The examples of antithets here laid down may not, perhaps, deserve the place assigned them; but as they were collected in my youth, and are really seeds, not flowers, I was unwilling they should be lost. In this they plainly show a juvenile warmth, that they abound in the moral and demonstrative kind, but touch sparingly upon the deliberative and judicial.

A third collection wanting to the apparatus of rhetoric, is what we call lesser forms. And these are a kind of portals, postern-doors, outer rooms, back-rooms, and passages of speech, which may serve indifferently for all subjects; such as prefaces, conclusions, digressions, transitions, etc. For as in building, a good distribution of the frontispiece, staircases, doors, windows, entries, passages, and the like, is not only agreeable but useful; so in speeches, if the accessories or under-parts be decently and skilfully contrived and placed, they are of great ornament and service to the whole structure of the discourse. Of these forms, we will just propose one example or two; for though they are matters of no small use, yet because here we add nothing of our own, and only take naked forms from Demosthenes, Cicero, or other select authors, they may seem of too trivial a nature to spend time therein.

EXAMPLES OF LESSER FORMS

A CONCLUSION IN THE DELIBERATIVE

So the past fault may be at once amended, and future inconvenience prevented.

COROLLARY OF AN EXACT DIVISION

That all may see I would conceal nothing by silence, nor cloud anything by words.

A TRANSITION, WITH A CAVEAT

But let us leave the subject for the present, still reserving to ourselves the liberty of a retrospection.

A PREPOSSESSION AGAINST AN INVETERATE OPINION

I will let you understand to the full what sprung from the thing itself, what error has tacked to it, and what envy has raised upon it.

And these few examples may serve to show our meaning as to the lesser forms of speech."

T

CHAPTER IV

Two General Appendices to Tradition, viz., the Arts of Teaching

and Criticism

HERE remain two general appendages to the doctrine of delivery; the one relating to criticism, the other to school-learning. For as the principal part of traditive prudence turns upon the writing; so its relative turns upon the reading of books. Now reading is either regulated by the assistance of a master, or left to every one's pri vate industry; but both depend upon criticism and schoollearning.

Criticism regards, first, the exact correcting and publishing of approved authors; whereby the honor of such authors is preserved, and the necessary assistance afforded to the reader. Yet the misapplied labors and industry of some have in this respect proved highly prejudicial to learning; for many critics have a way, when they fall upon anything

66

40 Though the ancients may seem to have perfected rhetoric, yet the moderns have given it new light. Gerhord Vossius bestowed incredible pains upon this art, as appears by his book "De Natura et Constitutione Rhetorica"; and still more by his "Institutiones Oratoriæ." See also Wolfgang; Schoensleder's 'Apparatus Eloquentiæ"; "Tesmari Exercitationes Rhetorica," etc. Several French authors have likewise cultivated this subject; particularly Rapin, in his "Réflexions sur l'Eloquence"; Bohour, in his "Manière de bien Penser dans les Ouvrages de l'Esprit" and his "Pensées Ingénieuses"; Father Lamy, in his "Art de Parler." See also M. Cassander's French translation of Aristotle's Rhetorics; the anonymous pieces, entitled, "L'Art de Penser," and "L'Art de Persuader"; Le Clerc's "Historie Rhetoricæ, in his "Ars Critica"; and "Stollius de Arte Rhetorica," in his "Introductio in Historian Literariam, "-Shaw.

they do not understand, of immediately supposing a fault in the copy. Thus, in that passage of Tacitus, where a certain colony pleads a right of protection in the Senate, Tacitus tells us they were not favorably heard; so that the ambassadors distrusting their cause, endeavored to procure the favor of Titus Vinius by a present, and succeeded; upon which Tacitus has these words: "Tum dignitas et antiquitas coloniæ valuit": "Then the honor and antiquity of the colony had weight," in allusion to the sum received.' But a considerable critic here expunges "tum," and substi tutes "tantùm," which quite corrupts the sense. And from this ill practice of the critics, it happens that the most corrected copies are often the least correct. And to say the truth, unless a critic is well acquainted with the sciences treated in the books he publishes, his diligence will be attended with danger.

A second thing belonging to criticism is the explanation and illustration of authors, comments, notes, collections, etc. But here an ill custom has prevailed among the critics of skipping over the obscure passages, and expatiating upon such as are sufficiently clear, as if their design were not so much to illustrate their author, as to take all occasions of showing their own learning and reading. It were therefore to be wished, that every original writer who treats an obscure or noble subject, would add his own explanations to his own work, so as to keep the text continued and unbroken by digressions or illustrations, and thus prevent any wrong interpretation by the notes of others.

Thirdly, there belongs to criticism the thing from whence its name is derived; viz., a certain concise judgment or censure of the authors published, and a comparison of them with other writers who have treated the same subject. Whence the student may be directed in the choice of his books, and come the better prepared to their perusal; and this seems to be the ultimate office of the critic, and has

1 Hist. b. i. c. 66.