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these short and familiar words abound, to make the production impressive and valuable, and that is, abundance of thought and feeling, or both. Without this, the production is not only uninteresting but puerile. It is only writers who abound in thought that can safely employ a simple style.

16. Scientific Productions in Popular Language.— Scientific productions usually employ technical terms, but many of late have been written in popular language. Professor Agassiz, though his native language is French, employs a style in English, that may be regarded as a model of simplicity, perspicuity, and force. We give a brief specimen:

"Before the year 1800, men had never suspected that their home had been tenanted in past times by a set of beings totally different from those that inhabit it now; still farther was it from their thought to imagine that creation after creation had followed each other in successive ages, every one stamped with a character peculiarly its own. It was Cuvier who, aroused to new labors by the hint he received from Montmartre, to which all his vast knowledge of living animals gave him no clue, established, by means of most laborious investigations, the astounding conclusion that, prior to the existence of the animals and plants now living, this globe had been the theatre of another set of beings, every trace of whom had vanished from the surface of the earth. * * *The solid crust of the earth gave up its dead, and from the snows of Siberia, from the soil of Italy, from caves of Central Europe, from mines, from the rent sides of mountains and from their highest peaks, from the coral-beds of ancient oceans, the varied animals that had possessed the earth ages before man was created spoke to us of the past."

The basis of the above style consists of plain and purely English words, while those of later origin, and derived from the Latin and other languages, are sparingly used, when precision and elegance seem to require them.

ORIGIN OF THE LONGER WORDS.

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CHAPTER V.

LONG WORDS, AND DIRECTIONS UPON THE CHOICE OF WORDS.

17. BESIDES the shorter and, on the average, most expressive words, there are many longer ones which have been introduced from the Latin, Greek, and other languages. These constitute about one-fourth of the terms found in English dictionaries, but very seldom reach so high a proportion in the language of any author. Some of them are the only single terms in the language to express the thoughts for which they stand, and therefore must be used when those thoughts are to be expressed; others bear nearly the same meaning as older and shorter words, but are generally esteemed as more elegant or sonorous, or indicative of higher culture, and are therefore often preferred.

The Anglo-Saxon language was converted into the English language, largely by receiving words from the Norman French, which were originally Latin. These words were often shortened and otherwise changed. Subsequently, also, English writers introduced many words, with more or less change of form, directly from the Latin. It was positively necessary either that they should introduce such words, or that they should combine the familiar Anglo-Saxon words into new com

pound terms, for new ideas were awakened which the old simple words would not express. Many compound words were formed, and many were transferred to our language from the Latin, and subsequently from the Greek, and from other languages.

Both as a description, and, to some extent an illustration, of this practice, the following extract from a work of Lord Bacon is given, entitled "The Proficience and Advancement of Learning," published first in 1605:

"Thereof grew again a delight in this manner of style and phrase, and an admiration of that kind of writing which was much furthered and precipitated by the enmity and opposition that the propounders of those primitive, but seeming new opinions, had against the schoolmen, who were generally of the contrary part, and whose writings were altogether in a different style and form, taking liberty to coin and frame new terms of art to express their own sense, and to avoid circuit of speech, without regard to the pureness, pleasantness, and, as I may call it, lawfulness, of the phrase or word. And again, because the great labor then was with the people, for the winning and persuading of them, there grew of necessity, in chief price and request, eloquence and variety of discourse, as the fittest and forciblest access into the capacity of the vulgar sort; so that these four causes concurring, the admiration of ancient authors, the hate of the school-men, the exact study of languages, and the efficacy of preaching, did bring in an affected study of eloquence and copia of speech which then begun to flourish."

Afterward, on this same subject, Bacon adds:

"How is it possible but this should have an operation to discredit learning, even with vulgar capacities, when they see learned men's works, like the first letter of a patent or limned book, which, though it hath large flourishes, yet it is but a letter? It seems to me that Pygmalion's frenzy* is a good emblem or portraiture of their variety;

*Pygmalion, a character described in Grecian story, who is said to have made a statue and fallen in love with it after it was endowed with life.

THE JOHNSONIAN STYLE.

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for words are but the images of matter; and except they have life of reason and invention, to fall in love with them is all one as to fall in love with a picture."

Writings in which long and sonorous terms abound are sometimes said to be in the "Johnsonian style," from the character of the productions of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., the author of a "Dictionary of the English Language," whose vocabulary was extensive, and ef fectively employed. The following sentence illustrates his style:

"That affluence and power, advantages extrinsic and adventitious, and, therefore, easily separable from those by whom they are possessed, should very often flatter the mind with expectations of felicity which they can not give, raises no astonishment; but it seems rational to hope that intellectual greatness should produce better effects; that minds qualified for great attainments should first endeavor to secure their own benefit; and that they who are most able to teach others the way to happiness should, with most certainty, follow it themselves."

Lord Macaulay, criticising Johnson's style, says: "When he talked, he clothed his wit and his sense in forcible and natural expressions. As soon as he took his pen in hand to write for the public, his style became systematically vicious. All his books are written in a learned language—in a language which nobody hears from his mother or his nurse-in a language in which nobody ever quarrels, or drives bargains, or makes love—in a language in which nobody ever thinks. It is clear that Johnson himself did not think in the dialect in which he wrote. * * *

"His constant practice of padding out a sentence with useless epithets till it became as stiff as the bust of an exquisite; his antithetical forms of expression

constantly employed even where there is no apposition in the things expressed; his big words wasted on little things; his harsh inversions, so widely different from those graceful and easy inversions which give variety, spirit, and sweetness to the expression of our great old writers—all these peculiarities have been imitated by his admirers and parodied by his assailants till the public has become sick of the subject."*

His definition of "net-work" in his dictionary illustrates this style as follows: "Any thing reticulated or decussated with interstices at equal distances between the intersections."

18. When the Johnsonian Style is allowable.-When the thought is valuable and impressive, the use of ponderous and majestic words is eminently appropri ate. The advantages of learning are now so widely disseminated that a much larger proportion of the public appreciate such language. Certain minute

shades of thought may be expressed by it alone, and there are occasions when good taste pronounces it appropriate and indispensable. Therefore all scholars should obtain a mastery over it.

19. A Variety in this Matter to be cultivated.-The best writers employ a great variety of words, not confining themselves to the Anglo-Saxon or to the Latinized style. Much depends upon the nature of the subject, the character of the audience addressed, and the purpose of the author, whether to instruct, convince, or amuse. The most forcible expressions in

* Macaulay's Miscellaneous Writings: article, "Boswell's Life of Johnson."

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