LESSON XI.—OF BAD PHRASES.
"He might as well leave his vessel to the direction of the winds."—South cor. "Without good-nature and gratitude, men might as well live in a wilderness as in society."—L'Estrange cor. "And, for this reason, such lines very seldom occur together."—Dr. Blair cor. "His greatness did not make him happy."—Crombie cor. "Let that which tends to cool your love, be judged in all."—Crisp cor. "It is worth observing, that there is no passion in the mind of man so weak but it mates and masters the fear of death."—Bacon cor. "Accent dignifies the syllable on which it is laid, and makes it more audible than the rest."—Sheridan and Murray cor. "Before he proceeds to argue on either side."—Dr. Blair cor. "The general change of manners, throughout Europe."—Id. "The sweetness and beauty of Virgil's numbers, through all his works."—Id. "The French writers of sermons, study neatness and elegance in the division of their discourses."—Id. "This seldom fails to prove a refrigerant to passion."—Id. "But their fathers, brothers, and uncles, cannot, as good relations and good citizens, excuse themselves for not standing forth to demand vengeance."—Murray's Sequel, p. 114. "Alleging, that their decrial of the church of Rome, was a uniting with the Turks."—Barclay cor. "To which is added the Catechism by the Assembly of Divines."—N. E. Prim. cor. "This treachery was always present in the thoughts of both of them."— Robertson cor. "Thus far their words agree." Or: "Thus far the words of both agree."—W. Walker cor. "Aparithmesis is an enumeration of the several parts of what, as a whole, might be expressed in few words."—Gould cor. "Aparithmesis, or Enumeration, is a figure in which what might be expressed in a few words, is branched out into several parts."—Dr. Adam cor. "Which may sit from time to time, where you dwell, or in the vicinity."—J. O. Taylor cor. "Place together a large-sized animal and a small one, of the same species." Or: "Place together a large and a small animal of the same species."—Kames cor. "The weight of the swimming body is equal to that of the quantity of fluid displaced by it."—Percival cor. "The Subjunctive mood, in all its tenses, is similar to the Optative."—Gwilt cor. "No feeling of obligation remains, except that of an obligation to fidelity."—Wayland cor. "Who asked him why whole audiences should be moved to tears at the representation of some story on the stage."—Sheridan cor. "Are you not ashamed to affirm that the best works of the Spirit of Christ in his saints are as filthy rags?"—Barclay cor. "A neuter verb becomes active, when followed by a noun of kindred signification."—Sanborn cor. "But he has judged better in forbearing to repeat the article the."—Dr. Blair cor. "Many objects please us, and are thought highly beautiful, which have scarcely any variety at all."—Id. "Yet they sometimes follow them."—Emmons cor. "For I know of nothing more important in the whole subject, than this doctrine of mood and tense."—R. Johnson cor. "It is by no means impossible for an error to be avoided or suppressed."—Philol. Museum cor. "These are things of the highest importance to children and youth."—Murray cor. "He ought to have omitted the word many." Or: "He might better have omitted the word many."—Dr. Blair cor. "Which might better have been separated." Or: "Which ought rather to have been separated."—Id. "Figures and metaphors, therefore, should never be used profusely."—Id. and Jam. cor. "Metaphors, or other figures, should never be used in too great abundance."—Murray and Russell cor. "Something like this has been alleged against Tacitus."— Bolingbroke cor.
"O thou, whom all mankind in vain withstand,
Who with the blood of each must one day stain thy hand!"
—Sheffield cor.
LESSON XII.—OF TWO ERRORS.
"Pronouns sometimes precede the terms which they represent."—L. Murray cor. "Most prepositions originally denoted relations of place."—Lowth cor. "WHICH is applied to brute animals, and to things without life."—Bullions cor. "What thing do they describe, or of what do they tell the kind?"—Inf. S. Gram. cor. "Iron cannons, as well as brass, are now universally cast solid."—Jamieson cor. "We have philosophers, more eminent perhaps than those of any other nation."—Dr. Blair cor. "This is a question about words only, and one which common sense easily determines."—Id. "The low pitch of the voice, is that which approaches to a whisper."—Id. "Which, as to the effect, is just the same as to use no such distinctions at all."—Id. "These two systems, therefore, really differ from each other but very little."—Id. "It is needless to give many instances, as examples occur so often."—Id. "There are many occasions on which this is neither requisite nor proper."—Id. "Dramatic poetry divides itself into two forms, comedy and tragedy."—Id. "No man ever rhymed with more exactness than he." [I.e., than Roscommon.]—Editor of Waller cor. "The Doctor did not reap from his poetical labours a profit equal to that of his prose."—Johnson cor. "We will follow that which we find our fathers practised." Or: "We will follow that which we find to have been our fathers' practice."—Sale cor. "And I should deeply regret that I had published them."—Inf. S. Gram. cor. "Figures exhibit ideas with more vividness and power, than could be given them by plain language."—Kirkham cor. "The allegory is finely drawn, though the heads are various."—Spect. cor. "I should not have thought it worthy of this place." Or: "I should not have thought it worthy of being placed here."—Crombie cor. "In this style, Tacitus excels all other writers, ancient or modern."—Kames cor. "No other author, ancient or modern, possesses the art of dialogue so completely as Shakspeare."— Id. "The names of all the things we see, hear, smell, taste, or feel, are nouns."—Inf. S. Gram. cor. "Of what number are the expressions, 'these boys,' 'these pictures,' &c.?"—Id. "This sentence has faults somewhat like those of the last."—Dr. Blair cor. "Besides perspicuity, he pursues propriety, purity, and precision, in his language; which qualities form one degree, and no inconsiderable one, of beauty."—Id. "Many critical terms have unfortunately been employed in a sense too loose and vague; none with less precision, than the word sublime."—Id. "Hence no word in the language is used with a more vague signification, than the word beauty."—Id. "But still, in speech, he made use of general terms only."—Id. "These give life, body, and colouring, to the facts recited; and enable us to conceive of them as present, and passing before our eyes."—Id. "Which carried an ideal chivalry to a still more extravagant height, than the adventurous spirit of knighthood had ever attained in fact."—Id. "We write much more supinely, and with far less labour, than did the ancients."—Id. "This appears indeed to form the characteristical difference between the ancient poets, orators, and historians, and the modern."—Id. "To violate this rule, as the English too often do, shows great incorrectness."—Id. "It is impossible, by means of any training, to prevent them from appearing stiff and forced."—Id. "And it also gives to the speaker the disagreeable semblance of one who endeavours to compel assent."—Id. "And whenever a light or ludicrous anecdote is proper to be recorded, it is generally better to throw it into a note, than to run the hazard of becoming too familiar."—Id. "It is the great business of this life, to prepare and qualify ourselves for the enjoyment of a better."—L. Murray cor. "From some dictionaries, accordingly, it was omitted; and in others it is stigmatized as a barbarism."—Crombie cor. "You cannot see a thing, or think of one, the name of which is not a noun."—Mack cor. "All the fleet have arrived, and are moored in safety." Or better: "The whole fleet has arrived, and is moored in safety."—L. Murray cor.
