SUSPENSIVE PHRASES.

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must be greater than is received from nature itself'. The arrangement is farther recommended by the circumstance that the main assertion is hardly intelligible, till we know the explanation furnished by the second clause of reason.

(4) The participial phrase, among other advantages, has a suspensive effect.

Accustomed to a land at home where every height, seen dimly in the distance, might prove a cathedral tower, a church spire, a pilgrim's oratory, or at least a way-side cross, these religious explorers must have often strained their sight in order to recognise some object of a similar character'. But for the participle, this would be a very loose sentence.

'Doomed to incessant labour, they are rather to be commended, when they evince an anxiety for extraneous knowledge, than blamed for betraying indifference.'

'Granting all that you say, I still doubt your conclusion'. The following shows a very full use of this form:Standing within a cathedral, and looking through its stained and figured windows towards the light, we behold the forms and colours by the light; standing outside, and gazing at the same windows, we see nothing but a blurred and indistinct enamelling'.

(5) Adverbial phrases have great flexibility of qualification; and, according to their placing, render a sentence either periodic or loose.

With all thy getting, get understanding.'

For all the practical purposes of life, tact carries it against talent': obviously superior to the loose arrangement. Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is

good books.'

'Beauty gains little, and homeliness and deformity lose much, by gaudy attire,' would be much improved by the periodic form attained by beginning with the phrase, by gaudy attire'.

We can contribute to the periodic structure by the transposition of qualifying adjuncts in any part of a sentence; and, in many cases, the sentence is otherwise improved. Vague traditions of the times beyond history afford little or no entertainment to men born in a cultivated age': 'afford, to men born in a cultivated age, little or no entertainment'. Every man, however humble his station or feeble his powers, exercises some influence on those who are about him

for good or for evil': better, 'exercises some influence, for good or for evil, on those who are about him'.

The examples have already shown the suspensive power of the following couples :--

both-and;

either-or; neither-nor; not-but; not only-but;

that--which;

it-that;

the-that, which;

so-as; as-as;

so-that, but;
such as;

more-than; rather-than;
sufficient-to, for.

Other examples will occur presently.

4. Besides the incidental advantage of being a collateral security for the right placing of qualifying words, the periodic form is favourable to Unity in Sentences.

When, at a later stage, Unity, as a merit of the sentence, is fully treated of, the examples already cited will prove a.help to the explanation. The Period presents the Sentence in the form of a single main proposition, with subordinate phrases and clauses; and Unity implies the subordination of the sentence to one leading idea.

5. The Period was first contrived in the development of prose style in Greece. Its purpose seems to have been to keep up attention.

In a period, the sense being incomplete till the end, the listener was bound to hold in mind all the particulars throughout, under pain of losing the thread of discourse. This advantage also belongs to it in English, when it can be used; but we have not the elaborate apparatus of cases, tenses, moods, and particles, that enabled the Greek and Latin writers to sustain it so fully.

The classical writers, both Greek and Latin, seem to have been content with this one effect; they not only did not aim at anything besides, but sacrificed other merits to securing the consecutive attention of those addressed. This

PERIOD AND LOOSE SENTENCE CONTRASTED.

63

is shown by their favourite device for working up a period, namely, postponing the verb till the last.*

In the above illustration of the subject, we have mainly insisted on the merits of the Period, because the natural tendency of our language is towards looseness. But a complete view of the subject requires us to point out that distinct advantages belong to each of these two forms of Sentence. In addition to what has just been said with reference to Sentence-structure and sustaining attention, it may be remarked that the period, at least in its more highly elaborated forms, is most suitable to occasions of dignity; and, by gathering up all the particulars and putting them forth as it were in one great effort, it may also contribute towards the higher forms of Strength. On the other hand, the Loose Sentence has the advantage on the side of simplicity and naturalness. It needs an effort on the part of the readers or hearers to retain in the mind all the particulars up to the close of a long period; and thus a sustained periodic style can never be a simple one. For this reason the loose sentence must be more common in spoken than it need be in written style. As to naturalness, the loose sentence best avoids the appearance of stiffness or artificiality, because it is the least removed from the ordinary forms of colloquial speech. The sentences of Carlyle illustrate these remarks. They are loose, even to fragmentariness; but this looseness keeps his style more simple than it would otherwise be, notwithstanding other elements that tend to make it difficult; while it also contributes to the familiarity and directness of his

manner.

As Latin and Greek show the fullest development of the periodic style, so the Old Testament well exemplifies the loose style; and on this its simplicity and directness partly depend. A primitive language like Hebrew has not the means of producing the elaborate involutions and suspensions of a Greek period; and, instead, the clauses are often thrown alongside of each other, with but vague marking of their exact relations. ' And ' alone serves the purposes of many of our conjunctions.

PROMISCUOUS EXAMPLES OF THE PERIOD.

'With many Englishmen, perhaps the majority, it is a maxim that the executive power should be entrusted with as few means of action as possible.' Otherwise- Many Englishmen hold the maxim that'. The

*The distinction between the periodic and the loose style had already been observed and defined by Aristotle; and to his observations not much was added by succeeding rhetoricians among the ancients. The loose style he speaks of under the name of continuous (λégis eipoμévn), and describes it as having no natural termination, except what is produced by the subject itself. The periodic style he calls refer or introverted (λέξις κατεστραμμένη, ἡ ἐν περιόδοις), and defines a period as 'a form of words having in its own nature a beginning and an end, and a length easily taken in at a glance'. These definitions remind us of the fact that punctuation was then unknown. Aristotle considers the periodic style superior to the loose, and speaks of the latter as mostly confined to older writers. He discusses the proper number and length of the members in a period, with reference to the effects of curtness and prolixity.

