; and the utmost man can do in the pursuit of physical truth, or in the application of physical knowledge, is to shift the conditions of the never-varying total, and out of one of them to form another."

Professor Tyndall is one of those scientific writers who seek

to render their style attractive by means of rhetorical embellishment; nor does the cultivation of the art of expression detract in any degree from the accuracy of his method. In this passage the reader will find copiousness of thought, profusion of illustration, and affluence of language, all combining to present a clear and vivid impression of the meaning.

Diffuseness, when carried too far, becomes a fault in style, for then the meaning is obscured under a mass of unnecessary words. Thus the very affluence of language and the rich vocabulary which are an advantage at the outset, from the want of due repression, grow at last to be an evil of no common magnitude.

There are some who are naturally gifted with great fluency in speaking or writing. They express their thoughts with so much ease and fulness that they never think of examining what they have written, still less of correcting it. This self-complacency destroys at the outset all that nobler effort after self-improvement which is generally born of discontent or self-distrust, and terminates in a confirmed habit of carelessness or intellectual indolence. Short and long essays and short and long sermons are often misjudged, and the superficial hearer often supposes that the longer work is the result of greater labor. As a matter of fact, however, the shorter work may have been produced by laborious and painstaking compression, while the longer one may retain its original length out of the mere carelessness of the writer. It is plain that, under such circumstances, the former will be far clearer and more satisfactory. Among speakers, that one is most intelligible who uses words liberally, but is precise in their application; and he is most difficult to follow who is diffuse without precision, and, being carried away by his own fluency, hides his meaning under a cloud of words.

Diffuseness, when carried too far, may be considered as verbosity, and among its characteristics the following may be mentioned as the most striking: first, the mention of unnecessary circumstances; secondly, the excessive use of epithets; and, thirdly, the tedious reiteration of the same thought in different words.

§ 60. REPETITION.

Perspicuity is frequently gained or increased by the reiteration of some important fact or statement. In scientific works it is often necessary to remind the reader of what has been said before. In a course of lectures, each one will often be advantageously begun by a summary of the subject-matter of the preceding. In sermons, incessant repetition of the same idea may be not only beneficial but necessary, for in this way any important point is sure to be impressed upon the mind. Reiteration, however, has to do not only with clearness, but with emphasis, and will come up again for fuller consideration.

The utility of repetition is shown forth very forcibly by De Quincey:

...

"In the senate, and for the same reason in a newspaper, it is a virtue to reiterate your meaning; . . . variation of the words, with a substantial identity of the sense and dilution of the truth, is oftentimes a necessity. . . Time must be given for the intellect to eddy about a truth, and to appropriate its bearings, . . . and this is obtained by varying the modes of presenting it-now putting it directly before the eye, now obliquely, now in an abstract shape, now in the concrete; all which being the proper technical discipline for dealing with such cases, ought no longer to be viewed as a licentious mode of style, but as the just style in respect of those licentious circumstances. And the true art for such popular display is—to continue the best forms for appearing to say something new, when in reality you are but echoing yourself; to break up massy chords into running vibrations, and to mask by slight differences in the manner a verbal identity in the substance."

The following is an example of repetition in the form of a summary of the subject-matter of a previous discourse. It is taken from the second Advent lecture of the Rev. F. W. Robertson:

"Last Thursday we considered the effects of this advent in Greece. We found the central principle of Grecian life to be worldliness. The Greek saw and sought and worshipped nothing higher than this life, but only this life itself. Hence Greek religion degenerated into mere taste, which is perception of the beautiful. The result on character was threefold. Restlessness, which sent the Greek through this world with his great human heart unsatisfied, fickle in disposition, and ever inquiring with insatiable curiosity after some new thing. Licentiousness; for whosoever attaches his heart to the outward beauty, without worshipping chiefly in it that moral beauty of

which all else is but the type and the suggestion, necessarily, slowly it may be, but inevitably, sinks down and down into the deepest abyss of sensual existence. Lastly-unbelief. The Greek, seeing principally this world, lost his hold upon the next. For the law of faith is that a man can only believe what is already in his spirit. He believes as he is."

§ 61. DIGRESSION.

Digression is a departure from the immediate subject for the consideration of something else. It bears the same relation to the whole work which the parenthesis bears to the sentence, and, like the parenthesis, it has its use and its abuse.

The proper use of digression may be stated thus:
First. It is used to introduce a necessary explanation.
Secondly. It is used to give additional emphasis to previous

statements.

There are two chief classes of digression-first, narrative or descriptive, which consists of anecdotes for illustration, or other similar passages; secondly, the discussion of some point which stands in close relation to the subject.

The following is an example of the use of digression of the narrative kind, which also serves to illustrate the subject:

"The hasty multitude

Admiring entered, and the work some praise
And some the architect; his hand was known
In heaven by many a towered structure high.

Nor was his name unheard or unadored

In ancient Greece; and in the Ausonian land
Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell
From heaven they fabled, thrown by angry Jove
Sheer o'er the crystal battlements: from morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer's day; and with the setting sun
Dropped from the zenith like a falling star
On Lemnos, the Ægean isle; thus they relate
Erring."-MILTON.

The architect of Pandemonium is thus ingeniously identified with Vulcan, and the narration of the classical myth presents the mind with a familiar subject, and gives greater distinctness to the poet's conception.

The following is an example of the second class of digression, which discusses some theme in close connection with the subject. This serves to give additional emphasis to what has been said:

"Hail, holy light! offspring of heaven first-born,
Or of the eternal co-eternal beam.

thee I revisit safe,

And feel thy sov'ran vitalness; but thou
Revisitest not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn-
So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs
Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song.

Thus with the year

Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flock, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me."-MILTON.

The poet begins with an invocation to light, after which he makes a digression, in which he alludes to his own personal condition and feeling, in language full of pathetic beauty; and by the contrast between his own melancholy darkness and the joy of heavenly light, he gives to his subject a greater emphasis than it had gained even from the sublime opening description.

De Quincey is noted for his frequent digressions. This arises from his faulty method, and his lack of power to concentrate his thoughts upon one leading subject. Sometimes, however, his digressions are most apt and luminous; and it must be confessed that even when he wanders away too far he is generally sure to be instructive or entertaining. In the following passage the digression adds much to the force of the description:

"Entering I closed the door so softly that, although it opened upon a hall which ascended through all the stories, no echo ran along the silent walls. Then turning around I sought my sister's face. But the bed had been moved, and the back was now turned. Nothing met my eyes but one large window wide open, through which the sun of midsummer at noonday