1 ^ T - , 



PREFACE. 111. 



theology, I hope I ihall have at leaft the merit of exciting others 

 of greater abiUties, and more leifure, to undertake it ; and if fo, I 

 fhall have deferved well of the learned world, and, I think I may 

 add, of mankind. 



As to the ftile of this work, I have endeavoured to make it fuch, 

 as I think the ftile of didadlic writing Ihould be, that is, a ftile by 

 which the attention of the reader is not drawn from the fubjeit nei- 

 ther by ornaments of words, fuch as metaphors and epithets, which 

 may amufe the fancy, or tend to excite the pafTions of the reader, 

 but are not conducive to the fenfe or argument ; nor by the compo- 

 fition, which fhould not ftudy to pleai'e the ear by the flow of 

 periods, nor to attra<^ the attention in a more difagreeable way, by 

 being harfli and abrupt, like the ftile of Tacitus, and Ibme of his mo- 

 dern imitators. What, therefore, ought to be chiefly ftudied in di-' 

 dadlic v/riting, is plainnefs and perfpicuity; the words being all the 

 common words of the language, and the compofition eafy and na- 

 tural. As to the ornaments of our profe ftile in Englifh, a man 

 who has ftudied the ftile of the beft antient writers, and particular- 

 ly the ftile of Demofthenes, as much as I have done, with the ob- 

 fervations of the Halicarnaflian upon that ftile, and upon ftile in 

 general, muft be convinced that it is impofllble to ornament our 

 Englifti profe ftile, without making poetry of it, that is adorning 

 it with Metaphors and Epithets ; for the imperfedion of our gram- 

 matical art is fuch, as does not admit of that variety of arrange- 

 ment of words, which is fuch a beauty in the ancient compofi- 

 tion, making not only the found of the language more various and 

 more pleafant to the ear, but giving a certain pofition to the words, 

 fuch as conveys the fenfe more clearly and forcibly than the fame 

 *rords could otherwife do, as I think I have elfewhere ftiown * by 



e examples 



* See Diflertation 3. annexed to vol, 2. of Qrigin of Language, and particularly 

 p. 569. and following. 



