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introduced into a fentence were generally placed injudicioufly ; 

 and in many inftances claufes were appended which fliould have 

 been formed into diftind fentences. Even of thofe writers who 

 ranked higheft for compofition, the greater number abounded in 

 fynonymes, a fure mark, not merely of negligent compofition, but 

 of loofe and inaccurate habits of thought. In the feledion of 

 words they were either negligent or unfkilful, for, in a multitude 

 of inftances, of two words which feemed to court choice, they 

 chofe that which, by verging on burlefque, tended to degrade the 

 fubjed, rather than that which would have fuited its dignity. In 

 metaphor they were copious ; but their metaphors partook of the 

 general charader of their compofition : they were often ill feleded 

 and frequently ill managed. Even when chance or choice pro- 

 duced a good figure, it was fpun out through fo many minute 

 circumftances, that judgment was difgufted and atttention fatigued. 

 Hence in thofe writers may be found pages filled with materials, 

 which, under the management of corred tafte, might have been 

 raifed to fubhmity or polifhed to elegance, but which, in their 

 hands, degenerate into quaintncfs and puerility. The rules for 

 regulating the ufe of metaphor they frequently inverted, and 

 inftead of recurring to the metaphoric exprefllon when the literal 

 one was mean or vulgar, they, in many inftances, are found ufing 

 trite and vulgar words metaphorically to convey, what in the 

 literal expreflion would not have been deftitute of dignity. 



Of unity in their fentences they feem not to have been at all 

 ftudious. It would be difficult to find any produdion of that 



day 



