Annibal luce prima, Balearibus levique alia armatura præmissa, transgressus flumen, ut quosque traduxerat, ita in acie locabat; Gallos Hispanosque equites prope ripam lævo in cornu adversus Romanum equitatum; dextrum cornu Numidis equitibus datum.
Tit. Liv. l. 22. § 46.
Speaking of Hannibal’s elephants drove back by the enemy upon his own army:
Eo magis ruere in suos belluæ, tantoque majorem stragem edere quam inter hostes ediderant, quanto acrius pavor consternatam agit, quam insidentis magistri imperio regitur.
Liv. l. 27. § 14.
This passage is also faulty in a different respect, that there is no resemblance betwixt the members of the expression, though they import a comparison.
The present head, which relates to the choice of materials, shall be closed with a rule concerning the use of copulatives. Longinus observes, that it animates a period to drop the copulatives; and he gives the following example from Xenophon.
Closing their shields together, they were push’d, they fought, they slew, they were slain.
Treatise of the Sublime, cap. 16.
The reason I take to be what follows. A continued sound, if not strong, tends to lay us asleep. An interrupted sound rouses and animates by its repeated impulses. Hence it is, that syllables collected into feet, being pronounced with a sensible interval betwixt each, make more lively impressions than can be made by a continued sound. A period, the members of which are connected by copulatives, produceth an effect upon the mind approaching to that of a continued sound: and therefore to suppress the copulatives must animate a description. To suppress the copulatives hath another good effect. The members of a period connected by the proper copulatives, glide smoothly and gently along; and are a proof of sedateness and leisure in the speaker. On the other hand, a man in the hurry of passion, neglecting copulatives and other particles, expresses the principal image only. Hence it is, that hurry or quick action is best expressed without copulatives: