ADJECTIVE PREDICATE FIRST.

7

Instead of 'Every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills,' we might say with greater emphasis, Mine is every beast of the forest, and the cattle upon a thousand hills'. The way of transgressors is hard' Hard is the way of transgressors'.

6

Compare also Stolen waters are sweet' and 'Sweet are stolen waters, and pleasant is bread eaten in secret'. 'Good were it for that man, if he had never been born.'

'Sick is the whole head, faint is the whole heart,' would be in perfect keeping with the other instances; but we should probably dislike any alteration in such a marked and emphatic utterance.

The series of the Beatitudes may be quoted as illustrating more than one principle of order. Our translators here followed their Greek original; they could not have done better, had they been thinking solely of the effect upon the mind of the reader.

'Blessed' is a strong word, and should either begin or end a sentence. At the beginning, it possesses emphasis, and, by rousing our interest, it adds to the force of the subject at the end; so that, on the whole, we are made more alive to the sentiment expressed than if the subject had been first and the predicate last.

Again, it is convenient to adopt the inverted order, when the predicate is one word and the subject loaded with circumstances. We could say'The poor in spirit are blessed; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven'; but the predicate word awkwardly divides the subject from the pronominal clause.

Lastly, in the case of a sequence of propositions, with one predicate, the placing of the predicate at the beginning exhibits the parallelism. It also reserves the place of emphasis at the end for the subject, as being always the new circumstance.

Next as to the Poets:- Sharper than a serpent's tooth

is an ungrateful child'.

Hateful is the dark blue sky,

Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea.

(Tennyson.)

Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,

And dear the last embraces of our wives. (Id.)

O sweet is the new violet that comes beneath the skies,

And sweeter is the lamb's young voice to me that cannot rise;
And sweet is all the land about, and all the flowers that blow,
And sweeter far is death than life to me that long to go.

Past was the flight, and welcome seemed the tower.

Great is thy power, and great thy fame,

Far kenn'd and noted is thy name. (Burns.)

(Id.)
(Campbell.)

The following instance from Gray shows a frequent usage with the poets:-' Large was his bounty, and his soul

sincere'. It could equally well have stood-' and sincere his soul'; there being the same reason for both.

Sweet is the breath of vernal shower,

The bee's collected treasures sweet,

Sweet music's melting fall, but sweeter yet
The still small voice of gratitude.

So

The second line is evidently made to deviate from the inversion of the others for the mere sake of change. It might have run- Sweet are the treasures of the bee'.

Although Shakespeare exemplifies nearly every rhetorical artifice known, this particular inversion is not very frequent with him. For example:

-either death or life

Shall thereby be the sweeter.

'Sweeter shall be thereby either death or life,' would be a permissible inversion, and, perhaps, an improvement in force.

Now for Prose. Many of the instances from the translation of the Bible are in point here. Others we can cull from general literature. Profligate that coalition was,' is the utterance of an energetic writer on the coalition of Fox and North. To make the inversion thorough, we should say- Profligate was that coalition'. The same writer (Goldwin Smith), speaking of the youthful Pitt, says, 'His command of rounded sentences was already fearful'. Try inversion:- Fearful already was his command

·

Speaking of Greek style in the fifth century before Christ, Jowett remarks,- -But not at once was language adequate to receive or take up into itself the ideas which were asking for expression'.

Arthur Helps has the following example: Rare almost as great poets-rarer, perhaps, than veritable saints and martyrs-are consummate men of business'.

'My yoke is easy and my burden is light.' This might be more forcible in the inverted form, Easy is my yoke, and light is my burden'; and if the words occurred in a passage of sustained poetical character, the inversion would be preferable.

The inversion may be happily used when a long subject. has a single-worded predicate adjective:- Small is the chance of our agreeing on the minute details of the scheme'. So, Cold is Cadwallo's tongue' is not only an effective arrangement in itself, but is the most suitable on account of the clause that follows:

Again

ADVERB AND VERB FIRST.

Cold is Cadwallo's tongue
That hushed the stormy main.

How wonderful is Death,
Death and his brother Sleep.

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'Short was his triumph.' If this stands alone, it is the most impressive arrangement. If it is the introduction to a longer statement, it will also be the best form, provided that statement is intended to show how the triumph was short. If, on the other hand, 'short' is only one attribute to be predicated of the triumph, and others immediately follow, it is better to place triumph' in the foreground as the subject of the whole: His triumph was short; it gave him little satisfaction while it lasted,' &c.

When the predicate is a noun standing as complement to the verb to be, the inversion is not so common as in the case of the adjective. Yet we have cases like the following: 'I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame'. This might be more fully inverted: Eyes was I to the blind, and feet was I to the lame'. 'Miserable comforters are ye all.' 'A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.'