LESSON XIII.—OF TWO ERRORS.
"They have severally their distinct and exactly-limited relations to gravity."—Hasler cor. "But where the additional s would give too much of the hissing sound, the omission takes place even in prose."—L. Murray cor. "After o, it [the w] is sometimes not sounded at all; and sometimes it is sounded like a single u."—Lowth cor. "It is situation chiefly, that decides the fortunes and characters of men."—Hume cor.; also Murray. "The vice of covetousness is that [vice] which enters more deeply into the soul than any other."—Murray et al. cor. "Of all vices, covetousness enters the most deeply into the soul."—Iid. "Of all the vices, covetousness is that which enters the most deeply into the soul."—Campbell cor. "The vice of covetousness is a fault which enters more deeply into the soul than any other."—Guardian cor. "WOULD primarily denotes inclination of will; and SHOULD, obligation: but they vary their import, and are often used to express simple events." Or:—"but both of them vary their import," &c. Or:—"but both vary their import, and are used to express simple events."—Lowth, Murray, et al. cor.; also Comly and Ingersoll; likewise Abel Flint. "A double condition, in two correspondent clauses of a sentence, is sometimes made by the word HAD; as, 'Had he done this, he had escaped.'"—Murray and Ingersoll cor. "The pleasures of the understanding are preferable to those of the imagination, as well as to those of sense."—L. Murray cor. "Claudian, in a fragment upon the wars of the giants, has contrived to render this idea of their throwing of the mountains, which in itself has so much grandeur, burlesque and ridiculous."—Dr. Blair cor. "To which not only no other writings are to be preferred, but to which, even in divers respects, none are comparable."—Barclay cor. "To distinguish them in the understanding, and treat of their several natures, in the same cool manner that we use with regard to other ideas."—Sheridan cor. "For it has nothing to do with parsing, or the analyzing of language."—Kirkham cor. Or: "For it has nothing to do with the parsing, or analyzing, of language."—Id. "Neither has that language [the Latin] ever been so common in Britain."—Swift cor. "All that I purpose, is, to give some openings into the pleasures of taste."—Dr. Blair cor. "But the following sentences would have been better without it."—L. Murray cor. "But I think the following sentence would be better without it." Or: "But I think it should be expunged from the following sentence."— Priestley cor. "They appear, in this case, like ugly excrescences jutting out from the body."—Dr. Blair cor. "And therefore the fable of the Harpies, in the third book of the Æneid, and the allegory of Sin and Death, in the second book of Paradise Lost, ought not to have been inserted in these celebrated poems."—Id. "Ellipsis is an elegant suppression, or omission, of some word or words, belonging to a sentence."—Brit. Gram. and Buchanan cor. "The article A or AN is not very proper in this construction."—D. Blair cor. "Now suppose the articles had not been dropped from these passages."—Bucke cor. "To have given a separate name to every one of those trees, would have been an endless and impracticable undertaking."—Blair cor. "Ei, in general, has the same sound as long and slender a." Or better: "Ei generally has the sound of long or slender a."—L. Murray cor. "When a conjunction is used with apparent redundance, the insertion of it is called Polysyndeton."—Adam and Gould cor. "EACH, EVERY, EITHER, and NEITHER, denote the persons or things that make up a number, as taken separately or distributively."—M'Culloch cor. "The principal sentence must be expressed by a verb in the indicative, imperative, or potential mood"—S. W. Clark cor. "Hence he is diffuse, where he ought to be urgent."—Dr. Blair cor. "All sorts of subjects admit of explanatory comparisons."—Id. et al. cor. "The present or imperfect participle denotes being, action, or passion, continued, and not perfected."—Kirkham cor. "What are verbs? Those words which chiefly express what is said of things."—Fowle cor.
"Of all those arts in which the wise excel,
The very masterpiece is writing-well."—Sheffield cor.
"Such was that muse whose rules and practice tell,
That art's chief masterpiece is writing-well."—Pope cor.