CHAP. XII.
Of expression, and the several sorts of style of the present age.
THE expression is adequate, when it is proportionably low to the profundity of the thought. It must not be always grammatical, lest it appear pedantic and ungentlemanly; nor too clear, for fear it become vulgar; for obscurity bestows a cast of the wonderful, and throws an oracular dignity upon a piece which hath no meaning.
For example, sometimes use the wrong number; the sword and pestilence at once devours, instead of devour. Sometimes the wrong case; and who more fit to soothe the god than thee[1]? instead of thou. And rather than say, Thetis saw Achilles weep, she heard him weep.
We must be exceeding careful in two things; first, in the choice of low words: secondly, in the sober and orderly way of ranging them. Many of our poets are naturally blessed with this talent, insomuch that they are in the circumstance of that honest citizen, who had made prose all his life without knowing it. Let verses run in this manner, just to be a vehicle to the words; I take them from my last cited author, who though otherwise by no means of our rank, seemed once in his life to have a mind to be simple.
- ↑ Ti. Hem. II. i.
* If