These distinctions are mostly repeated by succeeding writers, together with remarks on the proper occasions for looseness and periodicity. Herodotus was considered as the best example of the loose style.

This was the only point of sentence-structure that the ancient rhetoricians had really studied. The effects of Balance they had observed; but had not clearly distinguished it from Antithesis. Other points, such as Emphasis, Unity, and Length of sentences, are mentioned, but only incidentally.

prospective 'it' is by nature suspensive; we expect to follow 'that' or the prepositions-to, for.

'As the German Drama is the glory, so the French is the disgrace of our contemporary European Literature.' Compare with the loose extreme 'The German Drama is the glory of our contemporary European Literature; while the French is its disgrace'.

The following is from Cowley :

'I have often observed (with all submission and resignation of spirit to the inscrutable mysteries of Eternal Providence), that, when the fulness and maturity of time is come, that produces the great confusions and changes in the world, it usually pleases God to make it appear, by the manner of them, that they are not the effects of human force or policy, but of the divine justice and predestination; and, though we see a man, like that which we call Jack of the clock-house, striking as it were, the hour of that fulness of time, yet our reason must needs be convinced, that his hand is moved by some secret, and, to us who stand without, invisible direction.' The concluding clause is marked by a form of suspension not uncommon, yet liable to be stiff.

The stream [of the current] is then so violent, that the strongest man in the world cannot draw up against it'; 'while none are so weak, but they may sail down with it."

The next sentence in the passage exemplifies a kind of looseness that should be allowed to stand :-These are the spring-tides of public affairs, which we see often happen, but seck in vain to discover any certain causes (of them)'. The emphasis of the first clause should be left untouched ; the next clauses might be bound into a periodic conple:-' Yet, often as we see them happen, we seek in vain for their causes'.

Burke's passage on the invasion of Hyder Ali has some grand periods, and also sentences rendered effective by disconnection.

'When at length Hyder Ali found that he had to do with men who either would sign no convention, or whom no treaty and no signature could bind, and who were the determined enemies of human intercourse itself, he decreed to make the country possessed by these incorrigible and predestinated criminals a memorable example to mankind.' The order of particulars in the last clause-'he decreed' ' is both periodic and also suitable for an emphatic close.

'He resolved, in the gloomy recesses of a mind capacious of such things, to leave the whole Carnatick an everlasting monument of vengeance, and to put perpetual desolation as a barrier between him and those against whom the faith which holds the moral elements of the world together was no protection.' The only looseness here consists in completing the sense at vengeance': to make a change would not be an improve

ment.

'He became at length so confident of his force, so collected in his might, that he made no secret whatsoever of his dreadful resolution.'

Having terminated his disputes with every enemy, and every rival, who buried their mutual animosities in their common detestation against the creditors of the Nabob of Arcot, he drew from every quarter whatever a savage ferocity could add to his new rudiments in the arts of destruction; and compounding all the materials of fury, havoc, and desolation, into one black cloud, he hung for a while on the declivities of the mountains.' These two clauses are separately periodic, by the force of the participle.

EXAMPLES OF THE PERIOD.

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Whilst the authors of all these evils were idly and stupidly gazing on this menacing meteor, which blackened all their horizon, it suddenly burst, and poured down the whole of its contents upon the plains of the Carnatick.' A slight change would make the period complete: after their horizon,' let the sentence run thus-' suddenly bursting, it poured down-

"Then ensued a scene of woe, the like of which no eye had scen, no heart conceived, and which no tongue cau adequately tell." Here a change to the period might be admissible :-Then ensued such a scene of woe, as neither eye had seen, nor heart conceived, nor tongue could adequately

tell'.

The short sentence that follows is emphatic in its looseness :-'A storm of universal fire blasted every field, consumed every house, destroyed every temple'.

The following, from Robert Hall, is an example of a period well sustained-Freedom of thought, being intimately connected with the happiness and dignity of man in every stage of his being, is of so much more importance than the preservation of any constitution, that to infringe the former under pretence of supporting the latter is to sacrifice the means to the end'. The links employed are the correlative particles and the participial construction, together with the placing of the infinitive clause before its predicate. The latter might easily have been loose- we sacrifice the means to the end when we infringe,' &c. The forin used is preferable.

As

The next instance shows how a sentence may be practically periodic, even while it might be theoretically possible to stop before the end. daily experience makes it evident that misfortunes are unavoidably incident to human life, that calamity will neither be repelled by fortitude nor escaped by flight, neither awed by greatness nor eluded by obscurity; philosophers have endeavoured to reconcile us to that condition which they cannot teach us to merit, by persuading us that most of our evils are made afflictive only by ignorance or perverseness, and that nature has annexed to every vicissitude of external circumstances some advantage | sufficient to overbalance all its inconveniences.' (Johnson.) The possible endings are not really felt as such, and the sentence is a period to all intents and purposes.

Tautological writers, like Tillotson, usually fall into loose constructions:-'In a word, whatsoever convenience may be thought to be in false. hood and dissimulation, it is soon over; but the inconvenience of it is perpetual, because it brings a man under an everlasting jealousy and suspicion, so that he is not believed when he speaks truth, nor trusted perhaps when he means honestly. When a man has once forfeited the reputation of his integrity, he is set fast, and nothing will then serve his turn, neither truth nor falsehood.' Again: Truth and reality have all the advantages of appearance, and many more'. The last phrase feels like a mere alterthought. So in Bacon:-The unlearned man knoweth not what it is to descend into himself, and call himself to account'.

In some cases, apparent looseness is merely the result of bad punctuation. This is frequently the case with our older writers; who, while often falling into really excessive looseness, also add to the appearance of it by pointing as one sentence what would now be divided into two or more without any alteration of the language. Take the following example from