This inversion is limited by the fact that in many cases of the kind it would produce ambiguity.

When Pope says The proper study of mankind is man,' there is nothing but the sense to show there is an inversion.

12. II.-Adverb and Verb first.

A more frequent case. In poetry it is habitual, constituting a feature of poetic style.

Our familiar form of inverting by There' and the verb Be' belongs to the soberest prose. So with 'Now,' 'Then,' Thus,' Never,' Neither,' 'Nor'. (See COMPANION, p. 295.) But in the earlier periods of our language, the inversion was much more extensively used in the ordinary prose style; and so we find it still in the kindred Teutonic languages, such as German.

The older tendency of our language may be illustrated by the following quotations from the translation of the Bible :

In the beginning was the Word.' 'Without him was not anything made that was made.' 'In him was life.'

'After me cometh a man which is preferred before me.'
So persecuted they the prophets which were before you.'
'Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews.’
In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias.'

'On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." 'Unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not shall be taken even that which he hath.'

Unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come.'
Into the second went the High Priest alone once every year.'

These are examples chosen from the ordinary prose style of the Bible, and show that the language originally permitted such inversions much more freely than at present.

Before exemplifying at large, we may advert to the different forms of sentence that admit of the inversion.

(1.) The verb must, as a rule, be preceded by an adverb, in one of its varieties-single word, phrase, or clause. We very rarely begin with a verb alone. The instances in the COMPANION, p. 298, are all from Scott. So are these:Vanish'd the Saxon's struggling spear, Vanish'd the mountain sword.

The drawbridge fell-they hurry out,
Clatters each plank and swinging chain.

This is from Milton

Stood vast infinitude confined.

Tennyson uses it in the 'Charge of the Light Brigade' :

Flash'd all their sabres bare,

Flash'd as they turn'd in air.

:

Also twice in the song, 'Home they brought her warrior dead' :-
Stole a maiden from her place,

Lightly to the warrior stept.

Rose a nurse of ninety years,
Set his child upon her knee.

And in 'Locksley Hall':

:

Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt. Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer from the crag, Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree.

The following are from other poets :

Resounds the living surface of the ground,

Nor undelightful is the ceaseless hum. (Thomson.)

Wide flush the fields, the softening air is balm,
Echo the mountains round. (Id.)

Came a troop with broadswords swinging,

Bits and bridles sharply ringing. (Whittier.)

So to his hut he got him back again,

And fell the unhappy king upon his knee.

(William Morris.)

The following, from Keats, is even bolder than these :

Thy venom'd goblet will we quaff until

We fill-we fill!

And by thy mother's lips

Was heard no more

For clamour, when the golden palace door
Open'd again.

ADVANTAGES OF THE INVERSION.

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The very unusual form here is felt less harsh, because the words are introduced as a sudden interruption of the preceding sentence, and hence not inappropriately appear as if broken and disjointed.

(2.) The easiest case is with an intransitive verb: 'Then burst his mighty heart'. When the verb is transitive, and has both subject and object, the inversion may lead to ambiguity, or other awkwardness.

(3.) Speaking generally, the effect of the inversion is best, when thorough-going. Little is gained by a partial in

version.

(4.) The efficacy or impressiveness of this inversion depends upon the same principles as the inversion in the case of a predicate adjective. It throws the subject to the end, thereby raising its importance. It also facilitates the expansion of the subject by appended circumstances. moreover, gives to the sentence the air of poetry.

It.

A few additional examples from the Bible may first be adduced. Those already given in this connection were confined to the prose style; we may now quote from the more poetical books, in order to illustrate the effect of this inversion.

'Out of the depths have I cried unto thee.' Here the form is not only effective in itself, but very happily strikes, in the opening words, the keynote of the whole composition (Psalm 130).

'With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.'

With the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.' Here the parallelism, thus preserved, adds to the effect. Sɔ it is also in the following examples.

'In death there is no remembrance of thee; in the grave who shall give thee thanks?'

'In thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.'

'With thee is the fountain of life; in thy light shall we see light.' In thy name shall they rejoice all the day; in thy righteousness shall they be exalted.'

The promiscuous examples now to be adduced will serve to elucidate the principles laid down, and determine the circumstances suitable for the employment of inversion.

First, let us quote a few of the simpler cases-such as short sentences with an intransitive verb.

In 1066, was fought the battle of Hastings.' This is pure prose, with no attempt at rhetorical elevation beyond impressiveness. We may compare it with the other arrangements-The battle of Hastings was fought in 1066'; In 1066, the battle of Hastings was fought'. Leaving out of account the bearing of what may precede or follow, these two last forms are much inferior to the complete inversion.